DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION: Creating a Stylized Character in Adobe Illustrator

1. 00. Intro: Hello everyone and welcome to my digital illustration class, creating the stylized character in Adobe Illustrator. Throughout this class, I'll teach you all about digital illustration in Adobe Illustrator from this sketch to final artwork. By taking this course, you will learn how to create your own character illustration. You can call me Cricket Design. I'm an independent illustrator with a huge love of character illustration. Most of my works are vector illustrations focused on sheep, vivid color, light, and texture. Teaching is also my favorite thing to share my knowledge on the creative journey. In this class, I will show you all the steps to create an illustration. First, we're going to sketch the idea of the illustration on paper. Next, setting the document in Illustrator in work with vector objects. Finally, we will add more depth to our illustration with taxi. I will explain the whole process in detail including techniques and tips on shapes, colors, and texture. This class is aimed at students with basic Adobe Illustrator skills. It's really easy to get, and I also cover it again in all lessons. But students of any level who want to become illustrators or even side hustlers, are welcome to participate, learn, and enjoy. I will guide you step by step to learning this critical skill that can help you understand the process of a digital illustration. By the end of this class, you'll be able to do a complete digital illustration with color and texture, Kawhi to see your project. And let's jump straight into the first lesson. Sketch your idea. 2. 01. Sketch the idea: First, we will sketch our character on paper. I started with a simple idea, a girl character with flowers in the background. To sketch a character, I always start by drawing skeleton lines that I can quickly define the figure of the character. After finishing the stick figure, you can draw over the character. One tip you can use to make your character more unique and specialists to change the proportions of the character. As in this illustration, I made the upper body and especially the hips much smaller than the lower body. This exaggeration creates an interesting contrast to the character. You should try to apply, stylize your character to make it more interesting and special. To talk. Hi. Hi. Hello. Okay. Sorry. Hi. 3. 02. Document Setup: We're going to import the sketch file to Adobe Illustrator. The overboard size is 24, 100 pixel width and 3000 pixel height. We will arrange the layers to easily work with in the layer panel. If you don't see layer panel, you can go to Window there. Will manage the layers individually so we can easily work on them later. Click on the plus icon to create a new layer, then change the layer name. Now, click on the Sketch file and change the blending mode to Multiply. It. Makes sure to lock the sketch layer so we don't mess it up. 4. 03. Character Design 01: Now we will start to draw the first vector object. Select Pen tool to trace our sketch. Click to create the first anchor point. Then click and drag to create the curved path. After choosing the right path, you can hold Alt and drag to control the handle. Try to use as few points as possible to make your objects smoother. Feel free to download the sketch and color palette to follow along. Select the hair object and change the color to black. Now, we will add gradient color for the face. The object is in stroke by press Shift X, you will change the stroke color to fill color. We apply gradient color two objects with the color palette already in swatch panel, downloading project resource. Ingredient panel, drag the fill color to the gradient slider. Click the circle spot edit color, drag it out to delete. You can select a layer and use command right square bracket or Command left square bracket to bring forward or send backward. Thank you. 5. 04. Character Design 02: In this lesson, we will keep vectorizing our character. Some tips you can try to make your illustration better when using Pen tool at as few points as possible. So your object will be cleaner and more elegant. Use Gradient Tool to adjust your gradient direction. Identified the light source in the illustration where it comes from. Then adjust your gradient direction to be consistent based on the light source. In this piece, my light source comes from the top right. So I adjusted the gradient direction color from the dark value at the bottom to the light value at the top. To talk. Hello. Hello. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Okay. 6. 05. Facial Features: Let's open layer panel. You can turn on and off the sketch layer to see the whole illustration in more clear. Now we're going to adding facial features to our character. Pen tool is strong for quickly creating an object. I keep using it to create vector shapes. Master the pen tool technique is really important. It helps you speed the workflow and create a good shape for illustration. Okay. Now we just finished the main character. In the next lessons, we will add the background to make the character more pop out. 7. 06. Background Design 01: Let's add some flowers for this illustration, follow the same techniques I mentioned before. I think as few points as possible. Objects affected by light sources come from the top right. Even though it's a stylized illustration, it's still explainable AI. Hello. Select all objects we just created and group them to easily managed by pressing Command and drag to duplicate the place. Hi. Okay. Okay. Okay. 8. 07. Background Design 02: We will continue to develop the background in this lesson. Select Rectangle tool to create a background shape. In this step, I will add some geometric shapes to the background. This step is simple but very powerful. The objects overlap each other to create more depth for the perspective. Hello. To talk. Hi. Okay. 9. 08. Texture Brushes: The last step is to add texture to the illustration. You can download these brushes, Lincoln, the project resources. Select brush tool and choose the brush stroke you want in brushes panel, and draw it on top to see how the brushstroke looks. You can change the stroke color to change the color of texture. We will put this line inside the object. First, press Command X to cut this brush. Then select the object you want, the scope heart, and click on Draw inside option. Finally, select Paste in Place, Command Shift V. You can double-click on this subject editor stroke or draw another texture brush. The texture is a very powerful illustration to live. You know how to use it correctly, can add more depth and great visuals to your drawing. Hello. Hi. To talk. Soon lecture. Now. We will add texture by masking technique. Then go to transparency panel on Make mask. Next, select a black mass can uncheck the clip option. Let's draw texture brushes on it. As you're adding texture, you can exit the masking mode by click on flower thumbnail and transparency panel cooker. Okay. 10. 09. Texture Image: The second way to adding texture is to use images. For your texture image into Adobe Illustrator. Change the blending mode to soft light and lower the opacity. This image texture you choose will create stunning and personal effects. Make your illustration more interesting. 11. 10. Final Thoughts: All right, We're going to the end of the course. I hope I gave you all knowledge, techniques you need to know so you can continue to make your own digital illustration. Before I say goodbye, I'll give a brief summary of what we covered in the course. First, we did a sketch to find out the idea of the illustration on paper. Next, setting the document in Illustrator in work with vector objects. Start with character design first, then go to add the background. Finally, we added more depth to our illustration with texture brushes and images. I hope these techniques and my personal approach that I've shared help you create your own character illustration. It's been an adventure time for us and feels free to share your illustration on the project section. So we'll have more conversations about it. Thank you for taking this course. I hope to see you soon.