- 5/26/2025
Adobe Illustrator Tutorial_ Create a vector character from Sketch
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00:00Hey guys, my name's Oli and in this video I'm going to teach you how to create this
00:03character in Adobe Illustrator.
00:06So if you jump into Illustrator, this is going to be the character that I'm replicating for
00:10you guys today.
00:11What I'll do is just drag this over to the left.
00:14So the first thing we want to do is add our color palette.
00:17I have my four colors here that I wish to use.
00:20I head to the swatches panel and select new color group.
00:23You can add a name if you wish here and then press OK.
00:29The next thing I'm going to do is drag in my sketch file.
00:33Then hold shift on the keyboard and grabbing one of the corners, I will then reduce the
00:37size of the image.
00:40Then if we head to the layers panel, I'm going to head to the bottom and select create new
00:46layer.
00:47I'll then double click on the layer and rename it to say sketch or my image to be in the
00:51sketch layer.
00:52So I'll open the example layer and drag my image into the sketch layer.
00:57Then selecting my image, I head to opacity and reduce the number to around 30%.
01:04Now let's lock those two layers.
01:09Finally I add a new layer and double click on that and call this outline.
01:16So to begin I want to draw the basic outlines of the shape that we have here.
01:22I head over to the fill and stroke, I remove the fill, leaving just a black stroke.
01:29Then head up to stroke, I want to round my cap and my corners.
01:35Then I will increase the weight to around 8 points.
01:41Then select the pen tool.
01:44I zoom in, pressing command or control and plus on the keyboard, holding down the space
01:49bar I can then drag across the artboard.
01:51I will then click to draw straight lines around the basic shape of the character.
01:58This is just the basic frame for now.
02:01Once this is done we can then start going in and add in more of the detail.
02:17Now we have the basic shape done, let's begin with the eyes.
02:21If we head to the left hand panel and then select the ellipse tool, I'll then drag out my
02:28first circle.
02:32My goal here is to then align my circle to the top of the sketch that I created.
02:38Then head back over to the left hand panel and select the rotate tool.
02:43By default the rotation axis is aligned to the centre of the shape.
02:47I'll move that to the top of the shape and then drag the shape clockwise to rotate it.
02:55I'll then go back to the selection tool to edit the size of the circle.
03:01Now we have the first eye done, let's create the second.
03:04To do this, grab the first eye, then hold in option or alt on the keyboard, drag across
03:11a second circle.
03:13Now select the first circle again and right click copy and then paste in front.
03:23Now let's right click again, then go down to arrange and then bring to front.
03:29Now select both the circles, then in the pathfinder panel select minus front.
03:38Next up, let's add the shape for the pupils of the eyes.
03:42To do this, I once again right click, copy and paste in front.
03:48I then grab the centre of the bounding box and whilst holding shift, I'll drag to reduce
03:53the size of the circle.
03:55I'll then move the circle down so it matches the bottom of the bigger circle.
04:00And then once again, using the rotate tool, I'll move the centre axis to the bottom and
04:09rotate the circle slightly.
04:12To create the eyelids, I'm going to use the pen tool.
04:17Start by clicking on one side of the circle and then clicking on the second side but before
04:23releasing the click, I drag using my mouse which creates a curve on the path.
04:31This time to remove the overlap, I'm going to use the shape builder tool.
04:35To do this, head over to the left hand panel and select the shape builder tool.
04:41Then hold option or alt on the keyboard and drag over the overlap to remove the path.
04:49Finally to finish off the eye, I like to add this subtle indent.
04:52To do this, I'm going to use the pen tool, or that's P on the keyboard.
04:58When I hover over the path, you can see that the plus sign appears.
05:01That means I can now add additional anchors.
05:05I now add two anchors to either side of the middle one and select A which is the shortcut
05:11for the direct selection tool and drag in that middle anchor point to create the indent.
05:20With the eye finished, I'll now head over to the left hand panel and switch the outline
05:24to a fill.
05:26Then with the eye and the eyelid selected, I'll use option or alt on the keyboard to drag across
05:32a dupe cut.
05:33If I zoom in here, you can see that the eyelid path is now overlapping with the eye bust.
05:41To remove this, we can use the scissor tool.
05:45Simply head over to the eraser panel and then select Scissors tool.
05:50To use the scissors tool, simply head over to where the two paths are intersecting.
05:55Click once to cut the overlapping paths, then delete the unneeded paths.
06:01Next up, let's create the mouth.
06:03I'll grab the ellipse tool and draw out another circle.
06:08Then copy and paste that circle and drag in whilst holding option and shift to maintain
06:16its shape.
06:20Then to create the lines on either side of the mouth, I'll use the pen tool.
06:26And then drag in again to create those curves.
06:32Same again for the bottom.
06:35Now for the center of the mouth, I'm going to change this from a stroke to a fill.
06:44And then using the scissors tool, I will then cut to open the circle.
06:54For the cheeks, I grab the ellipse tool.
06:57Holding down option or alt and shift to create a perfect circle.
07:02Then once again, grabbing the scissors tool to open up paths.
07:07Holding option or alt, I then drag across the duplicate for the second cheek.
07:12I then slightly rotate the shape to match the sketch.
07:16Now select the cheek path on both of the eyes.
07:19Then in the left hand, select the shape builder tool.
07:22Then holding down alt and remove the excess eye.
07:26The last thing left is to draw the eyebrows.
07:29For this, I grab the pen tool and draw a straight line.
07:34Then hold option or alt on the keyboard to drag up a curve on my paths.
07:42Then replicate the same thing for the second eyebrow.
07:48So that's the features done and so far, it's looking good.
07:51The next thing we're going to want to jump onto is the hand.
07:56So I zoom in here, once again, using the space bar to move around the artboard.
08:00For the hand, I'm going to go with the pen tool.
08:05Then all I'm going to do is click and follow my paths around the sketch.
08:12One thing that's important with the pen tool is to not click too excessively and create
08:16too many anchor points.
08:18We're looking for nice smooth curves across our paths.
08:26As you can see, I'm not closing my paths, so there will be some overlaps.
08:30I'll show you how to adjust this in a moment.
08:37To adjust your shape, simply select the direct selection tool and using the handles, adjust
08:43the path.
08:44I'll now speed up as I've finished outlining the rest of the hand.
09:04So that's the outline for the hand done.
09:06And as you can see, there are some overlapping paths and things that aren't quite connected.
09:11So the way that we're going to now edit this will be through using the outline tool.
09:18Simply head up to view and then outline.
09:20And the keyboard shortcut for this is command or control wide.
09:25Outline mode allows you to view your artwork as simple vector paths, which is great for
09:30when it comes to editing accurately.
09:32What I'll do now is use the direct selection tool to align my paths to one another to ensure
09:38there's no gaps in my artwork.
09:41For the overlapping paths, I'll once again use the scissor tool.
09:47Once you're ready to come out of outline mode, simply press command or control Y.
09:53Now let's jump onto the arm.
09:55Once again, to do this, head over to the pen tool and create two paths connecting the body
10:01to the hand.
10:02Now we want to increase the thickness of the stroke.
10:05So we head up to the stroke panel and then hold shift, then use the arrow keys to increase
10:10the stroke size.
10:12We now want to expand this stroke, so we head up to object and expand, then press OK.
10:19Now head to the eyedropper tool and then click on one of your stroke lines to copy its attributes.
10:26Now once again, to remove the overlapping paths, I will use the scissor tool.
10:35Now with the first arm done, I'll follow the same techniques to create the second arm.
11:01With the arms finished, now the next thing I'm going to do is jump onto the legs.
11:28Then, we go to the next step.
11:56I can't go back.
12:02Yeah.
12:02Yeah.
12:26With the legs done, let's head up to the top of the carton here and draw these lines.
12:47To do this, I head to the pen tool and draw my first line on the far end.
12:56And then draw a second line on the other end of the carton.
13:06Now select both the lines, then over in the left hand panel, select the blend option mode.
13:14Change spacing from smooth colors to specific steps.
13:18And here you can adjust how many steps you would like in between each of your paths.
13:23I think eight works here, so I'll press OK.
13:27And then head up to object, blend, make.
13:31And here you can see that they now have created the paths within the two lines that we currently
13:36made.
13:37But once you're happy with this, simply go up to object and expand.
13:47Now these are all separate paths that you can use.
13:49If you ungroup them, as you can see, they're all separate paths.
13:56I'll now follow the same process with the lines on the body of the carton.
14:00And here I go.
14:12cool so now we've got the outline done let's go in and start adding that color
14:41so now what we're going to want to do is head over to the layers panel and add a new layer
14:48double click on the name and rename that to be called fill then going to drag that below the
14:57outline select your outline select copy then go and select the fill layer then head back over and
15:11select paste in place but what that's done is giving you your the outline is now put within
15:20the fill section so for the fill what we're going to do we're going to use the live paint bucket tool
15:28to do that we simply let's say let's lock the outline then head to the live paint bucket tool
15:41and as you can see here we now have colors that are that we can change based on the arrow keys that we
15:52have on our keyboard and all these are the colors that we currently have in our swatch panel as you
15:57see on the right hand side here so what I will now do is following my existing design I'm just going
16:05to color in the outline by simply clicking into the shape
16:27and so that has colored in my artwork for me I can now remove this outline
16:50and as you can see we now have the outline on one layer and the fill on a separate layer
17:02once you're finished with live paint all you need to do is just select your design then on the top
17:11panel select expand from here you can just simply right click and ungroup
17:17and then as you can see we then have the individual fills for us to be able to edit if we wish
17:26so at this point if you're happy you could quite easily leave this character as it is
17:32if you look over at my example I've added some half toners and some shading and highlights
17:39just to give the characters more depth so that's what I'm going to do for this next step so I just
17:45want to grab the outlines but as you can see everything's sitting on its own path so instead
17:50of selecting each thing individually I can head to my layers panel and clicking that circle that will
17:55select everything within that layer from here I then head up to object and expand I then press ok
18:02and what this has done now is expanded our strokes into field paths so from here I then head over to
18:12the pathfinder panel and under shape mode I want to select unite and what this has done is combined
18:20all of those shapes into one consistent shape now the reason I've done that is because what I quite like
18:27to do with my characters is sort of round off some of those straight edges and so the easiest way
18:34to do this is to simply head over to the direct selection tool and selecting on those anchors and
18:42the edges select that little circle there and what's that going to do is going to curve in that shape
18:48as much as you can and I'm just going to do a subtle curve on each of mine and it just sort of makes
18:55things look a little bit more fluid not quite so rigid so I'll now head through my design and just
19:01curve off some of those straight edges that we have so as you can see I've just finished rounding off
19:18some of the corners and it's only a small difference but I just think it adds quite a nice little touch to
19:23the overall character aesthetic but so the next step is going to be to add that half tone shading that
19:30I have to do this I'm going to head over to my layers panel again create new layer drag that underneath
19:37outline and rename that to say half tone we won't need the outline layer for this step so I'm going to
19:45lock that I'm then going to head up to effects and document raster effects settings under resolution
19:52I'm going to change 72 ppi to 150 or 300 and 150 should be fine for this though and then press ok
20:00now I'm going to head over to my field layer and selecting that circle to grab everything that sits
20:08within that layer I'm going to copy this then select my half tone layer and then right click paste in
20:17place now let's lock the fill layer as we're not going to need that for this step so now we can start
20:24by adding some of this half tones so I'm going to grab these two shapes that I have here and and I'm
20:32going to head over to the pathfinder tool and unite those two together and this has now merged those
20:38two shapes into one shape so to add half tones we're going to want to use the gradient tool so if we
20:44head up to windows and head down and select that gradient panel so now with our shape selected we can
20:51head over to the gradient slider and by clicking that we will then apply a gradient to our fill
20:59now let's head up to effects pixelate color half tone the important part here is to ensure that each
21:11of the channels are the same number it doesn't necessarily matter which number but just keep
21:16those all equally the same max radius determines the size of the circles of the old half tones so the
21:24smaller the number the smaller the circles are so if I press ok here as you can see the size of the
21:32circles are very small I'm just going to undo that and then head back into color half tone and I'm going
21:40to increase this to maybe 28 see how that looks that's a little bit better I think maybe too big now
21:46if I head to my appearance panel I can then select my color half tone here as well I think 24 would be a
21:53good size for this yeah that's more like it I think so now that I'm happy with the half tone size I can
22:00still make some small amendments to the angles and directions of the half tone so if I head to the
22:07left hand panel and select gradient or that's G for shortcut dragging using my mouse I can now change
22:14the direction of the half tone to suit this kind of style that I'm looking for the white of the gradient
22:23being the smallest of the circles and black being the biggest now that I'm happy with my gradient
22:33direction overall I'm going to head up to object and now expand appearance and then rasterize both do
22:41the same thing in this step so you can choose evil in this option I'm just going to select rasterize
22:46and keep your resolution at 300 ppi then press ok and what this has done now is converted our vector
22:55into a bitmap so our next step now is to convert this back to a vector form to do this we head up to
23:06image trace then along the top panel we want to select the image trace panel
23:13here the important one for us out of all of this is the ignore color if we tick that box that's going
23:22to remove all of the white from our half tone which is exactly what we want then press expand
23:29so now as you can see we have our half tone back as a vector form so at this point we can now change the
23:39colors if we want we can make any amendments to this as we now have this back as a vector
23:46so using that method I'm now going to add the half tone shading to the rest of the character
23:53so I've just finished off with all of the half tones and everything's looking great there's just a
24:09couple more steps to go and I'm finished with this illustration so the next thing I want to do
24:15is just add in a few more of those details the shadows and the highlights like I have in the example
24:20here so I'm going to head back over to the layers panel and lock that half tone layer then unlock
24:27the fill layer so that we can now start adding more details into the fill section
24:32so the good thing here is because we've layered our artwork correctly it means that we can now add
24:40these shadows and they're going to sit behind the outline that we had originally this means that we
24:46don't have to be crazy accurate with our shadows as long as they sit behind that black outline no
24:52mistakes will show up so I'll quickly fast forward this section here as I'm just adding in the final
24:58few details of the design
25:28so the highlights and the details have just been added in and it helps give this character just a little
25:43bit more depth so we're down to the final section here which is now just adding this platform for the
25:49character to be walking on to create this we simply head over to the left hand panel and select the ellipse tool
25:57then simply drag a circle underneath the feet of the character then using the eyedropper tool I select
26:05the black that I'm using for the character to make a fill for the circle then we can right click head
26:10down to arrange and then send to back so if we zoom in here the next thing that we want to do is try to
26:17add that sort of grass effect so if we head over to the left hand panel and select the pencil tool
26:22then we're just going to draw a couple of grass leaves then using the eyedropper tool to grab
26:28that black fill head across to the other side of the circle and then repeat the same action
26:33now select both your grass leaves and the circle then head over to the pathfinder panel
26:42and select unite this is going to bring the shape back to the top of the layer so once again right click
26:48arrange and center back now the last thing we want to do is cut away a little bit on the platform
26:54just so we can see the feet better to do this we're going to slightly offset the character so if we head
27:00over to our layers panel and unlock our outline layer then on the right hand side press that circle
27:05to select all of the objects within that layer now head over to our character and right click copy
27:12and paste in front then if we head to the pathfinder window we then want to go down to merge and then
27:20unite and what this has done is merged all of our shapes together and made one fill so we can now head
27:28up to object path and then offset path and here we can offset path to around 16 pixels then press ok
27:37this will create a duplicate so delete that first shape then we want to select the character feel
27:43as well as the bottom platform that we've created head over to the shape builder tool then whilst
27:51holding option or alt simply delete where the two shapes overlap so now that we have everything done
27:56here there's only one final thing that i like to do just to finish off my designs and that's to add a
28:01slight roughen effect to the characters just to make them look a little bit more hand drawn
28:05and thankfully there's a really easy way that we can do this so to begin with let's make sure that all of
28:12the layers that we need are unlocked then drag over the art ball to select everything from the three layers
28:19then what we want to do is head up to effects distort and transform and roughen now i know this looks
28:27scary i'm not entirely sure why adobe uses these options as default but if we reduce the size down to
28:35around one percent then change relative to absolute and then finally change our points from corner to
28:43smooth then press ok if we now zoom in here we can see that there is this nice roughened effects that
28:54we've added to our character
28:58and there we have it this is how i create my characters using adobe illustrator
29:02hopefully it was helpful and you managed to get some new tips and tricks for when you create your
29:06own characters if you found it useful then please make sure to like comment and subscribe
29:11until then i'll see you in the next one
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