How To Create A Simple Vector Face Illustration ? [Tutorial]

This weekend, I was thinking of doing an illustrator tutorial for newbies. In this tutorial i created a simple vector face illustration using adobe illustrator CS3. It does not have many a complicated steps or tricks. Just a simple illustrator tutorial that you can do in a few minutes. I will come up with an updated edition to this tutorial very soon . This tutorial gives you some tips on how to use the warp tool, smooth tool, some simple transformations and tips.

Final Image Preview

Step 1

Open a new document. File -> New.

Step 2

Place an image ( background removed and well cropped ) suited for our illustration and scale it as you wish. File -> Place

Step 3

Trace this image. Tracing is the process of conversion of raster image to vector shape. Object -> Live Trace -> Tracing Options…

Step 4

Expand this shape into points and remove unwanted portions. Object -> Expand

Step 5

Draw lines like this using the Paint Brush Tool. To make the lines smoother, you can use the Smooth Tool.

Step 6

Reshape the lines using the Warp Tool as shown. Diameter of the tip can be adjusted in Warp Tool Options window.
To get this window double click on Warp Tool.

Step 7

Copy the face portion.

Step 8

Reflect this new shape. Right click on shape -> Transform -> Reflect

Step 9

Scale and Rotate new shape to some angle.

Add caption

Step 10

Now remove any unwanted portion of your image and arrange it as shown.
To select the unwanted points use Direct Selection Tool.

Step 11

Using Pen Tool draw a shape as shown below. Smooth Tool helps to cute the curve.

Step 12

Now fill this area with a color and remove the stroke color. I used pink to fill.

Step 13

Send the pink area to the back. Right click on shape -> Arrange -> Send to back

Step 14

Now make some curvy art works on the pink area using Warp Tool. Drag in the desired area we want to make curvy.

Step 15

Twirl Tool is used to make curls.

Step 16

Make some more curls using the above mentioned steps.

Step 17

Now draw a rectangle using the Rectangle Tool and rotate it as shown.

Step 18

Just copy the rectangle using the Alt key. Don’t move more.

Step 19

Take duplicates of this transform(move). Right click on Rectangle -> Transform -> Transform Again. Or Ctrl+D continuously.

Step 20

Now our work looks like this.

Step 21

Select all the rectangles and arrange it as back most. Right click -> Arrange -> Send to Back
Arrange the rectangles for the best allignment behind the faces and pink area.

Step 22

Select all the rectangles and the pink area.

Step 23

We cut through the paths (blue lines) for dividing the selected art work to small pieces. Window -> Pathfinder -> Divide

Step 24

Now Ungroup this area. Object -> Ungroup

Step 25

Delete the parts of pink area as shown.

Step 26

Select all the pink area and apply a gradient of Yellow and Red using Gradient Tool.
Gradient panel and Color panel are used to do this.

Step 27

Delete all the green area.

Step 28

Select all the hair lines and copy it. Then arrange it as shown.

Step 29

Change new copied line color to a Golden one.

Step 30

Draw a rectangle behind the art work.

Step 31

Apply  gradient to this rectangle as shown.

Step 32

Now you have the final image.



post credit http://tutmaze.com/