Most of what I was doing lately, including my “just for fun” projects have taken me out of my comfort zone. It was fun and I will surely continue exploring new territories, but once in a while I miss doing something familiar. So as a bit of a break I decided to draw a fast portrait of a girl in vector, which is probably my most “comfortable” of all zones. I’ve also decided to share my process, as I’ve been asked about it few times.
Even though I have a graphic tablet when I make a drawing in Illustrator I don’t sketch directly in the program. The main reason is my very small desk, which gets overly crowded when I use a tablet, so I only take it out if I’m going to make a digital painting. Apart from that I find sketching on paper faster, more enjoyable, flexible and free. I start by sketching something in my sketchbook, taking a picture of it and then I open it in Illustrator.
I’ve decided to make this illustration part of my Caribbean series. The common thing in these is that I usually draw them in the winter, when my nostalgia for summer gets the strongest, they always include happy girls with big smiles and vivid bright colours.
Once the sketch is in Illustrator I usually lock the layer it is on, create a new one on top and start tracing the outlines with pen tool only using black stroke. At this point I only trace the basics, shades and highlights if any would be added much later. I do all of this with the mouse. It can be done using tablet of course, but when tracing I see no differance between mouse and tablet.
Once this is done I hide the sketch and am left only with the traced lines. I usually keep the layer with the sketch just in case I need it later, but most of the times I don’t get back to it again and it can be deleted.
Now is the time for me to decide on colours. I usually go for inspiration to Kuler and browse through the swatches. I normally save two or three and experiment with them, sometimes I know right away what I want, other times I mix and match until I like how it looks, it also happens that I end up creating my own combinations. I also delete all the default colours that I am not using.
Next part is usually pretty easy. All I need to do is select a shape, switch the black stroke to fill colour and change that fill colour to whatever I’ve decided. Sometimes I need to move a shape behind or in front of others. All of my shapes are on the same layer, unless there are more characters, or background etc., but for a simple illustration like this one there’s no need for extra layers.
This time I decided to keep only within the chosen colour swatches and not to bother adding skin tones or specific hair colours. I liked how the different values of red came together and how the blue was contrasting with them and drawing attention to her eyes.
At this point there was way too much red on the screen and my paths were marked in red as well, so I switched the guides colour to cyan.
Next I started thinking about refinement. The initial tracing is usually rough and often not entirely accurate. I zoomed in and checked where my lines meet, how things are aligned if that is necessary and other small details like this. It can be noticed for example around her eyes, that shapes do not overlap perfectly. Most of those details are almost impossible to notice when looking at the illustration as a whole, but I prefer to take some extra time to smooth out details. It also ensures that close ups of the illustration won’t look embarrassing and lazy.
Next I worked on the month, nose and face shape. I decided to keep the eyes the focus of the illustration, so the rest has very minimal shading and detail added. I edited some shapes where I felt was needed. I also tried adding some shading in the hair, but I didn’t think it worked well, so I abandoned that idea pretty soon. I’ve also experimented by adding detail from clothing and some background elements, but did not like any of it.
In the end I only added a big blue circle for background to balance out the blue in her eyes and a bit of sparkle to her earring. I could notice small imperfections like her eyes not being exactly the same size and shape, but real humans have all those little flaws, so I am not bothered by them at all, I think they give the character personality and real-ness despite the cartoony style.
That’s it for my easy vector portrait process. I hope you have enjoyed it! Let me know what you think or how you approach similar projects.
