How To Draw A Shape In Illustrator

13 min read
Graphics, Illustrator, Tutorials, Illustrations, Comics

Quick summary ↬ Drawing a cartoon is no trivial pursuit. Information technology turns us into a managing director, writer, narrator. Through a drawing or comic, you lot tell a story that takes place in a sure time, a certain environment, with certain characters. This is why you will learn here not merely how to draw a cartoon in Adobe Illustrator, merely how to determine on grapheme, place and situation. Earlier grabbing your pencil or software tool, ask yourself, "What will be my topic?" How many characters yous volition use, and who will they be? What background will they move against? What era will they live in? In what scene volition you put them? Through the steps in this tutorial, I will explicate to you my own choices. Let's begin.

Drawing a cartoon is no footling pursuit. Information technology turns us into a director, writer, narrator. Through a cartoon or comic, you tell a story that takes place in a certain time, a sure environment, with certain characters.

This is why you will larn here non only how to describe a cartoon in Adobe Illustrator, just how to decide on character, place and situation. Before grabbing your pencil or software tool, ask yourself, "What volition be my topic?"

How many characters yous will use, and who will they be?
What background will they move confronting?
What era will they live in?
In what scene will you lot put them?

Through the steps in this tutorial, I will explicate to you my own choices. Let's begin.

More after bound! Go along reading below ↓

1. The Subject

The topic I've called for my drawing relates to a contempo discovery. For the first time, we've picked upward a betoken caused by gravitational waves. Albert Einstein first theorized the beingness of gravitational waves in 1918. Heady!

So, what better topic for my cartoon?

ii. The Character

The grapheme I'll draw, then, is Einstein.

Open Adobe Illustrator.

Insert the file I've provided in Illustrator by going to "File" → "Place."

Now, adjust the artboard by going to "Object" → "Artboards" → "Fit to Artwork Bounds." The dimensions of your artboard should now friction match the file yous've just inserted: 2305 × 3250 pixels.

Block the layer where you've just put the file. Double-click on the layer'south name and rename it "Sketch."

Create another layer to a higher place the "Sketch" layer past hitting Command + L on a Mac or Control + Fifty on Windows, and call it "Lines."

At present, nosotros need to trace the epitome with the Pen tool (P), similar to how I showed you in my previous tutorial.

What we are going to learn here is not the mere tracing of shapes, but rather how to trace the black outline of a drawing.

We do this because we are cartoon a cartoon, and cartoons commonly have this black outline around the shapes to distinguish them.

Double-click on the stroke's color, and set the hexadecimal value to #FF06A0.

Nosotros use this color to distinguish our lines on the artboards. Nosotros will change it later.

Zoom into the drawing at 200%, and begin to draw the face outline with the Pen Tool (P).

Do this until you've fatigued the top of the caput.

Once you've finished drawing the head's outline, draw the internal outline.

Now, select both outlines you've created, the external and internal one, and click on the Shape Builder tool (Shift + G).

Get to the push button to swap the fill and stroke color (Shift + X), and click on that picayune arrow. The stroke's colour should at present be changed to the fill'due south color.

Now, enable the Shape Builder tool (Shift + M), and put the cursor in the empty space between the 2 outlines nosotros created earlier. You volition see something like a transparent background, which indicates the infinite where the Shape Builder tool volition create a shape.

Just click and you will come across the selected expanse be given the fill color.

Thus, we've created a fill-colored outline for our cartoon.

Now, let'southward echo the same action with the other body parts: mustache, optics, ears, nose, hair so on.

For the little shapes, like the brow wrinkles, you tin but depict a closed shape and and so swap the stroke with the fill.

For shapes like the optics, use the Ellipse Tool (L) and set the stroke weight to 8 points.

This is our piece of work and then far. Observe how I've closed the paths, fifty-fifty if they encompass the confront. I did that because we will be able to fill up the shape with color with merely a click, simply by creating a closed path.

And then, we will hibernate some parts, positioning i office over another. Simply we will see that later.

It'southward a niggling different for the hand holding the old phone. Here, y'all take to draw the hand in 2 shapes: the fingers and the palm. Do information technology using Pencil Tool (North).

Et voilà! Here is our drawing:

Hide the "Sketch" layer, and you will see your clean vector.

Now, double-click on the Magic Wand tool (Y), and select "Fill Colour" in the popup window, setting the tolerance to xx.

Afterward you've set the tool this way, it volition select all objects with the same fill colour. Just click on your work to come across it in activity.

Later y'all've selected them, double-click on the fill color and set information technology to #000000. Your image should look like this:

Double-click once more on the Magic Wand Tool (Y) and select "Stroke Color," setting the tolerance to twenty. Click on your image, and all strokes with the same colour will be selected now. Set the color to #000000.

Now, our image will have all black outlines.

Let's color Einstein.

Set the skin color to a hexadecimal value of #FBD2B7.

Select the head with the Selection tool (V), and then click on Live Paint Saucepan (G). Click on the confront to fill up it with the selected color.

Practise the aforementioned with the other shapes, giving them the same color: ears, chin, neck, hands. Think that you have to select a group of objects first and and so color them with the Alive Paint Bucket (K), or else it won't work.

Note: If you are not able to colour something with the Alive Paint Bucket (K), it probably means your object has open paths. It happened to me with the fingers:

In this case, yous tin use the Blob Brush tool (Shift + B) to color the internal shape of the fingers. Prepare the color to #FBD2B7, fix the brush'due south weight to 30 points, and fill the fingers and other shapes that have open paths.

When yous color in this way, the color is positioned above the path. To move it under the path, just select the color shape and hit ⌘ and [ to motility it downwardly.

If other objects are overlying the fingers, select them and move them downwards the same style you did for the fingers' colour. Or yous can right-click and select "Arrange" → "Send Astern" to send them back.

Go on coloring with these two methods.

Note how the path under Einstein'due south mustache disappears when you fill the mustache with color:

Remember that you can move objects forward (right-click → "Arrange" → "Bring Forwards" or ⌘ + ] ) or backwards (right-click → "Conform" → "Send Astern" or ⌘ + [ ) to find their right position.

Here'south our Einstein colored in.

We however have to correct something. The antique phone'south handset is divided into pieces because of our previous tracing:

We have to unify these pieces into one. With the handset selected, enable the Shape Builder tool (Shift + M) and drag on the objects nosotros demand to unify:

Now, we have to go rid of that line under Einstein's ear:

We'll use the Pair of scissors tool ©. Select our two lines and cut them in four places as shown here:

Now, select the cut lines and delete them.

Hither's the result:

3. Environment (Laboratory)

Permit'south motility on to the side by side image.

When nosotros think of Einstein, the beginning objects that come to mind (well, to my mind) are a laboratory and a blackboard.

Let'south draw our laboratory on another artboard.

Click on the Artboard tool (Shift + O), and so click on "New Artboard" in the bill of fare. You will get a copy of your starting time artboard with the same height and width.

Set the width to twice that of the previous table:

You should accept something like this:

It'southward time to create the room. We need a flooring and two walls. The tones and colors of the room will be similar because the room is a background.

The character volition stand out because of the unlike colors and the thick edges. The uniform tone of the background will serve not to distract from what is happening.

Create a new layer and telephone call it "Room." Block the other layers.

Accept the Pen Tool (P) and draw a polygon like the i in my image. Set up the fill color to #424974.

Draw the front end wall with the Rectangle tool (1000). Divide it into two colors, and then that nosotros have a more dynamic background. Use #53649C for the bottom rectangle, and #424974 for the top rectangle.

Finally, insert the side wall. You lot can utilise the Rectangle tool once again. Then, put your shape under the floor by right-clicking, then "Accommodate" and "Send Backward" (or ⌘ + [).

I've split it into two shapes. The lesser rectangle is gear up to #65739B, and the peak one to #506799.

In a cartoon laboratory you lot will find strange machinery, buttons, screens and handles. Permit's create our first machine, a screen and a handle.

Create a rectangle with the Rectangle tool (Chiliad), sized to 587 × 323 pixels and the color set to #6A75AA.

Create another rectangle within that with the Rounded Rectangle Tool (M), the color set to #172432.

Become to "Effect" → "Warp" → "Arc" and select "Horizontal." Set the bend to 3%, and under "Distortion," set up "Horizontal" to =0% and "Vertical" to -iv%.

With the Pen tool (P), create three rectangles to depict the screen's sides, as shown below.

Finally, catch the Pen tool again and draw a zig-zag line, with the color set to #D8D89C and the stroke weight prepare to 5 points.

Draw a line as shown here:

Now, create another rectangle with dimensions of 160 × 372 pixels and the color fix to #6A75AA. Put it on the side of the first i.

With the Pen tool, draw the sides of the rectangle, the same way you did for the showtime one.

Create another rectangle inside this ane, with the colour ready to #172432.

Create a rectangle again, coming out of the slot, equally shown here:

Describe the handle'southward knob with the same colour.

On the other side, create two circles with the Ellipse Tool (L), with the same dimensions equally the knob and the color prepare to #6A75AA.

With both circles selected, go to the Pathfinder panel and click on "Minus Back" (or by selecting "Effect" → "Pathfinder" → "Minus Back"). You will go this shape:

Employ this to our knob to get a calorie-free effect.

Repeat the same steps to create our second car. Draw some shapes, such as trapezoids and circles, with the color set to #6A75AA.

Do the same for our third automobile, this time with rectangles, circles and squares. Y'all tin create every single object by repeating the previous steps.

To create the piping sticking out of the ground, just draw ii rectangles with the same dimensions, 560 × 158 pixels.

Right-click on the bottom pipe and select "Transform" → "Rotate," with the angle set to 90°.

Brand an L-shape from the two rectangles:

Select both rectangles, go to the Pathfinder console and click "Unite."

With the Straight Selection Tool (A), select the resulting shape. Some little circles will show up, giving you dynamic corners. Click and drag to the bottom right the ones shown here:

This is the result:

Let's work on the table now.

Draw a uncomplicated rectangle and let information technology extend by the artboard, so that it appears to be in the foreground.

The colors are #787FAD for the light violet, #6A75AA for the dark violet, and #8C92AD (very light violet) for the lighting.

Create a button with the Ellipse tool (L), set to #F7DF79.

Draw sides of the lesser the way we did with our first machine, the colors ready to #D3B42F and #8E6621.

Create all of the other buttons the same way, with the following colors:

red push button: #DD7676, #DB5A5A, #D84141
green button: #C0C478, #BFBB32, #9B962A
brownish button: #937A44, #A08453, #8E6621
blue button: #34495E, #172432
pink push button: #E0B39D, #DD9376

With the Pen tool (P), create a curved shape, with a darker side. This will exist the base of another knob, the colors being #787FAD and #424974:

Create a curved line in the center of the shape, again using the Pen tool. Ready the stroke weight to 16 points.

At present, create a handle with two simple rectangles.

Create the handle'due south sides with our trusty technique, the colors being #172432, #2a4359 and #3a4a56.

Let's create a futuristic table.

Create an ellipse with the Ellipse Tool (L), and elevate the ballast points as shown here:

Striking Control + C and Control + B to paste in the back. Motility down the shape we've just pasted, and set up its color to #172432.

End your futuristic tabular array past adding the other shapes as shown below, unproblematic ellipses and 2 triangles.

I've created a couple of objects on the table besides, a volume and a lamp, only by using shapes, rectangles and the Ellipses tool.

Now, draw a big blackboard for where Einstein will write his formulas.

Take the Rectangle Tool (M) and describe a rectangle, the colour set to #172432.

We demand to write some formulas on the blackboard, and they need to look every bit though they're written in chalk.

Grab the Pencil Tool (Northward) and write some formulas (mine are nearly all made up!). Prepare #e6e6e6 as the color. When you're washed, select what you've written, go to the Brushes panel, and click on the little arrow on the superlative correct:

Select "Open up Brush Library" → "Creative" → "ArtisticChalkCharcoalPencil," and select the last type of charcoal, which will give you a beautiful charcoal effect on the blackboard.

Take the Einstein vector and put it on the side of the blackboard.

4. The Period

The period in which our cartoon is set is about 1920. Einstein'south theories nearly gravitational waves date back to 1918. For this reason, I've inserted an sometime telephone, the kind Einstein would talk on.

v. The Scene

I wanted to put Einstein in a scene in which he's talking with aliens, who are giving him this information. (It is a cartoon after all — it should be a little funny!)

Depict a deject in the top right with the Pencil tool (Due north), and and then fill up information technology with white (#ffffff).

With the Rounded Rectangle Tool (Thousand), draw a rectangle, and round its corners until they are completely curved. Set the make full to #d6d989 and the stroke to #000000.

With the Ellipse Tool (50), depict an eye and a educatee, setting the color to #787fad.

With the Pen Tool and Ellipse tool, draw ii little antennas.

Depict a pocket-size rectangle, which will be its phone, and tilt information technology by grabbing an angle and cartoon the cursor down.

With the Pencil tool, describe a paw holding the phone and some lines for the phone's signal.

Conclusion

We're done!

I hope yous've liked this tutorial. Feel costless to leave a annotate below, and show us your drawing! Concluding but non least, some of you were asking a loftier-res prototype of Einstein. So here you go: