vectors tutorial

8/7/2019 vectors tutorial

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Vectorizing 101


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Vectorizing 101

Mixing vector and photo is one of the hottest trends in the illustration

industry today. Weve seen this effect used in national ad campaigns fromAnheuser-Busch to Hawaiian Tropic. In this tutorial, well take a look at howto create this effect in Illustrator.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 1 : Prepare Your Image - Unless youre an insanely talented artist, you may need some help getting started.Using a reference photograph is perfectly acceptable. To do this, open your photo in Photoshop and apply a Posterizeadjustment to break the illustration down to basic colors. This helps get your reference photograph to a point thatmakes it easier to trace. For a more detailed look on how to get your photo ready in Photoshop, visitwww.layersmagazine.com/design/ps-index.php for a tutorial. For now, lets assume your image is ready at this pointand youre good to go.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 2: Trace the Subject's Face - First, youll create the overall outlines of the woman. Break this down to major areasor body parts within the photograph. Here, weve started with the neck and the face. Optionclick (PC: Alt-click) the CreateNew Layer icon in the Layers palette and name this layer FACE in the Layer Options dialog to help keep things tidy.Choose the Pen tool and create a path that encompasses the neck and face area. Set the Fill to a skin tone in the Color palette (we used R: 242, G: 216, B: 186 here) and the Stroke to none.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 3:Trace Subject's Shirt Next, create a new layer named SHIRT below the FACE layer. Use the Pen tool to trace theshirt. Notice that the hair covers the shirt in certain places. Dont worry about tracing too perfectly along these areas. Justguess at where the shirt belongs behind the hair. Later, well add a hair layer that will cover this up so theres no need to get

too detailed at this point.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 4: Trace Subject's Arms - Now move on to the arms and create a new layer named ARMS above the SHIRT layer.Because the subjects arms are folded, weve created a separate path for each segment of the arms for a total of four paths.Each path that you draw will be on its own sublayer within the ARMS layer. Youll have to use your best judgment here,depending on your photograph. The goal is to leave your illustration as flexible as possible, and having each area of the arm

on its own sublayer helps for this image.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 5: Trace Subject's Hair - Create a new layer named HAIR above the FACE layer. The more time you spend tracingthe hair, the better your illustration will look. (To give you a reference, we spent about 15 minutes using the Pen tool tocreate the hair the way you see it here.) Also, you dont need to get it all in one path. You can always go back and add pathsfor some of the wispy areas of the hair that make tracing more difficult in one pass. Before you move on, be sure to set theFill color for the hair to R: 108, G: 78, B: 46.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 6: Add Eye Layers - Now lets give our illustration a face. Create a new layer above the HAIR layer and name itEYES. With the EYES layer active, Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the Create New Sublayer icon in the Layers palette to createa RIGHT EYE sublayer and a LEFT EYE sublayer. Begin by tracing the eyebrows and place them in their respectivesublayers to keep things organized. Set the Fill color to R: 63, G: 44, B: 25, and the Stroke to none. Remember, youll have tocontinually hide and show layers in order to see the reference photo in the background.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 7: Trace and Fill Eyes - Zoom in and star t tracing the eyeball area. Take a layered approach here. First, trace thegeneral outline of the eye and fill it with a darker tone (we used black). Then trace the white area inside and fill it withyouguessed itwhite. Add small details with the Pen tool for lines around the eye that make it look realistic. Repeat this processfor the other eye. (Note: If you picked a straight-on photograph, you can just duplicate the first eye sublayer that you createand flip it by choosing Object>Transform> Reflect. If not, alasyoull have to create another eye.)


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 8: Add Nose Layer - Next, create a new layer named NOSE. This part is surprisingly easy since our referencephotograph shows that we can get away with adding the nostrils and a slight shadow or two on the inside of the nose to

bring out the necessary details.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 9: Add Lips Layer - Now were ready for the lips. Use the same approach here that weve been using so far. Trace theoverall outline of the lips and then add details on top. Here, we traced the lips with the Pen tool and fi lled the path with R:192, G: 82, B: 82. Then, we created another path to separate the top and bottom lip. Set the Fill color of that path to R: 99,G: 10, B: 15. Be sure to set the Stroke to none for both paths.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 10: Enhance Hair with Highlights and Shadows - Everything looks good so far but its rather flat. That means itstime for some highlights and shadows. Our main areas of concern will be the hair, face, arms, and shirt. Lets start with thehair. Create a new layer above the HAIR layer named HAIR DETAILS. Using the Pen tool, draw highlights throughout thehair. It may be useful to hide the HAIR layer so you can see the reference photo underneath. Fill these highlights with R: 246,G: 214, B: 163. Do the same for some of the shadow areas (we used R: 66, G: 46, B: 28) as well. Weve created two

sublayers here to hold the details.


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Vectorizing 101

STEP 11: Add More Shadows - Were almost done! Use the same technique we used on the hair to add shadows to theface, arms, and hands. Youll want to keep the Pathfinder palette handy for this task as well. For example, duplicate theFACE sublayer by dragging it to the Create New Layer icon and name it DUPLCATE. Then, use the Pen tool to create aloose shadow around the neck and/or face and name this path sublayer SHADOW. Set the Fill color to R: 207, G: 178, B:

156. Dont worry about the areas that extend beyond the original neck shape. Well fix that in the next step.


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STEP 12: Remove Excess Shadow - Shift-click the circles to the right of the DUPLICATE and SHADOW sublayers in theLayers palette to target both sublayers. Then, open the Pathfinder palette and Alt-click (PC: Option-click) on the IntersectShape Areas button. This will remove any area of the shadow that extended beyond the original neck shape. However, sincewe made a duplicate of the neck shape, the original path is still intact and we now have a shadow on top of it. Repeat this

process throughout the face, neck, and arms to add more depth to the illustration.


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STEP 13: Trace Subject's Hair - Finally, add some shadows and highlights to the shirt. This process is very similar to the oneused on the hair. Here, weve used R: 97, G: 136, B: 149 for the shadows and white for the highlights. Feel free to adjust theopacity in the Transparency palette to lessen the shadow or highlight effect.


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STEP 14: Create New Background - Thats it! One last step would be to hide the reference photo layer and create a newbackground. Here, weve added a light blue gradient in place of the original background.


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Site Resources

1. http://pixelgirlpresents.com/desktops.php?cat=vector&res =2. http://www.vectorize.de/

3. http://www.uailab.com/

4. http://www.designiskinky.net/

5. http://www.surfstation.lu/
http://www.designiskinky.net/http://www.designiskinky.net/http://www.uailab.com/http://www.uailab.com/http://www.vectorize.de/http://www.vectorize.de/http://pixelgirlpresents.com/desktops.php?cat=vector&reshttp://pixelgirlpresents.com/desktops.php?cat=vector&res

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