Create a Feisty Female Vampire and Her Pet in Adobe Illustrator
In this tutorial I’m going to show you the inspiring process of drawing a Vampiress and her Voodoo-pet in a vintage portrait illustration with grungy elements in Adobe Illustrator. We will move step-by-step from sketch to the final vector colored image using custom brushes, gradients and the Pen Tool. Ready? Let’s get started!
1. Turn Your Sketch into Vector Outline Using Custom Brush
Step 1
Create a New Document of A4 size, Color Mode: RGB.Step 2
It’s time to make the outline for our sketch. For this purpose we will create our own brush. Choose the Ellipse Tool (L) and create a small extended ellipse with black fill. Drag and drop it on the Brushes panel (Window > Brushes) and choose Art Brush in the pop-up window.2. Make Her Eyes Enchanting Using Blending Modes and Gradients
Step 1
I always start detailing and coloring portraits with the eyes. Eyes are the mirror of the soul. The most important thing in any portrait is creating a vivid glance which is able to enliven the character. If you manage to capture the character’s individual features in his eyes and make them bewitching for the viewer – you’ll succeed in making good portraits.Let’s give her a true vampiric look! Take the Pen Tool (P), set fill color to black and draw a curve line making the upper eye-lid.
Step2
Add a few more curves for the lower eye-lid and eye-lashes, using Pen Tool (P). Try to use less anchor points and edit your lines by moving the handles of anchor points keeping your lines neat and smooth. There is a great tool which I use for editing my line art: Convert Anchor Point Tool (Shift + C). It turns an anchor point either to corner (if you click on anchor point) or to smooth line (click and drag the handle) and is used to move the anchor handles separately.Step 3
Now change the fill color to white, draw a shape, which will form the eye-ball and send it to back (Control + Shift + [). Make a copy above this shape (Control + C > Control + F) with no stroke and no fill, we will need it later.Step 4
Let's move on and draw an iris. Take the Ellipse Tool (L), draw a circle, holding down Shift button and set fill color to red to give it a predatory look.Step 5
Select and Group all parts of the iris (Control + G). Under the iris-group we have a duplicate of the eye-ball shape with no stroke and no fill. Choose this copy and bring it to front (Control + Shift + ]). Select both iris-group and this shape, right-click on them and make a Clipping Mask (Control + 7). Now the iris is inside the eye.Step 6
Let’s add some shadows to the eye-ball. Select the lower white shape and apply a three-colored linear gradient with light-gray color on its ends and white color in the middle, as shown on the screen shot. This way we will form a shadow in the corners of the eye.Step 7
Draw a half-moon shape under the upper eye-lid using Pen Tool (P), set Blending Mode to Multiply and apply a linear gradient to form a shadow. As you can see, you can add volume to objects very easily using such technique.Step 8
Let’s add more details to the upper eye-lid to make the eyes more detailed and glittering. Draw some small round sparks using Ellipse Tool (L) with radial gradient on the eye-lid and on the iris, setting the Blending Mode to Screen.Step 9
Let’s form the second eye in the same way, starting from shaping the eye-lids, the eye-ball and adding the iris.3. Color The Parts of The Vampiress Using Pen Tool and Separate Shapes
Step 1
Let’s start coloring our image. Create New Layer and place it under the layer with the outline. Add separate shapes for her face, neck and body using Pen Tool (P) and filling them with flat skin colors.Step 2
At this step we will use gradients so that our image will look more alive and realistic. Choose a face shape and apply linear Gradient (G) to it, the upper part of which will be slightly darker. This will form a shadow under the Vampiress’s bangs. Remember to keep the overall tone of her skin light, because she is a vampire, pale and cold. Hence, no romantic blush on her cheeks this time.Add gradients to other parts as well, turning darker points of gradients to the places which are supposed to be in shadow.
Step 3
Now we are ready to add some highlights and shadows to the areas around the eyes in order to emphasize them and to make her face more dimensional. Draw a shape on the upper eye-lid using Pen Tool (P), fill it with linear gradient and apply Blending Mode Screen to it. This will form a highlight.Step 4
Add details to the lips and nose using the techniques described above to add depth to the image. Add sparks, shadows and highlights.4. Add Special Details Using Scatter Brush
Step 1
At this step I decided to add some freckles and spots to the girl’s face to make it more cute. For this purpose, draw a small spot (size of a freckle) with Ellipse Tool (L), drag and drop it to the Brushes panel, choose Scatter Brush and play with options, setting them to Random, as shown on the screen shot.Step 2
Draw a few lines with the Paintbrush Tool (B) using the newly created brush. You can change size, scatter and spacing of the freckles at any moment by returning to the brush options from the Brushes panel.Step 3
Select the brush strokes and go to Object > Expand to turn our paths into separate objects.Step4
If you are using Adobe Illustrator CS6, you may face a problem at this step: after Expanding each object may have a square Clipping Mask which makes it hard to recolor. In order to fix that, go to Object > Path > Clean up, select all the check-boxes in the pop-up window and hit OK.Step 5
Now you can make some freckles slightly darker or lighter to give them realistic look.5. Make Stylish Vintage-Looking Background
Step 1
Now it’s time to add a background to our image. Create New Layer above the sketch layer. Take a Rectangle Tool (M) and draw a rectangle shape filled with radial gradient from light-brown in the middle to dark-brown.Step2
Draw a vertical rectangle shape at the left side of the artboard, set its Blending Mode to Multiply and copy the shape to the right side by holding Alt + Shift and dragging the shape.Step 3
Draw an oval using Ellipse Tool (L) and fill it with dark-brown radial gradient.Step 4
At this step I added a pattern made of simple repeating shapes to give the frame a textured look. I duplicated the oval and used a Clipping Mask to place the texture inside.Step 5
To make your work more neat and easy to edit, gather all parts of the Vampiress into separate sub-groups (Hair, Eyes, Dress, etc…) and put them into a Clipping Mask so that all the sub-groups can be found inside.Step 6
Time to add some grungy effects to the background to make our image more old-fashioned. For this purpose we are going to use some nice brushes. Go to Window > Brushes, hit the Brush Libraries Menu button and choose Artistic > Artistic_ChalkCharcoalPencil in the folding menu.Finally, select all the parts of the grungy frame, group them and set Blending Mode to Multiply.
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