Creating vector characters in Illustrator

Characters can add a recognisable face to your work. But how do you go from a sketch to the finished product? Peskimo talk through their process

Peskimo

This design duo has

been creating for a

good few years now

Their characters

have been made into

toys, animations,

billboards and

clothes Find out

more at www.

peskimo.com

Skills

Create shapes and apply colours and gradients in Illustrator Scan and edit your sketches in image-editing software

On your disc

You’ll fi nd the Peskimo tutorial

fi les that you need to work along with this project on your cover disc, as well as an extra ‘bold’ image of the character, in the Resources folder

Characters can add a

recognisable face to your

work But how do you go

from a sketch to the

fi nished product?

Peskimo talk through

their process

Character design is such a wide and varied subject that

the specifi cs of each character’s process and gestation are

unlikely to be the same for everyone However, some of the core

principals, especially in the early stages of development, are key to

creating a well-executed and memorable character We talk

through the essential steps, from before you even pick up a pen and

paper to working your design up as a vector image, and show you

some of our processes for adding details to the character

If you are following this project with a particular brief in

mind, think carefully about the target audience and what sort of

design elements will be suitable for that audience – the usual

concerns apply as they do with all design The character we created

is intended to be a mascot of sorts, and aimed at all ages It is

usable at a variety of sizes, and in both print and animation

what is it supporting? Ideas will start to form immediately, but

it always helps to draw upon your own infl uences and see what

has been done before in similar fi elds Look through old

sketch-books and see if any previous sketches can help

02 Once you’ve collected your thoughts, start sketching

Try different things on each new sketch, adding different key features to see what sits right with the character Even the ones that look odd now will probably be useful in future

Guidelines

You may want to create guidelines for the character’s usage – character designers do this largely for animators A few extra notes and sketches can convey so much useful information

How short/long can its arms go? How would it look when it was angry? How would it hold a carrot?

04 It’s important to ensure the face has enough scope to display a full range of

emotion, particularly if the character is intended to be used narratively Concentrate

some sketches on the face and how the character will communicate with its audience

05 We’ve now selected one of the sketches to be the main illustration, so we will

scan this in at 300dpi, grayscale In Photoshop, click Ctrl/Cmnd+L to bring up the

Layers panel Drag the left and right arrows at the bottom of the histogram to enhance

the contrast of the sketch

06 Also use this time to tidy up the sketch and delete any elements that you don’t want to see when tracing it There’s no need to delete all the sketch lines, but any features that you moved or drew over may be best deleted before the next stage Save this image

03 Once you have a design that you are happy with, draw

it and redraw it in different positions with very slight changes

Even the slightest alterations will help you fi ne-tune the character Consider potential accessories that will help bring the character to life

09 Now is a good time to choose some colours It’s a good

idea to keep to a couple of colours and tones so that you don’t get

any nasty clashes with backgrounds It also looks more natural,

which is good for this character

11 We want this character to remain simple, so we are only going to give it mitten-like hands and very simple feet

If you want to give your character toes, or hooves, now would be the time to do it

08 On a new layer underneath the sketch, create light-coloured shapes following the different elements of the character; one shape for the body, the face, each arm and each leg, for example Toggle the sketch’s visibility on and off to make sure that you are happy with the vectors

10 Add a face early on – it helps you to become acquainted

with the character For the cheeks, draw two red circles in place and

group them Copy and paste the face shape above the cheeks Select

the cheeks and the copied face and click Ctrl/Cmnd+7 to create a

clipping mask

07 Open a new Illustrator document set to your fi nal

dimensions, import the sketch and scale it to the size you want In

the Transparency panel change the sketch’s setting to Darken You

may also want to reduce the opacity of the image as the project

continues Lock this layer

Different styles

The look we talk through here is quite a traditional illustration style; it looks natural with a textured outline and gradients to suggest detail If you are going for a more modern and striking look, you should consider using bold lines around

the character, like the hairy dude that you will fi nd on your cover disc, in the Peskimo tutorial fi le in Resources.

14 In the next issue of Computer Arts Projects we will be animating this

character; now is a good point to switch to Flash if you want to do that Some of the details and texture we are adding in the following steps don’t translate well or aren’t necessary when animating the character

15 To add hairy texture to the body, drag the fi ll colour to the currently empty line colour In the

Brushes Panel, play around with the different brushes and choose one you like The art brushes are

particularly good for adding a natural texture to an object

13 Copy the face shape of the character and paste it above all the face elements, and apply an artbrush to the outline of this shape just as you did with the body Make sure the fi ll is empty and that the line colour is the same as the hair of the body

16 Draw some arcs outside the body and fi ll these with a gradient, from white

to a darker version of the hair colour Use the Gradient tool to have the gradient run from the tip out Give a transparency setting of Multiply and an opacity of around 20%, and copy them around the body

12 Before moving on to adding detail and texture, we will work on the character’s accessories, in this

case a belt with a big skull buckle Add some round teeth to the circular buckle and a face, and create a shape

behind the main skull shape to give it depth

18 Draw a shape for the shadow of the character’s fringe Set it to Multiply with a low opacity Use Ctrl/Cmnd+X to cut this object to the clipboard Double-click the cheeks and press Ctrl/Cmnd+F to paste the fringe shadow in place and into the same clipping mask as the cheeks

Open interpretation

Halfway through creating this character someone saw it and commented on its cute nose “It doesn’t have a nose,”

we replied – we had always assumed the black semicircle on his face to be a mouth There’s no right or wrong way to interpret a character and this is a good thing!

19 With the body selected, click Object>Expand Appearance, ungroup the

resulting group and use the Pathfi nder to combine it into one shape Now you can

create a shadow along the edge of the character, with either a gradient or solid fi ll

Create a clipping mask with these new objects

17 Use the Pathfi nder tool to add the elements of the skull-buckle’s face

together Create three boxes of different widths over the skull Make two of them

darker than the skull colour and one lighter, tilt them to about 30 degrees and create a

clipping mask for these, as with the cheeks in step 10

21 This is the end of the project, but there are always ways to add to a character One of the important things to remember is when to hold back, as fussy and over-detailed characters can look awkward and run the risk of turning people away

20 Select the left horn, then copy and click Ctrl/Cmnd+F to paste it directly

above Give it a gradient fi ll of white to a very dark brown (almost black) As before,

apply a transparency setting of Multiply and adjust the angle of the gradient to match

the horn Repeat for the other horn