hello everyone this is chris from spoon graphics back with another video tutorial for adobe illustrator today i'm going to show you my process of converting a rough sketch into a vector illustration by turning one of my old doodles into a cute yeti cartoon character by tracing the initial sketch with as many basic shapes as possible we can achieve a simple flat illustration style the addition of colour fills and strokes using a cold palette of pale blue hues really brings the character to life they'll show you an easy shading technique that enhances your illustration while retaining the simplified flat vector look but first if you want to help support the channel follow the link in the description to check out envato elements envato element saves you time effort and money with unlimited downloads of premium design and stock templates including print templates graphics photos fonts and now royalty-free audio tracks too check them out today by hitting the link in the video description below i've first set out the colour scheme i'm going to be using for my yeti character these colour fillers have also been added as custom swatches so they're easily accessible copy across the colour values to follow along you can also find a link to my old doodle down in the description it's pretty basic but that's the great thing about converting a sketch into vector art in illustrator you can roughly sketch out your idea on paper then enhance and refine it digitally drag the image onto your artboard then double click the layer and call it sketch illustrator has a preset called template which will automatically lock the layer and reduce the opacity of the image add a new layer to contain your vector artwork there are an infinite number of illustration styles you could adopt for your artwork some require tracing with a pen tool to accurately reproduce the original sketch whereas others like this flat illustration style benefit from simplifying the sketch into basic shapes select the ellipse tool and draw a shape that follows the outline of the main body area clear out the default white stroke so you can still see the sketch draw a rectangle to intersect the lower portion of the oval shape just above the feet activate the move tool for a moment and add the oval shape to the selection while holding shift then choose the shape builder tool hold alt and drag across the lower shapes to remove them draw a new rectangle that extends from the flat bottom edge of the oval shape zoom in and draw a smaller rectangle shape from the center by holding alt drag it downwards slightly this will form a gap between the legs use the shape builder tool to trim away this smaller rectangle while holding the alt key activate the direct selection tool and hold shift while clicking the two upper points to deselect them it makes out the corner radius of the little corner widget icons to create a curved outline merge these two shapes to create a custom outline for the body zoom out and draw a circle that follows the shape of the arms paying more attention to the upper outline of the circle rather than the lower half use the direct selection tool to select and drag the lowermost point of the circle upwards select both this new shape and the main body and eliminate the overlap by blending them into the body shape zoom in and draw three circles to represent a hand make sure the circles overlap each other and the shapes around them shift and click each one with the mode tool to select them all then go to object transform and reflect choose vertical then hit copy drag these shapes into place on the opposite arm make a selection of everything then use
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN first if you want to help support the channel follow the link in the description to check out envato elements envato element saves you time effort and money with unlimited downloads of premium design and stock templates including print templates graphics photos fonts and now royalty-free audio tracks too check them out today by hitting the link in the video description below END_SPONSOR_TOKEN