Tutorial: Paint a Cartoon the Illustrator Style.

PhotoImpact v.8 

Could be done in earlier or latest Version.

Easy to intermediate.

Tools: Paint brush.

Description: Learn to paint a cartoon in the illustrator style. You will also learn how to paint transparencies.

Download: you could right click on the sketch below in the tutorial and save as on your computer or use your own.

Extra needed: lots of patient.

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Above are extra sketches. Remember that sketch are not perfect drawings but a guide line to help you paint. So if you want to sketch your own character or object, you are very welcome to do so. Or very well use copyright free outline as well, Dover's always have some great ones for you to use or from coloring book.

If you use one of my sketch here, don't forget to convert the data to RGB color since they are save as transparent gif format. There is two ways to achieve the illustrator style cartoon. Either you prepare your sketch and draw the outlines of your light and shadow or paint the light and shadow after. This is what most people do, but I'm going to show you the other way here in my examples.

For doing this, we will use the paint brush, set at size 2, transparency 0, softedge 50. And of course we are going to paint in mode and this for the step in this tutorial, so be sure before you paint that you are in mode, cause I'm not going to repeat it. If you need to zoom on it, please do, personaly many times I do paint in zoom, great for details.

The reason I use a size 2 brush and soft edge 50, is when I paint next to an other color I overlap just a few pixels, the softedge 50 will generated extra pixels colors that will dithered and make a better transition between the two colors since we are not using any smudge tool or any retouch tool, we are just using the paint to color up our Character.

To prepared your outline before, I use the paint brush size 2 softedge 50 and paint in mode, this way my paint layer will be an object and not merge on my background.

First I draw outline for my shadows and then I draw the outlines of my hightlight. Once I'm done I click out of mode, select all object and merge as single object.

Now our outline is ready for coloring.

Let's start painting, or should I say coloring, you may also set your tablet to none,(could be also done with a mouse), since we want a consistent amount of paint going onto the canvas.

We are going to start with the skin and the shadow part of it. When choosing your colors, always make your color palette with the hex number written on it, in case you have to go back and use the same color again. And do choose 3 colors, one for highlight, main color and one for the shadow.

Now that I have my colors, ready, I zoom on it, cause it gave me a better view at what I'm doing. I start to paint my shadows for the skin parts in mode. Once done, I click out of mode, so this way the skin shadow color is on it's own layer.

Now, I change my color to the main color of the skin, click on mode, zoom in if you are not in a zoom view and start painting. When painting your second layer, paint over the first layer a few pixels, as you will see it does make extra color pixels cause of the softedge and dittered the painting for a better transition between the two colors.

Once you are done with the main color, click out of mode. I haven't said it yet, but everytime you click out of mode and before starting a new layer, do save your work.

Tips: everytime you save your work give it a different number, this way you could clear up your history and keep the memory that the program do use, cause at the end if we don't, it may slow down your painting or depend of your pc it may frozen on you.

So once in a while after a save clear your history. You will have no more undo's by doing so but you will have your save image with a different number to return too.

Great, We are done for now with our skin. Here I have decide to work on the hair. Same step as above, Start with the shadow, don't worry if you make mistake, you could always recolor or repaint on top of it.

For the hair, if you want you could have up to 4 or 5 colors. But always work from the darkest one to the lightest one.

Save your work once done.

As before, same step, with the next color for the hair.

We keep on going with the next color, always working the same way.

As you could see, this is very easy to do, we always do the same step for all of our character.

Please continue to see how we are going to make some transparency on her under skirt where we see her legs.

As you scroll down, you will see the step on the image on the left.

With the white color, I have paint the white of her eye, and a highlight on the black of her eye as well as the higlight of her nose.

Remember to save your work.

Here I did more touch up on her skin, was geart to have my color palette with the hex number on it, so I could have the exact same color I did use.

I did touch up the arms, with the shadow skin color to hide my black outlines and give a more 3d look kind of look.

Always working in same orders with the colors and same step.

Here I have started on the dress and shoes as well.

Now, we are going to bring our outline layer on top.

This way it will be easier for us to see where we are at.

Now, we paint over the leg part only, once done, click out of mode, save your work.

Click on the pick tool, on your top bar you should see transparency, your layer as to be select, set your transparency at about 48 or one that you like.

save your work again.

Pretty cool hey, this is one of the advantage to paint in mode, you could modify the appearance of your layer.

I did finish painting the color in the dress as well.

From the same tone blue, I did use an almost white color to paint the round dots in her under skirt layers.

Ok, since painting white color on white color, is not an easy thing to do, I did change my background color, choose a color that you will be able to see both the black outlines and the white color easily.

Paint your white color for the dress.

Here I did finish off as well her shoes, and touch up everywhere that did needed it.

Now, go back to your white background. Select all your objects, merge as single object.

If you see some running ants in the middle or anywhere in your graphic, this mean that you have miss painting a few spot.

Not to worry this is easily fix. Check where they are, and with the paint brush of the same color where it is missing, paint over it in mode, click out of mode, send your layer to the bottom. Select all object and merge as single object.

Repeat theses step until you have not more running ants where you shouldn't have.

Once everything is done. save in your EP as well as a new image with a different name in ufo format.

We now are going to resize her down to use her on the web. She's to big for it.

Here I did resize her at 50%. I feel it is a nice size for using on a web page.

Below, I did resize again from the ufo, and she is now perfect to be use as a sigtag.

Saving them as ufo is the best for those, so when resize and merge on the background of your choice, you don't see anymore those jaggies cause by the softedge and it will blend with your background.

You may also want to do a little focus on it after merging to your background, choose focus and option and use the auto-adjust, it does a pefect job and you get the right focus for it.

Well That's it. Hope you have enjoy the tut as you could see very easy.

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