Flat Portrait Design in Illustrator, Step by Step
This tutorial builds a flat, geometric cartoon portrait in Adobe Illustrator using almost nothing but rectangles, rounded corners and the Shape Builder Tool. It is a good project for learning how to think in simple shapes and how to organise a character into layers. Part two of the video adds lights and shadows to the same artwork. The video was sponsored by Domestika.
What you will use
- Rectangle and Ellipse tools, live corners with the Direct Selection Tool
- Shape Builder Tool for combining and trimming overlaps
- Align panel, Eyedropper (I), Alt-drag to copy
- Layers named face, hair behind, body, neck, hair, glasses, background
- Preferences > General > Scale Corners
Step 1: Face and mouth
Rename the layer to Face and draw a rectangle. With the Direct Selection Tool, round the top two corners a little and the bottom two all the way so the chin is a half circle. Alt-drag a copy, recolour it and scale it down for the mouth (turn on Scale Corners in Preferences first so the rounding scales with it). Centre both. Make a copy of the mouth slightly larger, then use Shape Builder on the overlap to create the lower lip shape and delete the leftovers.
Step 2: Tongue and eyes
Draw a large ellipse over the mouth, paste a copy of the mouth shape in place (Ctrl+C, Shift+Ctrl+V), and Shape Builder the overlap to get the tongue in a darker tone. For the eyes draw a circle, set it to a 180 degree pie in the Properties panel, Alt-drag a copy, group and centre them.
Step 3: Hair behind and body
Add a Hair Behind layer below the face and draw a large rectangle with the top corners rounded and the bottom left corner rounded. Add a Body layer between them: a rectangle as wide as the hair with rounded top corners, and a Neck layer with a small rounded rectangle. For the chest, overlap a rectangle with rounded bottom corners and use Shape Builder to keep only the centre section in a second colour.
Step 4: Hair layers
On a new layer above Hair Behind, draw a long rectangle half the width of the hair with one corner rounded to match, in a darker hair colour so it reads as shadow, and a second lighter rectangle behind it. Copy all hair shapes to a top layer, merge them with Shape Builder, trim away the part over the face with a rectangle, then pull the anchor points so the fringe sweeps across without covering the eyes. Round the two corners of the fringe and colour it the lightest hair tone.
Step 5: Glasses
Draw a circle with no fill and a thick stroke (12 to 18 pt), copy it for the second lens, and make a bridge from a third circle by adding two anchor points with the Add Anchor Point Tool and deleting the rest. Add a short line with round caps for each arm, centre and group.
Step 6: Colours
Add a Background layer with a full rectangle and apply the final palette. The swatches used in the video can be downloaded from the link below. Add a thin band of colour on the shirt by copying the body shape, enlarging it slightly and trimming with Shape Builder.
Step 7: Circular crop and shadows
To finish the portrait in a circle, draw a large centred circle with no stroke, cut it, and paste it in place inside each layer that needs trimming, then use Shape Builder to remove the parts outside the circle (this keeps the layers intact, unlike a clipping mask). Add a soft shadow on the hair behind the face by pasting an enlarged copy of the face outline into the hair layer and using Shape Builder to isolate the band, then darken it. Repeat for the neck. Finally add a reflection on each lens: an ellipse over the lens split with a line, the upper part near-white, both set to Color blending mode with reduced opacity.
Conclusion
Almost every part of this face is a rectangle with live corners, combined or trimmed with Shape Builder. Keeping each element on its own layer makes the circular crop and the later shading pass easy. Part two builds the light and shadow version.
Links from the video
- Join the members-only content: https://bit.ly/3fEEvD4
- Sign up for Domestika (video sponsor, code DIGITAL_ART_CREATION-10 for 10 percent off): https://bit.ly/2Y0haW6
- Premium tutorials on Udemy: http://bit.ly/2Cqmcgo
- Download the colour swatches: https://bit.ly/3us3sYg
