How to Make Your Own Vector Portraits

8/12/2019 How to Make Your Own Vector Portraits

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How to make your own vector portraits

Every artist have their own style of creating a vector portrait ranging from ultra-realistic to

very cartoony. What youll learn in this website is my style of making one and hopefully you

can come up with our style after learning the basics of vector art. Lets begin.

What you need:

Basic Photoshop skills !or later" # steady hand #n eye for details $ome time and patience

Reference Photo:

%his photo is what were going to work on for this tutorial.


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#nd this is what we will end up with&

%ry to use hi-res copies of the pictures that youd want to convert into vector portraits because

itll be easier to see the details and produce a much better looking vector.

Photoshop Basics:

'or this tutorial( we will use Photoshop to create our vector portraits. )ost artist prefer

*llustrator for vector graphics but for this tutorial Photoshop will do. We will use the Pen %ool!P$ $hortcut& P" primarily in creating the vector portrait. %his tool is used to produce vector


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shapes and the vector shapes that you will create will ultimately form the portrait that you are

working on. *f you havent used the pen tool before heres a primer&

%o create a basic vector shape( +ust click wherever you want to start on the canvass and

continue clicking to create a s,uare shape. lick again where your shape started to close the

shape. # new shape layer will appear in your layer pallette.

%here are two ways to deal with curved shapes using the pen tool. %he first one is to use a

curve node which creates a smoother curve and the other is to use lots of nodes to trace the

curve.

Method 1:

#fter finishing the curve( you can still edit the curve by holding the %L key while still

using the pen tool. /our cursor will change to a plain white arrow to edit any node on yourcurrent curve. 0ust click on any node and drag it to edit the curve.

Method 2:


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%his is easier than the first method but may result to not as smooth as the curve from the first

method. #ll you do is 1oom into the curve that you wanted to trace then click along the curve

to create a lot of nodes which when 1oomed out looks like a smooth curve.

Before we start&

We need to set the pen tool options and shape options

lick on the pen tool or press P on your keyboard then check the settings for the pen tool

options and shape options. %his is the basic set up we will use on working on our vector

portraits. We will use different shape option a little bit later on the tutorial. * guess were all

set so click the link below to start with the ne2t part.

Tracing Shapes


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'irst right click on this image and save it on your desktop and open it on photoshop

3uplicate the current layer by pressing %L40 then go to *mage5#d+ustment5Posteri1e.

%ype in the levels input bo2.


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%he posteri1ed layer will serve as a guide to the shades of color that we need to trace. %hehigher the level of posteri1ing you use the more realistic your vector will look but it will also

be more difficult to work on.

6ow press ' to go into fullscreen mode( this will make tracing shapes easier. 7oom in at

around 899:percnt; using the 1oom tool( then hold down the space bar !your cursor will

change to a hand" click and drag the image so that you are looking at the part of the picture

same as below.


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lick on the background layer to activate it then press P to select the pen tool( using the above

image as a reference click on the starting point. /ou will notice that a new layer is created

named on the Layers Palette. %hat is normal and this simply means that we are

working on a vector shape. 'ollow the guide below to start tracing the outline of the skin of

the model in the picture.


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/ou may notice that * intentionally placed a node outside the picture( you dont have to worry

about this because any nodes outside the picture will not show and will not affect the vector.

#lso( in case you made a mistake or the curved path did not fit well you can hit %L47 to

undo. /ou can also edit any past node by holding the %L button and drag any node that you

want to edit.


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ontinue tracing the shape until you have something like the image below&


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What we are doing here is to trace first all the skin parts. 'inish tracing the belly and the leg

part( dont forget to close you shape. lick on the


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What this does is to add the ne2t vector shape in the same layer. %his way we can keep our

layer organi1ed and easier to edit in case we need to come back and correct something.

ontinue tracing the other skin shapes so you may end up with something like this&


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#nd this is what your layers palette should look like&

%he top layer is your posteri1ed picture( the middle layer is the shape layer which ou are

working on and the bottom layer is the original picture. /ou can toggle on and off a layer by

clicking on the layer visibility toggle icon. /ou can turn off the top layer so you can see how

are you doing with your vector. 3ouble click the bo2 found on the left side of you shape layer

to change its color. $elect a color that is close to the primary skin color of our model !* used

@'3BA". %his will be the basic skin color of our vector( you will add highlights and

shadows later to this to finish the vector skin.


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eres what your current work should look like with the posteri1ed layer turned off&


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Skin Shading

Csing the posteri1ed layer as a guide( well start tracing shapes that will be details of our

models skin. Lets concentrate on the belly and leg part first. When you posteri1ed your

pictures color depth was reduced and the boundaries of the shades are shown. %ake a look at

the image below( it is a 1oomed in picture of the posteri1ed belly part. /oull +ust have to trace

every color that you see in this picture.

%his is where youre going to need the patience part. *t really takes awhile to finish a vector

portrait. /ou can also see clearly which color is on top of other color. Basically darker shades

should be on top of a lighter shade. Every color shade must also have its own shape layer. /ou

can create a new shape layer by clicking on create a new shape layer option in the shape tools

option bo2. 3ont forget to use the add to shape area option to add a new shape in the currentshape layer. %he following thumbs are arrange in order in which they are created with the last

thumb as the top most layer.


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/ou will notice that each color shades have a very slight difference. #lso the last 8 frames are

actually highlights. * usually trace highlights after * work on the darker shades. olor are

selected by moving the color selector slightly towards the darker side of the color palette or

lighter side of the palette( depending if youre working on shadows or highlights. eres what

it looks like when its put all together&

6otice the details that are showing on the belly part of the skin. Csing the same techni,ues(continue working on the shading and highlights for the other skin parts. /ou can organi1e

your layers using the layer folders found on the layer palette. * highly recommend that each

part should have its own folder.


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$imply drag a layer to the folder that you created to include it in that set. #lso( mind your

layer arrangement. #fter you finished working on the other skin parts( heres what you should

have by now.

%his is with the posteri1ed layer off and the background layer on. lick on the link below to

proceed with the tutorial.

Tracing Clothes

6ow that we are finished with the skin( its time we do the clothes. Csing the same techni,ues

on tracing the skin( its going to be the same with the clothes and even easier. Csing the pen

tool and create a new shape layer and trace around the yellow top. %his is how it should look

like after you trace the shape of the yellow top.


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Dnce you get a hang of it and if you finished tracing the skin and its shadows and highlights(

you wont have a hard time tracing the shirt. %he red bikini is also made on a different shape

layer so as the string design for the bikini. eres what it should look like.


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/ou can really see now the details of what we have been working on. 6ow the only thing

missing is the word


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Dn the same shape layer trace the holes of the letters.

#fter tracing all the holes( use the path selection tool to select all the holes that you

made for the letter then click on the subtract from shape area option on your shape options

tool bo2.

%his will make the hole paths negative thus becoming a hole on the word. heck it out.


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#fter that we can add the facial details and the hair and were almost done. %his is how your

work should look like by now.


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)ove on now to the ne2t page for the facial details( hair and the baseball cap.


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Details

6ow we will work on the details for the face( the hair and the baseball cap. #gain( once youreally get a hang of this itll be easy for you to work on any picture. *ts +ust a matter of how

much details youd want to put into the portrait. 'irst well work on the eyes( actually +ust the

right eye. #s you might have noticed our model is looking and down so not much details will

be needed for her eye.

%hats it were done with the eye. heck out the image below of other eyes that * worked on

from my other vectors.


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/ou might notice that * dot put much details on the eyes of my works but dont let that stop

you. /ou can put a lot of details when youre working on your own vectors.

%o trace the mouth( first trace the shape of the lips. 3ont forget the whole for the mouth( use

the steps that we did when tracing the word


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'or the teeth( create a shape layer under the lips layer and fill it up with white then add the

shadows to complete the mouth.

%he mouth shadow layer is sandwich between the teeth and the lips layers. eres what ourface currently looks like.

We now move on to the hair. %he hair layer should be done on top of the skin layers. 0ust tracethe hair as you normally would. %ry to include the as much of the fly away strands as you can.


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eres what it should look like with the original photo layer turned off&


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We need to add shadows and highlights to the hair to give it te2ture and not flat.

Were don with the hair. eres what should our work should look like now.


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6ow +ust finish it off with the baseball cap and create a background and youre done.


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* really hope that his tutorial was able to teach you what you needed to learn to work on your

own vector portrait. Please do visit our gallery section to view more samples and submit any

vector that you worked on using this tutorial. /ou may also email me for clarification or any

suggestion on improving this tutorial.

Lastly( let me be the first to say ongratulations on your first vectorF

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How to Make Your Own Vector Portraits