Adobe Illustrator Tutorial: How to Create the Discreet Charm

posted by: Catherine Dedova, in Illustrator Tutorials / Illustration/ Comments: 3

Adobe Illustrator TutorialFinal Image Preview

Our guest is the professional illustrator Catherine Dedova. Today she will share with you the steps of creation of the vector illustration.

The Preparatory Phase

I’ve always wanted to draw the Diva… or maybe even a film star? That’s why it was clear from the very beginning that we should draw in black-and-white. Why, you may ask? Because the film stars existed only in the Golden Age of the Hollywood, then they disappeared. Let us recall peerless Ava Gardner, Veronica Lake, Lauren Bacall and Rita Hayworth… Great! Let’s begin with them. What is so special about black and white portraits? Of course, black-and-white portraits are special because of the arrangement of light and contrast of dark and light. We will put an emphasis exactly on this.

Here are some preliminary sketches, which didn’t work out.

I always do color sketches in the Photoshop. First, it is very comfortable to find the suitable color with the Eyedropper Tool. Second, it helps to keep in mind the impression that you want to express in your work

Coloring in Adobe Illustrator

I always try to find something new in my artworks, or at least somehow change the way of drawing. That’s why I work intuitively; I make a lot of changes. It is important for me to "catch” the inspiration and the rhythm, I can think about the smoothness of the lines later

All the forms are been created with the Pencil Tool (N) and are been filled with gradients. If I need to draw a long and smooth line, I don’t use the Pencil Tool, The Pen Tool suits better (P).

The hair is created from the main bulk, and then they are divided into locks.

The Paintbrush Tool (B) suits perfectly for that.

I won’t get into too many details about how I draw the dress, because there is nothing special and tricky from the point of view of drawing. I’d better show you a couple of fragments.

The coat looked like this from the very beginning.

And then I realized that I’ve chosen not the right way… and decided to do it all over again. The coats have amazingly soft folds and we should make an accent on it!