How to convert a sketch into a vector drawing using Adobe Illustrator
Creating a nice little piece of vector art is not too hard in Adobe Illustrator, but for this project, I will assume that you’ve had a little experience with the software and are not a complete beginner.
I started this project by looking at pictures of hares online. When I found a few reference photos that I liked, I saved them for later reference, and did the quick sketch that you see on the left. Then I just shot it with my phone, and imported that image into Adobe Illustrator. You can even still see the shadow of my phone on the page.
I added a new layer above the sketch, and locked the sketch layer. That made it easier to click on objects as I was drawing, without accidentally selecting or moving the sketch.
Then I started the process of tracing the sketch on my new layer. I just focused on getting the lines more or less where I wanted them; I knew that I’d be going back later to make adjustments.
For the eyes, I wanted a little more precision since pupils are pretty much always round, and drew a circle for the pupil and one for the highlight.
After a few strokes, my hare was starting to take shape. By turning off the sketch layer, I could check on how he was looking.
Once I had a pretty complete outline, I duplicated that whole layer.
My next goal was to create a single shape that would be the main background of my animal. I began joining lines and shapes in on the duplicated layer until I had one single hare-shaped blob.
Then I could compare it with the line version, and start creating the different color areas.
I used orange as a temporary fill, so the shapes would be easily visible.
Then I chose a more hare-colored background, and duplicated the working layer again. I wanted to keep a copy of the one-shape blob for a step much later in the process, so for now I could turn it off.
Then it was time to start drawing in the shadows. I could have been super precise, and drawn the shadow under my hare’s chin, for example, to perfectly match the edge of his face. But instead I drew a rough blob about where I wanted his chin shadow…
…and then sent it to the back of the layer, selected the main hare shape, and created a clipping group with the face outline. Now the shadow shape is inside the face shape.
This is how I proceeded for any other shapes that needed to be within the bounds of the hare’s edge. The lighter part of his face around his mouth, for example.
An important note about colors: I am a big believer in using Adobe Illustrator’s global color feature on a project like this. In the swatches palette, double-click on a color as soon as you’ve used it the first time, and check in the “Global color” box.
This way, if you need to change all instances of a color halfway through a project, you only need to adjust it in the color palette here, not find, select and change every individual object in that color. It saves a lot of time.
Continuing with the build of the hare’s facial features, I kept an eye on my reference photos for the colors I wanted to use. I like to use a pretty limited color set, because it makes the illustration look more cohesive.
He’s coming along pretty nicely here.
For his whiskers, and the little dots on his face where the whiskers grow out of, I started with just individual lines. Then I selected them, and used the “Profile” option at the bottom of the stroke palette to make them taper on the ends.
You might notice that I’ve been moving and adjusting the lines as I go, based on what I see in my reference photos.
For his eye, I used a radial gradient of dark to medium brown.
Once I was satisfied that I had all of the shapes I wanted in my drawing, I decided to add a little texture to the overall image, and that’s where that extra copy of the shape layer that I made back in the beginning came in handy. I brought it to the top of my layers.
The only thing on the saved layer was the single hare shape, so selected that shape, and gave it a linear gradient fill.
Then under the Effect menu, I selected the Texture submenu, and from there, the Grain option.
I adjusted the options until I had a pretty strong gradient.
Exiting this window, I set that top shape with its grainy gradient to multiply in the Transparency palette, and set its opacity down around 20.
He’s looking pretty hare-like at this point, so I could have called it good, but I decided to add a few extra touches. I put him in a round frame…
In order to get his ears to stick out, I used a copy of the inner circle as a clipping path, and pulled it up to make it look like he’s inside the ring.
Then it was easy to add a background color, some light shadows, and finally I was happy with my hare (wish I could be that happy with my hair!).
I hope you found this useful and not too confusing; feel free to drop me a note here, or at my email address.
You can also visit me on Instagram to see more illustrations.
