The goal of this tutorial is to learn how to vector a poor quality image to a beautiful one, everything with Photoshop. (so, without Illustrator !)

Let's take this image for our tutorial :

As you see, the quality is really poor, we can see the pixels everywhere, well, it's ugly...

There is some rules to follow for this tutorial :

* Create a new layer for every element you add ; for example, create 3 layers if you want to add 3 differents color in the hair. My final work on this image contains 36 differents layers. So, don't hesitate to create new ones !
* You have to be patient ; the vector work is really very long for beginners, so, don't give up !
* Don't use effects till you haven't finished your entire work.

So... Let's start !


* I very often begin with the hairs, when i vector a character.
First of all, fill the hairs with a background color ; take the lighter one, and do that like this, everything with the Pen Tool.

Well, i know, she looks like a bit stupid like this … But don't worry Smile
Now, create a new layer, select the previous one, and fill in it the shadow in her hairs.

Just Ctrl + Left clic on it, in the Layers Window :

So, we have something like that now … :

Damn … She still looks like ugly like that … but be patient :smile:

Now, take the polygonal lasso tool, with a 30-40px radius, and select the top of your shadow layer, and press the delete button, like that :

This makes a gradiant color ; it just looks better like that.
Now, create a new layer, and do exactly the same thing with the darker hairs :

Not bad, isn't it ?

Finally, take the Pencil Tool, draw some light effects in her hairs ;
then, take the Brush Tool, draw a curve under the light effects, and apply a Glaussian Blur (Effect > Blur > Glaussian Blur) effet on it ;
We now may have that :

We have almost finished with her hairs !
Now, select the first layer (the background color), and draw some outlines outside of the select, like that :

So … We have our hairs !

You can notice that there are some imperfections, but i often fix them at the end.


* We are going to put ALL the layers of the face under the layers of the hairs.
Exactly with the same method as for the hairs, draw the background color, and the shadows :


* For my opinion, it is the hardest part of a character ; you have to work a lot in a small surface, it's not easy.

I do the thing like that :

Feel free to change the eyes color if you want ; i changed mine in a blue color, i prefer like that ^^
Now, just add the nose and the mouth, some shadows … And we are done with this tutorial !

Labels: Tips Photoshop