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Illustration, Tutorial

Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

02.27.10 | 7 Comments
make up face4 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

The finished face viewed in Illustrator Preview mode.

The Helmut Newton homage make-up found on many of the runways in Milan’s Fashion Week inspired me to create this quick tutorial. Using Adobe Illustrator, the Brush and Blob Tool provide invaluable fun and experimentation. Just like natural media, beginning with a few simple line gestures, I prefer to use bold shapes and strong contrast to express the features. Recently, I’ve been sketching with markers from live models, and much of the quick and unfinished quality is key to sketching on the computer.

You’ll notice I don’t begin using a scanned sketch as a Template layer. I prefer sketching directly on the screen for spontaneous strokes. But, as I begun to incorporate this process, I found beginning with a sketch locked in a Template layer helpful.

To achieve the best results taking advantage of Illustrator’s brush pressure sensitivity, using a Wacom tablet or if you have the budget, Wacom’s Cintiq is important. Maybe, we can look forward to an Apple iPad drawing app soon!

make up face paths Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

The finished face viewed in Illustrator Outline mode.

make up face step5 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

Enlarged view of the Blob and Brush Tool and it’s use. The Blob Tool is great to loosely paint objects while the Brush Tool provides specific style and detail.

make up face step7 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

Demonstrating the pressure sensitivity of Wacom’s 6D Art Pen Brushes using the Wacom tablet and pen. Lightly touching the pen on the tablet creates a fine line weight while applying pressure makes the same stroke heavier.

Step 1

make up face step1 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

Begin to loosely sketch the features and focus on proportion. We’ll begin to stylize brush strokes in Step 2

Step 2

make up face step2 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

As natural media, irregular line weight brings emphasis and depth to the sketch. Experiment with Illustrator’s Brushes Pane to discover the myriad of styles.

Step 3

make up face step3 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

Using the Wacom tablet, broadly paint adding volume to the features and hair. I used the background to define the 3 quarter view for variation.

Step 4

make up face step4 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

Continue to define the features using the Brush and Blob Tool.

Step 5

make up face4 Sketching in Illustrator | The Fashion Face

The finished face.

About Geoffry
Hey, thanks for reading! I'm a designer, artist, educator and creative enthusiast working in the fashion industry for 20+ years writing about design, art and sometimes politics. You can send me a note or a question about a recent post using the links below.

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