Illustration, Tutorial

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!

The finished face viewed in Illustrator Outline mode.

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.

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

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

Step 2

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

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

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

Step 5

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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7 Comments

• On 02.27.10 AC wrote these pithy words:

  this is so good! if you don’t mind I’d like to link this to M&B!

• On 02.27.10 Alan Tung wrote these pithy words:

  I love it! It’s always great to explore new way to do fashion illustrations! I love the tutorial! I need to practice my illustrator skills. Thanks for sharing this!

• On 02.27.10 Susan Gertz wrote these pithy words:

  So, so beautiful! The tut is great, but not just anyone can draw as amazingly as you!

• On 02.28.10 Geoffry wrote these pithy words:

  Grazie Mille everyone. Inspired to post more!

• On 03.01.10 Teri Pettit at Adobe wrote these pithy words:

  Very cool! I love to see what people are doing with Blob Brush.

  Wait ’til you see what’s coming in CS5.

• On 12.24.10 Preston Racette wrote these pithy words:

  This is a very good post! Keep them comming!

• On 01.19.11 Zenek wrote these pithy words:

  Try our new online sketching app http://pencilmadness.com.
  Show your creativity with cool brushes and color schemes.