How To Create A Screaming Girl Illustration Using Illustrator

October 22nd, 2012
Illustrator

This is a great tutorial, which will show you how to create a little screaming for ice cream girl in Illustrator. The tutorial is great for beginners, as well some great techniques for more veteran illustrator users to learn some tips and tricks. The end outcome for the tutorial is awesome, so lets open up illustrator and get to work.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial, and would appreciate if you shared your thoughts on the post in the comments section below.

Final Tutorial Outcome

final

Step 1: Head

Open Illustrator and create a new document of any size you want. Select the pen tool and start tracing a head shape. I shouldn’t be perfect on the top, because we’ll draw hair there.

Again using pen tool try to draw hair on the top of the head shape.

Select the face again and give it a fill color (#FDCC9A) and no stroke at this moment.

With the face still selected press Ctrl+C to copy it and then Ctrl+F to paste in front of the original. You should see no difference at the moment, but you actually have a two copies of you face path. Now select you pen tool, and try to draw a path as you see below so we can create a shadow from girl’s hair.

With your newly drawn path still selected, while holding shift key press on the face to select the top copy. On the pathfinder panel press the Intersect button. Give the resulting shape a bit darker shade of the face color. I used here #FAB075.

Press Ctrl+[ to send it backward.

Select the face path and give it a 3 pt outer stroke of an even dark shade of face color (#F69162).

Now it’s time for hair. Select the hair path and give it a fill color that you like, I decided to make this girl blond, you decide by yourself. Color that i used is #FDEA89.

Using the same technique as we used for creating face shadow create a shadow for the hair.

Select a nice shadow color like #FFD654.

Another thing we need is a hairpin, draw a rounded rectangle, give it a fill color and a shadow like we did before and place it on the hair.

The last thing we need is ears! using pen tool, draw girl’s left ear, set the color that we used for face shadow as fill color and give it a 3pt stroke with the same settings as for the face path.

Step 2: Face

The girl needs eyes, nose and mouth. Use pen tool to draw her eyes. Her eyes are closed so the only thing we need to do is draw two small lines so they look closed.

Draw some small shadows near the eyes with the same color as we used for the rest of face shadows.

Now draw the mouth using the pen tool again.

Give the newly create path a nice dark red color as #8C1D3E.

With the “mouth” selected press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+F, now take the Ellipse Tool (L) and draw an ellipse that intersect the mouth path.

On the pathfinder panel press the Intersect button. Give a pink color to resulting path, no stroke.

Select the mouth again, press Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+F, using the Ellipse Tool (L) draw a small white circle, select both (mouth copy and circle) by shift-clicking and in the pathfinder panel click on Intersect button. this will be a tooth.

Draw another three teeth the same way we’ve draw this one.

For the nose, draw an egg-like shape and set the fill color for it, the color that we’ve used for face shadows.

Then try to put a highlight on the nose.

Step 3: Details

Details in your illustration make a big difference! Pay enough attention and spend enough time on creating those. First detail that we’ll put on our girl’s face is chocolate. She ate ice cream before that so she has chocolate around her mouth.Try to draw a random path as you see below.

Select the mouth path and make a copy of it like we did before. With your copy and chocolate path both selected press the Exclude buton in the pathfinder. Give the resulting shape a chocolate color.

The path is not perfect, there are some details that we don’t need. Press Divide button in the pathfinder and then press Ctrl+Shift+G to ungroup the path. now you can select unnecessary details and delete them.

Another detail that will make our illustration look awesome is girl’s tears, let’s not forget that she’s crying. With the Pen Tool draw a small tear near her left eye.

By Alt dragging make a copy of it and position it under the head. Scale it down a bit and rotate.

Make another copy o the first tear and move it to the left. Right click on it, go to Transform -> Reflect. Check vertical and press ok.

Make a copy of this one, also scale it down a little and move it down.

The head is ready, rename the layer to “Head”.

Step 4: Body

Create a new layer under the “Head” and name it “Body”. We’ll start by creating girl’s neck. For this draw a rectangle with the same color as the face. Press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+F to make a copy. Draw a triangle that intersects the neck, and bu shift-clicking select the top copy of the neck and the triangle and press Minus Front in the pathfinder panel.

Give a shadow color to this shape and place the neck under the head.

Zoom in, take the Pen Tool and start drawing the top of girl’s dress. I used a nice blue color #99D7DB .

Now draw a path for girl’s dress and press Ctrl + [ to send this sublayer backward.

Drop a shadow on it like we did with the neck and also send it backward.

like we made shadows now make a belt for girl’s dress.

To decorate the bottom of the dress draw and ellipse, the same color as belt.

Then make a lot of copies of it and group them by pressing Ctrl+G.

Move this group under the dress sublayer.

For the sleeves draw tow ellipses, one with the same color like the dress and the second one like dress shadow.

Decorate them as we’ve decorated the dress itself.

Select both sleeves and decorations and slightly move them up.

Step 5: Hands

Using Line Tool (\) draw some 10pt stroke lines to create hands. Don’t forget to pus right hand sub-layers and the right sleeve sub-layers and give the left hand a shadow color.

Draw a small circle using ellipse tool, this will be girl’s palm.

To draw a wafer cup for ice cream use pen tool to draw a triangle and ellipse tool for the top.

Select the Line tool again and draw some small 6pt stroke line for the fingers.

The same way draw finger for her left hand.

Step 6: Legs

Create a new layer under the “Body”and name it “Legs”. Use pen tool to draw two 10pt stroke lines.

Now still using pen tool draw a shoe for the right leg.

And another much more simple for the left leg. You can actually edit right shoe.

Draw some small bootlaces on both shoes.

Step 7: Ice Cream

On a separate layer draw an ice cream on the ground near the girl.

Fill it with the same color as the chocolate on girl’s face and draw some drops near.

Step 8: Background

Draw a rectangle with the same sizes as your art-board and apply a gradient to it. I used #F59AB4 to #E64C72.

Draw two ellipses under the girl and under ice cream, fill them with a dark pink and the go to Effect -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and set the radius 13px.