We will be taking a photograph of yourself and turning it into a comic self portrait

Part 1 - Drawing

Step 1: Open the Image in Photoshop

Step 2: Create a new layer (paper icon in your layers window)

Step 3: Choose your paintbrush tool (located in your tools window on the left) remember, you can change the size of the paintbrush using the "[ ]" keys next to the letter "P"

Step 4: Begin tracing your subject, changing the brush size for different features will help to make your image more realistic. If you want to get more detail, don't forget about zooming in and out using "command +" and "command -"

Step 5: Look at your progress by hiding the background layer, if you don't like what you see use your eraser tool to get rid of anything you don't like and redraw.

Step 6: When you are finished tracing, hide the background and save your file. I named mine "comic"

Once saved, Quit Photoshop

Below, you can watch me making this image at 8x speed

Part 2 - Coloring

Step 1: Open Adobe Illustrator (click the magnifying glass in the upper left corner of your screen and type "Illustrator" double click or hit return) Find your file you saved from Photoshop and click "Open"

Step 2 - Once opened, click OK. None of the other settings here are important

Step 3 - Click on your image so there is a red box around it

Step 4 - Once the image is selected click on the "Image Trace" button on the top of the screen, this will smooth your lines and create what is known as a vector file

Next to the Preset menu is another menu button that will bring up some extra features of the Image trace. Play with the Threshold and the Advanced features to get your image how you want it to look. Once your happy with how it looks, you can close the menu.

Step 5 - Once your image is how you like it, we need to get it ready to paint in Illustrator. Click on the Expand button on the top of your screen, then go to Object - Live Paint - Make

Step 6 - Deselect everything (Select - Deselect)

Step 7 - Find your Live Paint Bucket (In new version of Illustrator, hit the "K" key on your keyboard)

There are two ways to select colors

first is by clicking the color pallet button and selecting from a "rainbow"

the second is by double clicking on the color below your toolbar

Find the color you want to use and begin painting

Step 8 - As you can see in my image, when I painted my face, my beard also got painted. This is because there was a space between the lines of my beard and glasses. To fix this use the Blob Brush (click and hold on the paintbrush) You can change the size of the blob brush by using the same "[ ]" keys next the the letter "P"

Step 9 - Once the space has been filled, Select - All and click the "Merge Live Paint" button on the top of the window. After the merge, you can deselect again and continue painting

Step 10 - You may realize that this wasn't the only spot that needed fixing, repeat step 9 (Blob Brush - Merge Live Paint) as needed to finish you image.

Below, you can watch me coloring this image at 8x speed