Owning It: Design: Projects: Portrait Drawing
Put together everything you learned in Illustrator to make a portrait of a person. Try out different Brushes and Brush modifications.
- How do I effectively and aesthetically represent a person with drawn vector objects?
What am I making? And Examples
Many examples on the Internet: search for "Illustrator Portraits"
How do I make it?
Tutorial Page & Video from Alice Thorpe
Video of me making mine - Slow version and Fast version
Video of essential steps - Slow version and Fast version
many more tutorials available -- see Resources below
Steps
Choose a Person to Draw - helps to use someone you care about or have an interest in
Make a quick sketch on paper of the person showing all the details
Show Mr. W. your sketch before starting a portrait in Adobe Illustrator
Using Adobe Illustrator, create a new Document
Recommend a Portrait shape
Using the File menu, do Save and call it "PortraitByMyName.ai" and put it in your Period folder
Save frequently!
Create Layers for different parts of your image (Head, Body, Face, Hair, etc.) and Name them!
Can disable/enable viewing of Layers to hide them
Can move objects within a layer up and down to alter the overlapping and visibility of objects
Can even move objects between layers
If using a photo template...
Copy and paste the image
Resize it to take up the full Artboard
Put it in its own layer on the bottom
Reduce opacity at least to 50%
Object menu, Lock menu, Selection
Experiment with Brush types
Double-click the icon to set smoothness
Make sure Window menu, Control is on so you have a Control Bar at the top
Experiment with settings in the Control section - Brush signatures, Brush types, Opacity
Other Tools can be helpful...
Pen Tool for drawing shapes - I used it for eyeballs
Shape Tools such as ellipse - I used it ellipse for eyeball pupils
I used the White Arrow to move points on brush stroke paths
There are many more tools to try! Check other tutorials for other ideas -- above in the How do I make it?, and below in the Resources
Copy and Paste at least 10 images into your scene, for each image...
Look at the Grading criteria below, make any adjustments needed
Using the File menu, do Save one last time
File menu, Export menu, Export As... and use the PNG format
Put a check on Use Artboards!
On Google Sites, under Pages, create a new page called Portait Drawing.
Use Insert Image or a layout to place your drawing.
Make sure you uncrop it
If you like, also add the photo you used, if you used one!
Write one or two things about What You Learned in doing this assignment.
When done, push the Publish button, review the settings, and publish.
Then click the chain-link button, Copy the link for your page, and turn in the link.
Grading
Charismatic: Composition expresses Personality & Character
Identifiable: Can recognize the person, make a connection to who it is
Quantity: Quality matters most, but find a way to include at least 100 different objects into your composition
Fill the Page: create a full Composition that uses the whole page
Career Connections
Flex those Photoshop skills! This will empower you for many future projects
Resources
Many more Tutorials for making Portraits in Illustrator at Creative Nerds (UK)