In today's tutorial, we're to combine simple shapes with colorful gradients to create fun cartoon style monster face using Illustrator. Let the fun begins.
Step 1
Create a new document, the size of the document doesn't matter. Go to View menu and check that Smart Guides are enabled. Then select the rectangle tool and clear out the default black stroke by clicking the none icon in the toolbar. Use the smart guides to align to the top left corner of the artboard. Drag out a rectangle to cover the entire area. Highlight the fill square in the toolbar, then click the default gradient in the gradient panel. Change the dropdown to Radial. Double click the little gradient marker to change the color. This default gradient use only black, so apply a random swatch to bring up the R, G, B menus. Change the first color to pale pink, such as 255/214/255. Edit the second gradient marker, giving it a vibrant pink color of 213/50/232. Select the gradient tool from the toolbar, extend the gradient size to the extent of the artboard. To avoid accidentally selecting this background, go to Object - Lock - Selection, or press Ctrl + 2 on your keyboard.
Grab the Ellipse tool, hold the Shift key while dragging out the shape to make a perfect circle. Edit the gradient colors to white which is 255/255/255, and to a light grey of 200/200/200. Select the gradient tool, alter the flow so the gradient only changes to grey towards the edges of the circle shape. Activate the stroke from within the toolbar, use the Eyedropper tool to sample a color from the background while holding the Shift key. Bump up the stroke weight around 5pt, change the alignment to the outside from within the Stroke panel.
Go to Effect - Stylize - Outer Glow, change the settings to Overlay, 100% Opacity, and 30px Blur, using the black color. Switch back to the selection tool to stretch the circle out of shape slightly.
Select the Ellipse tool, again and draw a smaller circle within this white shape. Clear out the pink stroke. In the gradient panel, edit the gradient marker colors to cyan 0/255/255, and mid-blue of 40/40/180.
Go to Effect - Stylize - Out Glow, and change the settings to Multiply, 40% Opacity, and 7px Blur.
Make a duplicate of this shape by going to Edit - Copy followed by Edit - Paste in front. Scale down the shape slightly. The white shape will be eyeball, the blue circle is the iris and the smaller circle is the pupil. Change the gradient colors to 70/70/70, and 30/30/30 to flow from a mid to dark grey. Use the ellipse tool to draw an extra circle that overlaps the pupil and iris. Replace the fill with a white, then reduced opacity to 30% to make a small highlight.
Select the highlight, pupil and iris shapes and group them. Add the eyeball to selection and make a copy of the entire eye.
Rotate and position each one, move the iris group to change which direction the eyes are looking. This is where you can form the foundation of the expression by tilting them inwards to make them angry, outwards to make them sad, or pointing them in different directions to make them loony.
Step 4
Select the Pen tool, click and drag a series of Bezier curves ( to learn more how to use pen tool click here) to form the mouth. The shape doesn't have to be symmetrical, so any irregularities don't matter too much, as long as the path flows smoothy. You can edit the path using the Direct Selection tool to tweak the curves.
Replace the fill colors to the deep red of 40/0/0 to an even deeper red of 60/0/0, then alter the shape and flow with the gradient tool. Select one of the eyeballs shapes for a second to load its fill and stroke appearance, then reselect the mouth element.
Add it to the mount shape and edit the settings to 5pt, and align to outside.
Go to Effect - Stylize - Drop Shadow, and change the settings to Overlay, 40% Opacity, O X offset, 10px Y offset, 5px Blur, then change color to white.
Grab the ellipse tool to draw a shape over the mouth to represent a tongue. Edit the gradient colors to a red 165/0/0 to 210/0/0. Select this tongue shape along with the mouth by holding the Shift key, then activate the Shape Builder tool. Hold the Alt key while clicking the excess area of the tongue to trim it away.
Click one of the eyeballs, again to loads its appearance, then select the ellipse tool. Draw a circle to represent a tooth. Clear the pink stroke. Change the gradient to Linear. Use the gradient tool to alter the direction of the gradient, and reset the flow to the center. Use the ellipse tool to draw a series of teeth that overlap the mount, along the top and bottom edges. Rearrange them more carefully with the selection tool. Alter the gradient flows, particularly on the bottom set so the white is positioned towards the inside of the mouth.
Shift and Alt-click all these shapes, along with the mouth shape to add them all to the selection, then use the Shape Builder tool to trim away all the excesses. Add the tongue shape to the selection and group all the mouthpieces together.
Select the ellipse tool and apply the pink swatch it has saved as a fill, then draw two ellipses as nostrils. Change the Transparency settings to Multiply at 20% Opacity, rotate, and position each one.
With the ellipse tool selected, change the fill color to white, by holding the Shift key draw a load small circles in the empty background areas around the face. To easily select, all these shapes, use the Magic Wand tool. This makes a selection of all elements with the same appearance, but that also includes two eyeballs highlights, so hold Ctrl key white clicking these shapes to deselect. Group the bunch of spots, and change the Transparency settings to Overlay to 20% Opacity.
The final result is a fun monster face illustration made from vector shapes. Thanks for reading the article I hope you liked it, and we’ll read on in the next one. 😀😀
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| Final Image |
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