What is the most exciting and delightful part of Halloween? No doubt, it’s trick-or-treat! In this tutorial we are going to depict a cute, furry monster who has already gathered a basketful of yummy treats. We will use basic shapes and Warp effects, Pathfinder functions, and some simple freehand drawing with the Pencil Tool. Unwind your imagination and let’s get started!
1. Start
Shaping the Monster From Scratch
Step 1
I’ve
prepared before starting my work in Adobe Illustrator by making this pencil sketch
on regular office paper. You can use my sketch for practice, or go ahead
and create your own fancy monster! Follow
this tutorial as a sample guide, learning some techniques that you can apply to your
drawing.
Start by placing
(File > Place) your sketch in the blank document.
Grab the Ellipse Tool (L), set the Fill color to None and the Stroke to any bright color (we will change that later anyway), and make an even circle
in the head area of your monster. Select all the anchor points (except the
upper one) of the circle with the Direct
Selection Tool (A) and drag them down, extending the shape.
Step 2
Repeat the
same move for the body, this time forming a bigger shape.
Step 3
Draw two
tiny arms by picking the Pencil Tool (N)
and outlining them above your sketch.
Step 4
Add two
small ellipses for the ears. Use the Rectangle
Tool (M) to add a rectangle, and then turn it into a curved shape
with the Direct Selection Tool (A)
by moving its anchor handles around.
Step 5
Go on and
add a pair of quirky horns! Make a simple pointed shape out of a circle, as we
did for his face and body. Go to Effect
> Warp > Arc and set the Bend
value to about -16%, Vertical. Apply
another effect to the same shape, but this time it should be Arch Style with -22% Bend value, Vertical. You can apply as many
effects as you like and then edit every applied effect in your Appearance Panel by clicking on it. When you are satisfied with the result, go to Object > Expand Appearance to create a new shape.
Step 6
Place the
horns on the monster’s head according to your sketch.
Step 7
Add three ellipses of different sizes to form the fingers of a paw. Use the horns that we created in the previous step
to make tiny claws. Decrease the horns’ size, rotate them, and place above the
ellipses to fit the sketch. Don’t forget to add the second paw.
The base
for our character is ready! Let’s start coloring it!
2. Enliven
Your Monster by Adding Colors
Step 1
I’ve made a
simple three-colored palette for the base of our image (stay tuned and you’ll see how to create the cute skulls a few steps
later!). These colors will help us to create a proper Halloween mood, and at
the same time will make our artwork vivid and eye-catching.
As you can see, I’ve made the arms and paws a
bit darker to detach them from the body. I’m going to make the circle background invisible for a while, so that it doesn’t distract me while I’m working on the character.
Step 2
Take the Pencil Tool (N) and use the basic body color to freehand a tuft of hair.
You can
switch to Outline Mode (Control-Y)
any time to check your sketch, which makes the drawing process more convenient.
Step 3
Add similar tufts of hair onto the ears to make them furry.
Step 4
Apply a
gentle linear gradient to his hands so that they blend nicely with the body.
Here is how
our funny guy looks with the basic colors applied.
Step 5
Let’s move
on and work with his face. Start rendering his nose by switching to the Outline Mode (Control-Y) and making two
ellipses: one for the nose bridge and the other for the nose tip.
Return to normal mode and apply the proper colors to the nose.
Step 6
The next
important yet simple element is the eye! And again we’ll use the Ellipse Tool (L) to create two objects perpendicular to each other.
Copy the
horizontal shape and move the upper copy down a bit. Use the Minus Front function of the Pathfinder
Panel to delete the parts you don’t need.
Step 7
Select both shapes and use the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M)
to delete the lower part of the eyeball by holding down the Alt key and clicking it. This way we’ve
created a simple eyelid! Switch its color to green, slightly darker than
the basic body color.
Step 8
Add some
minor details to the face to make it more friendly. Put a funny hair tuft above
the upper part of the nose and use the Eyedropper
Tool (I) to pick the color gradient from the monster’s arms. Add two pink spots to create a gentle blush on his cheeks, and don’t forget his eyebrows.
Step 9
Now we need
to add a big smiling mouth, which is the primary element of the monster’s
face. Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool
with a 50 px Corner Radius to add a basic shape that will form the mouth.
Step 10
Apply Effect > Warp > Arc with -37% Horizontal Bend value, making a
curved smile.
Look at your sketch in Outline Mode to put the mouth in the right place and switch its fill color to dark red to depict the inner part of the opened mouth.
Step 11
Now we need
to create a row of bright shiny teeth, making a friendly smile. Check out my Crazy Retro Poster Tutorial, starting from Part 4, Step 2, to find out how to create teeth
with the Blend Tool (W) in a few clicks.
Add the lower row of teeth in the same way.
Step 12
Object > Expand the teeth and make a pair of fangs, by
selecting a tooth and dragging its lower anchor point down with the Direct Selection Tool (A)
Step 13
Let’s make a furry tummy! Outline one half of the tummy over your sketch, using the Pencil Tool (N).
Use the Reflect Tool (O) to reflect the created
shape over the Vertical Axis and put
it on the other side of the body.
Step 14
Select both
halves and press Control-J to
combine them into a single shape. Play with the color, making the tummy
light yellow.
3. Create a Basket Full of Sweets & Candies
Step 1
Start with simple shapes by using the Ellipse Tool (L) and Rectangle
Tool (M) to form the upper part of the basket.
Step 2
Apply the Arch effect (Effect > Warp > Arch) with -13% Horizontal Bend value to the rectangle part of the basket,
making it slightly curved, so that our basket looks more three-dimensional.
Step 3
Continue
shaping out the basket: add a square with the Rectangle Tool (M) for the body of the basket, and modify its bottom
by moving the lower anchor points closer to the center.
Step 4
We have a
pile of sweets in our basket, but you don’t have to draw every single candy.
Make a few of them using squares and circles, and then just rotate and resize
the objects, putting them one above the other to create the impression of a
basketful of sweets.
Step 5
Our monster
should look as if he is holding the basket in his hands, so we need to rearrange
the objects. Press Control-[ several times to move the basket, placing it under the hands.
Add matching colors to the sweets, preserving the overall palette. Make a dark-brown ellipse in the center of the upper part, showing the inside cavity. Duplicate this shape, because we will need its copy in the next step.
Step 6
We need to
hide the lower parts of the sweets, placing them into a basket. This can be
easily solved by putting our objects into the Clipping Mask. For this purpose, take the Add Anchor Point Tool (+) and add a group of anchor points on the
upper part of the dark-brown ellipse that we created in the previous step.
Use the Direct Selection Tool (A)
to move the added points so that the shape surrounds the candies. Don’t in any way move or change the lower part of the ellipse. Put the created shape on top (Shift-Control-]).
Step 7
Finally,
select your group of candies and the brown shape and click the right mouse button
to reveal the pop-up menu. Make Clipping
Mask and—voila!—all the candies are in the basket.
Great work!
This is how it looks all together.
Step 8
Our basket looks
quite boring at this stage. To make it more of a basket than a bucket, we need to add some texture. Remember those good old wicker baskets made of wood? That’s right, we’re going to make the same interlaced pattern in vector.
Start by
drawing a narrow stripe with the Rectangle
Tool (M). Add vertical and horizontal copies of the stripe and let them
cross each other, creating a square grating. Make the horizontal
stripes slightly lighter and place them above the vertical ones by pressing the
Shift-Control-] key combination.
Step 9
Select all
stripes and Divide them in the Pathfinder panel, thus creating a group
of separate tiny squares. Select the odd squares in the first row and pick the
color from the vertical stripes with the Eyedropper
Tool (I), making the squares darker.
Step 10
Move on to
the next row and continue recoloring odd and even squares next-but-one,
creating a look of interlaced wooden stripes.
Here’s how
the pattern looks now:
Let’s
select it and go to Object > Pattern
> Make. Move the Pattern Tile (the blue frame) as shown on the
screenshot: the right vertical stripe
should stick to the edge of the Pattern Tile,
leaving the tips of the horizontal stripes outside. The Tile frame itself should remain square. Exit the Pattern Mode and you’ll find the created texture in the Swatches panel.
Step 11
Copy the basket shape and Place it in Front (Control-C > Control-F). Apply the newly created
pattern by selecting it in the Swatches
panel. You can resize the pattern to fit the basket by double-clicking on
the Scale Tool (S) to call out the
pop-up menu. Tick the Transform Patterns
checkbox, set the Scale to 70% and click OK to apply the effect.
Step 12
Proceed by double-clicking the Rotate Tool (R), revealing
the Rotate Options menu. Set the Angle to 45 degrees and check the Transform
Patterns box. Click OK, thus
changing the direction of the stripes.
Step 13
You can
edit the colors of your pattern any time by selecting it and
going to Object > Pattern > Edit
Pattern (Shift-Control-F8), thus returning to Pattern Mode.
4. Add
Minor Details to the Character
Step 1
To make the
monster furrier, we should add some hair to his body. Take the Blob Brush Tool (Shift-B) and draw
several short strokes. You can see my brush settings on the screenshot. However, if you leave them as default, there won’t be any big difference in
drawing such small details. The only thing you might need to change here is the
size of your brush. I’ve used the smallest 1 px
size.
Step 2
Add more
fur strokes all over the monster’s head, according to the initial sketch.
Spread small pink spots over the nose to make it more detailed.
Step 3
Let’s also
add some details to the horns, making them notched. Use the Polygon Tool to make a thin triangle
and apply the Arch effect with -56% Vertical Bend value. Object > Expand the shape to apply
the changes.
Step 4
Rotate the created
shape and place it on the horn, creating a notch. Copy the notch a few times
and place the copies along the horn. Use Pathfinder or the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) to cut off the unwanted pieces and add
a drop-shaped highlight, making the
horn slick.
Step 5
Let’s
return to our candies. We need to separate them from
each other by adding shadows. Copy
the base of the candy and Place it in Back (Control-C > Control-B),
switching to Multiply Mode in the Transparency panel. Cut off the unneeded parts as we did before with the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M).
Step 6
Add the
shadows under the character’s arms in the same way, thus separating them from
the body. Cut off the unneeded part by clicking it with the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) while holding down the Alt key.
Add the
shadows from the basket and nose, making these objects pop out more.
Step 7
Make the body
and horns more picturesque by switching the Fill
color to linear gradient. Use turquoise and light-green tones for the body, and
raspberry-orange tones for the horns.
Step 8
Make the
sweets yummy and shiny by adding the overtones in the
following way: draw a freehand shape
with the Pencil Tool (N), covering a
part of the candy. Fill it with some bright color and use the Shape Builder Tool (Shift-M) to cut off the
piece outside the candy. Switch the Blending Mode to Screen and adjust
the color, making it vivid and semi-transparent.
Here is how
our sweets look. Shiny, smooth and slick!
5. Render Details on the Background
The background of our sketch contains some small yet important
details, such as bats, ghosts, skulls, and bones, creating a creepy
Halloween atmosphere.
Step 1
The first
element of the background will be a bat. I was inspired by the Negative Space
technique while creating this object (check out some information about negative
space here on Wikipedia, if you’re interested).
It may be hard to imagine at first, but it’s much easier to create a symmetrical shape
like this, rather than freehanding it with a pencil or other tools. Let’s try it
out!
We’ll start by making three even circles of various sizes (each next circle should be smaller than the
previous one). The fourth larger circle should be placed above the first three, as shown on the screenshot.
Select all
the circles and use the Reflect Tool (O)
to mirror them over the Vertical
Axis and press the Copy button. Move the reflected copies to the right side, holding down the Shift key. Select all circles and press Control-8 to create a Compound
Path, making one single shape.
Step 2
Proceed by
taking the Pencil Tool (N); switch
the Fill color to None and the Stroke to some contrast color (dark red in my example). Draw a rounded stroke, crossing the circles, as
shown on the screenshot below. Select your stroke and Reflect it to the other side, creating a copy.
Keeping both strokes selected, press Shift-X to Swap Fill and
Stroke colors and Unite two
pieces of the dark-red shape in Pathfinder
to make a single shape.
Finally,
select all the created elements and use the Minus
Back function in Pathfinder to
form a bat silhouette.
And here is
the result of all our manipulations! Looks like a true bat silhouette considering that
it was just a group of circles. Notice that I’ve deleted two side anchor points
on the bat’s “tail” to make it more pointed.
Step 3
The next
element will be a ghost. Start shaping it from an ellipse by dragging its lower
anchor point down with the Direct
Selection Tool (A).
Change the
position of the anchor handles on the “tail” of our ghost to make it pointed.
Pull the handles with the Convert Anchor
Point Tool (Shift-C) if you need to move them separately. Add circles for
the eyes and mouth of our ghost.
Step 4
We still have a fancy skull in our “to do” list of Halloween
elements. Firstly, make an even circle and then squash it slightly. Add three more tiny circles at the bottom of the head shape, depicting the teeth.
Step 5
Add white
shapes for the eyes and nose (these are modified ellipses as well – I’ve just changed the position of the anchor handles slightly). Copy the eyes,
keeping them in your clipboard for a
while. Turn the white shapes into a Compound
Path by selecting all of them at once and pressing Control-8. Finally, use the Minus
Front function of Pathfinder to
cut out the holes.
Step 6
Paste in Front (Control-F) the eye shapes that you copied earlier, and move them a few pixels to the right. Cut off the unwanted part and fill the
newly created shape with darker color, showing the depth of the eye-pit.
Step 7
When all the elements are ready, spread them over the background, as in your
sketch. Add several tiny bones, tracing them with the Pencil Tool (N).
Step 8
Still
with the Pencil Tool (N) in hand,
outline a purple puddle under our monster. You can create a group
of overlapping ellipses for the same purpose as well, if it feels more
comfortable than using a pencil. Reveal
the big background circle behind the monster, which we created earlier, to see how our
character looks against the contrast backdrop.
Step 9
Change the
color of our ghost to the same shade of purple as on the background. Go to Object > Path > Offset Path and
create a 5 px outline, filling it
with white color to detach the ghost.
Step 10
Edit the other
ghosts and switch the color of our bats to white as well.
Step 11
Play with the
colors of the skulls, making some of them ivory-colored and adding
gradients to others.
Step 12
Finally,
select all parts of our monster and apply Offset
Path with 5 px Offset value
in order to create an outline.
Step 13
As a result
of the Offset Path, you’ll
have a lot of new shapes created and selected. Keeping this selection, press
the Unite button in Pathfinder and then place the created
outline under the monster by Sending it to Back it with the Shift-Control-[ key combination.
Step 14
Add a
subtle-colored background (beige, for example) to emphasize the composition without
distracting the viewers from the character. I’ve played with the colors of the background elements to see which one is better.
Boo! Your
Trick-or-Treat Candy Monster is Finished!
Great job! You’ve
successfully managed to create your own monster! Feed him well with the
yummy sweets to make him happy and smiling. I hope you’ve enjoyed
this tutorial and felt the bewitching spirit of this creepy yet exciting
holiday! Have fun and continue creating art!
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