Advanced Adobe Illustrator Cartoon Coloring Tutorial

Adobe Illustrator Tutorial using Pen, Live Paint and Gradients.

In this advanced Adobe Illustrator tutorial we will be going through a coloring process using Live Paint for flat colors, the knife tool to create easy shadows, and transparent gradients to our character. In this easy to follow tutorial we will be going through our resource document to build our cartoon character and practice using the pen tool and gradient panel.

Anchor Point Guides

Anchor point guides are designed to make life easier as you are learning where to place anchors and how to adjust handles.

Pen Tool

We will be using our 2 step approach to the pen tool. The first is using straight lines to just get down our anchor points. We will then be using the convert anchor tool to create curves and handles.

Advanced Coloring

We will be adding flat color using Live Paint to build our flat color areas. We will add a light source by adding transparent gradients and cast shadows using the knife tool.

Illustrator Drawing Tutorial

Using Resource Folder

1. Place the anchor point guide into NEW illustrator document and scale to fit the 5″x 5″ artboard. In your layers menu select Template Layer. Create a New layer ABOVE IT for inking.

Using the Pen Tool

2. Trace the image using the shape and pen tool. There should be no fill when using the pen tool. Use straight line and the convert anchor point tool to create your curves.

Custom Brushes

3. Add OUR custom brushes library to create variation in your lines. Expand the lines and use the eraser tool to erase overlapping or unwanted lines. Unite brushes in pathfinder panel.

Using Live Paint

4. Select All – Object- Live Paint. Fill in flat colors wIth our color palette or find others on https://color.adobe.com/ Object – Expand live paint. Ungroup (3X) or until you can select individual shapes.