In today's video, you'll learn how to
design a flat character illustration using Adobe illustrator and just a few steps. My name is Cosmin and I'll walk you
through the entire process, from start to finish, and I'll show you how to find
inspiration and how to actually create the vector illustration. To get started I like to go on Instagram because
this is how I find the inspiration. I was looking through Instagram through
a couple of flat design tags and I stumbled upon this amazing designer. She's called Olga Semklo,
and she's doing this really cute illustrations where she's playing
with a lot of negative space. Now I was thinking you would be a
great idea to actually go through the process and try to create something like
this and teach you guys how to do it. So this is how I found my inspiration. And before I move any further,
I need to find a character to draw, to find the best references. I usually go on Unsplash.com Or on pexels.com, this time around
I'll go on Getty images where you can find a lot of images for reference. So I'm going to look for my character. My character is going to be
a man smiling, pretty basic. Right?
So man, smiling or even a smiling man. Would that be enough? I looked through a couple. Let's see what I can find. I'm trying to find somebody
who's a bit more unique. Yeah.
I like this guy. So what I'm going to do, I'm
going to take a screenshot. Now, the thing is that I'm not
going to use this in a commercial project or anything like that. I'm strictly going to
use this as a reference. So that's why I took a screenshot of it. Before I jumped into Illustrator I wanted to take a look over the
illustrations that Olga is doing and Actually, try to get a feel of
what are the rules she's following to build these illustrations. So if you can take a look, for
example, for some characters, she uses outlines for faces or for some characters she doesn't, right? So for this one, she uses an outline for
the face and for this one, only where multiple shapes overlap. When they overlap, They usually create a hard shadow. Now I saw the shadow is black. A lot of times, sometimes is she
plays with opacity In this example, she plays with opacity
and this is probably something multiplied on top to give that impression. So usually you have some
kind of a Mark and kind of an outline in the ear as well. The facial features are super simple. You can see some small eyebrows, again,
outlines for the eyes, outline for the nose. And probably outlines
for the mouth as well. So I'm going to take that into
consideration when I'm going to create this illustration. Now let's jump into illustrator and
let's create a new document and going to name it flat character Olga's style. Okay. And hit create, from here, I'm going to
go to view and disabled snap to pixel. I usually don't like it when that's
enabled, close down, some of. These panels so I can see artboard,
and I'm going to bring my reference here. Let me search it on a separate monitor. Once you place it, you can
place it anywhere you like. Maybe one example would also help
to give me a sense of how her illustrations are being built. So for that, I'll go and find
maybe this illustration, right. Again, I'm going to take a
screenshot because I'm going to use it as a reference. Now, I have the illustration
as well as reference and I can start building up my character. So I'm going to loosely base it
off of this guy to get started. I started with the ellipse tool with an empty stroke. Let's say a light gray as a fill. This is the base for, for the head. And then I want to. See how it goes, kind of, it
kind of goes square at the top. So I'm going to do some like that as well. Take the rectangle to some
like that should look fine. I'm going to go with the frontal view. So this is like a three-quarters
view, a side view, but I'm going to go straight, straight ahead
and then I need to figure out the Hair. So the hair is going
to be something darker. Let's double click on the fill,
select a different color. And from the middle, probably
go like this holding down shift. So it's straight, place a couple
of points. I don't really like the corners too much. So with the direct selection tool, I'll select those anchors and round them up a bit. Okay. So now for the eyebrows, I'm not
sure if it's an oval shape and it looks like a normal shape. Let's try something different. So I'll take the
rectangle tool and create. Rectangle. And then using the direct
selection tool, I'll drag on these handles and make this shape. I like to maybe try something,
something a little bit different. Let me scale this out. I honestly needed to be a bit longer,
so I'll double click on it, select the, with the direct selection tool and
make it larger, have it at an angle. And if you want to duplicate
it, go to the mirror tool. So the reflect tool, place
a point in the middle. And while holding down the Alt key and Shift You can make a duplicate. For the eyes, I'm just going to use an
ellipse, a simple ellipse. These should be good enough. I'm holding down shift and the
all key to make a duplicate and hold it at the same level, for the nose, I'll have a nose. That's a stroke tagline. So for that, I'll go to the Pen tool.
With the pen tool selected, inverse the color and let's make it Three points stroke. So for this shape, I don't
really like this curve. So I'm going to go. Where was the smooth tool? Yeah. Where the pencil tool is. You have the smooth tool and you can
make smoother, smoother paths, just by going over it a couple of times. And from the stroke panel, I'll probably
select the rounded joint and cap. Yeah. I think this looks, this looks a bit
better doing the same thing for the mouth, I'll have the same styling apply. Let's see how this looks. It's pretty decent. Let's give it a color. Just, just because I want
to, I want to see it. How, how it will look like, so let's go to a red, something in a middle. Yeah. It kind of like, Olga also has
some hair strays, so let's see if I can do something like that. Get this a bit up. And with it selected. So I had the styling already here. I just selected on this. Something like this. Yeah, it looks good. Even though the head
is a bit too, too tall. I'll take the direct selection tool. And make it smaller, something like this. It kind of looks like a Lego or something. So now I have the facial features. I also need the ears. Yeah. So for the ears, I'll take
the ellipse tool, go here. Let's sample with the eyedropper tool, let's
sample this color and create an ear. Maybe make it a bit bigger. Yeah. Something like this and make a
duplicate or the other side as well. And while you have this style selected. Go ahead and create a stroked outline. I think this is a bit much,
I'll bring it closer here. I'll do the same thing on
the other ear as well. Yeah. This is starting to look more like a,
like a character that Olga would draw, I need the neck, the neck area. This is going to be the
same color as the face. Right. And this is what I'm talking about. When you are going to create
the neck, I'm using very simple shapes and I'm sending it. Um, behind everything let's
right-click and send it to the back. Now, you can't really see the definition
of the, of the next so for that to work, You need a stroke like this,
but it needs to follow the the contour of the face. To do that, Select the face, copy and paste
in front, and then our sample with the eyedropper tool, the outline. And now you can see now you can
see the outline, but I don't want it to go around everything. I just wanted to go, like from here, to over here. So for that, I'll select it and add points
where I want a dark line to cut off. And we, the direct selection tool, I'll
select the other ones and hit backspace or delete or remove or whatever you want. So now you have some kind of a separation
between these elements. In Olga's style She also has a dark shape
that's acting as a shadow. So for that, I select that
shape to reference, just to get the styling and with Pen tool, I'll draw something like this and
something that follows along the neckline. And now you have the shadow. Now this is a bit of small. Maybe now I can move on
to the body, for the body, I want to do something that's, So I want something to blend
in with the actual background. I don't, I don't want something
that stands out like this white. I want something that's blending
out with the background. So for that, I'll take
the pen to draw a shape. A random shape. I'm going to cut it afterwards. So it doesn't really matter. So with this shape, what I'm
going to do is sample the stroke outline, but as You can see once you've sent it
behind the neck, uh, doesn't really continue that line. So for this to work, I'm going to actually
do something a little bit different, with it selected I'll make a copy of
the, of the head, place it over there. And then with both shapes
selected, go to the shape builder remove these parts, right? So you only have this one, which
is going to be on top, but now the neck doesn't continue over here. So I'm going to have to,
uh, do that first off. Let's select the white fill so you can
see the other parts of the neck and with the next select that I'm going to create. A shape that goes behind everything,
the shape let's send it to the back. So I want to have some kind of
a definition for some hands. Maybe, maybe he's pointing
to her, something down. Let's make his eyes go lower. Like he's looking at something down. I don't want to have something
on the right-hand side. So I'll just leave something here. As you can see on, on the clothes. These characters have some kind
of a, some kind of a pattern. Yeah. First off let's, let's check it out. How it will look like with the background. So we'll take the rectangle
to send it to the back and I'm going to sample this exact color. This is kind of, I did a meant for this
and it kind of looks like negative space, but I'm going to actually click to make
it lighter, even lighter than this. Now, what I would like to do is have
this area transparent, so far that first off I need to merge these two, go to
window, pathfinder is probably over here. Yep. Let's merge them. And now I want to create a copy
and paste it in front of this one. And with both ships selected called to the
shape builder tool and evolve the access. Right. And now I can have something
with an empty field. It kind of goes on with there, let's
bring these up, so they don't go out of the illustration, even though you could
have a pretty interesting style that way. Okay. So now you have kind of the
base of the illustration. What I'm going to do is add a
couple of details using maybe the curvature tool, let's sample the white
and using this curvature tool. Maybe I can create something
that goes on the t-shirt. I think this is a pretty
interesting pattern. If you would go over here more,
I would like it even better, I've also seen like, uh, there's always
some kind of a motif with, with a stroked outline, with the selected,
I'm going to create a stroked path. Maybe, maybe have something like a floral pattern. Um, what if, okay, so. Something like this, but haven't quite
changed a stroke fill over there. And now I'm going to create something
like leaves, but again, very minimal. This needs to be smaller because
I would like for it to become smaller and smaller, something like this. Okay. And now I'm going to duplicate each one. So I'll select that and go
over here to the reflect tool and place it somewhere on the STEM. And with ALT key selected, you can make
a duplicate, but you can also keep The rotation this way and the spacing
consistent, some, something like this, um, maybe have something at the end,
so it's not as basic as it is now. Let's place it closer. So it kind of comes off him
and bring this to the front. So it masks where they meet
and let's have the same thing over on the other side as well. Uh, with, with a selected, I'll try to
find the middle spot and with ALT key Duplicate it. So this is the final
look of the illustration. Thank you for joining me today. Don't forget to like this video. So more people could see
it and subscribe for more. It means a lot to me, and it means
that I can make more of these videos. Let me know, in the comment section,
if you have a particular favorite designer that you follow on dribble or
on Instagram, and maybe I'll check it out and see if I can break down the process of
how to create something similar to them. Thank you again for watching. See you in the next video. Bye.
