pop art vector

Step 1: Pop Art Vector
To start our pop art vector tutorial, we’ll start with a line drawing of the face in the foreground. This line drawing could be with simple strokes, nothing too complicated.

Next, we’ll create the shadows with objects filled with solid black. Use the Pen Tool (P) to draw the objects and try to give the illustration volume and movement. Pay special attention to how we draw the strokes of the hair and the shadow under the chin.

Step 2
Choose the colors that you would like to use in your pop art vector illustrations. I chose the typical colors used in pop art illustrations for a more obvious effect, but you can choose colors that best represent your photo (if you drew from a photo) or illustration.

Step 3
Next, we will create the swatches for the dotted background of the objects.

We need the grid guide to make the dot swatch for each color. Reveal the grid by going to View > Show Grid. Make sure you have “Snap to Grid” enabled. Go to View > Snap Grid to check if it’s enabled. If it has a check mark next to it, it’s enabled. If not, click to enable.

Draw two circles with the Ellipse Tool (L). Hold down Shift while drawing the ellipse to constrain the proportions and create the circle. The space between the circles would determine the predominant color in the sample. The closer the circles are, the more predominant the color of the circle will be as the background color. Also, the more space the dots have, the more noticeable they will be to the human eye. In this tutorial, I would like to make them quite noticeable.

Step 4
Now duplicate the two circles and rotate them 90 degrees with the Rotate Tool (R). Click and hold the Shift key to rotate in 45-degree increments. Then draw a square with the Rectangle Tool (M) where each side goes through the center point of the circles.

step 5
Duplicate each set of squares + dots four times, one for each color our illustration has. Now fill in each set of circles with the colors from our illustration. Finally, fill the square with white. We are now ready to create the swatches from these elements! Select the first square with the circles inside it and go to Edit > Define Pattern. Give your swatch a name if you like and click OK to create the swatch. Repeat the process for the other colors. You will see the new swatches available in the Swatches Panel.

Step 6
Replace the colors of the objects in our illustration with the new swatches. Select each object and click on the corresponding swatch in the Swatches Panel. It’s definitely starting to look like a pop art vector!

If you’re not happy with how the swatches look like patterns in your artwork, you can play with the background color to create other tones.

Step 7
Now we are going to deal with the strokes used to give expression to the face. These are single strokes with no fill. There are for the profile of the nose, cheeks, forehead, etc. Open the brushes panel (Window > Brushes) and click on the top right icon to reveal its menu. Select Open Brush Library > Artistic > Artistic_Ink.

A new panel will appear. Now select one of the strokes and click on the bottom brush called “Tapered Stroke” in the panel we just opened. Do the same with the rest of the strokes. I applied the brush to all my elements in the illustration to have the edges between them perfectly aligned.

step 8
If the fine line brush is too wide or too thin (depending on the size of your artwork), you can adjust the width of the brush. Go to the brushes panel where you will find the brush you use for the expression lines. When you select a brush in any of the Brush Library panels, it is automatically added to the main Brush Panel. Double-click the brush and on the Width slider, move the arrow to the left to make the stroke thinner or to the right to make it wider. Click OK when you’re done.

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