Create a Graffiti-Inspired Illustration Using Photoshop and Illustrator
Tutorial Details
- Program: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Estimated Completion Time: 3 Hours
Download Source Files
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Photoshop and Illustrator compliment each other in many ways. Today we will demonstrate how you can use them in tandem to draw and color a graffiti-inspired illustration. Let’s get started!
Before You Begin
Before you begin, it’s always good to do a bit of planning. For graffiti art, do some research and keep it in mind when you begin planning out your sketch. Use thicker lines for the outline, thinner lines for the inner details, and wispy lines for more defined creases.
Step 2
Sketch out a drawing and scan it at 300 DPI. When you’re finished, go ahead and make a new document in Illustrator. Go to File > Place and place your image on the canvas.
Step 3
Use your favorite brush to do the thick outline of your character and add in the face’s main details such as eyes, mouth, ears and nose. I changed up the eyes and nose for a more flowing appearance. The brushes I used are just the default circles.
Step 4
To add a more Graffiti look to your piece, you’ll create five brushes of your choice but keep in mind to make sure they have some sort of point at the end, and also make one white. Now use these brushes to trace the lines of your sketch.
Step 5
Once you’ve traced your sketch, it’s now time to start adding in the details. I’ve added speckles to the tongue, eyebrows and neck while adding rough lines to parts of the piece. I also decided to add white highlights to it so it would balance out the dense look. Once you’ve finished with the line art, save this Illustrator file and bring it in to Photoshop to add color. You could do this in Illustrator if you wanted to but for the purposes of this tutorial we will do it in Photoshop.
Step 6
Now open up your lovely file in Photoshop. First, I choose where and how I’m going to incorporate my base colors in my piece. I decide to make the outline a darkish brown, while highlights and coloring will be a mix of light brown and blue. I start by holding down Cmd/Ctrl and clicking on my line art layer to make a selection. With the selection still active, delete the line art layer, make a new one and fill it you’re your desired color.
Step 7
Next, choose your base color. For mine, the face will be colored a light brown. First, make a new layer underneath the line art, then take the Magic Wand Tool and select the whole inside of the face. Go to Select > Modify > Expand and expand the selection by 1 or 2 pixels. This is so we won’t have ugly spaces between the coloring and the outline while keeping a smooth appearance. Repeat until every space of this color is filled in, which should only be the parts you’ve decided will have it.
Step 8
Go ahead and choose a slightly darker version of the base color you used, we will be adding the shadows. Pick places where you think shading would look best and use the pen tool to create fills.
Step 9
Take your third color, which will be for filling certain areas of the piece and making it more colorful. As I said, I chose a blue in which I colored places like Eyebrows, tongue, and certain places of the neck. Remember to add a darker shade of blue for shadows in these areas as well.
Step 10
I chose to put more highlights in this piece, which usually gives it a more vibrant and detailed look. I decided to put blue highlights under the line art in creases to add to the appearance.
Step 11
Color in everything else you’ve missed, but remember to balance the colors evenly throughout the whole piece.
Step 12
We can’t just have a plain background, right? Add a gradient to the background. I chose white and blue, the same colors I used for shading.
Step 13
To outline the figure, flatten your coloring layers and outline together to form one layer, which you can easily do by just Right Click > Merge Down. Next Cmd/Ctrl + Click on that layer and go to Select > Modify > Expand and expand by 8 pixels. Make a new layer underneath your character and fill it with white.
Step 14
Take your pen tool and start drawing the desired shapes underneath both the white outline and figure layers. Then fill it in with a color in sync with the rest of your piece. You can keep adding to this layer until you achieve a desired result. One thing to keep in mind though, background effects for single illustrations always make it look more appealing.
Final Image
I’m very pleased you’ve read through the whole tutorial, and hopefully you got some needed tips on how to make a full-blown illustration in the Graffiti style. There are tons of different versions of this style, but I wanted to share my own with all of you and the process I go through. Make sure to keep experimenting and make up your own crazy elements to which you could take to the streets!
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Awesome work dude.
i’ll definitiv test this.
Thank you so much! <3
thank, pandamore. i have add your work in my blog, it really nice.
http://click9.net/2010/09/04/best-character-drawing-in-photoshop/
Amazing result!
Thank you!
Hey Sarah…
Didn’t now you had this in store ^^. Great tutorial, congratulations.
Oh hey! xD Thank you^^ cant wait to get started on the collab ;D
Wow nice tut can’t wait till i get some time to complete it
Thank you! Hope you try it sometime ;D
Graffiti style? This is a nice illustration, but there is no “graffiti style” whatsoever
Please keep in mind every artist has their style, and me painting with this style still makes this graffiti. This is only the cropped, digital version of the physical piece.
Nice, i love the eye hanging out.
Thak you!
Stoked to try your methods! Love the outcome too.
I’m so glad!
Very cool illustration and techniques. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you! <3
Nice tutorial, great techniques. One thing though, that gradient is a disaster.
Thank you ^^ I’m sorry you do not like the gradient though :/
There isn’t anything graffiti about this
I never said it is? It says “inspired” bud, you do the design on paper before you put it on the wall
Yes, I do make a reference sketch before I paint.
I don’t do a photoshop/illustrator mock-up and I wouldn’t want to paint this design either since it has to delicate linework, unless your planning on using brushes or masking tape. The overlayed background elements would also prove a problem.
Still, I disagree with it being graffiti-inspired with no disrespect to the design. I can’t pinpoint any stylistic influences from any era, geographical style or specific artist nor the genre in it’s whole. It does however remind me of a skatedeck.
“To add a more Graffiti look to your piece, you’ll create five brushes of your choice but keep in mind to make sure they have some sort of point at the end, and also make one white. Now use these brushes to trace the lines of your sketch.” Does using five brushes make it more graffiti esque, or them having some sort of point?
Either way, it’s a good tutorial in it’s own right. I just hope that even if I may sound like a pompous bastard (which I am a lil’ bit) it won’t change the validity of my arguments because I deem them quite solid.
This is MY own style of graffiti to work with, which is what made me do a digital version following the guidelines I usually use when I do paint. Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear, it’s just the versions I put up along with a similar style the other graffiti artists work with. Saying it has no stylish pinpoint from an artist tells me you’ve never seen anyother graffiti than the regular “wording” which makes it hard for me to believe. Me painting this on a brick wall, while maintaining my own style and the complete design and details makes it graffiti, and making this digital version makes it “inspired”
Those back designs weren’t put in for the physical copy btw, it’s only for filling the space for the digital. I’m 13 for the love of god and pissing at me for saying it’s no where NEAR related to graffiti, which is what I did for this design in the first place, makes it frusturating, thank you
You also say you wouldn’t be painting this without brushed or masking tape, but every character graffiti artist including myself make those a neccessity for whatever design we’re creating, including the traditional tools.
I love the final looking
Wow! You’ve got some talent for a 13 year old!
Lookin forward to some more Illustration tuts!
Great inspiration!!! i must say
will try that for sure…
Thanks alot
Hmm- I can’t see any pictures at all. I am from Germany and I tried several Browsers, emptied my browsercash. The same on vectortuts.
Strange. I can see them. I’m Dutch.
Anyway, liked the tutorial!
I can’t see any images either. I’m from Portugal and I’ve tried several browsers and even several computers and internet connections. For instance, image http://psd.tutsplus.com/0543_Graffiti_Illustration/Starting_image.png that’s on top of this page takes me to a 404 error page. It’s been like this for weeks.
Actually, the link of the final preview, for instance, is http://cdn.psd.tutsplus.com/0543_Graffiti_Illustration/Final_image.png but it’s being forwarded to http://psd.tutsplus.com/0543_Graffiti_Illustration/Final_image.png. And that corresponds to a 404 page. That happens only with the images of the tutorials, not with the layout or avatars.
i can’t see pictures too, Trying ie, ff, chrome, I’m from Russia. This problem only on the tuts + network sites.
I can see pictures only using hidemyass.com website
The same here from Florence, no images!
No images here on all tuts+ websites. i have this problem since a few days. happy i’m not the only one with this issue.
hopefully they’ll fix it soon!
No images here on all tuts+ websites. i have this problem since a few days. happy i’m not the only one with this issue.
hopefully they’ll fix it soon!
I don’t think it’s supposed to be funny, but the face of the guy makes me laugh.
thanks, gave me some nice iddeas for my upcoming projects
This is a really cool tip. Thanks for the share. Willing be using it for a wallpaper design in my office.
Thanks for sharing your techniques and tips in creating the Graffiti inspired illustration! Very easy tutorial to follow!
Wow, this is the best tutorial in months. Thank you.
Thanks for this great tutorial! I love the PS/IA – combo
Man, this looks insane! The tutorial is easy to understand, but sadly, I’m not good enough at drawing, so there’s no way I can get such stunning result. Still, thanks