Creating a Digibug Character using Adobe Illustrator
Welcome to this the first in a series of DigiBLOGS! In this tutorial we're going to show you how to create one of our Digibug Characters in under 5 Minutes using only 3 main tools - Sounds simple right, well it is, read on!
Firstly let us introduce you to our WebBUG, he's always knee deep in code surrounded by more computers than Nasa - well maybe!! Now WebBUG is probably one of the simplest characters to create and with this being a beginners tutorial we think this is an ideal place to start!
Ok - Lets take a close look at the individual elements that make up our WebBUG, as you can see arms, legs, ears and hair are all pretty simple shapes in their own right but when putting all of these shapes together you can really start to produce characters that show real personality.
One of the best things about creating your illustrations in this was is the flexibility it gives you further down the line, for example it's easy to create individual poses by simply rotating and scaling different body parts, see some of WebBUG's poses below.
Lets get this show on the road...
Step 1:
Ok the first thing we're going to do is creat the Digibug body, it's bascially a perfect ellipse, so click onto the Primary shapes tools and select Ellipse (or press [L] key). Once selected hold the shift key and then click and drag to create a circle. Then you need to make sure the fill colour is 80% Black.
Step 2:
Next going back to the Primary shape tools, this time select the Rectangle box, as before click and drag on the canvas to create a box shape that overlaps the top of the Ellipse. We will then be cutting the Rectangle box away from the Ellipse by using the pathfinder tool. Once your happy with your Rectangles position, select both items and then with your Pathfinder panel open click
Step 3:
Now that the basic body shape is complete we're going to work on the hair and ears. This is a tricky process to explain so at the end of the written explination you will see a video demonstration of how this works.
Creating a box
Lets start with the hair, now we should still have the Rectangle tool selected so lets draw a perfect square this time. Holding down shift, click and drag to make a small box.
Rotating your box
Now if you hold down the cmd key on mac and ctrl key on pc, then hover your mouse near the edge of this box and you'll notice the curser change shape to two arrows, this indicates that you can now rotate this item, hold the mouse button down and see for yourself, if you hold the Shift key down it will snap to 45 degree angles. Ok we want to rotate our box 45 degrees.
Duplicating your box
Make sure you have nothing selected and then hover your mouse over the edge of the left centre point - you should see the mouse icon change to show a small box - holding down the cmd + alt key (ctrl + alt on PC) you will then see the arrow turn white, this means that your now ready to duplicate this item to wherever you drag it. Click and drag the box so your mouse overlaps the righthand centre point, you should see the both small arrows turn white when your in the right spot, then its simply a case of press cmd+D (ctrl+D on PC) twice to make a couple more duplicates. TIP: Press cmd+D (Ctrl+D on PC) will duplicate your last action, this works with many operations, rotation, scale etc...
Merging your boxes
Once you have your four boxes, highlight them all and using the pathfinder click the Unite mode to merge all four boxes together. Once you've merged your boxes its time to position these on top of the head. You will need to scale your boxes up or down to fit, we recommend that you position the hair by using the right middle point and then snapping this over the top right point of the head, this then easily alows you to scale down the hair using the left middle point while holding the shift key.
Step 4:
Lets move onto the ears, for this you need to use the Ellipse & Pen tool. Start by drawing a small circle. Then select the Pen Tool and create six points as shown here, then with the last point click and drag so the line bends to look like it's curving to the ancle.
Once you've completed these shapes select them both and merge the items in the same way as the hair boxes.
Duplicate and Flip
Now that you have one complete one ear its
a simple case of copying this as a mirror image, to do this we'll use
the reflect tool - Highlight your ear and then use the same
method as we did in step 3 for duplicating the boxes, then with the copied ear selected use
the reflect tool to click and drag in a circular motion, if you hold
the shift key at the same time it will snap to 45 Degree angles. You'll need to scale one ear down so it's smaller than the other, once you've done this position them onto the head, you will also need to squash the hair width so that it just touches the ears.
Now that the head is complete we need to highlight all the individual elements and using our rotate method give the whole head a slight tilt.
Step 5:
Arms & Legs are next to be create. Starting with the arms make a small circle using the ellipse tool and duplicate it for the second hand. Moving these into position you then use the pen tool and create a curved line with two simple points, one in the hand itself and the other where the sholder would be. Holding the mouse button when clicking your second point will let you curve your lines.
For the Legs you will again need to use the Pen Tool. Make your first point start at the top of the leg, then move you mouse down to the base of the foot area and hold shift when clicking your second point, this will force the line to be perfectly straight, again using shift click where the toe end is. The ancle point needs to be slightly higher so you'll need to let go of the shift key for this one, then again holding shift move back upto the top of the leg, job done!
Duplicate and Flip
Now in exaclty the same was as we duplicated and fliped the ears we'll highlight your first leg and then duplicate it. Select the copied leg and use the reflect tool to click and drag in a circular motion, dont forget if you hold the shift key at the same time it will snap to 45 Degree angles. Once your happy with your duplicated leg position them both onto the body.
Step 6:
Nearly there, we're moving onto the eyes new. Using the Ellipse tool you need to draw three perfect circles by holding Shift and dragging. One for the eye, the second for the puple and the third for the small light reflection. Colour and position these accordingly, the Digibug green colour values are C 50% - M 0% - Y 100% - K 0%. Once you have these in the right location we'll need to cut away the tops using the same method as the head in stage 1.
Tip: Before cutting your shape away from the eye copy your cutter shape, once you make your cut the shape will be removed, all you then need to do is press cmd+F (ctrl+F on PC) to paste your copied shape back in front therefore alowing you to cut away the eyeball shape in exactly the same way.
Once your happy with your first eye, group these together by selecting all three elements and pressing cmd+G (ctrl+G on PC). Now as before we need to Duplicate, flip and position accordingly.
Final Step:
Lastly is our small tooth, we'll finish with the easiest part of the character, for this we use the Rectangle shape, draw the tooth shape on the face and then using the Direct Selection Tool select the top left point of the box and then using your arrow keys give it a few clicks down to give it a slight slant!!!!
Your Done!! Congratulations, you've completed your first Digibug Character design!
We hope that you found this tutorial useful and remember the more you use these primary methods the easier you'll find it to create characters or illustrations that become increasinly complex.
Keep an eye out for more DigiBlogs coming soon or better still signup to our Blog RSS feed by clicking here!
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Dorset Loves Digibug...
