Making cool vector cartoon character with Adobe Photoshop

Step one, creating the document

first step is to make a new document sized 280px on 230px.

then, paint it in gray: #888888 by using the ‘Paint Bucket Tool’.

Step two, making the cartoon head of the character

*important note: whenever you make a new object in photoshop- choose the ‘Shape layers’ option so it will be vector and you’ll be able to edit it later.

First thing you need to do is to choose the ‘Ellipse Tool’ (U) and make an ellipse in the general shape of the head.

*please note that you need to change the Foreground color to #FAD1BB before making the ellipse(one click on the currect foreground color, and then paste the desired color in the ‘#’ filed)

Here’s the result you need to get at this moment:

For making it a bit more human but still cartoonish, go to ‘Edit-Transform Path-Warp’ and choose the ‘fisheye’ option from the list

.

don’t change anything in the parameters in the top bar- 50% in the Bend and 0 in the rest.

Currect result in this step should be like this:

Now, go to the ‘blending options’ of this layer and add stroke effect of 3px in black (#000000) color.

click on the ‘new style’ button in there because we’ll use this style again.

Choose the ‘ellipse tool’ again and draw a new ellipse, paint it in the same color like before, change the mode to Multiply and make it 50% opacity.

next, choose the ‘Path Selection Tool’ and select the new ellipse path.

a new top bar will be shown in front of you. choose the ’subtract from shape area’option:

One click on the layer and then click ‘ctrl+alt+g’ for making the clipping mask.

Choose the ‘Pen Tool’ (P) and start drawing the hair. after finishing- click ‘ctrl+alt+g’ and add this shape to the clipping mask. Paint the hair shape in black (#000000)

Next thing you should do is making the eyes shapes. this will be done with the next method:

(1.) choose the ’rounded rectangle tool’ and change the ‘radius’ to 10px (2.) change the shape color to #B91919 (3.) go to ‘edit-transform path-skew’ and change it so it will look like below image (4.) choose the ellipse tool and make a perfect circle by holding on shift and dragging the mouth. do it 3 times in different sizes and paint those circles in white (#ffffff)

(5.) select the red eye layer, duplicate it and then make it smaller but still in the same ratio as the right one. then go to ‘edit-transform-flip horizontal’ and move this layer to the left area of the face

(6.) select again from the layers group the 3 white circle layers (hold ctrl and click on each layer), duplicate them and transform them a bit so they will fit into the left smaller eye.

and you’re done with the eyes part. here’s the desired result you should get after doing the above steps:

last part of the face you need to do is making the mouth. This will be done very easily..

all you need to do is to choose the ‘Line Tool’ (U) and draw a simple 10px horizontal line. then, go to ‘edit-transform-warp’ and then choose the ‘Arc’ option from the list.

change the values to the ones in the next image:

then rotate it a bit: go to ‘edit-transform path-rotate’ and change the values like below:

congrats! you’re done with the whole face part. the result till now should be like here:

Part three, hands part with the message

First thing you should do in this step is to make a bourdeaux rectangle (#7b0d0d).

duplicate this layer, paint it in a bit lighter color (#b91919) and transform this layer to 60% height.

Now, you need to make your message. I chose ‘futura’ font colored #fdffce and wrote ‘TUTORIALSHOT”.

and now to the hands making part- (1.) choose the ’rounded rectangle tool’ (U) and leave the values at the top bar like before (10px radius). (2.) when the path of this rounded rectangle is selected, choose the ‘rectangle tool’, choose the ’subtract from shape area’ in the top bar

and “remove” the right rounded side of the rounded rectangle.

Paint this layer in #f7bea2.

apply the style we have done in step two with the stroke.

Next, duplicate this layer (right click on the layer > duplicate layer), go to ‘edit-transform-flip horizontal’ and move it to the left size of the message.

Select the whole message layers (I count 5) and rotate all of them (edit-transform-rotate) with the next values:

last nice effect is the message drop shadow on the character face. this will be done by the next steps:

(1.) duplicate the bourdeaux colored layer (2.) move the duplicated layer to the clipping mask you made before (3.) paint in #fad1bb (4.) change the mode to Multiply.

Here’s my final result: