Hi everyone ! Well digital art or vector art are based generally on your will to get the perfect work. All what you need is some confidence and lot of patience and don’t worry, you’re gonna NAIL IT!

These are the steps that you should follow to get this kid’s picture done: It’s kind of a kid in anime style (and for people who do not know what anime is, which I doubt, its Japanese comics).

Final Result

Let’s see what you will be creating in this tutorial.

Create ‘A Kid Stuck On Glass’ Character in Photoshop

1. To start with, you should get your drawing done:

Actually, all my drawings are handmade (except flat design characters which are made directly using Inkscape). That’s why don’t worry if you have no graphic tablet ‘cause it’s not difficult at all to work manually.

DO the sketching using a 2b pencil (you can use B or F or 4h but 2B is my favorite) and a simple white paper. The sketching should be clear and simple, the lines should be clear when you scan the picture so you can ink it easily.

2. The inking:

After uploading the drawing to your computer using a scanner or a camera, you’ll open the software “Inkscape” (or Adobe illustrator). I prefer working using Inkscape to ink this type of pictures ‘cause its easy to use and fast: click on the button highlighted as shown in the picture below or press (Maj+F6).

Now, click on the top of some random line in the pic and another click in the other edge of the same line. You’ll get a straight line. To make it soft and wavy click on the button highlighted as shown in the picture below or press (F2).

Repeat the same process until you ink the whole picture.

Finally select the picture in the inkscape file and press delete. You’ll get only the pure inked picture which is ready to be filled and colored.

3. Coloring, filling and editing the picture:

Open Adobe Photoshop (the version I am using is Ps cs5),open your picture in a new file.

Select the layer of the pic and Click on the right button of the mouse and select duplicate layer name the new layer: “final inking” and keep it in the top of the layer panel and lock it by clicking on the lock pic in the top of the layer panel.

Now you’ll work on the first layer.

Start filling it using colors from the colors panel on the right. To fill empty areas use the usual paint bucket tool: the skin color should get darker when it comes to the areas stuck to glass.

To make the skin color darker easily without choosing a new color, you’ll click on the white /black color tool at the end of the tools panel and a window will appear to you: called “color picker(foreground color)”. Now click on the skin color in your pic.

Now to make it darker, pull the cursor to the direction marked by the red arrow. to make it clearer, pull the cursor to the direction marked by the blue arrow as mentioned in the picture below.

Now after filling all the picture you’ll get this result in the picture below.

You’ll feel that something is missing right ? Yes of course ‘cause what makes the pic more realistic are the shadows. That’s why you’ll pick the same dark skin color and add another layer and fill some spaces under the neck and the front face.

And we should not forget about the eyes ! so we will pick another color which is kind of grey (# fffffe) and fill some space in the top of the eyes as mentioned in the picture below.

4. Get the glass effect!

Now we will add a dark background (black will be great!) and add in a new layer in the bottom of the layer panel. So, the picture will look the way in the picture.

And finally, let’s add the glass effect. I picked a picture from the internet (cause I was in a bit of a hurry.. you can find different effects by just googling “glass effect”). Adjust the downloaded picture to your picture and HERE WE GO … WE DID IT !

To get the final picture in any resolution you want, click File. Click Save as and choose the format (I do always prefer png format)

And that’s it, your final result will be as the pictures below.

I hope my tutorial was helpful and thank you!