hello everyone this is Chris from spoon
graphics back with another video
tutorial for Adobe Illustrator today
we're gonna have some fun creating a
retro mascot character design of a hot
dog using inspiration from the classic
cartoon style of the 1930s known as
rubber hose
imagine the early Disney or Fleischer
Studios characters with their bendy
limbs pie-shaped eyes and three-fingered
hands in white gloves well he was a
combination of the brush and blob tools
to construct the illustration from
scratch then incorporate a limited color
palette and subtle texturing to suit the
retro look I'll show you some of my
favorite illustrating techniques and
brush settings to help you draw your own
fun character design the idea for this
character came from a couple of signs
outside the general store full of
vintage memorabilia that visited during
my recent trip to America the sign
seemed to be from an old movie theater
and featured a soda cop and hot dog
turned into cartoon characters with
chubby smiles walking along in a happy
pose I've since seen loads of other
great examples of similar mascots via
Pinterest in google featuring all kinds
of anthropomorphic objects or with cute
facial expressions and gleeful
mannerisms check out my showcase of
character illustrations inspired by
1930s cartoons over a spoon graphics is
a starting point to gather some
inspiration today's video is sponsored
by Envato elements the ultimate creative
toolkit for designers and vital elements
saves you time effort and money with
unlimited downloads of premium design
and stock templates we're talking over
600,000 creative items made from the
world's best designers including print
templates graphics photos fonts and now
royalty free audio tracks too and vital
elements literally has all the creative
assets you need under one flexible
budget friendly subscription check them
out today by hitting the link in the
video description below to create your
own retro hot dog character begin by
opening Adobe Illustrator and create a
new document the size doesn't really
matter because the artwork will be in
scaleable vectors so I prefer to simply
go to view and hide artboards to give
myself a nice large work area select the
blob brush and then double-click the
tool to edit it setting
move the slider to maximum smoothness
then bump the size to around 100 points
if the pressure option is set change it
to fixed draw three slightly curved
lines to represent the sausage and
button making all three roughly the same
curvature but the middle ones slightly
longer it can take a few attempts to
find the perfect stroke so use the
command or control key on Windows and Z
shortcuts undo and try again give the
two outer shapes a color fill to
represent the button then the middle one
a swatch that represents the sausage
remove the shapes into place overlapping
them slightly it's best to use basic
shapes to construct the main body
wherever possible but to illustrate the
face and hand some freehand drawing is
necessary create a new layer then lock
the original to avoid accidentally
selecting it bring up the layers panel
by the View menu if it isn't visible
already I've always had mine placed in
the bottom left but it might be hiding
elsewhere in a different workspace
layout select the regular brush tool
then reset the default black stroke and
clear out any film choose a rough brush
tip such as charcoal just to make these
sketch lines feel more organic then
reduce the opacity of the brush in the
top toolbar to around 10% begin
sketching out the eyes nose cheeks and
mouth to form a face if you're using a
pen tablet loosely sketching these
elements feels quite natural but it is
possible to draw with a mouse taking
inspiration from existing cartoons can
help you achieve the simplified art
style one advantage to sketching in
Illustrator is your brush strokes are
all saved as individual paths which
means you can easily move them around or
alter the size to perfect the appearance
loosely drawing a basic shape like a
circle then building up details with
darker lines is a really useful
technique make any tweaks to the layout
of the sketch lines then lock the layer
and create a new layer for inking a
great way to achieve a realistic inked
style with tapered lines is to create a
new brush it's like the ellipse tool and
draw a short and wide shape
click the new icon at the bottom of the
brushes panel then select new art brush
ok the settings and delete this shape
use this new brush to trace the sketch
with neatly drawn lines the thickness of
the lines can be adjusted by altering
the weights of the stroke to draw the
arms switch over to the blob brush
double click the tool to edit settings
and bring the size back down trace the
sketch lines with a thick stroke use the
brush tool again to trace the line work
of the hands
[Music]
use the direct selection tool to tweak
the paths once they've been drawn repeat
the process to draw the legs and feet
using the blob brush to create a thick
mono wait lines then the brush tour with
the tapered brush tip to ink the rough
sketch
[Music]
there are some other areas that need
blacking out namely the eyes and mouth
choose the broad brush settings to
enable pressure then trace and fill the
pupils of the eyes and the mouth use the
square bracket keys to alter the size of
the brush tip 2 I currently stay within
the lines to create the classic PI eye
shape use the pencil to draw a triangle
that overlaps the pupil switch back to
the move tool and hold the Alt key while
dragging the shape to make a duplicate
just like both the triangle shape and
the pupil shape while holding the shift
key then click the minus front botton in
the Pathfinder panel to cut the shape
out once the inking is complete draw a
selection around all the paths and press
command + X to cut the artwork turn off
the visibility of the sketch layer and
unlock the original artwork layer press
command in F to paste the line work back
in place make selections of the legs and
the arm in the background then right
click and choose arrange sense bike
those colored shapes currently don't
have a black outline select each one in
turn and press command + C and command +
F to copy and paste in front replace the
colored fill with a black stroke then
apply the tapered brush and bump up the
stroke way as appropriate if you want to
adjust where the taper starts and ends
use the scissors tool to clip the path
use the block brush tool to fill in any
other areas that require a fill color
such as the whites of the eyes also the
stacking order by repeatedly pressing
the command and square bracket shortcut
until the white shapes sit below the
black outlines the same method can be
used to fill the overlap where the
facial features extend beyond the edge
of the sausage don't forget to paint in
a shape to fill the white gloves it can
be difficult to see where the placed
against a white background so
temporarily turn the artboards back on
under the View menu then move the
artwork of the gray background send
these shapes to the bike so they sit
underneath the black line work
then turn the artboards back off
restricting the illustration to a
limited color palette is a good way to
tap into the retro style use the
existing colors to make fill shapes for
the other areas of the illustration soil
details like highlight lines are the
finishing touches that can bring an
illustration to life draw simple strokes
with the blob brush with a white fill a
shadow can help ground the character
draw an ellipse with a black fill and
send it to the bike draw a rectangle
over the entire illustration and choose
a neutral color as the film send this at
the bottom of the stack to act as a
background one last touches to add a
subtle texture overlay download and open
one of my photocopy textures into
Photoshop the texture first needs
inverting so it's black on white use the
command and I shortcut then copy and
paste the texture into Illustrator
scalar texture to fit over the
background rectangle then change the
blending mode to multiply to add the
grainy details to the illustration the
final result is a fun mascot character
in a retro style the simple shapes bold
outlines and traits of 1930s cartoons
all add to the classic illustration
style which is enhanced with the limited
color palette and the addition of a
subtle texture overlay so if we enjoyed
this tutorial I'll edit a new
illustration tips or tricks a thumbs up
on the video to help spread the word
would be really appreciated subscribe to
my channel to stick around for more and
join my mailing list over at spoon
graphics to get your hands on more of my
free design resources as always thank
you very much for watching and I'll see
you in the next one