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.