Step 1Before opening up Illustrator start with a quick pencil sketch. We're going to use

the Pen Tool to trace over the lines to give the cartoon a polished feel. The sketch

doesn't have to be perfect, it's just a point to work from.

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Import the scan onto the artboard and then set the transparency to about 25%.

The transparency makes it easier to see the lines you're drawing on top of the

sketch.

Step 2Before we start tracing, we're going to create a set of brushes that will give the

outlines a more traditional ink look. I used the Pen Tool to make some shapes that

look like rough lines. The width is varied in spots to give the strokes a personality.

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Step 3Once your happy with some of the line shapes, convert them to brushes. Start by

selecting the shape, then go to the drop-down menu of the Brushes Panel and

select New Brush. There are four brush options. We're going to make an Art Brush.

Once you select Art Brush there are more options, but we just need the default

settings.

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Step 4When we start tracing with the Pen Tool we have the Stroke set to black with no fill

color. There are a couple exceptions, the eyebrows have a fill so that we don't have

to break the line around the character's head.

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Step 5Once you get a couple lines drawn, open up your brushes again (F5). Add some of

the custom brushes we made earlier to the strokes. This is trial and error. On

shorter strokes some of the more detailed brushes might not look right. You can

adjust the weight of the strokes to give some elements more importance.

In the example below, I added a thicker line (2 pt stroke) around the head and a

lighter stroke (0.6 pt stroke) to the chair to draw attention to the more important

elements.

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Step 6Once all the strokes are drawn in, it's time to add some color. Start by creating a

new layer under the strokes. Then using the Pen Tool to start outlining the shapes

on that new layer. It's not a bad idea to lock the layer that your strokes are on so

that you don't accidentally close shapes while adding color.

You can move fast coloring because the black stokes hide the edges of your color so

you don't have to be super exact with your points. We're using solid colors on these

examples, but gradient color fills can look really sharp if used right.

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Step 7On a new layer you can add more detail. Here I'm using darker shades to add a

little depth to the flat color.

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Step 8This is usually where I start deviating from the sketch and add some personality.

Brad Dielman (the character on the right) just looked funnier when I made his hair

bigger and his eyebrows disjointed. The smoke and burnt spots are black fills with

the transparency set between 10% to 15%.

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Step 9What's a comic without words bubbles? I like nice symmetrical shapes so I used the

Ellipse Tool (L) to draw a shape. Add three points to the bottom of the ellipse and

drag down the middle of those three points down towards the character who's

talking. Use the Anchor Point Conversion Tool (Shift + C) to bring our talking bubble

to a point. After the shape looks good, add one of your custom brushes to the

shape.

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Step 10Now lets add some Text. There are some great comic fonts out there, Comic Sans

isn't one of them so I'm using Samovrava for the text.

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Step 11That gives us one frame, five more to go. For this strip I use the same base artwork

for each frame, then I modify the parts I need to tell the story. Once all the frames

are drawn, I need to align them and add borders to each.

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Step 12As you can see, the edges are still sloppy. We're going to use a clipping mask to

clean up the artwork. To make a mask all the shapes and strokes need to be

grouped, before doing that it's a good idea to duplicate your artwork. Once you

group a bunch of shapes, they all get pulled into one layer, which makes it difficult

to change down the road.

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Step 13Highlight all the shapes and strokes in one frame and group them (Command + G).

Next, draw a box over the top of that group. Below you can see I changed the

transparency of that box so I could see the artwork underneath. Select your

grouped artwork and the shape you drew over it, then make them into a mask

(Command + 7).

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Final ImageThe mask will crop out all the overlying shapes and give the panel a nice clean

edge. Then you can add a border to it by drawing another square over the artwork

and adding one of the brushes to the stroke.

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