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Vector Art Tutorial

Vector art images are generally very simple shapes manipulated into a design to convey an idea, motion or emotion.  If you choose a photo upon which to base your design, be sure it has "life";  it has something to say.  A still life in vector art is pretty dull.  This tutorial will be written using PSP8 and is easily translatable to other versions, it's simply a matter of finding the same commands on the software you have.

The following tutorial is written with the hopeful assumption that the reader has an intermediate working knowledge of PaintShop Pro8 or any of its competitors or equivalents.  If that is not the case, please contact me here and I will try to help.

Decide what size you would like your piece to be.  This image started as 300x300 px at a resolution of 72 ppi with a transparent background.  The transparent background will be useful later should you decide to rearrange layers; the background layer cannot be moved unless it is promoted to a full layer.

Choose the photo you would like to use, open it and place it beside the new image. You may decide to use this photo as a start; right click and save to your computer.  Crop the photo to include what you want, then resize it to approximately the size you would like in the new image.

My dog CeeCee as a puppy

With the photo active (the top bar will be brighter than the new image), grab the layer from the layer palette and "drag and drop" it into the body of the new image. It will now be on its own layer and may be moved with the move tool.

Drag-and-drop into new image

PSP 8 has the Deform tool, choose it to resize the image in place on its own layer.  If you like, get rid of distracting elements with the eraser.  Close the original photo.

To choose suitable colors, or at least a place to start, go to the photo layer, click the color box in the Materials Palette and use the color picker to get colors from the photo.  Usually you can find suitable colors there.

Add a new raster layer and flood-fill with a color you think you'll like or white or pale gray.  In the Layer Palette, you will be adjusting the opacity of the next layers, making shapes in color to achieve form and shade, while using your photo as a guide.  Note below, the flood-fill layer and the slipper layer are set at 36.

From the Tool Options bar, choose Preset Shape Tool, Ellipse, check Anti-Alias, check Create as Vector.  With the Materials Pallette set for Foreground Color, transparent and Background Color a medium brown, draw out an elongated ellipse, then lower the opacity so you can see through the shape to the photo.  Switching to the Pen Tool, Edit mode, adding nodes where necessary (place cursor on a line, hit ctrl + mouse click), drag the nodes into the shape wanted.  Do the same thing with another ellipse in a lighter color to create another shape in the same group.

Manipulating nodes with pen tool in edit mode.

Every node has an attribute; the way it behaves when manipulated.  Right click on a node and choose Cusp, Symmetric, Asymmetric or Smooth and see how they change when you grab the little "handles" and move them around.

Adding nodes                                   Choosing node attributes

Immediately rename the layer something that will make sense to you later. Someday you will put it off for several layers and have to click through two dozen layers to fix a highlight in an eye.

To create a new vector group (as in the group highlighted "puppy" below), make a new raster layer.  The next Preset Shape you create will make a vector group above it. You may delete the raster layer later. One interesting feature of PSP8 is that if you want to delete a shape from a group, you just can't.  However, you can move it into another group to reorder your work.  A workaround for this idiotsycrasy is to create a vector layer, move your unwanted shape into it, then delete the vector layer.

Do your best not to be too "fussy" for the time being.  This image only has eight colors, eleven layers, has a file size of 13K and is still an effective piece.  There are no seperate colors for the face and eyes, the grey color is pulled around to give highlights where needed.

Finishing the last layers. Don't forget the signature.

Completed image. Always save your completed image in its complete, layered form, then save merged copies for other uses. Thank goodness I heeded that advice and was able to dig around and find a simple image, still in .psp format from which to write a tutorial.

Bad, bad puppy

Lisa Miller 2006

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