How to do Vector Drawing: Lip Vector Drawing Tips and Tricks

How to do Vector Drawing: Lip Vector Drawing Tips and Tricks

In this tutorial, I will explain how to do vector drawing. We will learn to draw the lips, obtaining depth and volume.

I’ve received some requests to explain more thoroughly the tracing process in Illustrator, so this will be more in-depth research than the others.

So let’s begin. We will work on these sketches I’ve made.

How to do Vector Drawing - 1

The lips are not just three lines on the face, they are a complex entity surrounded by lots of muscles. It has high flexibility and this is a very important attribute to keep in mind, it will affect the thickness of the lips when drawing expressions.

You must understand the shape and positioning, or else your subject will look like he has a flat face, and we don’t want that.

Lip Vector Drawing Basics

The lips are composed of five distinct areas, shown in the image below. You can start with those shapes as a base for the lips, you can throw a rough contour later on.

The waterdrop-like shapes allow you to create smooth contour lines a lot easier than if you would draw them directly. So my advice is to start with these lines.

How to do Vector Drawing-Lip Vector Drawing Basics -2

Lip Vector Drawing Proportions

Notice in the image below the proportions between the top lip and the bottom lip. Usually, the top lip is thinner than the bottom lip, but not in all cases. Study your subject closely and you’ll get them right. Just imagine a line between the mouth’s corners, then everything will be clear. One thing about the mouth’s corners: do not draw them sharp! It’s an area where the top and bottom lips intersect, so make sure they have a fair amount of volume.

Lip Vector Drawing Proportions - 3

In the second image above, take a close look at the tri-dimensional profile and understand the shape of each lip. This will enable you to do a great shading with no headaches.

For the profile view, the top lip usually stands out more than the bottom lip or as much as it.

Vector Drawing Shading and Lighting

Once you get hold of the shape, this part should be fun to do. In the image below, I’ve marked the areas for:

– Dark shading (red)

– Medium shading (yellow)

– Light shading (blue)

– Green (light)

Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 4

Some areas need special attention, namely just suggesting them. They’re hardly noticeable, but you’ll obtain more depth.

Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 5

Brief on Lip Vector Drawings

In short terms, your workflow for the pencil sketches should be like this:

Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 6

Turning Drawing into Vector

Create a new document drag-drop the sketch onto our canvas and reduce its Opacity to 65%. Create a new layer above it and lock the first layer. Grab your Pen Tool (P) or Brush Tool (B) if you have a graphic tablet.

Start Tracing the strong lines of the contour with a dark line. Try to keep a nice line flow as much as you can.

How to do Vector Drawing - Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 7

Create a layer under this one and select it. Then lock the top-most layer. Pick a dark gray and draw the strong shades. You don’t have to be precise, you’ll draw under the contour lines.

How to do Vector Drawing - Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 8

Create a layer under the current one and lock the one above it. Then use a lighter gray and draw the medium shading.

How to do Vector Drawing - Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 9

Do the same for the base color and lights. It sounds awkward to have the lights under the shadows but trust me, you’ll have it a lot easier this way.

How to do Vector Drawing - Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 10

Unlock all layers, select all (CTRL+A), then go to Edit > Expand appearance, Edit > Path > Clean up. Go to the Pathfinder window (Window > Pathfinder) and click the “merge” button”.

At this point, you are free to adjust the colors as you please.

Go to the Swatches window (Window > Swatches), click the button in the bottom left corner, and select “Skintones”.

Grab the Magic Wand (Y), press Enter, set Tolerance to “0” and click each color, then pick one from the Skintones palette.

Feel free to add small lines to texturize the surface of the lips!

How to do Vector Drawing - Lip Vector Drawing Basics - 11

Want to take a closer look? Download the source file from the link below.

[download id=”154″]

About

I write articles, Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials and draw pretty stuff for Designious, Pixel77 and Vectorious. I also drink and spill industrial amounts of coffee.

12 Comments on “How to do Vector Drawing: Lip Vector Drawing Tips and Tricks

  1. Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!

  2. My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work!

  3. I’ve recently started a blog, the information you provide on this site has helped me tremendously. Thank you for all of your time & work.

  4. This post is even more informative than the previous one. Thank you for sharing your process, it’s very, very helpful to me as I’m just starting out with illustration.
    Blessings!

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