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| My attempt at an Illustrator portrait of Marilyn Monroe |
My version of a portrait of Marilyn Monroe made in illustrator is relatively easy to imitate, and only really uses the pen tool.
Firstly we found a picture of Marilyn Monroe on the internet and placed it into Illustrator. Then we created a new layer and started tracing the outlines of specific features of Marilyn's head such as the shape of her head, hair, and neck, using the pen tool. To get the lines to match the curvy bits of her hair and body you would need to play with the arms that came from the anchor points when you clicked and dragging whilst keeping hold of the initial click (instead of just clicking). To make it easier you may need to drag away from the body and make the arm longer, or delete one of the arms by converting the anchor to a point with only one arm.
Each element should have its own outline (ie the hair should be different to the rest of the head and face, which should be in turn different from the body and neck etc).
Each feature of the face should also have its own outline (the eyes, eyebrows and nostrils should be one each). The eye is made up of multiple elements. The iris and pupil are two different circles overlaid on top of each other as well as on top of the white of the eye. The general shape of the eye is made by lines and changing the curvature and the brush option to have a thicker middle and a thinner end, the same method can be followed to get each of the eyelashes but instead choosing an option that has a wider end at one end. The shape of the eye and the eyelashes are placed on top of the rest of the components of the eyes to hide the top of the circles.
Once all the elements have been drawn with an outline you can fill them with the appropriate colour. The shading is created by following the edge of one of the shapes that would cast a shadow (ie the head onto the neck, or the collar of the dress onto the shoulder) and following the line of the shadow from the picture underneath Once the outline is drawn fill with a grey or dark tone and I have chosen to turn down some of the opacity because I think it looks more realistic.
I then gave the picture a coloured background to make it stand out.
The key to this method is handles, points, and layers.
If I were to reproduce this piece I would try to get the shape of the arm, nose and eyes closer to a more real shape, I would also try to add more depth to some of the features by creating more shadows.
