I started of by sketching my character whom I’ve named ‘Father Time’. I have given Father Time a few watches and clocks for effect and a walking stick to add a sense of age and frailty.

Sketch out your character

Once you have your character sketch in Photoshop give it a tidy up with the rubber tool.

Tidy up your line drawing

Adding vectors with the Pen Tool (P) is ultra simple and easy to do. Take your time defining the edges of your character. Make sure you group all edges inside one folder (I named mine lines), to keep things neat and organised inside your PSD. While you create your vector outlines you may find it helpful to give your layers an opacity of 50% or so to enable you to follow your outlined sketch behind. Once finished just put them all back to 100%.

Start creating your vector outlines

Your characters edges will not all be the same thickness. Staggering the thickness of your outlines gives your character a less mechanical style and a more hand drawn look.

Spend time getting your lines perfect

Once you are happy with your outlines you are ready to start giving your character its base colour. Remember to create all your base colour layers in a named group within your PSD below your edges/lines group.

Finished outlined character

I use the Pen Tool again to create my coloured layers below the lines folder.

Adding base colours

Finished base colours

Once you have all of your base colours in place it’s time to start adding the definition and shading to your character. Decide now where your light source is coming from. Above, behind, left, right, maybe below? Once you have decided, start creating your shadows and highlights in a separate group above your base colours group but below the lines group.

Choose your light source angle

You may want to add textures to your character – if so, follow these quick steps.

- Open your texture in Photoshop and go to ‘Edit’ – ‘Define Pattern’ – Here you can name your pattern.

- Select which layer you want the pattern to appear on and open its Layer style. Select your newly created pattern in ‘Pattern Overley’ – Choose the scale of the pattern here also.

- If you wish the pattern to be slightly darker, lighter or even to have a slightly different colour, I apply ‘Colour Overlay’ in ‘Layer Style’ – select your colour then take its opacity down to unveil the pattern underneath.

Adding a jean texture

Once you have your shadows in place take a little time to decide if your character needs more defining or colouring. I found at this stage that little Father Time needed more shadows on his face and his coat as they were far to plain a colour.

Needs slightly more depth

Father Time - Tick Tock

I hope this Tutorial has given you some inspiration to create your own characters in Photoshop. If you find yourself enjoying yourself far too much try your character in several different poses and situations.

Different poses

So once a week I try and find a really compelling tutorial to try out myself and see what I can learn from it. It is a perfect way to keep yourself on your toes with Photoshop. Here is a small roundup of sites I tend to browse weekly for inspiring tutorials.

PSDTUTS

PSHERO

PSDLearning

Tutorial9

Good Tutorials

Abduzeedo

PSD Fan

MickM

Adobe Tutorials

Deviant Art

Deviant Art may not be the most obvious of choices for Photoshop tutorial sites but I have found some of the most inspirational tutorials, designers and artists through Devient Art. You will not find a site more frequently updated by designers from all around the world than DA. I have also posted an example tutorial by a user below.

Example Tutorial