Turn a Simple Doodle into an Awesome Vector
Look at the sides of any paper of mine and you’ll always see some sort of doodle. I’m not one to fall asleep in class, but I am one to go overboard and cover my paper in inked randomness. I decided to take one of my doodles farther than the trash can and turn it into a vector, something surprisingly easy to do.
1. Choose a Doodle: Any doodle or pattern will work as long as it has clean lines. For best results have the work outlined with a dark marker on a solid colored paper.
2. Scan and Place: Scan in you’re work. Make sure it’s scanned at high dpi to prevent pixelation (I chose 200).
Then, open up Illustrator and place your scanned piece onto the canvas.
3. Live Trace, Expand, and Clean: With the image selected press the Live Trace button (in the top toolbar). To tweak Live Trace you can chose some of the presets. I chose the Inked Drawing setting.
Use the Expand feature to turn the object into an editable vector, which may need some cleaning up depending on the complexity of your work.
4. Live Paint and More: Now that the doodle is a vector you can add color using the Live Paint feature. Add other effects like shadow and text if you would like. Bask in your accomplishment.
