Put Your Hand Drawn Images Into Illustrator

Ever wanted to take a drawing from paper into Illustrator?

Draw Your Image

First thing you need to do is to draw an image!

Here we just have a drawing of a cat.

When you are drawing your image you need to make sure that there are no gaps in the lines.

Otherwise there will be gaps when you turn it into a vector.

Make sure not to put any shading in otherwise illustrator will just turn it into a solid colour.

You should use pencil or pen!

Once you have drawn your image and you are happy you need to import it!

To do this you need to use a scanner.

Looking for more Illustrator tips? Read our guide here on The Gradient Mesh Tool.

Scan The Image In

Now you need to open illustrator and open the scanned image.

To do this go to:

File, open and then find your image in your folders and then click open.

And just like that you will see the image in your Illustrator.

However you will notice you cannot edit it as you wish. Keep reading to solve this!

For a comprehensive and personal guide, view our Illustrator courses.

Make The Image A Vector

Now you have the scanned image in illustrator you need to turn it into a vector.

To do this you need to go to “Object”, then down to “Image Trace” and click on “Make and expand”.

A window will pop up so click ok.

Now you’re finished and you will have a vector image of your drawing.

You can manipulate this like any other vector in illustrator.

For example, you could change the colour, see example below!

Want to learn how to make 3D letters without using the 3D tool in Adobe Illustrator?