Start by opening a new image 600 x 600 with a transparent bg and 16 million in colors. Choose the shapes tool and set your foreground color to a black and your background color to red. Choose the ellipse shape with a line width of one and retain style UNCHECKED. Create as vector CHECKED. Also make sure that antialias is checked. Draw out the ellipse on your canvas. Draw towards the top leaving plenty of space at the bottom, this particular part is the hat.

Now choose the vector selection tool and in the control palette, choose the node edit option. Your image should then be in node editing mode. (Fig.2) We are wanting to make this appear to be more hat shaped. Click the center node (red Fig.3) and drag it upwards a little to flatten, then grab the two side ones (green Fig.3) and drag them even with the center to give a flatten bottom like you see with mine here. Once you are happy with the shape of it then right click and choose the quite node editing option. Your colors and the new edited shape should then appear. **Reminder: Right click to choose the asymmetrical option

Now choose the node editing option again and we need to move the top part of the hat down, and in a little to look more like the shape of a baseball cap. Click the center top node (red) until you see the handles, one will look like an arrow the other is just the end of the line with a circle on the end of it. (Fig.5) Grab the handles and pull it up and out so that the center starts to turn in some to look like the top of a hat. (Fig.5) When you are satisfied with the shape, right click and choose the quit node editing option from the menu and the color should return to your object. (Fig. 6) **Reminder: Right click to choose the asymmetrical option

Ok now for the rim of the hat. Choose the shapes tool again and the ellipse. Set both foreground and background colors to black. Draw out the shape to the right of the hat to resemble a rim. Go to your layers palette and click and hold down the object rim and drag it below the actual hat so that it appears to be a rim of the hat. (Fig.7). You should then see your two shapes together and it is starting to almost look like a hat. (Fig.8) At this point I renamed my layers so that they will be easily identifiable later down the road when we have a lot of layers. Right click your layers and rename to match mine so that you can stay in sync with me through out the tutorial. (Fig.7)

Choose your line tool and set your foreground color to black and your background color to null. Click the options palette and set the settings to a line width of 1, antialias checked, create as vector checked, retain style not checked. Choose the bezier option from the lines. We are going to make some simple lines on the hat so it looks more like a baseball cap. Click your starting point on the hat, mine is marked with a blue dot here and then drag the line to your ending point (also blue here). Then click once towards the upper portion of the line to make the bezier curve, drag it off to the side so that the line curves. Right click to end the bezier curve. Repeat the same thing for the other side until you have the two lines running through the baseball cap as you see in mine here. (Fig.9) Then choose the shapes tool and ellipse. Keeping both the background and foreground color both to black, draw a small shape at the top of the hat where the lines meet. (Fig.10) Don't worry if things aren't perfect. As long as they are vector objects we can always still tweak them later.

Now for hims face. Choose the shapes tool, set the foreground color to black and the background color to RGB 255/204/153 to be the "flesh tone" of his face. Choose the ellipse from the shapes and set the line width to 1, antialias checked, create as vector checked, retain style NOT checked. Add a new VECTOR layer by choosing layers, new vector. Hold down your shift key as you draw out the shape of the head, this conforms the ellipse to be a circle instead of the oval shape, try to proportion it somewhat with the head, it doesn't have to be exact since we can still tweak it later but get as close as you can to save less editing for later. Once you have drawn the face shape click in the layers palette and name this layer HEAD. Click and hold it down and drag it behind the hat so that the hat appears to be on the head.

Working on the head layer, choose the vector selection tool and click the node edit option on the control palette. We are going to add some ears, the easiest way for me was to add two nodes on either side (green) of the original node (red) in the middle of the head. (Fig.12) Once you have added them, click the original center node and pull it out slightly from the rest of the face. Then click the two nodes we added to each side and adjust them to the right curve to get the "ear look" lol. (Fig.13) If you need help with what the specifics in vectors do please visit the shapes tutorial here on site for help. Once happy with the shape, right click and choose the quite node editing option from the menu and your head should now have some ears.(Fig.14) **Reminder: Right click to choose the asymmetrical option

Hey it's getting there ! Slow but sure. lol Choose the line tool and set the foreground to black and the background to null if it isn't already. Choose the bezier line again and line width of 1, create as vector checked, anitialias checked and retain style UNchecked. Draw the bezier line like you did before, this will be his nose so make it in the center of his face, and on the head layer. Once you have drawn the line then right click anywhere and choose node edit options, grab the end handles and curve the nose a little more so it isn't so sharp looking. (Fig.15) Then right click and choose the quit node edit option and the line (his nose) should appear on the head now. (Fig.16) **Reminder: Right click to choose the asymmetrical option

The great thing about Charlie is that he face is so simple, just choose the shapes tool and set your colors to black, then select the ellipse shape and make him some eyes, remember to get the circular shape you need to hold down the shift key at the same time you are drawing. Then add another line for the mouth etc.

Set the foreground color to black and the background color to the fleshtone back at the beginning of the tutorial. (Right click your background color swatch and it should be there, in recent colors options) Choose the shapes tool and set it to rounded rectangle. Set the line width to 1 if it isn't already and create as vector checked, antialias checked. Add another new vector layer and draw out a small shape for the neck. In your layers palette, drag the new layer BELOW the rest of the layers and name it body. (Fig.18)

Now the clothes that make the man ! ROFL These were not easy so I am not going to lie to you. <EG> LOL I haven't been working with vectors long so bare with me through this and if you find a better way , then by all means DO IT ! lol. I set my foreground color to black and my background color to a pukey yellow like he always wears. LOL Choose the shape tool and I selected Triangle, then did some node editing for the shape. First I added two nodes (green) to the triangle. (Fig.19) Then I took each of those nodes (green) up just a little higher than the original middle (red) node. (Fig.20) Then you can click on the nodes at the shoulders (red) and use the handles (yellow) to make the shoulders more curved. (Fig.21) **Reminder: Right click to choose the asymmetrical option

Are you still with me or have I totally lost you? LOL I tend to do that once in awhile ! LOL This page is getting pretty long so I am going to start a new page so that it doesn't take forever and a day to load, just only a day instead ! LOL So if you haven't gotten completely frustrated and are ready to trash the tutorial I will see you on the next page.