Chibi Elf or Leprechaun, Vector Drawing Tutorial

This is Part 2 of a Paint Shop Pro X tutorial creating an elf or leprechaun in the very popular Manga style of cartoon drawing. In this continuation of the tutorial we'll create the body and a shamrock. In Part 1 we created the head. See Chibi Elf, Part 1 if you haven't done that part of tutorial yet.

This elf we are creating is in the style known as 'Chibi', which is a cute and small version of Manga. There are many different types of Chibi, but they all have certain characteristics in common. They are simply drawn, have exaggerated proportions, huge eyes, lots of hair and are round and pudgy. The simplicity of the style is fairly easy to create using the vector tools in Paint Shop Pro.

This tutorial was written for Paint Shop Pro X and requires some familiarity with the vector tools in PSP. This is not an introductory tutorial for the vector tenderfoot. Step by step instructions are provided but we'll assume you know how to find & use the basic vector tools. See Step 2 of Chibi Elf, Part 1 for a short review of vector drawing tools & terms.

Step 2. Start with Preset Shape

Open the file that contains the head of your Chibi elf and create a new vector layer called 'body'. Drag this layer button down below the head layer(s).

If you don't think there will be enough room to add the body with your current canvas size, increase the canvas height. Image>Canvas Size

Use the Pick tool to drag a selection completely around the head, enclosing every piece. Right click, select 'Group'. By grouping all pieces of the head together we can move them around as one unit. Move this group to the top of the canvas.

All shapes created for the body will have a black outline with a width of 2 pixels. Both Anti-alias and Vector should be checked for every step in this tutorial.

Draw an oval with Ellipse tool that has black outline and bright green fill. Ellipse for body should be slightly taller than head is tall (see above image for comparison)

Step 3. Create Legs & Shape Body

Next we'll edit the ellipse shape created in previous step. A shape similar to above image is what we want for the body. It should give our Chibi elf a cute stance.

To edit the nodes, we first have to right click the shape and 'convert to path'. After converting, select the southernmost node with Pen tool and drag it upwards to begin dividing the ellipse into 2 legs. You'll end up with sort of a boomerang shape at this stage.

Right click the same node and change Node Type to Cusp. Rotate the node handles so they point down. The shape should start looking more like the legs shown in above image.

Add 4 more nodes to shape the bottom of legs (see red dots above for node placement). To add a node, use Pen tool, Edit Mode. Hold down Ctrl key while hovering over line segment. When +ADD appears, click to add node.

Pull top node up until it's underneath the head. Position all nodes as shown in above image. Change the top node & all bottom Node Types to Cusp. Rotate handles to further refine the body shape. All node types should be Cusp except the 2 near the waist. Change those to asymmetric to create a nice gentle curve along the sides as shown.

Step 4. Add Tunic and Left Arm

Draw another ellipse that has a dark green fill with black outline. This will be the overtunic for the Chibi elf. Shape this oval similar to the first one, except it has no legs.

Right click, select 'Covert to Path'. Place the top node behind the head. Change Node Type to Cusp if you need to adjust shape of shoulders to cover the body underneath. The little bit of green shoulder that can be seen on the right is a separate piece that will be added later.

Add a whole bunch of nodes along the bottom as shown by the red dots in above image. These will create a ragged bottom to the tunic. Change Node Type to Cusp for all of these, with Curve Before and Curve After. Rotate all the node handles to create V-shapes along the bottom of tunic in a variety of sizes.

Draw another ellipse that is the same bright green color as the first 'body' shape. This will be a small oval to represent the one shoulder/arm that is semi-hidden behind the body. Right click this shape, select 'Arrange', 'Send to Bottom'.

Step 5. Add Belt

Let's give our little Chibi elf a belt to hold his tunic on. It is simply a brown rectangle with the same black outline. Some people feel that browns and beiges are difficult colors to create with the PSP color palette. Just remember that brown is actually a greyed-down version of orange. The brown I used is #89742d.

Right click to 'Convert to Path' and do a little node editing along the left & right edges of the belt to give it a slight curve to match the body.

Don't forget to click 'Apply' after editing a shape and before creating a new one.

All belts need a buckle. This one is made with a small rectangle that is slightly taller than belt. Black stroke color, no fill. Stroke width is 4.

Step 6. Create Boots

The boots are made starting with either a rectangle or ellipse preset shape. Use the same brown fill color as the belt and a 2 pixel black outline. A little bit of the inside back of one boot can be seen. This creates the illusion of roundness. Place a small ellipse behind the leg and line it up with front edge of boot. Right click the small ellipse, select 'Arrange', 'Send to bottom'. Only a small portion of this oval will actually be seen.

The other 2 shapes need some nodes added and a bit of node editing done before they resemble a boot. The boot on the left needs a total of 5 nodes as shown by the red dots in above image. All nodes will be Cusp except the toe node is Asymmetic. The boot on the right needs 7 nodes. All nodes will be Cusp except the toe node is Asymmetic.

Use the image above as a guide to position the nodes that will shape the boots. To create the wrinkle around the ankle of each boot, turn the control arms so handles make a sideways V-shape.

Use the Pick tool to position the oval that is the 'rear' part of the boot on the left so that you can see just a little bit of it and so that it lines up with the left edge of the boot front.

Step 7. Create Right Hand

The right hand of the Chibi elf is the hand holding the shamrock. It is on our left. This hand is made from 4 pieces....4 separate shapes. This is an easy hand to make...it only has 3 fingers and no thumb!

Use the Ellipse tool to create a rectangle using the same colors used for the head. Chibi hands are oversized and this one is also foreshortened because he is reaching out to the viewer, which makes it even larger! Make the rectangle about the size of shape #1 above.

Right click the rectangle and 'Convert to Path'. Change all 4 nodes from Cusp to Asymmetric and you will instantly have a shape that looks like #2.

The fingers are made like shapes #3, 4 and 5 and are placed on top of shape #2 to create the extended fist. Draw each finger shape using the Pen tool. You can draw a sideways U with the Pen set to Freehand or you can use the Pen set to Point-to-Point and draw a sideways V (which I think is easier...see next paragraph). Don't close the path no matter which way you draw finger. We don't want a black outline on the left side of the finger shapes.

To draw each finger Point-to-Point, click 3 times to place 3 nodes in a sideways V. Click Apply. Right click the shape to 'Convert to Path'. Select the node at the point of the V, right click and change Node Type to Symmetric. That should round out end of finger perfectly! Now all you have to do is move the 3 fingers onto shape #2 to complete the fist.

Step 8. Create Shamrock

First create the stem for the shamrock. It is a long skinny rectangle with a black outline and a dark green fill color. Drag the stem layer on Layer Palette down below and behind the hand. Position stem so it looks like he is holding onto it. Edit the nodes to give stem a little curve.

Use Preset Shapes to create the shamrock. If you have a shamrock shape, that's great! If you don't, you can create the shamrock from 3 hearts. If you don't have a heart preset shape, you can find one here.

Draw a green heart shape in a size appropriate for the stem. Duplicate this heart using right click - Copy - Paste as New Vector Selection (twice).

Use the Pick tool and the rotation handle to rotate all hearts and move into position as shown in the above image. Use the Pen tool and draw a light green highlight line on one side of each 'petal'.

If you feel there's too much black outline in the center of a shamrock built with 3 hearts, you can cover center of each heart with a plain green circle or do a little editing to get rid of some of the outline. Right click, 'Convert to Path'. Select the node that is at the point of the heart, right click, select Edit, Break. That will break the one node into 2. Now you can move these nodes to 'shorten' up each heart and to connect lines to look more like a shamrock leaf.

Step 9. Finishing Details

There's lots of other things you can do to customize this Chibi elf and make him all your own. You can dress him differently, add a hat, add a beard, make his ears much larger, add fairy wings, put something different in his hands, do some shading of the colors...lots of stuff.

If you keep all the pieces in vector format, when you're done you can use the Pick tool to draw a selection completely around and enclosing entire drawing. Push one of the corner handles of the selection box toward the center to resize smaller. If you want to use raster tools to create some shading, you'll have better image quality if you re-size your vector drawing with Pick tool before converting to raster.

When done, export as optimized GIF or PNG.

Enjoy! Kate

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