The Joker is one of my favorite villains to draw, because the entire character is defined by his facial expression and body language. He could be wearing a monk’s sack-cloth and he’d still be the Joker if you could draw him just so, and I love that, which is why I’m devoting a whole post to how I drew him in Adobe Illustrator.
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For those of you who don’t know, Illustrator is pretty different from Photoshop, although they work really well together. For this drawing though, I stayed away from Photoshop completely, mostly because I’m an arrogant purist and I like showing off.
Every vector drawing starts with a fast and loose sketch using the Pencil tool. I wanted to have the Joker lighting a cigarette, because that provides a convenienty opportunity to use shadows and highlights all over the place. Also, it makes him look cooler when his smile is one-sided.
Here I’ve started blocking the various parts of the drawing, and added some general lighting. I’ve also decided to keep his cigarette short because, well, the long black filter thing is something the Penguin uses and I don’t think it’s a good idea to mix up their accessories.
This is the part where it starts getting fun: drawing the shadows around the wrinkles in his face is where all the attitude is.
More face detail. The eyes and teeth were really fun to do, although the hair was tedious as hell. At this point, I’ve been drawing for about an hour and a half, and I’m getting kinda tired. I go online for a bit to look at how other artists drew the Joker, which is when I realize that his hair is green, d-uh.
Hehe, you’d think I could remember a simple violet and green color scheme. So now I need to start drawing his forearm and the match he should be holding.
Man, i don’t draw hands well.
Details on the suit, which i decided had to be pin-stripe.
Darker gradients all around, for that extra menacing feel. Notice I forgot to change the eyebrow colors to match his hair.
All done! My font kinda sucks, but i’m no pro.