Drawing Hoops in Photoshop (Exclusive Tutorial)

Hoops and Yoyos are well-known characters. These funny creatures inhabit the www.hallmark.com website as greeting cards and cartoons. Today in my tutorial I'll tell you how to draw a pink cat called Hoops with the help of Photoshop. Because these are vector characters it would be better to choose a vector graphics editor for drawing it, but you can use Photoshop for this purpose as well.

We can start with colors, let's take #f55cac as a foreground color for Hoops, (#ba4683 for his paws) and #66cc00 for Yoyos - with the background color (#468d00 for hands).

Select the Pen tool and draw a head contour. If you're not very good at using the Pen tool, then read this tutorial.

Then click Path with the right mouse button and select Fill path and Foreground color.

Now draw a body using the Pen tool. Create a new layer and fill it with the same color.

Next we'll draw a tail.

Voila', the silhouette is ready. Now you can add a lot of details to it. Select the Ellipse tool with the following settings and make the foreground color white.

Create a new layer. Draw a circle in the upper area (press shift if you want to make it perfectly round):

Duplicate that layer with a circle and move it to the right.

Now the basis for the eyes is ready. Now it's time for the pupils. The direction of cat's sight will depend on the placement of the pupils. Let's make it look left downwards. (Where his green friend will stand.) Create a new layer. Make the foreground color black and draw 2 ellipses in the lower left corners of its eyes. Don't be afraid to overlap the white circles a bit while drawing pupils.

Using the same ellipse draw a nose in the middle of its face. (the nose is oblong so don't press shift).

Draw a curve with the help of the Pen tool - this will be the cat's mouth :)

Select The Brush tool; it should be a one-pixel black-colored brush. Then switch back to the Pen tool, click Path with the right mouse button and select Stroke Path. Select the brush using option.

This funny creature is almost done. But, we still have to draw its paws. If paws are placed beyond its body then we can choose the same color that we used for a body. If its paws are on its body then we can try a darker pink color(#ba4683). So, create a new layer and place it between the head and body layers ( thus you can prevent the paws from being placed somewhere on its head). Choose foreground color #ba4683, and draw the paws with the Pen tool.

Almost done. One more thing is left to do - a shadow. Create a new layer and move it downwards.

Select an area under the cat's legs with the Elliptical Marquee tool and color it black.

That is it! In the next part of the tutorial I'll describe how to create his friend.