It's winter! It's snowing! Thousands of kids get out to play with snow and make a snowman. These fragile being don't live much so we have to hurry up! In this simple tutorial I will explain the process of drawing a snowman in Illustrator using mostly basic shapes and pen tool.

Final Image Preview

Step 1

Create a new document, take the Ellipse Tool (L) and draw an ellipse, make it a little oblate.

Apply a three color gradient to it. (#5EBFD3 # B9E1EB #F7FCFD)

Select the pen tool (P) and draw a path as you see below, fill it with #F2F9FA

Select both paths and press Ctrl+G to group them.

Step 2

Select this group and by Alt-dragging make a copy of it, scale it down.

Now make another copy of this group and make it even smaller.

Step 3

Since we have the basic body shape we'll be working on details now. Draw an ellipse again, this time a vertical one and fill it with linear gradient from #86C9D3 to #AADEE4 .

Now draw another, smaller ellipse, fill it with white, rotate it ccw and place it on the ellipse we've just drawn.

Use pen tool to draw the second highlight and also fill with white.

Select them main ellipse, press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+B to make a copy of it behind the original. Make it slightly bigger and fill with #23B5C5 .

Select all these paths, press Ctrl+G to group them together. Place this group on the middle part of our body, then make a copy of it, scale it down and also place on the middle part.

Step 4

Now we'll draw a scarf for our snowman. For this, move the "head" or the top shape of snowman body up a little.

Draw an ellipse and place this sublayer between the middle body path and top body part sublayers.

Fill this path with a radial gradient from a darker red to red. Adjust then it's position.

Use the pen tool to draw a path as you see here. Fill it with  a bright red.

Make a copy of the ellipse by pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+F. Then draw a path as you see below that will intersect the first one.

With you scarf path copy and the intersecting path both selected press the Intersect button in the pathfinder panel. Give the resulting path a slightly darker shade of the red color, that's the shadow on our scarf.

Take the pen tool and draw this path under the scarf.

Fill it with a linear gradient from #EEBA32 to #EED64E .

Make a copy of the penult scarf path and place it behind the snowman's body. Fill it with a darker red color.

Draw another scarf end like you did before or edit the first one.

Step 5

Use pen tool to draw a hand, place it behind the middle body path and a reflected, bigger copy of it on that path.

Give them a 4pt 30% gray, rounded stroke.

Draw some other small lines and give them a 2pt stroke with the same settings.

Step 6

For the eye, draw an ellipse and fill it with a 90% gray to 70% gray gradient.

Draw two highlights on it.

Select the main shape and make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+B. Make the copy a little bigger and fill it with #23B5C5 .

Group all these paths, place the eye on the head and make a slightly smaller copy of it.

Draw two light blue circles under the eyes.

Step 7

Use pen tool to draw a carrot and fill it with #CE4327 .

Make a copy of this shape, make it thinner and fill it with a white to transparent gradient.

Draw some small lines on the carrot to add detail to it.

Step 8

Use pen tool to draw a smile on snowman's face. Give this line a 2pt 70% gray stroke.

Press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+B to make a copy of the smile and place it under the original one. Give this copy a white stroke instead, rotate it ccw a little.

Step 9

Last thing we need is a hat for our snowman. Draw an ellipse and fill it with a three color linear gradient (60% gray 9% gray and 60% gray ).

Make a copy of it by pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+B, make the copy a little bigger and fill it with 50% gray.

Draw a path as you see below a fill it with 90% gray to 70% gray gradient.

Place this path under the previous two hat paths we've made and make a copy of it.

Draw an ellipse that is intersecting the last path.

Select this path and the copy that you've made and press Intersect button in the pathfinder panel.

Draw an intersecting path with no fill that we'll use to create highlights.

Make sure that you've made a copy of this path, because we need to make two highlights. Now use this path to create highlights on hat.

Group together all hat paths and place the hat on snowman's head.

Draw a white to transparent highlight under the hat.

Give a background to your illustration and you're done!

Final Result

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