How to Make an Illustrated Portrait - NO Drawing Skills Required!

See how to make an illustrated portrait of your very own – no drawing skills required!

These are perfect for framed home decor, stationery, Christmas cards, online profile pics, wedding keepsakes, and more.

Plus, they make great gifts, too!

How to Make an Illustrated Portrait – NO Drawing Skills Required!

I LOVE creating personalized goodies for my home and family, and as soon as I stumbled upon this simple way to create adorable illustrated portraits, I was hooked (and I’m not being paid to say this)!

This design bundle is SO easy and makes the cutest sketches that can be customized in countless ways!

What You’ll Need:

Adobe Photoshop CC or Adobe Illustrator CC
Personalised Portrait Creator
- Don’t worry, even if you’re not a Photoshop expert (I’m not either), you can still use this!
- I promise it’s super simple (really just utilizes Layers) and lots of free detailed tutorials and videos are provided by the designer to help you.

I’m not a fan of recreating the wheel, and since Lisa Glanz, the gal behind the Personalised Portrait Creator, already provides very thorough tutorials and videos that are way more detailed and helpful than I could ever create, I’ll spare you the deets here.

Instead, I’ll be sharing several examples of family and solo portraits that I’ve created so far as well as how I’ve used them.

You can also check out our whimsical family portrait Christmas card for a little more information about using the layers if you’d like!

Why Do I Love This Illustrated Portrait Creator So Much??

One of the reasons why I am absolutely in love with this Personalised Portrait Creator (aside from how easy it is to use) is because there are SO many options to choose from.

I could literally spend days (and probably have…) making different portraits of myself and the men in my little family.

There are countless combinations of body types, skin tones, hair styles, facial features, accessories, clothing, patterns, pets, and other embellishments to play around with.

There’s also the CUTEST Little Baby Portrait Creator to make custom portraits of the tiniest tots…oh how I wish this was available when my boys were wee ones.

My Family’s Illustrated Portrait

Here’s how my final design looked in Photoshop (sorry, Photoshop Elements won’t work right with this creator…whomp, whomp).

You can see all of the individual layers on the right:

All four of our likenesses (that I created individually beforehand)
The text
The neighborhood doodles
The thin navy box

All of these doodles (and more) are included in the Personalised Portrait Creator, so you can really create a unique whole design instead of just a portrait (although solo portraits are fun too!).

I really like how the background neighborhood sketch brings in such a sense of home, and since this is a portrait of OUR family that’s hanging in OUR home, it works perfectly for this project.

(Fellow font addict? If you’re interested in the fun script font that I used for our family name, you can find it here.)

Here’s a closer look at the whole design. I think it’s so darn cute!

How to Make an Illustrated Family Portrait!

And here’s a super closeup so you can see just how detailed these illustrated portraits are, including one of the fun optional paper textures that are provided.

I currently have this design set as my laptop’s desktop image, and we also have it framed and hanging in our garage near the doorway to our home (pssst…Costco is the best for inexpensive prints!).

At first, my husband was all “Why are you hanging a picture in the garage??” and I was all “Cuz garages can be pretty too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “

And since we only use our front door when checking the mail (and bringing in all those Amazon boxes…), we are constantly entering/exiting the house through this area (while passing by our hallway family command center) and therefore always see this portrait.

It’s the sweetest little addition to our mini mudroom area.

Now the man gets it.

I’ve also tweaked this design a bit and made a simplified version that is showcased in a couple places on our hallway family command center.

Here it is as a cute portrait sans background in a unique frame.

I love how it adds some fun personalization to the space.

But wait! There’s more!

I’ve also included it in a school excuse notepad that I made for when the boys miss school.

I mean, can you get more personalized than this?

How to Make a Semi-DIY Personalized Notepad for School Excuses.

Since this notepad has a handy magnet on the back, its home is on the front of the lower shelf of the command center’s main component.

Other Illustrated Portrait Ideas

I created a different family portrait for the whimsical Christmas card that we sent out in 2017.

It definitely stands out from your standard Christmas cards, and I can’t tell you how many compliments we received from family and friends who thought it was the neatest idea!

I also turned it into a fun animated gif that I use as my online profile picture during the holiday season.

Gotta love that twinkling snow!

DIY Whimsical Family Portrait Christmas Card!

Here’s a solo portrait that I whipped up of yours truly. I use this for various online profile pictures.

It’s a more accurate daily representation of myself since I almost always have my glasses on and my hair thrown up in a (much messier) bun…although this outfit is still quite dressier than the real-life me.

Let’s be honest…I’m usually in my standard stay-at-home-mom uniform consisting of leggings, a casual top, and thick fuzzy socks.

On the internet, though, I can pretend that I’m put together! And 20 pounds lighter…

And when the world turned upside down in 2020, I whipped up another solo illustrated portrait, this one featuring a requisite face mask.

Illustrated portrait of blond woman in winter gear.

How to Make an Illustrated Portrait – NO Drawing Skills Required!

These were just a few ways I’ve used the Personalised Portrait Creator…I can’t wait to keep playing around with it and creating more fun illustrations!

Have fun creating custom portraits of your own!