Animal Landscape Illustrations in Procreate

1. Introduction: You often see animals and landscapes and really get inspired as a creative to capture them into an illustration, but gets stuck at knowing where to start. Well, in this class, I'll be teaching you the fundamental skills you'll need to make your own animal landscape illustrations. Hey, I'm Chris, also known as Crystal draws and I'm an illustrator and designer based in the UK. I've been working in the illustration and design industry for over 15 years. And I've worked with clients both here in the UK and worldwide, such as Adobe on pixel mater. My illustrations are often focused around animals and landscapes. And nature has always been a huge influence in what that creates is definitely become part of my style. I love finding colors and ideas in the natural world. And hopefully by the end of this class, you'll develop that passion to at the beginning of my illustration journey. A really struggled at knowing where to start. But over the years I've developed a deeper understanding into the core skills needed to create an illustration. In this class, we'll be going over those core skills. And I'll be teaching you some of the essential ones, such as a focal point in an illustration. Free of the core composition elements consisting of the foreground, main subject and background will also be going over, finding inspiration and reference photos before moving on to composition and breaking this down into the rule of thirds, center compositions, horizon lines, leading lines, whitespace, framing and scale. And finally, we'll finish with limited color palettes. Once we have a deeper understanding of these essentials, we will put these into practice and creates an animal illustration landscape of our own, starting with creating our first sketch fruit to finalizing with color and texture. This class is perfect that any creative that has a love for nature, or whether you're starting out on your illustration journey for you being created for some time and want to improve your skills and knowledge and develop your craft. By the end of this class, you'll be able to create illustrations with well-thought-out compositions, sketch with confidence, and use color ineffective way. For this class, I'll be using the iPad Pro, apple pencil along with the app Procreate. So if you're ready to get started and create an animal landscape illustration, join me in the next lesson where I'll go over the class project. Let's start creating. 2. Class Project: The class project I'll be asking you to do will be to create your very own animal landscape illustration in a simplistic style. We'll be using one main focal point in the artwork before adding the foreground and background elements to build up the rest of the piece. The reason I've chosen this simple animal landscape illustration as the class project is because by using simple shapes and the limited color palette, we can more easily learn about how we create and build a complete illustration. Now because I'm mostly a digital illustrator, I'm going to be using the app Procreate. On the iPad Pro. I would encourage you to use whichever illustration app you feel the most comfortable in. Even though I'll be going through how to create our focal point animal from sketch to color. I won't be covering this in a step-by-step detailed guide. If you need any help creating your animal, then I would encourage you to check out my previous class Drawing Animal carrots poses in Procreate, which includes actionable step-by-step exercises you can follow to. Now you know what the class project is about. I'm really excited for us to get started with the first lesson, where we will be covering what is a focal points. And free of the core composition elements. 3. What Is a Focal Point Three of The Core Composition Elements: In this lesson, we'll be talking about the focal point and then Illustration and why it's an important aspect in the artwork composition will also be going over the Free Corps composition elements that we'll be focusing on when creating our animal landscape illustration. So let's start off by asking the question, what is a focal point? Well, it is a main elements in an artwork like this boat, for instance, where you want the viewers eyes and attention to look at and focus on. Not the case in this class where we're going to be creating an animal landscape illustration, the focal point is going to be our animal. Now the reason a focal point is so important is because by controlling what your audience views that focuses on, it will give your artwork a purpose, a more visual grip. Now, we'll be going over how we can do this in some lessons coming up using some simple techniques. Now let's talk about three of the core composition elements. So for an animal landscape illustration, this will consist of the foreground, main subject and background. Now, to explain this, let's look at one of my finished illustrations. Break it down visually to see this in action with the foreground elements in this illustration. These are the water reeds, but they could be flowers, rocks, trees, just to name a few. Now, the main subject in this example is the heroin animals. But it could be an element that you want the viewers focus and attention to be concentrated on. For the background elements, there is the sun, mountains, and horizon line in this example. Now, you could have different elements, such as trees or rocks, but if they're going to be in the background, these would generally be smaller and less detail. Now we have more of an understanding of breaking down our illustration into the Free Corps composition elements, the foreground, the main subject, and the background. In our next lesson, we'll be discovering and finding ways of collecting inspiration and reference images for each of our composition elements. 4. Finding Inspiration & Reference: In this lesson, I'll be showing you some of the different ways you can find inspiration and reference images. This is definitely an important step when beginning any new piece, as it will give you a visual guide to refer to as you go through the creative process. Now, let's begin by looking at a couple of ways to find photos online to use in our project Moodboard. The first website I use with a huge selection of fantastic photos, unit splash. You can find some really high-quality images. And it has a category dedicated to nature, which is something that I use a lot in my own personal projects. With its collections feature, it's really easy to gather your photos into groups so you can easily find them again in the future. This is definitely a site that is worth having on your radar. The second website we're going to look at is Pinterest and it's definitely my personal favorite one. It has such a vast amount of photos. You'll definitely be able to find something for reference on all kinds of creative projects. The beauty of Pinterest is that it is really easy to save and gather your photos into boards. This is definitely the one I would recommend. Let's begin creating our project mood board. Now, I'm going to be using Pinterest as this is definitely my personal favorite way of finding inspiration and reference. If you haven't already seen it, I've provided a prompt list in the class resources to give you some ideas of what inspiration and reference images to choose from for the core elements. So let's delve in finding inspiration and reference for the main subject. In the previous lesson, we've already discussed that the main subject will be our animal in this illustration. So if we make a start by opening Pinterest, now, the animal I've chosen from the prompt list is a red squirrel. And that's the one I'm gonna be using for the Fermi illustration. So with that in mind, I'm going to go into the search feature within Pinterest and type in red squirrel wants we don't hit return. We should get some really nice squirrel photography, which I'm going to start scrolling through and start looking for the photos that really stand out to me. Now, this one I really like. So I'm going to tap on the image and select the pin icon to save it. Wants the menu pops up. I'm going to select create a new board. And then for the new board, I'm going to name this Skillshare animal landscape reference. Obviously, feel free to name your board whatever you want. And once we're finished, we're going to just hit Create button. And we'll have our mood board created. Now, if we keep searching through the images, looking for some different squirrels and any that really stand out to you. Just add them to the board we created. So one thing to know is that I would recommend that you don't pick more than five photos for your main subject. And just mainly because if you pick too many, it can become overwhelming. Now, let's move on to finding inspiration and reference for the background. For my background, I've picked two elements and these are gonna be a son and a mountain. I'd really recommend that you stick to just two elements for your background. It will definitely give you a better chance of creating a more successful class project. So I'm going to start searching for my first element, which is a sum. Like before. I'm going to look through the photos. And if I see any that are like, I'm going to then add them to the mood board we already created. Possibly collects, maybe a few of these. Then for the second element, which is going to be a mountain, I'm gonna again type this into the search and start looking through the photos. Now. Because what I'm going for is more of a simple illustration. I'm going to try and find mountains that have less detail and more of a silhouette. Look. Again for both of these kinda like elements. Don't try to pick too many, so you become overwhelmed. So our mood board is shaping up to be really nice. If we now finally look at the final one, finding inspiration and reference for the foreground. So the elements that I've chosen for my foreground, gonna be some trees and grass and a rock. I'm going to start off with the trees by tackling this into the search bar. Now, looking at the results, it's kinda giving me, it's not quite giving me the trees that was kinda like looking for. I was thinking more of a countryside kind of feel. So in the search bar, I'm going to change the type from trees to English countryside trees. And then hit Enter. Now this is definitely given me more of the lake referenced trees that I was kinda like wanting. So remember this is a tip. If you're not getting the results you want, try to narrow down what you searching for by changing the phrase. If we now go through and pick a few of these trees and then add them to our mood board. Now, the second element of picked is a tree stump. Mainly because the candlelight four, it'd be quite nice for the squirrel to stand on in the illustration. So again, I'm gonna go to the search bar and type that phrase in. And then I'll start looking through the images. Again, just picking out some that I particularly like or feel has a nice feeling to it. And then just kinda like tapping on it and saving it to the mood board. For the final element. For my foreground, I've chosen grass, so I'm going to type in the search bar. Let's shift through these images. Finding the ones that I particularly like and adding them to the mood board. And basically, once we've got a few of these last elements in, then completed the mood board for our class project. If we go to the actual mood board we've created on Pinterest, will see now that we've got a really nice collection of images for each of the individual elements. So that's including the main subjects, the background, and the foreground. Now we've completed our project mood board. We can move on to the next lesson where we'll be talking about why composition matters. 5. Why Composition Matters: In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about why competition really matters in an illustration, we will also be going over some composition examples to show you how to use some rules in your artwork. So let's get started with asking a question. What is a composition? Composition is arranging all the individual elements in your artwork to make the whole illustration. In this class, your individual elements will be things like your animal, trees, mountains, some flowers. And by arranging these on your canvas a certain way, you can make a visually pleasing composition. The reason composition matters, it makes a huge difference is because it's what's directs our eyes through the artwork and gives it flow, direction and visual balance. And it helps guide the viewer's attention through the illustration. But let me show you some examples of how this can be done by using some composition rules to create a visual pleasing artwork. So let's take a look at the rule of thirds and center compositions. Now, both of these are great for giving you an idea of where to place your focal point, which we established in a previous lesson will be our animal. If we start by sketching out some simple examples and then dividing the first frame into thirds, both horizontally and vertically using lines. This will give us four attention points within the Canvas and we can use these to put our animal on evil wanted them. Now by placing the animal on either of these attention points, it will give the whole canvas a nice balance. If we now go to the second frame on the right, divide this one up in half by drawing some lines again. So if you use the sense rule and place our animal there, the attention is drawn immediately into the middle of the artwork. This can be great to use when you want to capture the viewer's attention quickly and have a dramatic impact, is definitely one I particularly like doing in my own artwork. Let's now move on and talk about a horizon. It's in line. So a horizon line is the line that separates the sky from the ground. Like this example, you can see that I'm sketching out. So if we take the rule of thirds on the top left, we can use the guide to Eve, place our horizon line on the bottom third to give us more sky or placing it on the top for to give us more ground. On this occasion, I'm gonna go with the bottom third. And that way, I've got quite a lot of sky. Now with the center composition on the right-hand side, we can add the horizon line and again, and again, we can either go with more sky or more ground. Personally, I would place it just below the horizontal center as it will give the piece just a nice balance. Let's move on to leading lines. Leading lines are lines within your illustration that guide the viewer's eyes to the focal point, which in this case is our animal. So this could be a mountain outline or for instance, a river, or even some small leaves that point towards the animal. All these lines intentionally guide the attention towards the focal point. And the same with the center compositions. If we use leaves to guide the viewer's eyes in towards the animal. You could also use grass, for example, but give it a slight direction. So it's just guiding the eye towards the focal point. Let's now move on to whitespace, which can also be known as negative space. But the space is neither white or negative. It's simply the space in-between individual elements in your illustration. So, for instance, this could be a mountain and an animal. And the space in-between these is what is known as whitespace. Now, using whitespace can be really effective in an illustration as it can give your artwork space to breathe in-between the elements. If you start adding, say, a lot more elements like loads of mountains. In this example, the artwork starts to feel more crammed and it becomes a lot more difficult for your eye to focus on anything. So if we go to the center composition and I show you this again in action, if we add a few leaves in the top right-hand corner of the canvas on the left-hand side. But then on the right-hand side, we start adding a lot more. You can see because the left-hand side is less busy. Your eye is naturally drawn to it more. Let us now look at framing. Now, we can use elements like trees, for instance, to frame the overall focal point of the illustration. But this is another great way to focus that viewers attention in the focal point, which in our case is the animal. Now, we can use different elements instead of the trees. We could use rocks, for instance. Or like the example on the center composition, I'm using the leaves and grass. Let's finally look at scale. Scale can be really effective in an illustration composition. And by using small and big elements in your artwork, you can guide the viewer's attention. Let me show you an example of this in action. If we draw a small-scale tree on the horizon line, then draw the same tree, but bigger and filling more of the canvas. You can see that this now leads your eye into the illustration, gives it some perspective. You could say use over elements, say like rocks, for instance. If we take a look at our center composition and use grass as an element on the horizon line. Then at the same elements, but scaled up at the bottom of the Canvas, both on the left and right-hand side. You can immediately see that this adds perspective to the whole illustration, really starts to draw you in. Now you should have a better understanding as to why competition is really important in our artwork. And by seeing some of the composition rules in action, we can take what we've learned into the next lesson. Well, we'll be sketching out our main animal in the illustration. 6. Sketching Out Your Main Focal Animal: In this lesson, we'll be sketching out the main animal using the photos and images that we collected in the project Moodboard as reference and inspiration will be going over how to build up our sketch using basic shapes before adding outlines and then finishing up with incorporating detail. So let's open up procreate and start sketching. We're going to start off by opening Procreate. Then we're going to set up a canvas that we can start creating in. So in the gallery view, we want to go up to the top right-hand corner and tap on the plus icon. And then next to New Canvas, we want to tap on the icon, will then be in our custom canvas menu. Now, the campus I'm going to be creating is going to be A4 print ready. So make sure you have millimeters selected for the width. We're going to type in 297, and then for the height, we're going to type in 210. Now for the DPI, we're going to set this to 300, which makes it print ready. The last thing we're gonna do is tap on the untitled canvas. We're going to name this animal landscape illustration. I also like to note down the width and height just in case I want to reuse the Canvas later on. And that's it. We don't need to touch any of the other settings. And then just hit the yellow Create button at the top right-hand corner. So in the class, resources are provided some custom brushes that you could use if you wanted to. Now, please feel free to use whatever brushes that you feel the most comfortable using. But if you want to use those custom brushes, let's go through how we can install these. So to start off with, made sure that you've downloaded those custom brushes to somewhere on the iPad. Then go to the bottom of the iPad and swipe up to bring up your dark. And you want to select the files icon, and then you want to tap hold and then drag the window across and place it into split screen view. So you've got them side-by-side. And you want to navigate to wherever you've downloaded those brushes. And I've got mine on iCloud Drive, but you could have say Dropbox or something like that. Then once you've located the file, just tap on it and it will import it into Procreate. Now, within New Brush Library, you should have a formula that says Skillshare brushes. So that's it. Now we've got our custom canvas created and our brushes imported if you wanted to use those. Let's get to the exciting part and start sketching. In one of the previous lessons we talked about a focal point. Now, the focal point for our illustration that we're gonna be creating is going to be our animal. So to start off with, I'm going to bring up the mood board we created in one of the previous lessons. And to do this, we're gonna go down to the bottom of our iPad and swipe up to bring our dark. And then tap, hold and drag the Pinterest app to bring it and drop it into the split screen view. Now within Pinterest, then select the mood board we created. Then because it's the square root, we're gonna be starting off sketchy and we want to scroll down and pick one of the reference photos that we liked. Now, this photo are really loved that the squirrel, but I prefer it if it was flipped. So I'm going to take a screenshot of it and bring it into Procreate. To take a screenshot on the iPad, press and hold together one of the volume buttons and the power button. Then I'm going to crop it down so it just picks out the photo of the squirrel. Then if we go over to the share button, we're going to tap on Copy and then tap the Delete icon and we're going to delete the screenshot because you don't really need it now. Then within Procreate app, you want to swipe down with three fingers. You get the copy and paste menu. And then you want to click Paste. I'm just going to scale this photo up. Then I'm also going to get rid of some of the background because I don't really need it now. So I'm going to tap on the arrays icon and then I'm going to pick medium hard airbrush. And then I'm just going to increase the size of the brush and I'm just going to erase all the background out that I don't particularly need as a just need the squirrel itself. And finally, we're going to flip the squirrel by selecting the transform tool. And on the menu that appears on the bottom, we're going to tap Flip Horizontal. Then let's just lift it slightly to the left hand side of the canvas. And then if we go up to our layers, we're going to rename this photo reference. And then we're going to tap the plus icon to create a new layer. And then we're going to name this rough sketch. And now we don't need Pinterest, but going to swipe that away. And then from the brushes menu, I'm going to select HB pencil. And let's start off by sketching our squirrel. So let's start with the body. I want this to be quite fairly big, oval shape. And then for the head, this wants to be like a little smaller oval shape. The body, it has quite a nice flowing arc motion. So let's sketch this in an action line again with the tail. Let's just add that action line that we can use as reference. If you look at the leg of the square root, we can see this is kinda like an oval shape. If we sketch this in again on the other side and we'll just keep on referring to the reference photo. Then if we sketch in the ears and again, keeping it as those simple shapes and just referring using that reference image as a guide. Now, with the same technique that we've just done with adding the body and the head. And keep on going, adding the rest of the features of the squirrel, keeping to those very simple shapes and always referring to the reference photo as a guide. So with the initial rough sketch done, Let's now move on to creating a cleaner sketch. I'm going to actually going to click the Transform tool and I'm just going to shift me scroll slightly to the left hand side. And then we're gonna go to the menu and two-finger tap on the rough sketch and then drag across with one finger to reduce the opacity. Then in the Layer menu, we're going to create a new layer. And then we're going to rename this to be rough too. And then on that layer, we're going to start sketching a cleaner outline, but using the underlying sketch as a guide. And as we go through and create that more crisper, cleaner outline, but still referring back to the original reference image as we go. So if you go through and create that, the final stage or go through is to basically repeat this process by going to our layers panel and two-finger pinch to merge the two rough sketches together. And two-finger tap on the layer and then drag across with one finger to reduce the opacity again to roughly about 46%. And then go to our layers and then tap to create a new layer. And then we're going to rename this to be detailed sketch. Then on that layer, we're going to go through the same process of creating a cleaner sketch, outline and add in the details in. But really, we want to hone in this time and really make sure that you're concentrating on those extra little details. With the squirrel, like the nose, the eyes, the mouth. Now really go through and finish this final stage of this detailed sketch. Now finally, we're gonna go to Layers panel. And then swipe left on the reference layer and hit Delete. And finally began to two-finger pinch to merge the two sketch layers together and then rename it to be Sketch animal. So now you'll have a fantastic animals sketch as your focal point for the illustration. Ready for the background and foreground elements to be added. A few tips takeaway from this lesson is to start off by building up those basic shapes before moving on to the outlines. And then finishing up by adding that detail to the final sketch. In the next lesson, we're going to continue our sketch by building up the background and foreground elements. 7. Sketching Out Your Background & Foreground: In this lesson, we're gonna be adding the foreground and background elements to our sketch, completing the artwork composition, we'll be covering which elements to choose from our reference photos and where best to place them within our composition. We will also learn why keeping our sketches as simple shapes helps us create a more engaging illustration. So let's open our animals sketch in Procreate and get started. So we're going to start off by cranes some quick thumbnail sketches. If you go to the Layer menu and create a new layer. And we're going to name this for males. So we're now going to duplicate the animal sketch that we did to swipe left and tap Duplicate. Then on the bottom layer, tap tick mark to hide it. And then on the top layer, we're just going to rename this to be Sketch animal to. And then making sure we have sketch animal to select it, tap the Transform to reduce the size down to quite small. Then on the menu layer makes sure that the form nails layer is selected. I'm going to say, I'm going to draw out some quick rectangle boxes to indicate a canvas. These are usually generally referred to as quick thumbnails. So I'm going to draw out four in total. Then if we go to the Layers menu and create a new layer and name it guide. In one of the previous lessons, I showed you some of the techniques for creating our compositions. So if we split the top to form nails into three equal parts and in the bottom to form nails just draw a center line. And then with the guide layer selected two-finger tap, then drag across with one finger to reduce the opacity. Now, in the last panel, we want to select the squirrel animal to layer and then click on the transform tool. And then we want to drag and move the squirrel up to the top left hand for now, but play around with the size and scale of it. I'm not going to place it on the second guy. Then in the Layer menu we're going to swipe left and duplicate that squirrel. And then with the squirrel selected, we're going to move it over to the second thumbnail and place it on one of the guides again. And then again, we're in the Layer menu. We're going to duplicate that squirrel and place it on the center line in the bottom left-hand thumbnail. Then finally, duplicate the squirrel layer again and move it over to the last thumbnail, place it in the center. Now, in one of the previous lessons, like I said earlier, we learned about the rule of thirds, the center compositions. And this is what we've implemented into these thumbnails. And by using the guides, we can place the focal point, which is our squirrel onto these. Now we're going to bring up mood board. So we can use this as reference as we start sketching out some simple shapes for the background and foreground elements. So if we swipe up at the bottom of the iPad to bring up our dark, and then tap, hold and drag up the Pinterest app and bring it up, drop it into the split screen view, and then select the mood board in Pinterest that we created earlier in the class. Now, let's begin by sketching in first of all, our horizon line, which is basically the line that separates the sky from the ground. So I'm going to sketch in two, I'm going to sketch in warm, That's pretty straight. And the other one that's kinda like a little bit curved. Now, the purpose of these form nails is to basically sketch in quickly workout, which kinda like composition is going to work without spending too much time adding precise detail. So now we've got the horizon lines kinda like sketched out in all of the thumbnails. So let's start off by sketching in our first kinda like background elements, which I'm going to pick as the sun. So if we sketch the sewn into kinda like all the thumbnails and play around where you can, like place it. Try different positions and sizes and just experiment quickly. Now, for our second element, which is going to be in the background, I picked a mountain. So I'm going to play around with kinda like adding this, looking at my reference photos. As I kinda like, add those simple shapes. And it's important as a beginner to make sure that we just keep those shapes that were added in as simple as possible. Don't try and over-complicate them. And by keeping those shapes as simple as possible, you can implement stuff like the leading lines, whitespace, framing, and scale that we learned in the previous lesson, why composition matters? Now, if you need to refer back to that class and try to implement some of those key skills that we learned into these thumbnail sketches. So I have now quickly sketched out my background elements and I'm going to now move on to the foreground elements that I picked from a probabilist, one of which was trees. Now one of the key skills we did learn in the previous class on composition and why it matters was foramen and I'm going to use this in my thumbnails now by framing the picture and placing each tree either side of the canvas. Effectively, kinda like what you're doing is creating candlelight, that picture frame. Look. Now, the final few foreground elements that I picked from the problem list was a log and some grass. So I'm going to go through the reference images. Then I'm going to just add these in for the log will be nice with the squirrel, kind of like sitting on it. Then I'm also gonna kinda like how the graphs, which was May final elements in the top compositions. I'm kinda like not going to put the login just to see what it looks like if I just placed the graphs in. Like I've said previously, these thumbnails are all about experimenting quickly with your compositions and where you put each individual elements and just basically playing around careers many of them as you need. So now we don't need Pinterest anymore, so just swipe away and then go free-form nails and pick out which composition from now you think is working the best. Now, this is the one I'm going to pick for mine where the focus is in the center with a squirrel. That horizon line is leading the viewer into my focal point. So I'm going to take a screenshot of this one. I've chosen to take a screenshot on the iPad, press and hold together one of the volume buttons and the power button. Then I'm going to crop down the sketch slightly. And then I'm gonna go up to Done in the top left hand corner and click Save to photos, and then swipe up on the iPad and open up Procreate again. And then if we go into our Layers menu and then we want to pinch together and merge all the overlay is apart from the sketch animal, which is the bottom one. And then we're going to rename this layer and call it thumbnails. And then tap on with tick marks, turn the visibility off. And then on the layer underneath turn the tick mark and see the original squirrel that we sketched out. Now we're going to bring in our thumbnail sketch that we just created. So we're gonna go to our Actions menu. And within that menu, we're going to tap on Canvas. And then we're going to toggle on reference. And then once we're in our reference menu, we want to tap on image and then tap on import images. And then within photos you're going to pick the thumbnail screenshot that we put in there. Now, let's move on to the next stage where we're gonna be creating a rough sketch for the whole composition. So if we now go to our menu layer and create a new layer, we're gonna be calling this illustration sketch. And then if we make sure that we have the sketch animals selected and go to our Transform tool. And then using our thumbnail as a guide, shift the squirrel into the center and scale it down so it kinda like matches our quick form nail sketch that we did previously. And then go to our Layer menu and shift illustration sketch just below sketch animal. And then previously like we've done before, swipe up and then tap and hold Pinterest and bring it into the split screen view. So now we have everything in place. We're going to start out by roughly sketching in our composition. Now because we've done the hard work and creating the form now, we can use this as reference as to where to place our individual elements. And we've also got Pinterest on the side to kinda like refer to that if we need to look at any specific detail. So go ahead and start sketching all those elements into the competition, copying the formula. Remember, keep those shapes as simple as possible. So let's move into the final stage wherever we can to be creating a clean sketch. So if we go into Layers menu and we're going to select illustration sketch, and I'm just going to rename this. So just at the end, I'm going to put rough. Then I'm going to create a new layer above this, and I'm going to rename this to be detailed illustration sketch. And then on the rough sketch below, I'm gonna two-finger tap and then drag across with one finger to reduce the opacity to around 51%. And then making sure that the detailed sketch layer is selected. We're gonna go over the faded out rough sketch and just trace over it and just making sure that our lines is clean as possible. So if you go ahead and do this and take your time with it. So now you should have an entire sketch completed with our main animal as the focal point of the illustration, accompanied by the foreground and background elements to complete the whole artwork composition. In the next lesson, we learned what a limited color palette is and why using bond is a brilliant option for those of you starting to experiment with color in your work. 8. Why Use a Limited Colour Palette: In this lesson, we're gonna be talking about why using the limited color palette is a great way to begin to start adding color to your illustrations will also cover why I believe using a limited color palette is a great way to begin your color journey. So let's start off with a question. What is a limited color palette? It essentially means limiting the number of colors that you use. Now, this is usually no more than six in total, but this doesn't include the tints and shades. So why would you use a limited color palette? Well, if you're just beginning to experimenting, adding color to your work, sticking to a limited color palette, it makes it a lot easier to see the relationship between each of them and see whether they're working well together. It's also easier to explore and experiment, which is crucial parts of the learning journey. And it certainly helped me out when I was first starting out as an illustrator. So if we take a look at some color schemes and start with analogous. Now, procreate has an extremely useful color palette scheme creator, which is found in the color palette menu under the Harmony tab. So if we take a look harmony section and tap on the word underneath color, we will get the various color schemes which are complimentary, split, complimentary, analogous, triadic, and TRR DIC. But for this class, we're going to be concentrating on just a few. So let's start with analogous. Analogous color schemes. Is a group of three colors next to each other on the color wheel. The color in the center of the group is the primary, and the ones next to each other are the secondary colors. Now, analogous color schemes are often found in nature, create really nice calming visual pallets. There is usually no tension in the palettes and they are either warm or cold and feeling. So for that reason, these can be really nice to use for say, a night or day illustration. Now, let's move on to the complimentary color scheme. Again, this can be found under the color harmony tab in Procreate. So a complimentary color scheme consists of two colors on the opposite side of the color wheel. This is great for making really bold, colorful illustrations. And it's really useful when you want a viewer's attention to focus on a particular area within the artwork. Color is such an important part of the illustration process. And hopefully this lesson has given you a quick insight into the topic and you're feeling more confident about starting your journey with exploring color. In the next lesson, we'll be creating flat colors with the limited color palette. 9. Creating Your Flat Colours With a Limited Colour Palette: So in this class we're going to be creating a limited color palette for our illustration and adding the base colors to the artwork. When I was first starting learning color, I found it really overwhelming and daunting as to where to start. But I found one technique that really helped and that was to ask questions about the illustration. So when it comes to animal landscape illustrations, the first question I would ask would be, what season is my illustration setting? So let me show you why you would ask these questions now are going to base my seasons or where I live, which is the UK. So in the UK we have spring, summer, autumn, and winter. So because we've asked the question about what season our illustration is setting, we can narrow down our color choice. So if we take spring, for instance, we can narrow down our choices to kind of like warm greens and light blues, and light browns as well. And then summer colors, for instance, usually get more of a brighter blue and brighter greens. Then awesome, for instance, you get those really nice rustic brown beige colors. And then finally finishing with winter, you get those really nice, pale, cold blue colors. So the next question I would ask is, Is my illustration day or night? With our next question, we're narrowing down the color choices even further. If you take date, night, for instance, then pick which seasons go with. I'm going to pick winter. And then by narrowing it down to day or night, the colors shift again, the day for instance, or those lighter, colder blues and much paler, whereas at night, those blues become a lot darker tone. So you could keep narrowing it down asking these questions. So let's go with one more. Is my illustration morning, afternoon or evening. So we're breaking this down even further by asking, is it gonna be morning, afternoon, or evening? So there again, because we're asking the questions and narrowing it down even further, making it easier for us to know which colors we're going to pick. With the morning example. We've got that really nice, kinda like barely morning winter colors going on. And then with the evening one, we've got some really nice, kinda like winter dusk chorus going on. Now, once you've answered these questions, you can go into Pinterest and it can be really specific about your search for a color palettes. So for instance, I'm going to now search for a limited color, winter morning color palette. Then you're gonna get some fantastic limited color palettes coming up that are really going to help you. Then go through them and save them to a board if you want to use them in your illustration. As you can see, by asking those questions, you can really make it easier for making those color choices. So let's now go through adding a limited flat colors to our illustration. So after asking some questions over color and answering them, I've decided I'm going to be doing a dusk scene for my illustration. So you can either follow along and pick the same colors that I'm using, or can I answer your own questions and use those answers to make an informative choice about your colors. So I'm going to get started by adding my background color in. So create a new layer in the layers panel and name that sky. And then let's go to our color panel. Let's pick candlelight. Quite a pale color, usually for the background. Once I've picked this, then once I've picked this, I'm going to go up to the color icon in the top right-hand corner, tap hold and drag it and drop it onto the canvas. This will like color, fill all the background. And then I'm going to go up to the brush menu and select soft brush or any air brush with a soft edge will do. Then in the color menu, I'm going to shift the color wheel just slightly so it's just a bit more redder. And then on the inner desk, I'm just going to drag the circle so it's a bit brighter. And then with the Apple pencil, I'm gonna go from left to right and dragging it candlelight down. Just so I can like paint a gradient in the sky. So if we go to the Layer menu and then create a new layer, and then I'm going to name this sun. Then want to go to the color menu. And I'm going to pick a paler radical. And then from the brushes menu, I'm going to select studio ink small boats. Any inking brush with a hard edge will do. Now, I'm going to use quick shapes to draw in the sun. So draw a circle with the Apple Pencil on the iPad. But then don't take your pencil off the screen. And then we view other hand tap with one finger on the screen to make a perfect circle. So I'm then gonna kinda like just reduce the size so it's roughly around the sun. And then once I let go, I want to go to the top and click Edit Shape, and then tap and drag with the Apple pencil to just shift it around to match the sun size. Then we're going to use the fill tool again by tapping on the color icon. I'm dragging it across and then dropping it with inside the circle. Then by moving left and right, you can affect the intensity of the field. So when you happy, let go. If you go to the Layer menu and then on the sketch layer, tap the N letter. This will bring up the Blending Mode menu. I want to scroll down and select overlay and then reduce the opacity to roughly around about 76 per cent. Then let's go to the Layer menu and create a new layer. And then we want to call this layer mountain. Now, let's go to the color menu in the top right-hand corner. Again, in the red area on the color wheel. I'm going to search for a color for the mountain. And I think I'm going to pick this one. And then I'm just going to double-check in the brush library that I have, studio ink, small picked. And we're going to use the quick shape again. And we're basically going to draw a curve. So if we create a curved arc, and remember to keep your pencil held down at the end and not take it off the screen. And then click Edit Shape. And you'll get a few pointers on the arc line. So you can move these around to shift it to be exactly where the pencil line is. And then if we draw around the rest of the outline of the mountain and then drag and drop the color icon into the mountain to fill it. So if we go to the Layer menu and create a new layer, and then rename this ground. And then from the color menu, we're going to shift the inner circle down to make it slightly darker. And then, and then like I showed you in the previous mountain shape, we're going to use the quick shape arc and then the drop fill. Now I've shown you the techniques that you need to fill in each of your objects in the illustration. Go ahead and create layers for each of them and name them. Keep in mind the colors that you choose in by referring back to your original answer for your question. Now let's go to our Layers menu and create a new layer. And we're going to name this leaves. We're going to make sure that it's above the trees layer to tap on the leaves layer to bring up a menu. And we're going to select clipping mask. What that essentially does. It means that anything that you draw within that layer remains within those pixels of that underneath layer, which is the trees in this case. So if we press and hold with our fingers, we can pick out colors on the canvas. So let's pick that grass color. And then we're going to use this for the leaves of the trees. So go ahead than color this in on the leaves clipping mask layer. Then again, we're going to use the same technique on log. So if we create a new layer and name it log base, then tap and from the menu select Clipping Mask, and then tap and hold to select the color from the log, and then go to the color menu. And then from the inner circle, we're going to make the color slightly darker and maybe shift the hue slightly. And then let's paint in the bottom base of the log with this new color. So the little chip in the log, I'd imagine this to be slightly darker color. So to do this in, I'm going to pick the color from the leaves in the top left. Then I'm just going to zoom in and I'm going to paint this in family. We're going to finish with the squirrel. So if we can create a new layer and we want to make sure it's above the squirrel. And we're going to rename this the base colors. Again, tap on the menu and select clipping mask. Then I'm going to pick the squirrel color by tapping and holding with my finger. Then in the color menu, I'm going to make it like a lighter color to the original. Now I'm going to bring up Pinterest by swiping up from the bottom of the iPad to bring up the dark. And then tap and hold and drag Pinterest across into the split screen view. And I'm going to pick out from our mood board the squirrel photo. And I'm going to look at this reference and see areas where I feel as though it's slightly lighter on the body of the squirrel. I'm going to paint this in on that clipping mask layer. And I'm also going to look at areas where it's slightly darker, say like the eyes of the squirrel, and the nose and the mouth. And I'm going to add this in as well on that same layer. And there we have it. Flat, limited color palette is down ready for the next lesson, which is why add textures and shading. 10. Why add Textures & Shading: In this lesson, we're going to be learning about textures and shading and y, you can really push your illustrations to the next level. I'll explain this by showing you a few simple examples. So let's start off by answering this question. Why add textures and shading? The main reason we add textures and shading to our illustration is to give it more of a unique, stylized look to make it stand out more. For example, if we look at this simple flat color illustration, I think you could agree that it could be classed as quite plain as it currently is and definitely lack some depth and interest. But if we were to take this same flat illustration and add some textures and shading to it. You can immediately see it adds depth and gives it a stylized look which ups the level of interests within the illustration. The key thing to take away from this lesson is to think about adding textures and shading to your work to make your illustration stand out, giving them death and creating a stylized look that is unique for you. In the next lesson, we're gonna be going through adding our textures and shading to our illustration. 11. Adding Shading & Textures: In this class we're gonna be adding shading and textures to our flat base colors to add depth and style to our illustration, we'll be going over to different shading techniques along with adding textures to the overall artwork. So let's tell them by looking at shading and textures. I'm going to go through and show you an example of shading and textures in action. Though, I'm going to start off by drawing a simple tree sketch and the son in the background, which is going to be our light source. Mostly going to add a pale color for the background. I'm also going to set the blend mode to overlay, reduce the opacity on the sketch layer. Now, I'm just going to add some flat colors like we did in the previous lesson. So this is how it would look with no shading or textures on the illustration. Let's duplicate this and add some shading. So I'm going to start off by using a soft airbrush. So the light source is the sun that is hitting our tree on the right hand side at a slight angle from the top. So on the opposite side of the tree. So if we paint with that soft airbrush on the trunk and the leaves with that darker shade color. As you can see, this starts to add a bit more depth when you compare it to the first tree with just some flat colors. But let's take it a stage further. So let's copy that tree. Now, I'm going to select my textured brush from the Skillshare brushes we imported. Now with the same technique as we use with the soft brush. We're going to build up the texture on the opposite side of the tree where the light source is hitting. By selecting a slightly darker shade of the original flat color. Play around with the opacity and the size until you get the desired look that you want. The important thing to remember is the furthest edge from the light source is going to be the darker area. And the lighter area is going to be near the light source. I'm now going to pick my studio ink, small brush, boots. Any brush with a hard edge will do. And then on the right-hand side of the leaves of the tree, I'm going to add in some highlights with the color of the sun, long with a darker shadow just under the leaves of the tree. Along with it. Along with a really dark. And like I said in one of the previous classes, using different textured brushes can really give you a personalized, unique look. Like this last example where I've used the paper Daisy brush in the organic folder. So let's add shading and textures using the technique I've just shown. So I'm first going to open up our layers menu. And I'm going to merge together the layers with the clipping mask on. And I'm gonna do this to every one apart from the square root just to tidy it up a bit. I'm also going to rename the clipping mask layer on the squirrel to square root detail. Then in the menu, make sure that we have the squirrel layer selected. And then go and select the Adjustments Layer menu. And then we're going to pick the first one which is hue saturation and brightness. So the first slide, it is the hue, which is the color. The second slider is saturation, which is the intensity of that color. And the last slider is brightness of the color. So I'm going to use these sliders to just change the color of my squirrel slightly, just me making some very subtle changes. And once you're happy with it, go to the adjustments icon, tap on it just to get outside of this menu. Now, I'm gonna make these sorts of changes again to the ground and mountain layer. And just play around with just adding some little small changes to your course. So let's now go to our layer menu again. And two-finger tap on the sketch layer. And then one finger tap and drag across and reduce the opacity down to probably roughly around 20 per cent. So I've just realized that I'm missing the whiskers of the squirrel. I'm going to select the squirrel layer. And then on the squirrel color, pick the lighter shade by tapping and holding your finger down. And then let's just quickly draw those whiskers in. So let's now start setting up some layer. So go to our Layer menu and we're going to add two new layers above our squirrel layer. And we're going to name one shading and one textured. And we're going to make sure that these are clipping mask of the squirrel layer. So if you do this to all the other objects in your illustration, say like the sun, the mountain, the trees, etc. And just make sure that there's shading and texture layer. And both of these are a clipping mask to the intentional layer. Now I'm just going to go to the Layer menu and I'm going to check the squirrel layer. And I'm actually going to make sure that I move the shading and textured layer below the squirrel detail clipping mask layer, like so. So with the color menu, if you tap and drag the dashed line, you'll get a floating window that you can drag around the canvas. Now, let's tap and hold with our finger to pick the squirrel color. And then with the inner circle, just pick a slightly darker color shade. Then from the brush menu, select soft brush or any soft air brush will do. And then for the brush size, pick ten per cent, and then make sure we have the shading layer selected on the squirrel. And then let's start adding that darker color to the bottom of the squirrel tail. And basically, like the example I showed you at the beginning with the trees, were following the same principle of basically painting on the opposite side of where that light source is hitting on the animal. And also, if we take each major shape of the squirrel as its own, separate kinda like objects. So the tail will be one, the whole body of the squirrel would be another. The legs will be another object. Go through the squirrel and do this for all of it. So now let's pick the main squirrel body color. And then we're just gonna make this color slightly lighter. And then again, I'm just going to add this on to decide which where the light source is hitting on all the parts of the squirrel, like say the tail, the body, the legs. So let's now move on to adding some texture to our squirrel, like we did with the tree example. So if we go up to the Layer menu and make sure that we have the textured layer selected. And then on the squirrel, if we pick the darker shaded color, the tail, then we're just going to make it slightly darker in the color wheel. And then in the brushes menu, make sure that we have textured be selected as a brush. Then if we zoom in on the squirrel tail, and then I'm going to add in quite a hard shadow to where the tail connects to the body. Just to emphasize this, like with the tree example where the leaves met the trunk of the tree. So I'm going to add a few more of these harder edge shadows into the squirrel. Say like where the E meets the head or the bottom foot where it meets the body. So I'm basically gonna do this on the squirrels feet as well. Just using the pencil sketch, which you can still see. It's kinda like a guide as to where I'm going to place it on the feet. Now, go through any other areas on your animal where you feel as though this will be needed. So let's now go to Layer menu. And then on the square root details layer, I'm going to two-finger swipe, right? And what this is going to do is alpha lock the layer and you'll get a checkered box background to indicate that. So anything drawn on this layer now will remain within those pixels. Now, pick the color squirrel body, make the color slightly darker. And then making sure we're still on that texture brush. We're going to start adding some texture from the bottom of the squirrel body upwards, towards the top, where it's going to fade out. And then I'm gonna do the same to areas like the squirrels is. Now pick the color of the sun and making sure on the Layer menu that we have the texture layer selected. Then we're going to add some lighter texture of that sunlight to kinda like the top of the squirrel tail where it's going to be hitting with the light. And then go through over areas of the squirrel where you think this light will be hitting. Now, let's go to the squirrel and pick the darker shade on the tail and just make it slightly darker even further. Then on the tail start adding some darker texture to the bottom where the light source wouldn't be hitting. And if we go through all the squirrel, do this. And keep in mind that example I showed you at the beginning with the tree. You're adding it to the areas where the light source wouldn't be hitting us much. So go through the rest of the squirrel adding these techniques to it until you're finished with it. Remember, this is gonna be our focal point. So we want to add more detail to this than the rest of the objects in the illustration. This will mean that the viewers eyes will be drawn naturally to this. So let's now move on to the log. So let's pick the main log color. And let's just make this slightly darker. And then go up to our brush menu and make sure that we have. Soft brush selected and start painting in from the bottom upwards and making it darker at the bottom of the tree log. And then obviously lighter towards the top. We've done this now for the base of the log. So let's do the top walk as well to pick that color, make it slightly darker, and then paint from the left, leaving it light towards the right. So let's then move on to adding some texture. So make sure we have the texture brush selected. And then the Layer menu, make sure we have the texture layer of the lock selected. And then start adding that texture in the base of the log, just coming up from the bottom, up towards the top. And then do the same on the top of the log. And then finally, I'm going to select a slightly darker shade. And I'm going to paint a shadow just underneath the squirrel, just emphasizing that it's kinda like sitting on there. And finally, if we go and pick the color of the sun and pick a slightly smaller size of the brush. I'm going to start adding in sharp highlights on the edge of the log, just where the light source will be hitting. So now go through all the rest of your objects in your illustration, adding this technique to every single one at that. And then finally, go back and look for areas like the eyes and the nose and just push kinda like the colors and the textures a little bit more in those areas. Basically, kinda like giving it a bit of detail. So the focus of the viewer is going to naturally be drawn more to the detailed areas. So let's now look at how to share our illustration. So if we go up to the top left hand corner and tap gallery. Once we're in gallery, if we select the illustration we want to share, and basically swipe left and tap Share. And then from the drop-down menu. And generally speaking, you want to press JPEG. And then from the menu that pops up, we want to tap Save Image, and that's it. Congratulations, your illustration will now be in your photos on your iPad. The key thing to remember when it comes to textures is to experiment with different brushes to find textures. You may like. Also keep in mind where that light source is coming from so you know where to build up the intensity. Congratulations on completing the class and I can't wait to see what illustrations you've created from what you've learned. In the next class, I'll be going over some of the key points that we've learned throughout the lessons and also where to share our artwork online.