Designing Retro Monograms on Procreate: Style, Structure & Hierarchy

1. Welcome!: Monograms are like puzzles. They are so fun to create. They're structured, elegant, and a little chaotic, which makes creating them addictive, especially once you know a few tricks. Today, I'm going to show you how to design monograms that feel timeless and beautifully retro, blending style, structure, and a little bit of storytelling in a really approachable way. You can take this class using any software on any device, and you can also follow it perfectly with just pencil and paper. I'm going to be using an iPad and Procreate to show the process, though, because it's my favorite way to work. Hey, everyone. I'm Jimbo Bernaus. I'm a lettering artist, illustrator, educator, and also co founder of Sha Dam. I spent the last ten years working with brands like Paper, Calsberg, Espresso displays, booking.com, Tablo, et cetera. But what I love the most is teaching and sharing my process with people like you. So if you're into retro aesthetics, ornamental lettering, and experimenting with different styles, you're in the right place. By the end of this class, you will have your own stylised monogram billed with my favorite techniques and polished with a few ornament tricks. Let's do this. 2. Today's Class: This class, I'm focusing on retro style monograms instead of super modern ones, just because that's the vibe that I love the most, and it really fits the techniques we're about to explore. Before recording this class, I actually practice drawing around 50 monograms using my patrons initials. It helped me test all the rules and styles that I'm teaching you here. So throughout the lessons, you will see me using some of those real initials to explain each technique in a way that feels clear and practical. After we go through all the monogram rules I came up with, we're going to create a final monogram using the procreate brushes and textures that I've prepared. You'll also get a full PDF guide, so you can get back to it and don't get lost next time. Just a little FYI, but this class is entirely based on my own methods. It's not the definitive way to create or classify monograms, and it's just the way that has helped me the most. Now, let me show you some inspiration before we start. 3. Inspiration: Time that I start a lettering piece, not just monograms, I go straight to my books, old typography manuals, Art Nouveau collections, vintage lettering books. That's really my happy place. Let me show you a couple of books that you can grab for cheap, plus a Pinterest that I've put together to help you get inspired. Okay, let me show you a couple of books. Well, actually three books that I think would be really cool for you to have because they're really related to today's topic. Two of them are gonna be about monograms, and then the third one is going to be the Art Nouveau book that we probably seen if you took my first Art Nouveau class. I think I showed it there. Yeah. So, this one is actually pretty cheap. I think that was, like, around, like, 15 bucks or something like that. And it's all about Victorian monograms. And since today we are learning retro monograms, I think this is a must have. It's not that big. It's like a little I would say it's like a little magazine or something, but really, really an incredible book. Now, even though I love the cover, I'm having certain issues here with the spacing between the V and the I, that curtly is not right. But apart from that, incredible book. So, you will see that it's not like a super, you know, cool edition. It's just normal, like, very thin paper, but the reference here the references here are really good, and there is so many combinations that I really, really recommend it. Are So you're going to have the link in the description of the class. Now, let's go to the second one, a book that I had for quite a long time now, and it's called 4,000 monograms. Here you will find anything from something like super modern like this to also something really Rococo like this one, for example. Let me show you a little bit. This is a better edition. It's like, really thick. And I think you can find it in Amazon. I think I saw, I'm also gonna give you the link. But I think right now there is another edition, and I think the cover is yellow. But anyways, yeah. I'll put the link there. So let me show you a little bit inside. Let me see where should I start? Like, actually, I believe, like, the first part is actually that book over there because it looks the same. But then, as you go past the retro ones, then the book completely changes, as you can see. So I actually think that probably should get this one if you really want to get into it, because for what I see now, like, I got a book, but, like, I already had it here, pretty much everything. I don't know if they are the same compositions, but I think they might be similar. Anyway, so now, you'll see that here there's so many, so many letter pairs. And also, they play with, like, two and three characters, which is really cool. And here, you'll find, like, pretty much any style that you can play with. Um, Look at it's it's just incredible, to be honest. You know, after checking these books again, I think this is not going to be the last monogram class that I do because it's really interesting once you get to learn a little bit of, like, different lettering styles, getting to monograms is just so fun, you know, because you get to mess around with all the letters, break some rules, which is something that I really love always. But anyways, you definitely should check out this book. And finally, I'm going to show you one just in case you didn't take my Art Nouveau class, but this one is a book that I always loved, and you can also find the link in the description. But this one is not about monograms, but it's just about Art Nouveau letters. But here, there's so many styles that you could practice with And then you could turn them into monograms, which is something that I really recommend, especially with Arnall letters, all these letters just look really, really, really good with monograms. And you can see here that even I mean, this is not Oh, yeah, these are monograms, actually. Look at that. You also have some monograms here. Let me show you a close. You can see. Is it focused? Yeah, I think so. So, look, I didn't think I would find monograms here, but there's also a lot of them. Wow, I didn't even I checked this book a lot of times, and I didn't even see those pages with monograms. But yeah, definitely go check that one out, as well. 4. Discovery: Told you in the beginning, I've asked my patrons to give me their initials, and I sketched around 50 monograms with them. It's been an amazing refresh to what I knew about monograms. Here's a short brain dum of what visual material we're going to use today. Okay, so before I show you all the rules that I've prepared together with the workbook, I wanted to show you the monograms that I've drawn preparing for this class. And just letting you know that once you know all the rules, making monograms becomes super, super fun. Now, there's a couple of things that I enjoyed most in this class, and I wanted to tell you. And the first thing is mirroring. I did a lot of symmetry doing these monograms, and you will see that as one of my hierarchy rules later on. But you're going to see that a lot of these monograms are mirroring, so that's for sure my favorite thing to do. There's letters that just work better when it comes to monograms. For example, the letter S works super good. It's not mirroring, but it's following this, um central axis, and then you can do so much around it. Now, for some mirroring letters that really work, for example, the T works so well, then the M and the A here. So, for example, you see that the H also mirrors really nicely. The T and the M are absolute gorgeous combinations when it comes to monograms. And then you will see that there's a lot of letters that are not mirroring themselves, but then once you put them side by side, they look really good mirroring. For example, these are two Ks, this one got a bit too logotypy because because of this, it becomes a little bit less readable. But you're going to see that some letters when they're flipped, you say, let me erase this part in the middle so it's more readable. So you're going to see that these two letter Ks are mirroring perfectly, and there's letters like this one that when you just choose central axis here, you're going to see that they are really readable, even if this K is looking to the left, right? So there is a couple more examples of this that we're going to see at some point, maybe the letter A, even if you flip it, it's also readable. And then there is letters like the J and the L. We couldn't do the same as we did here because when you flip certain letters, they become another letter like this J and L. Okay, so you will see also that two letter compositions are way easier. And sometimes when you add three or more, it becomes a little bit more complicated to read, but that's just like the normal thing, especially when you create tricky compositions. So you see this one has three. RAP really easy to read. But then there is other ones like this one that I pushed some boundaries here a little bit. So there's the C, the A, and the S. You see? So there's going to be more complicated ones. You can also do a four letter monogram, but I wouldn't advise you to. But in some instances, it can work if you want to make it work, of course. Then when it comes to letters like the letter N and the letter S, you'll see that the S has almost a really good weight distribution around the whole letter. So the letter S is really good to put it in the center, and then it can be pierced through by other letters. So I really like the letter S because of this, right? So I told you about the the mirroring letters and the S is not one of them. Even though when you flip it, it's still readable. But it generates this nice negative space, so you can really put letters around it. And then there's another one that I like a lot, which is the letter M. So we have it right here. Let me just draw this in right so you see it because it has the same weight left and right. And then there is this part right here. And yeah, it's not mirroring, but it has the same weight left and right. So it really helps creating a central composition with it. Now, other cool things here that I'm thinking about is that some letters when you invert them, but you add just that little something, they become also readable. And you can still create mirroring compositions. So the letter E and the letter C is a good one because you could always create the letter C first and then just make it a letter E, right? So when you make it the letter E, and you still can flip it, and it's still readable because not a single letter looks like that. So that's for sure, a letter. And in this class, I just want to encourage you to go ahead and break some rules and boundaries. Just go a little bit further than what I'm going to teach you because there's so many things in here that just break the rules, some of the things that probably wouldn't make it in a final logotype because it becomes less readable. You know, like, some monograms are overly complicated, even though I love them, right? But like here, I really wanted to experiment with letters, and I think that's the fun when you're doing monograms. And the last thing I want to tell you before we enter the workbook is that if you think the combination is a little bit too difficult, just go script. Because when you go script, everything becomes a little bit easier. You can still play a lot with flourishes, but it's going to be readable, right? You're going to see that you're going to read this way faster than any other more complicated monogram when there's three letters or more. Alright, so let's go to the next chapter now. 5. Positioning: Alright, so before we jump into stylistic variations, we need the foundation, how letters are positioned and how they relate to each other. If style is about personality, position and hierarchy are about structure. This is what makes a monogram readable, balanced and also intentional. Let's do this. Okay, let's get to it. To follow along, you can open the haben monogram guide. You're going to see that I've prepared you a high res and a low rest, depending on the iPad that you have. So let's open it up. Now, I'm just going to tell you how this works. If you've played with any of my guides before, you will see that more or less I always use the same kind of technique to go through it. You're going to see that there is the background color and the background as an image. Just keep these two on all the time, just so you see everything else better. Now, you can use this workbook as something that you go back to when you create a monogram, because it's going to give you all the structural and stylistic traits that you're gonna need to create monograms, really. I want to tell you that, as well. Like, this is just the way that I see monograms. It's not the definitive way. So, for sure, you're gonna find other classifications online. But this is what I came up with that really helped me create monograms all these years. Now, you can see this in the disclaimer that I put just in case because if you've been here for a while following my classes, you're going to see that I always try to find my methods just because my method is what helped me the most, and that's how I see the world of lettering. So I think that could be useful for you. So before we get to see the stylistic traits, I want to show you how monograms can be positioned and who leads the composition? You know, sometimes there's going to be a letter that's going to be more important than the other, so it's going to become bigger. And sometimes you just gonna do it just because it looks better, and that's also okay. Let's go down here and let's open the position and hierarchy. The first thing that we're going to see is the position, and then we're going to get to see the hierarchy. Now, for the position, let me do this bigger. For the position, there is five positions that I found, really. Like, for sure, there is more. But I think these five really are the basics of what you're going to see in most monograms, actually. Now, if we go to the vertical alignment, you're going to see that letters are stacked or aligned in a vertical flow. The results will always be kind of narrow and tall, and I really, really like the legibility on this composition because you have a lot of space here to breathe. I really like this monogram that I've drawn, and by the end of this, I'm going to show you a little timelapse of the five monograms and how I constructed them, how I did the sketch of them. Now, the horizontal alignment is quite the opposite, right? So the letters flow side by side, and it can also be super legible if you create simple letters. But in this one, for example, I wanted to complicate myself drawing some unusual letters, and sometimes it could be maybe a little bit difficult to read, but you get the point. Vertical, horizontal, and now we go to the central, which is the most common one, I believe, the one that I've seen the most in the books that I showed you. In this one, the letters overlap or just met around central axis. The most of them, you're going to see that are mirroring, as well, just because they look better, they look just more organized, but, you know, they don't have to be mirroring, per se, all the time. And this is the most traditional and iconic monogram layout and personally my favorite. Now, the diagonal one, you're going to see that I forgot to tell you, but here, I put a little bit of these squares, kind of, like, to see, you know, like, what's going on. Like here, for example, you're going to see that it's the same left and right. And diagonal now if you get a pencil, I just wanted to show you. But in the diagonal one, let me just speak the layer. Yeah. You're going to see that the letters are arranged on an angle. It is elegant, it is dynamic, and it's often used in calligraphic or flowing monograms. So in this one, for example, I align them like this, you're going to see that these are going to be the two squares that I've drawn here. But you could always do something like this, for example, you could put this composition or this one. There is an example after with the calligraphic RAP. The one that I showed you, I'm going to tell you the logic behind. And that uses a diagonal positioning. But, yeah, I hope that you get what the diagonal is all about. And then we've got finally the random. Now, in this random distribution, letters float in a non linear arrangement, meaning it's more playful and letters usually have different sizes. It can be really, really useful when a central composition is difficult to achieve because certain letters sometimes can just, you know, have a more difficult nature for them to be included in a monogram. Now, I think the random distribution is when I don't see how all the rest would work. I think I go to the random one, and then you're going to see that you're going to use certain blank spaces from letters. You're going to see that maybe using maybe, like, some hierarchy rules that we're going to see now, you could make this work, for example, you see that the D kind of, like, hugs the whole composition, and that's going to be parenting technique that I've seen used in a lot of monograms that I'm going to show you now when we get to the hierarchy, but really the random, just try to place letters. If I was you, just keep the three letters on a new layer here on Procreate or Photoshop or whatever you're using, and just try to move them around and see how they work. And then, you will find that maybe, like in this D, for example, I used the letter S as if it would be my main stem. Okay, so here's a timelapse on how I sketched these five of them. So 6. Hierarchy - : Hierarchy tells you either how your letters can be distributed across the piece or which letter has priority and how the others support it. It's a little bit complicated now, but you're going to see it. These are five hierarchy structures that every monogram uses. Okay, so hierarchy defines sort of the role of each letter or how they communicate and relate to each other. Sometimes there is one that will take the spotlight, and sometimes they will all share the same amount of space. It really depends. Now, if you go to the beginning, you're going to see the stacked one. And for the stack one, it's going to be like one letter just sits directly on top of the other. It's super simple and great for creating compact monograms. And you will see that it's the easiest one to use because you just basically put one letter on top of the other. This is not the final monogram that I actually did in the sketch, which you're going to see because I use the overlap technique. Now, in the overlap technique, letters physically overlap to create one unified shape. It's really good for two letter monograms, but you have to watch out when you are using more letters, since it can get a little bit complicated, as you can see in this one. We're going to see different techniques after on how to make this more legible. Just as a spoiler, one is going to be different styles, and then different textures for each letter. Let's say that we were to paint this let's go to the A. If we get to paint this letter B, for example, in red or orange, whatever that is. And then the other one, sorry. The other one with yellow. And the other one with a blue color, you would see that now, just becomes more readable just because of the nature of this contrast, right? So I really like overlapping with three letters because it just becomes a little bit more complex and just fun to do, right? But you're going to see the difference in between the stack and the overlap here, some letters go on top of the other, and then in front, you're going to see. And then the same here with the V, you see that the V is going underneath the M here, but then it's going on top. So just play with the overlap, and you're going to get really interesting things like this, especially when you add shadows. And here, you're going to see that just, you know, letter S, that's it, and then the K is behind. But again, in this example, I'm also going to make it overlapping in the video that I'm showing you later. Now, piers through, the pierced through means that a letter cuts through another stroke. It's not just about one being on top of the other, but both of them are creating the same space. Both of them are same important. For example, this K and the D, right, they're all same importance, and then the V just is a little bit, like encapsulated here inside, so it becomes less important. But it creates kind of like a bold and I would say, striking interaction and really at some tension. Now, you could use the pierce through technique everywhere. So in the overlap as well, now, imagine that this letter could be like, let's say, the M, could pierce here, for example. You see? And then here you could create, like, some kind of a sorry, some kind of a shadow here. So like, let's you see? And even this, you could make it appears a little bit better like that. But you're going to see that all the rules that I'm going to tell you today are really interchangeable. So let's go to parenting. Now parenting works a little bit different and parenting is just I came up with this term. Again, I'm not sure. This is a real term. But I found that it was really easy to kind of, like, explain, right? So in the parenting one, we've got like one large parent, which would be the big letter L. And then this one kind of frames the smaller ones. In this one, I tried with three slanted letters, and I saw that some letters, right, just become easier to use as a parent. So the L, if let's make it bigger, if we get to do a normal L, right, it would be like this. Yeah. Then there is a lot of blind space here. So what happens if we do some more classical retro inspired L? Where this serif goes there. See that? Now, out of a sudden, we've created here a place where this can act as a parent to the rest of them. Then one of the most obvious ones to use as a parent is the letter C, because we've got this negative space in the middle. The letter O is also really good for it. And the letter D, for example, right, because the D also has this negative space inside, and they're really good as a parent. Actually, I showed you this example where the letter D becomes the S. You remember? Sorry. That it was something like this, you remember? So yeah, now let's go to the mirror one. And again, as I said before, my favorite one because letters mirror across the central axis. I'm just going to tell you once again. And you can also call the mirroring technique just a symmetry. As I said before, it's perfect for symmetrical pairs that letter A, K, ST style sets really work. In this example, for example, I used a letter T, right? And then I used these two letter Ss as it was part of the serif of the T, and you're going to see that this is actually the letter S, how you should write it. But then when you flip it like that, when you mirror it, it's also readable. Now, the most common version is horizontal mirroring, but you could also do a vertical symmetry, too. So what I mean by that is that here you're going to have the vertical axis, right, to create this horizontal mirroring. But if you use a horizontal axis, you can create here this vertical symmetry. Okay, so here's a timelapse on how I sketched these five of them. I don't include the stack, since it's a bit too simple, and I'm going to overlap the letter with the K. Let's do this. Once you understand position and hierarchy, designing monograms becomes way easier. Now, you know exactly how your letters should sit and who takes the lead. Let's now explore the 15 style variations that you can use to bring these monograms to. 7. 15 Stylistic Traits - Geometry, Effects, Textures & Connections: Now that we've covered how to position your letters and how hierarchy works, it's time to get into the fun part style. These are the 15 visual tricks that you can use to give any monogram some personality. You can think of them as different outfits that you can dress your letters in. Some are simple and some of them are more complicated. But any of these tricks can completely transform the vibe of the piece, and you will see that some of them just share characteristics, and you can use a few of them in one monogram just to make your monogram look way better. Let's do this. Okay, stylistic traits. You go to see that I'm calling them tricks all the time, just because it's easier for me, and I think they are the tricks that will make your monograms better. So let's go for it. Okay, so the first one is the geometrical structure. This looks a little bit more modern than the rest that I'm going to show you probably. You go to see that this is used a lot in shields for, like, football teams and stuff like that. The concept is really basic. It's just clean shapes, some symmetry and a really strong foundation in construction. You can start by building either the frame first, or you can see if your letters work nicely with basic shapes like these ones, for example. Let me just select the layer again so I can tell you a couple of things with this orange color. Okay, so you're going to see that in this example, I'm using the hexagon. And then I realized that the letter N was perfect in the hexagon. You're gonna see like, let's write it. Here, you're gonna see that just by doing this diagonal line, we got the N. And then I thought, What happens if you do an N that is basically wider? And then inside, you can start placing things. You could call it like I'm parenting the A and the D inside the letter N. So you will see that in a lot of these stylistic traits, you're going to see there's a lot of positioning and hierarchy tricks that I showed you before. So when I place the N, then I could place this letter A inside and then inside, I could place the letter D. You could also do it the other way around if the D was to have more importance. So you could do always, let's say you have the hexagon let's. Look at letter hexagon here, right? Okay, let me do it again. Let's concentrate a bit. Okay. Now this is better. So you could also do that the D is, like, big, and then you could figure out things along the way. So maybe you could place the A somewhere here, for example. And then the N inside. You could also do something like this. I just thought that 40 hexagon, I saw the N and I saw a hexagon because you see, we got that here. And then the A looks really, really easy to do as well because you've got the shape, you know, you got the A. And then the crossbar of the A could be the N. You know, if you wanted a bit more, maybe a bit more legibility, you could also add a crossbar here or maybe the crossbar could also be the D. But I'll leave that up to you. Let me show you how I created this geometrical one. Okay, so let's go to the second one visual trick, which would be bevels, inlines, and extrusions. All the effects that you add in a monogram or just the lettering would add structure and elegance with some of these internal or external details, right? It's not always the best thing to add all these effects. Sometimes you will just go with something flat if it's needed for, I don't know, maybe it's a logotype that actually has to be used in some print or maybe like a stamp or something like that, you will always prioritize simplicity over, you know, making it. I would say, I always name it punk because I love adding a lot of details to my pieces, and it's just fun for me, right? But sometimes you have to abstract things. Sometimes you have to make things more minimal. But since we are doing monograms, I thought the second chapter of the stylistic traits would be perfect to talk about these effects, right? So in this example, I'm using symmetry, as you will see. And a three D extrusion. And I'm making the letters kind of like overlap, so I can add nice shadows. You can see here. Again, this is all going to be a sketch. We're going to do a letter. Well, we're going to do a monogram that is actually rendered in the end of the class. But if I was you probably here, I would just go ahead and try. I forgot to tell you, but here you've got in every trick. You've got a little let's say pad, little a little space that you can come up with your own examples or work on what I did here just to see what is this about? Now, when you draw it here, I think could be really beneficial for you because as you draw things, your brain remembers them. So that's why I made these little thing. So you can just, like, doodle here what's going on in here. Now, you're going to see that when mirroring, and I think I told you in the beginning of the class, but when mirroring certain things, there's going to be the letters, wait, let me. Select. There's gonna be the letter A, for example, that just mirrors perfectly. There's gonna be others that are a little bit more indirect, I would say. So, for example, if we were to do a letter B, we could always do a letter R, right? That sort of mirrors, and that's an example that we're going to see later. If you wanted to do a B, that's also, you know, red as a letter B. But if you do the J and the L, well, something different happens, right? If you do an L and you mirror it, doesn't look like an L. Why? Because this letter looks like letter and J. So you have to watch out with this, especially with these two letters. But this was perfect because the monogram is JL O. Now, number three, different textures for each letter, and that's what I was telling you before. Okay, now, we all remember the previous trick. Well, sometimes you can use the same stylistic approach to all your monograms. But sometimes they will get harder to differentiate, especially if they are very complicated. So one way to do it, especially when you have three or more letters is to just use a different effect on each letter. So, for example, in this one, I use the letter S. As I was telling you before, the letter S is perfect to create some interactions with other letters because we've got this This always happens to me. So yeah, now. We've got these negative spaces, right? And they're perfect. You know, here, you could put an IC letter L. You could put a symmetrical A. The letter S is good because it has the same weight left and right. When I say weight, I mean, like, you see, we've got this weight here, and then we've got it here. We've got this weight here, and then we got a here. And then here we also have it, but in three different levels. So it's actually perfect to create monograms with especially especially with something that mirrors. Again, if you were to use a letter A, you could use one. It mirrors, but it could also mirror a couple letter as if you were to do something like, let's say, something like this, right? And then maybe crossbar could be here. So you could also do something very, very nice. Um, so talking about this one in particular, I put the s in the middle because I just felt like it was fitting perfectly here. And then just to make it a little bit more interesting, you could leave it like that, just like a see, right? And then you overlap, maybe you can clean this up, for example. But in this example, was really good that I could just extend this flourish of the sea here just to make it a little bit more interesting. And so the result gives me some nice overlapping monogram where even the the S goes a little bit on top of the C right here, and then the C generates some shadows right here in the spine of the S, and then you always play. You could always bring the detail of the C on top of the S or behind. But yeah, just try with different effects. Let's go to the fourth one. Okay, the fourth one is called connection. Really easy. It's just like one letter connects with the other. There's 1,000 ways that you can do this. But in this example, I picked two letter Js. It creates unity and a nice flow. And for this one, it was kind of given because, again, the letter J, like the L that I was saying before, creates this nice space right here in the middle, this negative space here. So the more you extend the letter J, the bigger or the most enclosed space is generated here. So I thought, why not? I could just do the big J, right, and then kind of connect it to the second one. Now, if you were to join this shape, you would have one letter J. But if instead, you do this nice outline like this, like this double outline, you see that you create this that it's really readable as two letters. Now, you can try with a lot of letters, but let me show you the posts of this one. Number five, the negative shadows. Now, we talked about effects. We talked about shadows. But in this one, we're going to carve white shapes behind the strokes instead of adding dark shadows. It creates an instant three D effect without changing the stroke weight. So what I mean by that is that let's say you wanted to add some shadow using three D shape here, right? So let's say you create a three D effect here on the letter L. Now, immediately, when it comes to putting this one on top of the S, you would see here that it would have changed this stroke, right? Let me Yeah, you see. And then you will have to add the shadows. But for this one, it's really simple. You just place these two letters, one on top of the other, and then you imagine what stroke goes in front and one stroke and what stroke goes at the bottom, right? So here, for example, you will see that this stroke goes on top, and then you just cut this. You just carve it out, let's say, and the same here. Now, one of the things that you have to decide as well as when you do shadows is the light source. So let's imagine that this was in real life just for a second. The light would come from here. So everything like the shadows will be generated in here, right? So let's say that the light would come from here. Now, this shadow would be wrong, so we will have to cover this up, right? Let's put it in black, just to show you. And then the shadow would be right here, right? So just keep a logic. You see? They are here at the bottom right. Same as this one or this one. Okay, perfect. Now you have a little example here as well on how to achieve that effect. So 8. 15 Stylistic Traits - Ornaments, Mixing Letters & Monoline: So let's go to the next one, which is framing. Now, framing looks very similar to the geometrical structures that we saw before. The only difference is that in the geometrical structure, you don't show the frame, but in the framing technique, you actually do show the frame. And again, as the other one, you can use circles, shields, diamonds, or any ornamental shape. Now, frames kind of, like, anchor the piece, especially if it's busy. Now, for this letter K, which is something that I showed you in the beginning as well, I thought that I would just mirror this letter K, the original one, which is this one, right? Here. This keeps happening to me always. Okay. So this one right here. And then we just mirror it, and then we would add a frame that is also mirroring. And then you would create a shape that looks like a unity. It looks like one piece. Now, if you think that this is too illegible, which, you know, could be because I got a little bit carried away. You could always just cover this, as I showed you before. And if you were to paint, let's say, the two case, right, let's add some color here. So if you were to paint this K in a color that contrasts and then the leaves maybe in some kind of, like, another not that contrasted tone regarding the background, you see, you would see that automatically this becomes way more readable. And if you do the same here, you would read the two Ks. But kinda like this logo looking monogram. So let's go to the seventh trick. Okay, now, for the seventh trick, we've got ornaments outside. Now, this is probably, I would say could be one of my favorite ones. Maybe I'm going to tell you later that another one is my favorite one, but I think but I think this one I really, really like why? And that's, you know, because of my obsession of always adding more ornaments. So there's two ways to add ornaments, and the first one that I want to show you is the ornaments outside. And then in the eight, there's gonna be ornaments inside. So when you add more ornaments, it's just going to become more Victorian. Um, more arnubo, just more classic and retro, which is something that I adore. Now, these ones are usually decorative flourishes that surround the letters. And what I say here is true. So if you're like me, you will always need more. So just use them because they look fantastic. I mean, we're here to create retro looking stuff. So I think things like that really look nice. So this monogram was already enough before adding all these extra ornaments outside. But sometimes you just want to go, you know, full retro Victorian and add more. Now, let me tell you a little bit about how I created this one. So I knew that I had a letter S and V and an M. So I thought this shape here kind of does. So I thought this shape here of the M. So if you were to do it straight, looks like a V. But then I was like, What if I exaggerated, right? And I put the V on top. So that's the V plus the M. Now, if I was to render this, probably I would do like kind of like two tones on the M and the V. So they actually look like they're different letters. But then, as I told you before, the letter S in the middle just always looks good. So you see here, the process is a little bit, created this monogram that actually looks good by itself. But then I wanted to add a little bit more. I'm not adding this in the example. I'm just showing you this one. So let's see it. Okay, so now let's go to the number eight ornaments inside. These are just flourishes that are inside integrated with the letter forms. You can just use it to maybe create more rhythm inside the negative spaces. So for example, here on the J, I thought that, you know, just to make it look a little bit more retro, I I would just add more of these flourishes. And then I came up with this nice style that I used a couple of times before with letters like this. I started with something like this. The idea was to do something like this. You will see that in the example, I already go directly with this. But I thought how to integrate, like, a letter J with the F. So I thought here how one letter could become the other one, right? So you've got the letter J, and then when you move this letter F inside, you will see that, let me just draw it for you here. So when you move the letter F here, you will see that this part of the J can become a letter F. And then just by adding one here, we got our monogram. So let me show you how I draw. Okay, so now number nine, mixing letter styles, really easy one. You can use different effects on each letter as we see as we have seen before. But what about using different letter styles? Now, this is really good when it comes to a two letter composition. If you add three letters, it becomes more and more tricky. You can still use it. By the way, I did use it in some of the monograms that I showed you. But if you are using two letters, as I tell you here, just make sure that the letters are really apart from each other. Something that I really like, for example, is Gothic versus San Serif, because they're just so separated, it looks really good, especially when you overlap the shapes or when you had shadows and effects. And this one, for example, is the other one of my favorites, which is script versus Serif. Now, this is perfect because you've got the letter V that adds this really stability in the center of the composition, and then the letter J just hugs the letter, and it does, you know, some nice overlapping. And in this one, you don't have to use, per se, two texturing styles because it's pretty obvious that this is a V and J. But why not? You can try different styles and also try different textures. Yeah, let me show you the example that Okay, number ten, monoline. Now, you will see that at this point, some of the rules kind of can blend with each other because this is basically drawing one letter that connects with the other or using the same stem. But I put you this example because it was a really good example for what a monoline is. You remember that two double J here, which was it negative shadow connection? Yeah. This is also kind of like monoline. Maybe here on the Serif kind of loses it, but you will see that this has the same weight going through the whole monogram. So this ones, like, are really, really readable. And in this example, I wanted to kind of parent some of the letters. So like, inside the L, sort of, like, maybe the R. You're going to see that I'm just using two strokes here, so I'm using this one let's make it thicker. Using this in one stroke and then this in the other. But this one, since it was kind of becoming really simple with the composition, I thought, why not using some bebl? So really like how it turned out to be, and it's really, I believe it's really readable. So let me show you how I draw. 9. 15 Stylistic Traits - Sharing Stems, Stacking, Strokes & Balance: Okay, so number 11, sharing stems. As we already seen here, you see that like the L and the R are sharing the same stem. But here, I wanted to explain it just a little bit better just in case. Now, two letters literally become one monogram. By sharing the main stem. Now, for this rule, it's very important that they share kind of like the foundation stem, like, something that becomes really important for the letters. Not just a flourish that connects with the other like we've seen before, or like a crossbar or something like that. But for this one, I wanted to create this kind of, like, rule that it's always sharing, like, the foundation of it. L you know, the first line that you will do when you draw an A is this one, right? Like, this one, and then you would do this, or like this one, and then you would do this. And then for the B, you always would do the first foundational stem, and then from here you would do the B. So that's the one that share that they share in this bool. So for this one, I started like very simple, as you will see now in the time laps. But when I was cleaning it up, I was like, What if we exaggerated a little bit, just to give it more personality because you can find a lot of these ABs online. So I thought, like, let's just go full steam here. Again, maybe you could use, like, a couple of colors here. Let's say, like, if this was an orange here, then everything else could be like a purple. Just an example. Obviously, I wouldn't use these colors, but you will see that now if you use two colors, then it becomes really distinct, right? So, you could add maybe some orange here as well, like if you were to to add some nice lights and shadows here. And you would see that, like, the whole thing would be more visible by separating the letters in colors. But yeah, let me show you the example. Okay. So now let's go to the 12th. Which are two letters forming one simple shape. Again, same rule as, you know, sharing the main stem, one letter connecting to the other. But in this one, I wanted to show you that just by adding a little trait of one letter into the other, you could make a monogram that is actually very readable. So for this one, I was drawing the letter K, and I thought, Hey, wait a second. Actually, this part could actually look like an E. If you could modify it. Obviously, you could do something more, you know, um, exaggerated like that, and still would be readable as a K. But I kind of like this shape for the E as well. So I just edit this little middle arm here, and that's it. That's how I did this K E monogram. Let me show you. Okay, so now that we've got this one, we go to the 13th almost down here with the stacking letters. Really easy one. When you don't know what to do with your letters, stack them. It's always going to be a nice result, and then you can always join some parts of the letter. Like, for example, in this case, I put them diagonally, which is something that I've seen a lot on a lot of these calligraphic examples. Instead of just putting them, you remember in the beginning when I was showing you the the positioning, right? So you would have the horizontal vertical, and then you would have the diagonal, right? So if you put them a little bit diagonally, they will always work really well, especially with calligraphic things that you can add, you know, you can add these flourishes, sorry. Little glitch here. You can add these little flourishes and kind of, like, frame this together. So this is how I did the monogram for the RA P. And once I stack them together, I saw that the leg of the letter R could become an extension of the piece bowl. So just like this, right? So it comes down and then it goes to the piece bowl here. And then at the same time, since the A was in the middle, I was like, What if I erase the crossbar of the A? Because this is already crossbar. So this is what happens. Let me show you how I drew this. S Okay, now let's go to the 14th, and it's one single stroke. So the entire monogram looks like you could draw it using one continuous light. It looks flowy and calligraphic, and it's great for signature style marks. So, for example, this one, right? It doesn't have to be drawn per se, as I tell you here. It doesn't have to be drawn in just one stroke. But if you were to draw it in one stroke, let's think about it, you could actually do it, right? So you could start right here, for example, and then go here and then do this. And then, obviously, just like you go add the crossbar. But I just hope that you see, like what I mean. It's kind of like one line just connects with the whole thing, right? And this is how I created this AM. Now, I wanted to make it just a little bit better, so I added some extra elements, some flourishes, and some nice serifs, and also a couple leaves here outside as one of the rules that I told you before, the ornaments outside the monogram. Let me show. Okay, and now, finally, we've got the dual stroke. This is probably I would say, one of the most complicated ones because it's quite difficult to explain. Let's see if I can do it. So the negative spaces of this monogram has the same weight as the strokes themselves. It creates sort of like a nice, very rigid structure. That has a lot of visual harmony, and it really works with a little bit more like modern monograms, I would say. But obviously, if you add a couple of these serifs, then it goes retro once again. But, you're going to see that if I show you here with a monoline brush, right? Like, let's say, something like let's see, something like this. Yeah, that would work. So you see, if we draw the letter T, yeah. Now, you can draw the letter S right here inside, like using the parenting technique. But then if you were to compare the thickness of the stroke of the letters and then the thickness of what would be the negative space, it's going to be the same all across the piece. Obviously, in some places, it just becomes thicker just because I needed to do it. But, in some of the places, it's just the same. So it becomes like this kind of, like, labyrinth looking like logo. Now, here I'm trying to explain it, as well. So before I did the letter T, and then I came up with these very structural letter Ss. But then I was like, when you place it here, then we've got something going on, which, you know, could have been good, like, maybe to bring the S up and then bring it down and maybe, like, add some shadows and add some overlap here. But then I thought, What if I skew it? And then I just mirror it, you know? So I put this as here, and then I mirror this one and I skewed it like that. So now you've got this nice spacing, and we've got something like this. Obviously, in the sketch there, you know, it's just a sketch, so don't mind it much. But, if you were to render this better, then you would keep really the structure, just like I showed you there. So yeah, let me show you how I've drawn this one. These 15 styles are the core building blocks of any monogram. You can use them individually or combine two, three, even four of them, or even more in the same piece. In the next lesson, we will sketch our final piece using some of the techniques that we've just seen. I actually think that I'm going to pick five of my favorite monograms and combine their styles. Let's see what happens. 10. Final Monogram - Sketch: All right, time to actually put all this theory to work. I'm going to grab a few of the style tricks and hierarchy rules that we just talked about and sketch a couple variations, pretty much the same way that I would approach a real client project. For this piece, I'm thinking of mixing textures, maybe adding some bebels or an extrusion, going heavy on ornaments. And if the letters allow try to make them pierce through each other. Let's see. Also, I'll probably add a few extra ideas along the way, because that's just how my brain works. I'll sketch three rough thumbnails, show where things fall apart, and then push the strongest idea forward into a cleaner sketch. This monogram could totally work as a personal logo, since it's made using someone's initials, but you can also imagine it living on some retro product like a vintage perfume label or an old school book cover, cigar box, a ceramic bottle, or even on fabric. Monograms always carry a story, and part of the fun is imagining where they could exist in the real world. So for today's monogram, I'm gonna do M R B. And let's see what traits we can get from this one. I really like all the flourishes and the leaves. So I think I'm going to get something like this for sure. And I really like, as well, some of the bebel here or maybe some of how the letters are interacting here. I also like this a lot. So let's see. Now, the first thing that I'll do is I'll go to Canvas, right? And then I'm going to activate the drawing guide, edit drawing guide. Now here, you probably had it into degree I already had the symmetry on. So here you can choose the color of your line. And also the opacity, so you see it better. And for now, I'm going to use vertical symmetry. I told you that you could use a horizontal one, but it's not that common and it could get complicated. So let's use vertical, and tap here. And now I'm going to create a new layer, tap on the new layer and make it a drawings. Perfect. So now let's start sketching. Now, I'm going to start maybe like with an M that looks like this one, something like this. You'll see that sketching with the symmetry on its going to be way easier. So maybe something like this that could do maybe some sort of shape like this. That could be nice. And then maybe I could start already placing the mirroring here. So maybe. The B here and the R could be, like, located maybe somewhere here. Maybe make them a bit thinner. So let's see what we could do here. So this could be the B. And then, obviously, like, let's make this a little bit smart. Yeah. Perfect. And then we're gonna fix this into a lever R. Nice. So here we could I don't know, maybe, like, make a little bit more sense of these stems here. Maybe something like this. Interesting. And then maybe the M, obviously, let's make this. Some of the rules of the M, if you want to do a high contrasted M will change because if you were to do a letter M like this, this one would be thin, right? Then this one would be thick thin and thick. But since I'm using it in the middle, it kind of go like Zami could, but I wanted to for it to be completely symmetrical and mirroring. So I'm going to have to bend the rules here a little bit. So maybe something like this. This looks quite alright. And then maybe this could also be high contrast it. Yeah, this looks nice. Okay. So maybe now you can tap on the layer. Stop making the drawings. Now here we can fix up this letter, so we can make it into a letter R, for example, maybe something that. And then here, if you have the time, obviously, you can refine it a little bit, make it sticker, and make the parts more distinguishable. So for example, this one, should be here. Right here. We could have something like this. Now let's get this sketch, make it smaller and go to put it here on the left, and I'm going to do yet another one. New layer, tape on it, and drawing zit. Now for this one, I want to do really this letter M. I'm going to go ahead and try to make something that looks more similar to this. Is it something like this. Yeah. Then here there is like, these two circles. You can do them perfect if you just make a circle and then with your left hand, left finger, just tap on it, and it's gonna be perfect like this. So you can do something like that. And then the M could actually come from here. Angles down, I guess. And then maybe make, like, a nice terminal here, nice kind of, like, leafy serif, I would call it. Again, using my own language here. Um Hmm. Interesting. I think I like this. And then this could be also maybe, like, thicker here, yeah, whatever. You get the point here. Something like the one here, but instead of this more like straight shape, maybe something like this. Great. So now let's do the R and the V. So maybe we could get and do some stem like this. Maybe just a more down. So we could go here in the middle, right? Like there. Sometimes I just think about the overlap, you see? So if we overlap it here, it's gonna be better if we overlap it here in the middle. So that's something like this. Now we go down. This stem is gonna be a little also like following this natural arnubos arnubos shape. Sort of like more natural. And then maybe, like, do something like this here. Actually, I want to make this way bigger. Yeah, B like this. You're going to see that I always go from pencil to eraser really fast. It's because I have the new Pencil Pro. So if you have it as well, you can activate it by going to the settings outside the Apple Pencil menu in the IOS settings. If you want to know how and you don't know, you can always send me a message, no. And I'll take you there step by step. Okay, so now with this one, I could do the R. Let's try to do the R here on the left, sorry, on the right side instead of so this could be somewhere like this. Interesting. And then here, I can do some shape like this. For the R. So like. Hmm. You will see that also, sometimes the shape looks good here. But then when it's mirred, it really doesn't if you fix the one on the left, and you make it prettier, automatically, this one will become way better as well, even if you don't see it when it's on the right. That's why a lot of lettering artists would flip the canvas just to see things better. Okay, cool. So Interesting. What else now? We can deactivate the drawing assist. And here we could the B. I think I'm gonna bring this even more down now. Yeah, maybe like this. Connecting here, the B. And the shape just go here like that. Great. Maybe we can extend it a bit more. And this could also even hug the letter M a little. Food. Nice. Okay. Perfect. Now I'm going to activate again. The drawing assist to change the M one more time. So I'm going to bring it here. There. Now it starts looking better. So I'm going to do the R again. So it hugs really nice here, brings up. Awesome. And now just finish this. Great. So now I could actually do some sort of flourishes outside as well. So let's put drawing assist back on. I'm getting too excited with this one. I should go faster doing this one, but I kind of like what's happening. Sometimes it happens then I just get stuck with one sketch. So there could be something like this, maybe a bit bigger, but it will do for now. And then maybe even we could add a couple here. And you're going to see that now it's not since it's not mirroring, like 100% because of the B and the R, which is this indirect mirroring that I was telling you before. You're gonna see that here it's gonna go on top of the B, but it's also nice because then you can add some shadows on top. And now here, finally, like, I'm missing something. So maybe the M could I don't know, do something like this. Great. Thanks, and then maybe even one more. And here we could add. Maybe something like this. What do you think? Think, I definitely got carried away with this one, but I like it. Now let's make it smaller. Let's also put it here to the right. And now let's make the last one. Now, for the last one, I want to do something that looks more like, let's see. Well, I kind of like this, too. So maybe maybe we could do the that does this. Remember to activate the mirroring. So maybe we could do the that looks like this. Again, possibilities are endless, and I think it's so fun to create monograms really I did a lot of them before as logo types when I was doing more, like, graphic design. But lately, you know, like when you learn how to do lettering, this is just incredible. And I've been doing lettering for the last ten years, but I never paid so much attention until I wanted to create this class at the beginning of the year, and I started thinking about techniques and how to how to just make the process simpler, which is what I try all the time every time I teach something. So, hm, we could definitely do something like this. And then from here, it could be. Hmm. Interesting, and then maybe down, and we could finish. Like that. And then we could have a babble here. And do something. Yeah, and then this beble would actually go here. For example. Yeah, maybe, something like this. Hm. Interesting. So we've got some things that are going on here. Now, let's try the BNR. I think I'm gonna follow this shape as well. So you can also create a new layer if you want, so you can erase easier after. But now we could do something like this, maybe. Maybe not until, maybe until here. And then do this two. Maybe they can meet here in the middle. Interesting. And now let's see the B could be. Something like this? Any thoughts? I think this could be. This could be interesting. Nice. Let's let me add the weights. Hmm. And then here, something like that. Interesting. Okay. Now we could even do nice flourishes up here. Maybe a detail here as well, similar to what we did before. And now you can turn off the cyst and decide which one you want to make into a letter R. So you can make this one. So we could do something like this, for example, maybe this is too thick. So maybe something like this. I'm still following the same curve somehow. But really, if you're mirroring, just you really have to make sure that a lot of parts mirror, even if everything is not mirroring, but, like, most of it is. Okay, we got it. Yeah, we got it. So just gonna pins together, make it smaller. And just place them and you can pinch it together as well and see what you like most. For what I'm looking at, I think I like this one better. So now I'm going to just give you a little bit of a time lapse of me redoing this one because I think I'm just going to put it as a reference and draw it from scratch and see where I take it. But it's gonna be pretty similar. I just want to make it a little bit cleaner. I'm also going to give you the final sketch just in case you just want to apply the effects directly. You will always be able to do that, too. So just make sure that Wait, is here. I think I'm just gonna change locations now and go for a coffee a little second. So yeah, let's see what happens with this one, and we're gonna render it. 11. Final Monogram - Color & Texture: Okay, now let's make it shine. I'm going to clean up the letters and add some colors and textures. Remember that you can download the brushes and the color palette musing. So go do that before we get started. Okay, so here is the final sketch. Yeah. Remember that you can download this sketch, as well, and you can start rendering on my sketch. Or it would actually be better if you did your own and do it there. But again, do whatever fits most right now. So I'm just going to show you the different layers of this. So first, we're going to go with the B and the R. Then we're going to get the solved. I wanted to actually do different effects for both of them, but I think in the end, I'm just going to use bevel on both. And then finally, we got the elements aside. So let's do this. I'm just going to group this together, and I'm going to name this sketch. So I'm just going to go to the Transform tool and make it bigger. Remember, it should be on uniform. And I always have the snapping on magnetics and snapping just so I can snap here in the center until you see this yellow cross horizontally and vertically. Perfect. Okay. So I think I'm just going to maybe go step by step. So if I render this is going to be easier for my eyes, I'm just going to bring the B and R sopsty down. Perfect. And I'm going to create a new layer. Now, the first thing that I will do is to paint this on the same color base. So I think I'm going to use a neutral color like this one, and then I'm going to add lights and shadows. So I'm going to tap on it, making a drawing assist. Remember that if you don't have it activated, you can always go to Canvas, drawing guide, edit drawing guide, and then symmetry here. And remember that it should be a vertical symmetry of. Perfect. Let's start. Now, here in the brushes that I'm giving you today, you have a lot of them to add some effects. You could always do just a grainy effect, which is one of my signature styles, but it takes a long time. So I think today, I'm just going to show you how to do a little bit of, like, coling markers, probably, like, some dry shader technique. And probably we're going to add a bit of grain, but not much, just to see what mix technique could look like. So let's go to the chunky brush, and then from here, we're just going to start rendering this. I want to give it this sort of, like, painterly look, so you don't have to make it perfect. So I think I'm going to start with the B, actually, and then erase the parts that I don't like. There. But here, always just feel free to add any kind of style that you want. If you've been checking my other tutorials and classes, you can always just get another style and just try until you get something that you like. You don't necessarily have to follow this look that I'm going for today. Nice. Now, let's drop color inside. Remember, without lifting your pencil off of the screen, go left and right. And you're going to see that if you go left, you're going to see some gaps here. And if you go to the right just before you flooding the whole page with color, it's going to get better. So let's do it again. You see, right before you flooding the whole thing, stay there. And you still have to go here because this is a dry brush, so there's gonna be some parts that won't get perfectly covered. Nice. Now. That's the other one. Also, if you have to do different parts, you can do this, and then continue filling and tap both. There. Okay. Perfect. Nice. So now I'm going to bring this sketch even a bit more down. Wait, it's here. Perfect. Now let's create a new layer. Let's make it a clipping mask. And now this is going to be for the shadows. You can always put here shadows. And now we're gonna get one of these darker tones. We can start maybe with this one and then get darker after. And we're going to add some shadows here. So I'm going to start with one letter. I'm going to show you how to do this one so you can replicate it on the next one because otherwise we will be here for a long time. So I'm going to do the letter R. Now, you could mirror as well, the shadows and lights. But I think I'm going to make it so kind of like the lights come from the bottom right. So the shadows and the lights on both letters won't be actually mirroring. It's gonna be quite the opposite, really. So yeah, I'm just I'll just do it like this, and then I'll show you where to put the shadows and lights on the B so you can finish it after. And then we're going to go straight to the letter M. Great. So now I'm following these lines that I did here in the sketch. So I'm also gonna get the chunky brush for now, and I'm just going to mark where the things are at. So now, the shadows will be in this part right here. So I'm just gonna add maybe with a smaller brush. Just like a little mark here like that. Nice. So that's gonna be a shadow. And then right here, we are going to have a light, and here we're gonna have a little bit of shadow, as well. I'm just gonna work it like this. And then here as well. So I'm going to start with this one. And now the shadows as well will be right here. But let's do this ones first, right? So now that we have this, I'm going to go ahead and get maybe, like, the coloring marker. And I'm gonna start adding some shadows here with this marker. You don't have to zoom out zoom in so much because then you want to see all the imperfection. So maybe it's better if you just do it like this. And then this one will go inside. Like that. Perfect. Now on a new layer. Sorry. Clipping mask and even with a darker color. I'm gonna add some more. And we're gonna do this until we get the result that we like. For now, I'm just gonna do it on the corners here. On these lines. And then we're gonna do the triangle effect that I always use. So I'm gonna add darker here as well on the other side. And then the shadows will t here in a triangular shape like this. We'll kt like that, and then from here, we're gonna do the same. So from thicker to thinner here in the middle. And here in the middle it's gonna be darker. Same? Triangular. Boom, boom, boom, boom. I like that. You can always go to this much too, just in case you mess it up so you don't have to erase it. You can just much it a bit. That's There. Okay, perfect. Now, let's go to the next layer, and then this is gonna be for the lights. All right. Pre name lights. There. And now go to this light. I'm not gonna go full blight. So yeah, go with this second one. And now, again, let's go for the chunky brush, and let's add our lines here. And then here we will do exactly the same. So I'm going to go to the coloring marker. And let's make this a clipping mask, I forgot. Gonna add some lights here. So they meet in the center. You can always erase. If you go inside the shadows, you can always just get an eraser and erase. You see, now I'm taking less care of it. And now, always with this much bras you can. And you can always add the color of the base right here in the center, for example, and then you can smash it up a bit. There. Now, let's add some more white up here. Sorry, with this color. And then here just from it. I'm gonna. Perfect. Now, what would happen if we go to this side here? So now, this side, let's start with the shadows like we did before. So let's go to the chunky brush. And now here, you can do it the same. So the shadows would go right here from let's say somewhere somewhere here to here for now. That would be shadows. So you can make them darker so you know where these first ones are. So let's do the triangle thing again. Let's place it somewhere here. And you see that now, we're going to meet the lights here. So right here when we are about to meet the lights. Bit darker here. Let's actually at on the second shadows darker tone. Then we do the same here. But this time a bit smaller. And remember that you can always erase what you don't like on the other side or just that the lights on top, and that's it. Great. So now let's go to the lights, and we're going to do this meeting point here. Yeah. Perfect. Now, you could even turn off the sketch now, so you see how it actually looks like. And now, when we are here, we are just going to do shadows here and lights down here. So now, since we are in the light layer, we're going to go the chunky brush, and we're just going to kind of invert this, right? So on this other side, there's going to be the lights. Up until here. You see, like this is gonna be the transition point, so bring the let here. And then we're gonna start with the shadow. Smooth it out. There. You can always smooth up the shadows as well. A little And let's now do the final shadows up. I mean, the final forts part, obviously. Now, let's go with a darker color. Smooth it out and erase some light tones here if they are on top. And that's how we would do this effect. Now, for this bee, it would be similar, but for example, this would be a little bit different. So you would have the shadows right here, for example. Here on top, they would be exactly the same. And then you would get the lights right here. Right? So now, this could look like, Oh, you're doing the same. Well, actually, the right parts, right, they're going to become lighter, and then the left and the upper parts, they're going to be with the shadow. So what would happen if I invert this, if I actually let's say for a second, right, we duplicate this, we go to the transform tool and we flip it horizontally. You would see that here, it looks good. I'm not saying that it doesn't, but the shadows are placed kind of incorrectly, especially because I said that the light will come from down here. So you see the shadows are here, and I would like the lights to be here. But anyways, you could also do it like that. If you want to go faster, it's really up to you. So let me finish this one, and I'll see you in just a second. Okay, so I'm done with the R and B. You can see that pretty much it's the same that I did here and here, but I just replicate it, bear in mind that the light source comes from down here, and you're going to get it really fast. Okay, so I also by the way, I also have a Bbel tutorial on my YouTube channel at ShabeM. So if you put Procreate Sha Bem, you're going to see it there. I also break it down using another technique, so you can also check that out if you want. So here we've got the that I already rendered. And in the sketch that I'm giving you, actually, I'm putting a line here. So if I isolate this, you're going to see that in the sketch that I'm giving you in PNG, I included a line that goes right here in the center. So if we were to do the drawing assist, we would see and if you're doing it yourself here without my sketch, you can just go ahead and do a line here. So that would be pretty much it. And then the same here, so no so we know where the bubble is gonna be at. Great. So now we can bring this back. And again, in the same way that we did it before, the first clipping mask is going to be for the shadows. So we can grab the chunky brush and use this color and start with the shadows. I'm not going to show you again a lot, but I'm just gonna tell you, like, what colors I'm using. So from here down, I'm doing this one there. Right, so I'm just going to turn off the sketch. So this would be the shadows. And then in another layer, we don't have to name it. Since it's just the example, I'm just going to go and do the lights with one of I'm not gonna use the white color yet, so I'm going to use the second one as well, the same as we did down here. And then on the opposite side, you're just going to do the lights, remember to go back to the coloring marker, make it bigger, and just add lights here. There. And now you can go with the smudge. Using the same brush and smudge it. There. Actually, you could also use the pink here. Maybe that's maybe a little bit too light. So you can use this pink and then go to the shadows and also smudge it a little bit. And that would be it. Let me put you the little tine webs. Okay, so now let's hide some of the things. I'm going to go first right here, and I'm gonna tap on the purple layer and add a mask. Now, with the same brush, we can use the chunky brush with black. We're just going to erase this and with white, we're gonna bring it back to life. So don't worry if you overdo it. So select the black again and erase. Great. Really. Now, I'm gonna do this one, as well. Or we can leave it behind, for example, and just reveal this part right here, for example. Or not, actually. Let me just do it all. I think it's gonna be better. Perfect. Now, let's see. We can maybe hide this one. You can also erase like this, and then with the white color, you just bring it exactly to where it belongs there. So now we see exactly where and not the same down. There you go. Perfect. Now we can always let's say, if this one is hiding, this one be on top, that this one could also be hiding behind. Sorry, I'm gonna get the black. And I'm gonna do this. What do you think? Yeah, I think this could look nice. So again, erase a bit more. And then with the white color, let's bring it back. There. Now, let's do the same map. Perfect. And then finally, I think I'm gonna hide this one right here. Again, this is really up to you. And pretty much everything that you hide or reveal is just going to look good. Perfect. Okay, so now that we have this, we just need to do a couple more shadows. So I'm going to go to the BR. I'm going to add a new layer. Gonna make it a clipping mask. And now here with a darker color like this one, and we can use the dry shader since we didn't use it yet. And I'm just going to add shadow. So if the light comes from here, and there's gonna be some shadow. Up here, for example, There. Then there's gonna be something here, as well. What else? Gonna have some here? Oops. What I did here. I was supposed to erase more. Sorry for that. Yeah, better. Okay, now let's go back to that layer. Okay. And now I'm gonna add another layer on the M, and I'm the same, so clipping mask. And then add shadows on the M. What else? My here. Mm hmm. Here. And there we have it. I think that's pretty much it. Here I'm forgetting some of the lights on this, so I'm just going to add a few lights here with the coloring marker. Now, I'm going to go to actions Canvas and turn off the drawing guide. And that would be the result for today. Now, a couple more things that you could do, for example, is to change the background color. Maybe you can put it darker. So something like this. Actually make it pop a little bit more. Even darker, I would say. This looks actually really good. Now, we could even do some drop shadow, even though right now, I don't think I'll do it. And for example, we could add a texture. So we create a layer in the background, and then we can play a little bit with these brushes right here, so we could do a soft texture brush. And then with a complete light color, we can add some of this texture down here. You might not see it in the camera, though. And then maybe with this purple tone, we can give a bit of purple up here. Just add that nice texture here. There you go. Maybe even a bit lighter pink. Up. Actually, I'm doing this the other way around because the light source comes from here. So we can grab this texture, go to the Transform tool, and rotate just because I'm used to do it all the time, the other way around. Perfect. Now another layer, and with a black color, we could add maybe like a marble wall texturizer maybe a bit. We can change the modes here. Really play with these brushes and see what you like better, what you come up with. Something like this looks good enough. And then maybe even I know what I do. I'll do some cracking paint as well. And in the end, we didn't add the grainy textures, but it really doesn't matter right now. So now, I'll turn off all the background layers, and then I'm going to go to the wrench tool, Ed and copy Canvas. Now, go to go on top of everything else. The fingers down the screen and paste. Now we got our monogram here, so I'm going to create a new layer, make it a clipping mask. And now with the cracking paint and a black color, I'm just going to add some cracking paint here. Just to make it a bit more rococo. Like it's old. And now, go to the soft light and leave it just like this. Now, let's turn everything back on, and let's repeat the process. Wrench tool, copy canvas. Sorry, we just did the sketches as well. So let's erase the sketches. Now, again, copy canvas, go on top of everything else, three fingers down the screen, base, go to adjustments. We're going to add a little bit of noise here. At about, I would say, 12%, and then go to adjustments again, and let's add a little bit of a chromatic aberration, just a little bit. Here's the finished monogram. You can see how different textures give it volume and actually help the legibility, too. The ornaments frame the whole piece really nicely, and the colors just yeah, they pull everything together and make it feel complete. 12. See you next time!: So now you got all the tools to create your own set of monograms. Maybe you can try your initials first and then experiment with different letters and hierarchies. Every monogram tells a story. So if you create your own, I would really love to see it. So share your project with the community, and if you want feedback, I'm always here for it. If you want to go further, you can check out my other classes here on Skillshare. And if drawing letters still feels a little bit tricky, I've got full step by step alphabets that you can use, both analog and Procreate versions. You can visit showbm.com, and with the code monogram, you will get 20% off on all my products. And that's all for today. See you next time. Bye.