Transcripts
1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Hi guys. My name is Alexandra Gabor and I'm a
professional art teacher, artist, and illustrator. Most of my illustrations were
created with watercolors, but nowadays, I'm
really into digital. I used to paint in
different programs like Photoshop or Alchemy, but I discovered Procreate
lately and it just blew my mind how user-friendly
that program is. I was able to translate my
traditional process in it, but actually it took me a
while until I figured it out. I experimented a lot and developed a process that
works like a dream. I also visited an
academic in Rome to perfect this process
with professionals. As I'm an art teacher
by profession, I made this process beginner
friendly so that you could start your digital illustration
journey more easily. In this class, we are
going to go through this process together from initial sketches to illustrating a motivational coffee mug. [LAUGHTER] In this class, you will learn how to
work in Procreate, it's basic functions
and workflow. You will learn the
best way to pick your colors so that they
work well together. How to work with layers. How to plan your artwork ahead. Also, which brushes I
find to be the best. I also provide my
personal illustration brushes with this class
so that you can use them. At the end of this class, you will be able to
create a full layered and shaded illustration of a
motivational coffee mug. For the class, you will
need an iPad, a stylus, and the latest
version of Procreate, and of course, zeal to
learn digital illustration. So if you're ready, let's get started. [MUSIC]
2. Intro to Procreate Resources, Brushes, Layers, Colors: [MUSIC] In this short
video, I would love to do just a little intro
to Procreate. If you have never worked in it, I recommend you to take a
full Intro to Procreate class if you need it but I
guess this class will also do a good job in
teaching you the program. In this video, we will
discuss the resources, Canvas, layers,
brushes, and color. At first, Procreate
is an app that you can download
to your iPad only, there isn't a desktop version, but there is a pocket
version for mobile. On their website, there is a
full artist handbook where you have everything explained
from opening the program, organizing your artworks, and all the tools
that are available. I really recommend
you to get this. I also recommend you to follow
Procreate on Instagram, they frequently post tutorials, artworks you can get inspired from the latest innovations, for example, you can now export an animated GIF,
which is awesome. If you want to be up to date, this is the way to go. Let's open the program. What I'm using is the
newest iPad Pro with the second-generation
Apple pencil and I have a paper-like
cover on the screen, which really gives a nice
experience because it adds a bit of a traditional
feeling with its resistance. It is really not
painting on a screen, but it adds to it and
it's really awesome. It was surprising for me, but it is really useful. Let's get back to the gallery. As you can see, I have
a little mess here, so I should just clean up. But anyways, let's
create a new file. What I love to use, you can hit this plus sign here. What I love to use
is the A4 size. You can create custom-sized
canvas but I loved the A4 because it is big enough
to be an A4 sheet paper, but still a too big to have
a limited number of layers. You can check how
many layers you have here in the
Canvas information, so hit this orange button, here you have the
canvas information and you can see that I
have a maximum layers, 57 layers, which is
more than enough. Up here, you can find the
most important tools, the brushes, the
layers, and the colors. Let's talk about
the brushes first. The brushes that come with
the program are really great. I use them a lot, mainly the 6B pencil, some artistic pencils, and some textures that
come with the program, so they are really
amazing but you can also create your own
brushes if you hit this plus sign and it is really great because it is easy and it is
really fun to play around. You can also buy brushes. Let's go to the Creative Market, let me just show you. There's a site called
Creative Market. If you search for
Procreate brushes, I already have it here, you can find so
many brush packs. I found these gouache
shader brushes pack is amazing and the Texturizer
Pro Procreate brushes, there are 52 textured brushes, which is just amazing. They are not too expensive and I really love to support
other creatives, so I say, why not to
buy a brush pack? But anyways, the brushes we are going to use
here are my own. These illustration
brushes, there is a liner and a shader. These two brushes
were inspired by two brushes from the gouache
brush set I have bought. I really recommend you to get those brushes as well if
you're interested but I have customized these
to my own needs and I am including these two brushes in the resources section, so now go and download them. Both have nice textures and
work together like magic. Now let's talk about the layers. In digital, we work in different layers
because it is easier. You can, of course,
paint on one layer. Let's see in the gallery. This is on one layer, I cannot move anything around. Why would you paint
in one layer if painting your layers makes
your workflow quicker? You have the opportunity
to move objects around. Let's see the original of this. This is the original
and if you take a look, although I have plenty
of layers here. If I select the layers with the lettering
and I hit move, I can move this around as I
want and it is really useful. You can also adjust the
colors only of this element. Let's see, I will just put this. You see, I can change
the color of the mug, how amazing is that? I'm not affecting any other
things on this artwork, so it is really useful, and if I can do this, why not? You do the hard work
illustrating once, then you can reuse
some elements, repurpose them,
recolor, and more. Simply working in
layers makes sense. As it ever median, you need to think ahead
and plan your painting. You don't necessarily
need to make a real plan just to be mindful of
what's at the back, what is in the front. If you work in layers, you are free to rearrange
the layers as well. That again makes things easy. I can just hold down the layer and just
them wherever I want. Now let's talk about the colors, I'm going to return
to the original. You have endless
possibilities in Procreate, you can import
reference images and pick the colors to
create your own palette, or you can just randomly
create a palette, or just simply pick
colors you like as you are progressing
in the artwork. What I personally love to do is to gather reference photo, pick the main colors
from it and then adjust that palette to my
own needs and style, and then as I go, I also pick my own colors. For example, I made
this color palette, and then I realized
when painting that I need a darker
version of this, so I pick this color, go to this classic
and I can just adjust the brightness
of this color. I recommend you to have a plan, but also be flexible. I already have some
color combinations that I find that work
really well together, like the blue with its darker version or
brown with orange tense. As you can see on this image, it gives it a really
nice natural texture. Generally, we can say that
to get the best result, you need to combine a
middle-based color with its darker version for shading and a lighter version
for highlights. For example, like this, if you take a look
on this palette, as you can see, I have
three main colors, pink, orange, and blue. But I have a lighter and
darker version from each of them and it will give us a really nice
palette to work with. I will show you the artwork
I've done with this palette and this frog is the example. I have used the base color, the darker version, and the lighter version to be able to render
things a little bit. I think we discussed the
most things in general, let's got to practice
in the next video.
3. Technique Practice: [MUSIC] Now you have a
document of A4 size. You have downloaded the brushes, and now you'll
pick a base color, it's darker and it's
lighter version. To make a new palette, click here to the plus sign
and go back to this classic, you will have this
empty pallet here as it is set to the default. Now you can just pick a color. I will pick a
middle range of it, not the brightest
and not the darkest, just a middle so that
I have a base color. To get the brightest
for this highlight, go to the most saturated part and get it a little
bit brighter, this is going to be a highlight. Now, the darker version
is going to be down here. I have my palette here. You can name this
pellet if you want, but let us move on to
drawing the shape. Now pick the base color, which is this one. Click the liner. What we are going to
do is to draw a shape, I'm going to draw a circle. What I'm going to do is
I'm going to hold down my stylus and it will activate
the quick shape function, which will find
the closest shape [LAUGHTER] to what I have drawn. I wanted a circle and it's
writing ellipse created, but I can click edit shape
and I can make it a circle, I can then adjust it but
okay I want a circle. I want this shape to be closed because I will
fill it with color. The way I'm going to do it
is drag the color from here. Now, if you take a closer look, you can see that
there is a line here. The reason for that is because the liner brush has a
texture on it's both edges. It looks nice outside the shape, but inside it gives
us these pixels with varied capacity,
which is disturbing. What we are going to do
is that we are going to go through it again. You can do it with a bigger
brush actually, but anyways. We go through it again, I will just erase this part from the shape so
that it looks better, add back a little
bit of texture, nice, just fill these pixels. Now we have the basic shape and we're going to shade it now. There is a function
named Alpha Lock. If you hit Layers and click on the layer you have it here, the Alpha Lock or take two fingers and slide
this layer with them, and then it will
Alpha Lock itself. You will see that layer is Alpha Locked if there is
this checked background, which means that you
cannot paint outside this shape that you
have drawn or the pixels you have painted
already or Alpha Locked, you cannot paint outside
them only on them. Now let's shade this circle. I will just place
it to the middle. Take the shader brush and choose this darker
version of your color. This brush is
pressure sensitive. If you press lighter, it leaves light marks, if you press harder, it leaves hard marks, which is really
great because you can shade more smoothly. As you can see I already created really
nice shading here. The shader brush has
a wonderful texture. You can use it for
simple texturizing, not necessarily for
shading, I use it for both. Now, you can do this shading
on a separate layer. As you can adjust it later, I usually don't do this, but if I'm not sure if the shading will remain
there at the end, I might want to place
it on a new layer. Also if I think that I will have something
on this object, I want it to be shaded as well, I would be able to put it under the shading
I have just done. Let's do this. I hope you'll know that
if you tap the screen with two fingers you will
undo what you have done, undo the whole shading. Now click here,
select the Layer, now hit the plus sign. It will create a
new layer above, but the shape will
remain selected. Now, if you paint, you will paint on the shape, but on a new layer. This is also good if you plan
to add something later to your shape like a
lettering on a coffee mug. You just place the lettering
below the shaded layer, and it will become shaded as well and will not be
above the shading, which would look artificial. Let's just do the shading
on this new layer. Again, get the shader brush and just go like this. Now let's get a lighter
color and do some highlights up here, great. If you overdo some of these, you can always pick
back the base color and redo or if you are
on a new layer, you can erase without
losing the base colors. I will just erase and you
can see I can do that. Let's try to add a
letter into the middle. I will just create a new layer. Do the studio pen, which you can find
in the inking. It has the studio pen, which I liked the
most for lettering. It is really pressure sensitive, it works really great
for hand lettering. Just write a lettering
into the middle with a darker color. Put it behind the lettering
and you can see that it is already shaded here
and here as well. Great. This is basically the process I'm following
when illustrating. [MUSIC] I get a base color
and paint the shape I need. Then I get a darker color
and shade the Alpha Locked shape and get a lighter
color for highlights. In the next video, we will do the main project and we will go in more detail how
to work with layers.
4. The Base: [MUSIC] I already told you we are going to
illustrate a coffee mug, and I thought we could add a motivational lettering on it. Let's call it a
motivational coffee mug. [LAUGHTER] You can
draw a coffee mug from your imagination. I mostly do that. But if you are not
sure how to draw something you can always
use reference images. You can open Safari, or Pinterest, or Google. I have Pinterest here. Just search for coffee
mugs and find a coffee mug that is in a 45 or
less degree angle, because we want to see its side, but also that there
is coffee inside. For example like this, or like this, or like this, so that where we can see this part of the coffee
mugs. Choose one. I have chosen this one. Open Procreate, and
just hold down Safari, or the app you have opened. This image is perfect. Now you have a choice to
draw the mug by observation, or drag the image to a new
layer and copy the outline. If you hold down
to the image and drag it into your canvas
it will just pop up here. You can copy the outlines, but it is not the best practice, because if you always just copy you are not improving
your drawing skills. If you are unsure you
can copy the outlines, but I recommend you to
take my drawing course on observation to develop
this skill in you. What I'm going to do, I'm
going to copy the outlines, because it speeds up my process, but I can draw a coffee mug. Create a new layer. Choose black and a
sketching pencil, and just go over the outlines. When you are ready just
delete this layer. We don't need this
reference image anymore. What is nice trick to see if you were proportional or
if you did any mistakes? Hit on the Select button and
click on "Flip Horizontal", and you will see if there are something not looking good or something you should improve. I often do this to see
if I am proportional, or have something distorted in an angle or
something like this. But as I copied this I
think this would be okay. But I love to draw
mugs from this side, so I will just keep it here. I have drawn the coffee mug, and the next step is to
draw the main shape, which we can call actually
the silhouette of the mug. To see the sketch we
will keep it at the top and set it to multiply. Hit this and the button or
letter and hit Multiply. This will make that we can
see through the sketch. We need to keep this
layer at the top always. When we are going to create a new layer for the silhouette, drag it below it. I will work with
the same palette that I used in the practice, but you can create
any palette you like. I choose the darkest color
for this silhouette, as this is going to be
the bottom of this hole. What I love to do is to set the background color
to a middle gray. To do this, hit the layers,
hit the background, and choose a middle gray, so that you can see
the colors better. What I'm going to do is to
select the liner again, and I will paint the whole silhouette
of this mug with it. I'm just going to speed
this up again so that I don't bore you. One more note. If I do something
like this I can undo, or just double-tap on
the pencil and erase. Now I have a basic shape
that I will not shade now, I will leave it for later. [MUSIC] What I'm going to do is to create the front of the mug, and I'm going to do
that in the next video.
5. The Front: Here we are, and what I'm
going to do is to at first, turn off the sketch layer, and I will see in this main basic shape because I really need
this to be right. I will just go around this main shape again
and just correct any mistakes in the shape
that I find that don't look good or should look better, like these joints
here, meeting points. This should be a little
bit smoother I guess, this is too pointy. This is just details. I will not go too
much into that. Now I'm going to select this layer and create
a new one about it. I'm going to do the front of this layer and turn
on the sketch again. I will paint the front of the
mark with the base color. I will choose the base color, choose the liner brush. I can see that
this is not right, so I will just paint this way. As you can see as I am in layers, everything
is adjustable. I have so much
flexibility in what I'm doing is really worth it. That extra attention
on mindfulness of what to put on which layer. That was the most
disturbing part when I started to do this, but I will just increase the size of my brush and
just repaint the whole. I have a back, I have a front, and I will turn off this again. Let's see if I have
something left out. If I have problems
with the shape. Nice. Now let's put
some coffee into it. Let's create a new
layer below this front. Choose a beach color, discolor, but maybe a
little bit lighter. I'm again working with
this liner brush, and I will just paint
the coffee here. I have a copy.
[LAUGHTER] Looks nice. Now we have the base of the mug, and the shading comes
in the next video.
6. Shading and texture: [MUSIC] Alpha lock
all the layers, the first thing I will do is
to select the base shape. Choose the base color, I will choose this back
and choose the base color, and choose the shader brush and make it a
little bit smaller. What I'm going to do is
to make it more lighter, but make it like
this and its side. I'm going to just go
through it lighter. The reason I'm going to
do that is because I will have this nice dotted texture, with shadow as well. What I'm doing at the top, I'm pressing harder
so that I have this nice edge of the mark. If I got this slide, I can connect these
two sides of the mark. If I want to get back
something from this shader, I will just shade, I will just get back to the shader and just
go through it again. The reason it is better to do it like this is because it will really give us
this nice texture. I hope you can see
what I'm doing. Now let's shade the front, what I'm going to do is
to select it and create a new layer above
it so that I have the shading on a
separate new layer. I'm going to select a
bigger brush and just really lightly go
through it so that it already has a little texture, then get it a
little bit smaller. Make sure that the opacity
here is that to the center, it is on 52 percent. This brush works well
with this settings. What I try to do now is
to get the highlight, I'm going to put this highlight
not on the shaded layer, but on the main front layer. The reason is because it will just keep this nice texture, I already created
with the brush. I can just work
with the base color without interrupting
the shading. I will just make this
nice blending here. Now, I want to add
highlight at the top here, but again, as you can see, I'm below that shaded
textures so that it remains like here. I will get the
shader brush and do this below it so that
it does rendered well. Now, let's select, and I guess that this
mug is finished, but I will add more
details to it. The coffee is left out. I will just go to
the palettes and choose this light brown. I will shade it again as well. I will just go
around it and choose a really light version to the middle to make it
really nicely blended. We'll get back to
this darker part. [MUSIC] It looks really nice. I would drink this coffee
right now [LAUGHTER]. Let's make some details
in the next video.
7. Details: [MUSIC] What I love
to do for details, as you can see, this artwork has no line work. It has some inclusion here, which means that there is
no line work in real life. But the general rule is
that the things that touch makes shadows and
you paint those shadows. If I put my fingers here, you don't see a line here, but you see a shadow here. This is what I tried to
do at this illustration. We have this line here, we have this line here. We have it darker
here where the coffee touches the coffee mug. It is darker there because
there is a shadow. We should draw cast shadow, but it really doesn't matter. But what I love to
do with lines in illustrations is that first we are going to create
a lettering here. I just create a new
layer and put it below this shade layer, if you can see this. This is the shading
I have on this mug. I have some shading
below it like here, this is the front. I have a layer
below this shading, and I will get my darker color and go back
to these inking studio pan, and I will just write
something here. I like this one. I
have smile here. As you can see, some of
these letters got really lost in the shading so I'm
going to get a darker color, alpha lock the lettering, guide my illustration
shader just a little bit. I will just decrease so that it stands out and doesn't
seem too dark. What I love to do
with lines again, let's deal with the coffee. I will choose a dark brown, get a liner, get it small. You can do it on different layers so
that it is adjustable. You can do something like this. I don't like the colors, so where was that milky color? Coffee color here it is. Choose this one. You can
do something like this, or there are these patterns that they draw on your coffee. That didn't work out for me. Or you can just be
creative with it. I love this floral elements
so I draw it like this. You can just add some highlights on to the coffee to make a little
bit of texture or as if it was like milk. You can just do whatever
you want to decorate it. As if it had some highlights. We can add highlights. I love to put highlights with this lightest color with the liner not
exactly the shader. I can go back to this and I
can just over the opacity so that it's not that harsh, and also do a little
bit of this here. Great. Also you can
add some patterns. What I love to use, I will create a new layer
below the lettering. One of my favorite
artistic texture brushes is turpentine. Let me just show
you what it does. I will select it. Select and choose this layer. You can do textured lines for example. I will just show you
where I used that, and it looked amazing. This guy is here and his shirt was done with this
turpentine brush and it just looks amazing. Let's get back here. You can just do something, whatever you want,
just play around. [NOISE] Or you can do dots. I like this one better. Also with turpentine brush. What is really fun to do, I will deselect all this, is to create the steam. We are going to create a
new layer from all above, and come here to the organic. You have this cotton brush. Choose white. Let's group this. The way you can group
these layers is to slide like this. Group done. Now if I want to move
the whole group, I can just move, but my
layers remain the same. I will just put it here. On this new layer with the cotton brush and
the white color, I will just create
this nice effect. It looks amazing. [LAUGHTER] You can just play around with it. As you can see, I implemented some floral things
into the steam. You can do it as
well if you want. I call this finished. There are so many things
you can just do with it, but I think this
is enough for now. I really love how
this turned out. You can change the
background back to white, but then you will
not see the steam. As you can see, it
becomes too harsh. I really love the middle
gray background for it. I hope you like this. I can't wait to see
what you create. Post our artworks into
the project gallery. Let's see each other
in the next video to sum up this class. [MUSIC]
8. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Congratulations, you arrive to the end of this class. I hoped you liked it. Don't forget to upload your project into
the project gallery. Your project is to illustrate
a motivational coffee mug with the process I have guided
you through in this class. I would be really happy
if you will let me know what you think about
the class in a review. I also invite you to
follow me on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, check out my website, and don't forget to follow me
here on Skillshare so that you get notified when the other classes
will be out there. As always, if you
have any questions, ask them in the questions
and answer section. If you need help with anything, you can contact me
personally as well. Yeah. I hope this class will be really
beneficial for you. Happy creating, goodbye. [MUSIC]
The Artmother, Professional Art Teacher and Artist
