Draw Cute Monsters: A Character Design Workshop for Beginners

1. Introduction: Have you ever felt that you are great at following tutorials? But when it comes to creating something from scratch, you're stuck, I've got you covered. Character design is one of the most essential skills in illustration, and the design process itself pushes me from not knowing what to draw and procrastinating to a finished artwork. So whenever I hit a creative block, I start to come up with random characters, then build worlds around them. And a, I've got a finished illustration. In this cute monsters character design workshop, I'm going to show you a super fun exercise to help you overcome any creative roadblocks and get those ideas flowing. If we haven't met yet, I'm the art mother, an illustrator, artist, online educator, and a professional art teacher with a master's degree in art education. I've had the pleasure of teaching more than 80,000 students worldwide with my online classes, and my mission is simple. Making complicated art topics easy for beginners. Now, in this workshop, we are not going to dive into complicated topics like composition or environment. We are keeping it light and fun. So our goal today is to spark your creativity, build your confidence, and help you create your very own fun, super cute masa character that you'll love. So how we are going to do this. We'll start with a mindmap to unlock your creativity, explore some fun shapes and silhouettes. Sketch your character, and I'll walk you through my own illustration process in Procreate. But remember, this is your project. So feel free to let your own style shine through. And why monsters because they are a perfect opportunity to let your imagination run wild. No rules, just fun with shapes and colors and designs. And trust me, this is going to be so much fun. All right, grab your iPad, open, procreate, and let's get started. 2. The Mind Map: Hello, and welcome to the cute Monsters Character Design Workshop. I'm so excited that you are here, and I can't wait to do this workshop with you. Alright, so let me just start by explaining how we are going to go through the process. Obviously, our goal is to create a cute monster illustration, okay? We are not going to place him into an environment. This is going to be purely a character design workshop for beginners, okay? So we are going to go really easily and I will explain everything so that you as a very beginner can easily follow along. I created several different stages for the process. The way you can participate is to just grab your iPad, open a new screen sized canvas and do the exercises that I'm going to show you in the separate stages. In the first one, we are going to actually create a mind map, let's just get into it and let's start doing the design process. These steps that we are going to go through are um most of the times done by me and most of the times done differently. Okay? So for example, in this mind map, and I'm just going to grab a color, and from the brush set, I will choose the sketching pencil. So at first, I write into the middle what I'm going to illustrate. So that is going to be the subject of my process, okay? So it is going to be a monster. I can do this in all different kinds of ways. So let me just show you the first thing when I'm more into, you know, the illustration part because illustrations tell stories. So I need to think about what is actually happening in the illustration. So in that way, I'm adding an adjective and verb. An adjective now is going to be cute, right? Cute monster doing what? It is going to be the verb. So what is he doing? I don't know, reading. So now I have an action that my monster is going to do. This is one way to do this mind map, and I can keep this in mind, and I can just hide it. I will create a new one, and when I'm not even really sure how to do a monster, and that's more of the character design part of this process. I can think about the monster itself. So mostly body parts, okay? What do monsters have? So they have a main body, right? Torso, maybe. Then then they have eyes, and they can have multiple eyes. So they can have one eye or they can have three eyes. So it can be unusual. This is why I've chosen the monster as the topic of this workshop because it can be really, really fun when experimenting with these things. Then what can a monster have? You know, monsters can have these tentacles, or horns. They can have legs and also hens and they can have fur. This is basically a brainstorming activity that I'm brainstorming anything a monster can have. They can have fur or they can have what they can have. They can have teeth. And they can have let's think of one last thing. They can have tail, for example, okay? So this way, I'm already, like, you know, starting the imagination process within my head. I don't love to look at reference photos of monsters. Yeah. For example, you can just write like Monster Illustration to Pinterest or Google or any social media platform. It will show you some results, but I don't like to do that because it is good to look at them. Sometimes I do it in this way. Like, I look at the inspiration photos and then don't look at that topic at all for weeks. I go weeks without checking on them, but keeping in mind some information about them like color palettes or proportions. And now, when I do it like this, it starts, you know, to open my mind and think about different body parts. And you will see the next stage, why is it important to keep in mind these things? Because we are going to work with silhouettes and randomly, like, you know, throw these body parts around to have invent a new creator. Another thing that I love to do is to look at animals. I hold the belief that there isn't anything more creative than nature itself. And if you look at some colorful bogs or I don't know, birds, they can have really, really beautiful textures and patterns on their fur and on their, you know, fetters. And it is really fun. So if you really need some inspiration, I would I would recommend you to check out animals. They are really amazing. Alright, so now we have a monster. I will just do a little foreshadowing what we are going to do, okay? Of course, we haven't ridden, like I will right head to the body, okay? So it has a head. Let's start with a body shape. It has a head. It has eyes. Let's say he has eyes. He has tentacles. He has horns. He doesn't need to have both. He has legs. He has arms. A fur or whatever. Teeth. Cannot see that. He has a tail. He doesn't have. Okay. But, you know, I already created a silhouette of a monster that I can use later, and I can have as a starting point just by going through these body parts and throwing whatever shapes here. Yeah, so this is what you need to do now if you are thinking anything, any subject that you are going to illustrate, go through this part. This is the best. Alright, so after you have actually the information that you need to process in your design process, we are going to create silhouettes. Yeah. 3. Silhouettes: So let me just show you I've already done some here, but we are going to go from scratch together. I will turn off this layer and talk a little bit about shape language, okay? As we are doing now cute monsters, we have basically three basic geomatic shapes, yeah. Let me just draw them here. So we have circle we have a triangular shapes, and we have rectangular shapes. And in character design, it has a really important role these shapes because they carry meaning and they help you to talk without words through your character. So if you are creating cute characters, you will use circular shapes and not like perfect circles, you know, but circular shapes, curved lines, et cetera. If you are creating villains, triangular shapes, you know, they, um, convey the meaning of kind of danger. Villains usually have triangular shapes in their design, rectangular shapes convey strength and stability. And usually these superheroes or dad figures have these shapes within their design. And now as we are in cute monsters, okay, cute is kind of these curved shapes and they are monsters. So they need to have kind of these edgy, triangular shapes within them because monsters are dangerous, right? They can be cute, but they are monsters. So I would say, when we are designing a monster, let's focus on these two shapes. So when we are going to throw these silhouettes in a second, um, do I don't know, kind of an oval shape, for example, and lots of oval shapes, et cetera, but you can have triangular shapes within the design. I think I will use it mostly for the teeth later, but just keep in mind that you can add edges into these things. All right. So now let's go and spend some time with me creating silhouettes. Alright. Alright, so let's get into it. For this, I'm still using the sketching pencil. I've chosen this purple color. I will create a new layer. So if you are in whatever canvas, you can create a new one, and you can just, you know, create a new canvas. And I'm just going to, like, go through the whole page and just randomly throw differently shaped you know, bodies with keeping in mind the mind map that we have just created. So, uh It is the body. It is the head. I will add some horns. Maybe four hens and four legs. This can be a bug, but it can be a monster, as well. Okay, let's do a new one. I will do now just a full body shape, and I will not really consider like having a separate head, but simply, you know, just the body. I will add some horns of some shape. I'll had two hens and a leg. Cool. Now I will do I don't know, a triangular but still oval body shape. And just add some chunky hints and legs, and, that can be it, basically. Or I can create one that has a different body shape. That's oval can make two ints, but it can have horns as well. Like this. Or we can have a body, and he can have eyes like this and maybe also just hands and licks, or he can even be like a ghost, you know? Just a ghost. Some hints, again, differently shaped. Horns? Yeah, cool. Then, I don't know. Let's have, again, a separate head and body. Like this. He can have tentacles like this. Or he can have I don't know. Horns like a deer, you know. Like this. And ears, again, maybe. I don't know. Or he can have a very chubby body and eyes like this as a frog. And he can have, like, hands like this, maybe legs as well. Or it's kind of like having aliens, small aliens. Whatever. Two hands, two legs. I don't know, I like the idea of the horns for some reason. I like these, too. So basically, within this process, you will see what works for you and what doesn't will see which body shapes or elements or body parts are that you like that, like, you know, have that feeling of excitement or gives you the feeling of excitement. Oh, my God, this is such an amazing idea. And that is that you need to follow. So try not to play it safe, you know, uh, try to go out of your comfort zone. Make sure to fill the page with these little drawings. Randomly so that you have something, at least, you know. It will look so good after finished. Okay. And it's kind of similar to this one. I don't know. You can have this I don't know. I will do some smaller ones as well. And one last one. What's that here. Okay. I have a page filled, and what I'm going to do is to select three of them, and I like this one with the horn. I love this one with the horn and probably maybe this one. So what I'm going to do is to select these, put them on a new layer, free finger swipe and I can duplicate or cut and paste. I go to duplicate so that I have the original as well. Again, I will select free finger swipe, I will do duplicate again and this last one I will again select. Oops. Free finger swipe and duplicate. Now, I will turn off this, and I have these three different little guys. Now we place them next to each other. Like this. And make this last one a bit bigger. They already look super cool. Okay, we arrive to the next stage. What I'm going to do is to I will merge this layer hoops and basically take it to the next stage, which is catches, but you just keep them in your file, okay? Yeah. 4. Sketches: That o. The sketches. This is the next stage. What I'm going to do is to basically create a new layer and kind of lower the opacity of this these silhouettes. And I will choose black and keep the sketching pencil but make it smaller. I will basically use these random silhouettes to build up the designs of these monsters. And I can choose one from these three, but basically, I love all of them so much that I will illustrate all three. You are free to illustrate only one, but I think they are friends or something. Okay. So this body is kind of this rectangular. But I will try to make these round edges so that it's not that sharp. We are doing cute monsters. This is the body. I love to do that, these giant eyes, and one eye is going to be smaller and one eye is going to be bigger. And Like this. I will add the mouth. And yeah, this is where I'm going to add the sharp teeth. Cool. And add these horns. This is more of a stability expressing guy. He is more like this rectangular, but he's still cute. Can you see these rounded eyes and stuff? I'll create a very thin hints like this and I will need stable legs that holds this body. This is going to be one guy. Let's do the other one. He is it's very rounded shape body he has. And he has ears. And I love these horns. I need to work on them. As you can see, this is a very quick design. Usually I take more time to build up characters and think through with these quick things you need to do quick decisions, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't my designs will not be good at the end, but whatever. I thought that this character is a bit shy little I don't know, dear monster. And you will have giant eyes as well. Usually cook. Cool. Usually cute things have these. This is so fun. Sorry. So these cute, things like, it can be an animal or a monster. They have like big eyes, okay? So this giant big cute eyes will make anything cute, okay? So So nice. I missed something from his head. I think he will have a Hat. Yeah, a little hat. Looks good. Yeah. As you can see, I'm not following the silhouettes that much. And let's see the third one. Now the question is, if he will have eyes on these tentacles or he will have the tentacles only. I think he will have eyes on them, so let's do it like that. Here is an eye. Oops. Okay. Here we have the three eyes. Oh. So here's the head. He can have just this kind of a mouth with some triangular teeth. This belly. And these little hints and legs. Okay. So now I already have three character designs there. Now, we can work on the line work and to character design it fits to have props and accessories. So if you wish, you can just add I don't know clothing. I can imagine this mouster to have a shirt striped shirt for some reason. This is what I can imagine. This hat that I added is also a good thing. So now, think about one thing that you will add, and I think this monster will have this weird t shirt. He has ends like this part, but whatever. In illustration, you can do things like that. You just have belly button here. And he has a hat, and he will have what will he have? I don't know. Mm. What did he have? Maybe he will not have anything. Yeah. So feel free to do whatever you wish, and now we are going to move on to the illustration part. So I will just take this layer and place it to the illustration part. 5. Illustration Part 1: Now, I have three sketches, and I have an illustration process that is kind of the same. The way I do this is that I fill in the main shapes, I add shading and then work on details. Now, this takes a lot of time, and I don't think we have that much time. So basically, I'm going to illustrate one, and then you can watch a speed up version of illustration of the other two, okay? So I have my sketches here and let's just get started. Okay. So as the theme color of this workshop is this purple, I will just grab this purple as my color. I will work with the clean shape or brush. Then I will lower the opacity of the sketch and create a new layer below the sketch. Basically, what I'm going to do is to fill in the shape of this monster, the main shape with color. If I need to grab back from the shape, I will just double dab on the Apple pencil, to erase. And I often do that because I love to be dynamic when I'm drawing. I can also use a quick shape function to make things more even. What I've just done is that, for example, I just hold down the line and it will straighten it and you can do that with the eraser as well when you are erasing, if you need to erase a straight line, if that makes sense. You can just drop color, but I love to fill it manually because sometimes when you just drop colors, it misses some pixels, and that can be annoying. I mean, I just messed up this part. All right. So cool. I will add the legs, as well. No, on a separate layer. Yeah. Let's create a layer below the main body. And I will choose more toned down purple for the horns. Yeah, perfect. The way I'm choosing my colors, is kind of intuitive. I don't really, you know, when you are working a lot, or illustrating a lot. You will have your go to color combinations, and I don't really create color palettes when I'm doing my personal work. I love to go into with that as well. But if you're not really sure what colors, you know, to use, when you are illustrating, you can download pre stat color palettes from the Internet, and that can help a lot. Yeah. Cool? Not at one. Amazing. I will just add the pins, as well. You can go into more detail if you wish. But you don't necessarily have to. The level of detail you keep in your illustrations is actually kind of defining your style, and it can be really fun, to just keep things loose and not go into too much detail. Now, I'm going to alpha log both of these layers, and let's just work on the main body at first. So I will choose the main color and go darker. Okay, so I will choose a darker version of this color. If you have a base color and you choose a darker version of it, it is going to look great when you are shading it. So I will just choose the shader. I will make it bigger. Oops. And actually, I am going to shade around the base shape, as you can see. It will give it volume or dimension right away. I will get back with the original color a bit to clean it up. But it also created some kind of texture. Can you see that? I love it. I love it. So this is one way. If you want to shade a little bit or have a more color variation, you can choose this darker version of the color and toggle it a little bit more towards blue, for example, and you can have different or maybe you can que even darker. A little bit different hue for the shading. It is more purplish or bluish purple, and it can look really nice. You know, I just adds a bit. To the overall color. And if you go through the whole, it adds a little bit of, you know, interest or color variation. But I can still go back and to the middle, just lightn it up. And those little pixels, as this brush is pretty textured, those little pixels will stay there. And when I'm zooming in, can you see that how much color variation I have? And basically, I just use three colors. So this is for the main body. And for these shapes, I have this muted purple, I will go just simply darker now. And again, with the shader, I will shade around the shape. Okay. So the inner corner is a little bit outside. It is the simplest shading technique I love to use shading around the shapes. You basically don't need to do anything special. If you choose the main color and go a little bit lighter and keep the shader small, going to the middle and light on it, you will even create this even better free effect. Can you see that? Looks so cool. You can go back with the dark to the hens. Yeah. So with this dark muted color, I will just add some shadows to the body parts. And it is so cool. Now, we can add some textures. So I will go to this brush set, and I will choose this texturiser. And what I love is to use a lighter color, basically. Make this brush big and just simply go through the whole just a bit. The whole layer. Yeah. Add the texture and it looks super cool. Now, I will create another layer on top, choose white and clean shaper and work on the eyes. I will hold down to create perfect circle. I will just fill in. Can you see? I just drop the color and it left out these pixels. As this branch is a bit textured, I will just erase around it to have a nicer shape. Okay. I place those ice a bit to the center, and I will need to add shadows to that as well. Okay, so I will alpha lock the layer, choose a kind of gray color, choose the shader again. We'll make it bigger. Oops. That's a lot. And just shade around the shape a bit. I will choose a lighter one lighter gray. Okay. Cool. I will create a new layer and make it a clipping mask. And with the clean shaper, I will do the eyes and what color those will be. The complimentary color that I can think of is orange. Maybe it will work well. I will choose a nice orange color. Let's try it. What do you say? Does it work? Do you have orange ice? I think yes. Let's have orange ice. You can do it monochromatically. If I choose this pink, it will work good as well. This orange, however, will bring out your design, it will make it pop and this lies basically in color harmonies. There are several ones and you have tools for that in Procreate. If you go to the color tool and you go to Harmony, you can select colors and choose and it will choose a different color harmony. If I set complimentary, if you click here to this text below the colors, you will have complimentary and it actually has blue. But if I say split complimentary or analogous, triadic. Te tritic. Yeah, this triadic kind of says this orange for this purple color. But again, you can go just simply, you know, buy your intuition. Because these art theories are there to guide you, not to limit you, okay? So you need to take ownership of your process and, you know, come up with things. I'm choosing colors because this is why it works. It works because you love it, okay? So That's my. These are my $0.02 for creating your own characters. Feel like a creator. Literally, you are creating on a canvas, but it's just your imagination and you can create whatever. Whatever. Okay. Cool. Okay. I will duplicate it because I don't want to create another circle. I will make it smaller and place it here, and I will make them on a same layer and make them a clipping mask. Yeah. And I will flock them and choose a darker color, darker version of the color. I will push it maybe into the reddish side. Choose the shader. And what I'm going to do the exact same thing. So I'm going to shade around the shape and give it volume. That's that. Just like that. Yeah. I will go back with this orange to the middle and I'm going to go even lighter and I will go a bit more to the yellow part and actually add a yellow circle into the middle. And that's where the pupils will be. So I will create another layer and make it a clipping mask. You can go for black or you can go for a very dark brown. Maybe I will go for a very dark brown. Almost black. Choose the clean shaper, and I will add the pupils. So cute. Can raise from it. So cool. Now I will choose basically white and the shader brush and make it really small and I will add this light to the eyes. It will bring it alive. How cool. Okay. Let's move on to the mouth. Yeah. 6. Illustration Part 2: Let's move on to the mouth and I have created a new layer for it. I will choose a very dark purple and a clean shaper to draw the lips, basically. It's going to be the lips? Okay. I will create another layer below the lips, and I will choose white and just fill in the shapes of the teeth. It is not a clipping mask. Okay, cool. Fantastic. Io, it looks like, Oh, my God. Alright. I will create a layer below and make sure it is not a clipping mask. I will choose this very dark brown and just fill in the mouth like this. And I will go to the teeth, Alpha lock them, and choose a darker gray and a shader brush, and even darker. Yeah. And I will shade around them as well. Oops. Like this. Even around the mouth, it should be darker. If I want it to be even darker, I can just go to adjustments, use saturation brightness and just darken basically. Yeah. So it's not that, like, you know, harsh. Okay, so what I miss are some extra shadows and details, and I think we can incorporate this orange into the body a little bit more. So we have a brushe called the texture shaper, and I will go into the body, create a new layer, and make it a clipping mask, and I will basic hoops and make it smaller. I will basically add some little dots around the body like this. I don't know. To make it a bit more interesting. And I will go to the blending mode and see how it works. Hmm. I this orange justn' the best idea. I love this lighter Um, the lighter purple. And basically, I can choose a darker version of the color and basically the sketching pencil and just even darker. And just draw some even darker, lines around these little elements. I like this. Cool. And actually, I miss eyelids. I miss eyelids. Let me see how will it look like? I'll create another layer. And what if I just add some eyelids? Will it look better? Hmm. I'm just filling it in. I love a lot. Choose a darker version of the color. Choose the shady. Just go through it. Yeah, maybe. Just the shape of this lid. Okay. Los. Cool. I think this pupil should be also in the middle. I'm kind of rearranging stuff. Okay. I need some line work over the eyes. I will create a new layer, and I don't know. With a sketching pencil, I will just show a line between those eyes a little bit. Okay. Looks better. And I need the drop shadow brush to create some inclusions. So I will choose the drop shadow brush and black and actually go and create a layer above everything. And I will add a shadow below the eyelid. Don't worry, it will look good. I will do a little bit of shadow around the eyeballs. Like this, maybe between them. Yeah. Below the mouth on the teeth, below the slip. Okay. And I will just go and go hablare it. And well, I love it looks cool. I miss some shadows from the horn, so I will go back to the horn. And I will just create a new layer, make it a clipping mask, and to the inside part. I will add some more shadows like this. And again, I will just caution blurt. Well, huh? And I will create a drop shadow. Yeah, I will create another layer below it. And Oops, make it big. And layering this shadow, as you can see, this brushes if you layer it, it will get darker and darker. So I will create a round shape. Let's make it bigger like this, even darker one, even darker one, and maybe below the legs. And I will just gauchen blur it and yeah, it is too dark. So I can just lower its opacity and, I will add another one just below legs. Just like that. Now we'll go and blur it. Yeah. I will just adjust some stuff. Give me some second, a second. I can add some details as well, with a clean shape or sketching pencil and this light yellow, I will make it a bit lighter. I can just add, like, you know, lines like this outside the eye so that it's not that boring. Maybe a lighter. Cool. And if you want to add some more details, even more, for example, to the mouth, the lips, you can add, where are the lips? Where are they? I will choose the original color and or we the shade or brush. Just light in the middle of it. Of this mouth. Like this, maybe. And I can maybe add a little bit more of this drop shadow brush around this little mouth. So let me just go there. And on a new layer, I will just add darker version of that color. And, you know, just a little bit more of a dropshado Here. Let me see. A Shambler Yep. Cool. I will add another one below this eyes. You can spend a lot of time on, you know, refining details. Didn't really want to do that, but it just grabbed me, now. So gtimblGhon blurring. Cool. I would say that this little monster is finished. I can play with light and even more things. But basically, what I wanted to show you is that from very simple basic geometric shapes and with adding, you know, techniques and knowing what you're doing, even though when you are just figuring out, but trusting the process, we'll give you great results, and I just can't wait to finish up these two other guys and have these cute monsters. 7. Class Recap: Alright, and now here are they finished. All three little monsters are fully illustrated, and I love how they turned out. Okay, so as the final word, let's just do a little recap on what we have done in this class and what you can do as a next step. So we basically focused on character design. Okay? So, coming up with a character. But the first thing I said was basically that an illustration tells a story, and if you want to have a story, you need an action, right? And we were talking about making the character, you know, the cute monster reading. So the next step might be after you know how your character looks like, thinking about an environment and placing him into that environment, doing that action that you have came up with. This character design part was really to know how you are illustrating the character, how his body looks like, et cetera. And now you can move forward, you know, to place him into the story. Well coming up with the character, think about the body parts, what he has if you are like illustrating a real thing like a frog, just just write down what you know about frogs. You know, they have a heat, they have a leg, and they can be green or yellow and stuff like that. And then it will just come naturally through your hands, you know, with the creative energy you have. Your creation will just, you know, come alive. And then you can play with silhouettes. We created tons of silhouettes you could, like, choose from. We chose three of them, or you can just choose one of them as you wish. And then basically during the illustration process we basically created the sketches from these silhouettes and came up with some fun accessories. And then I filled in the shapes, added shadows, played with light, and things like that. So that's how we progressed, and I hope that you enjoyed the process. And, of course, don't forget to post your class project to the project gallery. I can't wait to see what you create. Alright, see you in the last video. 8. Final Thoughts: Oh. Let's just take a moment to appreciate what have you just created. Come right. Now you have a cute little Muster character illustrated, a clear and simple step by step approach to character design. New skills and confidence to build your very own characters. Character design is all about practice. So keep going, keep experimenting with different shapes and ideas. If you want to dive deeper, check out my Skillshare classes to all different kinds of topics related to digital illustration. Character design, shading perspective, and more. And let's stay connected. Follow me on social media on Instagram and Facebook for more tips, inspirations and for you to stay updated for challenges, new classes, new artbooks and all different kinds of things. Also, grab the free brush set on my website by signing up to my newsletter. And most importantly, keep creating and having fun. It was a pleasure to have you here, guys. Happy creating.