Drawing & Digital Illustration: Create Cute Animal Characters In Procreate

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] What makes things cute? Well, this is the question that we are going to answer in this class. Hi, my name is Alexandra, a.k.a. the art mother, I'm an artist and illustrator and an online educator. In my illustration work, I create tons of cute stuff, but mostly cute characters. I have lots of classes on all different kinds of topics from shading to even character design but this time, I decided to focus on the cuteness factor. In this class, we are going to choose an animal, illustrate it, and apply this cuteness factor so that you learn how to create the most adorable character illustrations. As my superpower is making complex topics easy, I made sure that this class is perfect fit for a beginner. If you are a person who stops to say, "oh" to an illustration like this, you are at the right place. You will only need your ipad and Procreate to take your illustration skills to the next level. After learning how to stylize animals, apply the right proportions, you will also learn my personal illustration process that will allow you to create cute illustrations like this with all the dabbed texture and character design elements.So are you ready to make the world a adore your illustrations, if yes, see you inside the class. 2. The Class Project: [MUSIC] Hello and welcome to the class, I'm so happy to have you here. In this video, I'm going to talk to you about the class project, the class resources, and a little bit about the structure of the class. Let's start with the class project. We are going to create a cute illustration like this. Yes, this is a raccoon, a blue raccoon [LAUGHTER] We're going to choose an animal, create an illustration from it by applying this cuteness factor. Following the video guidance and instructions, it will be really easy don't worry. In the resources you will find the art matters ultimate brush set that I have personally designed and has my favorite brushes in it. There are six different brushes for six different functions that we are going to explore during the painting process. There are so many amazing brushes that come with Procreate, so feel free to use them as well. I'm not providing a color palette right now because I'm going to comment on my color choices during the process and I want you to use your favorite colors and explore the color palettes that are yours if you have. As you can see, I use a really unexpected color combination like having a blue raccoon, if you don't like that stuff, you are totally free to use traditional colors for your illustration. It doesn't influence your class project, you are totally free to create a class project in your illustration style, but follow along with me because I'm sharing tons of important information even during the painting process. Now, about the class structure, we're going to start by choosing your reference photo and then we're going to stylize that photo into a rough sketch, we are going to apply the cuteness factor to it, create a clean sketch and illustrate it. As you can see, it is a very easy and straightforward process that can be done in a few hours, so if you have a few hours dedicated to it and go through the whole process, because that will ensure that you complete the class and I thought that you will be proud of your little cute character at the end. At first, make sure to download the brushes and prepare your iPad and your Apple pencil. If you don't have iPad and Procreate, you are free to follow the class with any software or media but you will need to adjust the steps for yourself. Basically in a design process, a sketching part can be done in a simple pencil on a paper as well. If you have that courage, [LAUGHTER] you can just come with us, so I'm super excited to see what you create. See you in the next video and let's dive deep into creating the cutest, most adorable character. 3. What Makes Things Cute?: [MUSIC] We all know cute things when we see them, but what makes things cute? The answer lies in biology. Babies are cute so that we take care of them. I can say this from my experience, this is true. My kids are cute and that's very lucky for them. The physical traits of babies are features that we find cute, even when they show up on other things like baby animals, cartoon characters, or even cars. This is what the full Pixar and Disney movies and animation movies are built on, the cuteness. These features are called Kindchenschema by the ethologist Konrad Lorenz in 1949. What do we find cute? Big head relative to body size. Larger forehead, large eyes, round cheeks, small chin, and small nose. Now let's take a look on this cat. The baby features are in it. There is this proportional thing that the head is giant and the body is small. There are the large eyes. The big forehead is not applying here, but it would make it cute if the eyes were a bit smaller or in a different composition. Then the nose is small. It doesn't have a chin, but you don't need to apply all these features. It is also good if you have some of them, and that will automatically make your art very cute. Now let's get to drawing cute things. Generally in drawing, we have shape language that helps us to communicate our ideas. When drawing cute things, we use lots of round shapes and curves. Let's just take a look on the shape language in this cute cat. If you want to break down to basic geometric shapes, you have rectangle, you have triangles here, you have circles, but everything is curved. If you take a look on the ears, it is not pointy, it is curved. If you take a look at this rectangular head, it is also curved. Maybe this tail is a little bit pointy, but if I zoom in, it is curved, so there are no edges, no pointy parts. It makes it really cute. Even the nose, as you can see it as a triangle. What do we need to do? Let's just do a little recap on what do we need to do. We need to add baby features to our animals. Big head and small body, large eyes, small nose. In shape language, we need to make everything rounded, every shape. Now that we have an idea, what makes things cute and how to communicate this through drawing, let's see some real cuteness in the reference photos in the next video. 4. Observing Reference Photos: In this video, we are going to go through some reference photos and choose an animal we are going to illustrate. The website I like to use for this is Unsplash. Go to unsplash.com, write animal to the search bar and let's look for the perfect photo. First, let me explain what photos are really looking for. As we are doing this for the first time, we want it to be easy. Think in 2D, we are going to make our little animal 3D with shading later. But now, think about basic geometric shapes and look for front-facing photos, and also look for mammals, birds and fish can be interesting subjects too. But now we are looking for fluffy, cute animals. In short, front-facing furry animals and let's see the circles, triangles and rectangles in them. I just see a front-facing photo right away. Here is this tiger. It is really cute. Lets just talk about the shapes we see in it. We can see the circle for the head. There are triangles, and also see this triangle in the middle that can be really rounded. Also see the features that you can make this animal recognizable. Because we will really need that animal to be the animal it is if that makes sense. Also take a look on the eyes. What color are they and what shape are they. Try to find animals that are attractive to you. They're cute for you. Let's just go further [LAUGHTER]. This raccoon is so cute. Oh my God. Just look at it. Again we can see the circle here. We can see curves, triangles here, and also this feature of the nose is like totally cool. What I'm going to do is to continue. Oh yes and also check out the body. If you can make it smaller, I think it would work really well with this raccoon. This giraffe is funny, but it's not facing front. Oh, this puppy is cute. Oh these fox is cute as well. Just check out the basic shape of his head is a triangle, there are lots of triangles because the fox is not the cute animal. How funny nature is [LAUGHTER]. But it can be done to be cute or made to be cute. Here is a tiger again. Oh, this monkey. Oh my God. [LAUGHTER] This shape is so fun and ears and this shape and feature in the front it's all really cool. And the eyes are already giant. What do I see? Oh, this red panda. Oh my God. [LAUGHTER] This is super super cool. It has an oval shaped head, the round little nose and the eyes and ears. This would be really easy to make to a cute animal. What your task is now to go for images like see this cuteness and think in 2D and find features that you like, like grab an animal. I think I will go for the raccoon. Because this is really cute [LAUGHTER]. What you can do is to screenshot it [NOISE] or download it to your iPad. This is free to use under the Unsplash license. Using reference photos is not cheating. If you don't have the experience of lot of drawing of animals or objects or still lives, it is very recommended to use reference photos and use those to create your artworks and series here with us. [LAUGHTER] See you in the next video where we are going to stylize and draw these basic geometric shapes that we have just observed and create a base for our sketch. See you there. 5. Stylizing The Animal: [MUSIC] In this video, we're going to do the stylization. Create a new screen sized Canvas, and what I'm going to do is to hit the orange button and in the Canvas menu you have the reference, hit that, and you can import an image. Now, I have this in my reference photo we place it here, and I will zoom in a little bit. Make sure to choose from the brush set the sketching pencil. Choose black or any color that you like and let's just stylize the whole animal. The head is an oval, and I will just draw an oval shape approximately. What I'm going to do is to basically just place in at first the main geometric shapes. I have an ear here, I have an ear here like this. We have the nose down here and the lips here and we will have the eyes, I will just roughly place them. Here is one eye, here is one eye, here is nose down here and here is the shape of the nose, and it comes up here. I have a shape here for the eyes, like this, I have a shape here. Approximately where the ear starts, I'll erase this line here. I just roughly placed the shapes. Now, let's see the body. I will make the body like this, what Taylor raccoon has, I don't know. Like this, I will research the tail. I will go to Google, He has a philosophy body with these little [LAUGHTER] hands or legs. I will keep that in mind. I will make this like this, and maybe add this little hands and add tail maybe like this. It doesn't really look good right now, right? [LAUGHTER] But now we have a base. What I want from you now is to import your reference photo and just place these basic geometric shapes and curves and create a very rough sketch of your animal. [MUSIC] In the next video, we're going to see how we can draw and illustrate features that are cute. I'll see you there [MUSIC]. 6. Drawing Cute Features: [MUSIC] There are so many ways to draw eyes. In this class, I'm showing you how I am doing it, but if you have your way, feel free to implement it into your artwork. I already started to draw in here, so it can be this small, this eye. But as we talked about, making these eyes big, let just erase them. But as you can see, the angle is also important. So let's try to make eyes big. But in the similar shape that the animal has its size. It will be something like this. I will add an eye iris here. It will be the inner shape and the pupil as well. Let's see if it has a pupil. It doesn't really have one, but we can definitely add the pupil. We have free shapes in the eyes now. Now we also talked about making the nose small. I will just maybe go with the selection tool and just grab this one and make it small. So this nose is small. Maybe we can make the whole shape small. This allows me to add even bigger eyes. So let me try that. Okay, maybe this is just tubing. Let's continue this like this. This is the continuation of that shape below the eyes. I mean, this shape here. Okay, I will add some white. I also add a little reflection down here, and approximately place these reflections in the eyes just to the same part. I usually add just little shape down here to add a little reflection to it. Now let's see the body parts. The proportions of the body is smaller, right? I will just grab this body and make it small like this. Okay, it starts to look cute and detail. It doesn't necessarily have to be smaller. But let's try to add it into it. What I miss is the back legs. I will add the shape here to include them. There is this darker part in the middle. I will just add as well. I have kind of recoup. All right, cute. So we stylized the artwork. We now added cute features like big eyes, small nose, and the body proportion. Now let's move to the next video where we're going to create a clean sketch. 7. Creating a Clean Sketch: [MUSIC] It's time to create a clean sketch. What I'm going to do is to dismiss the reference photo. I will just turn it off. Place my little sketch to the middle. Don't worry, I know it now it looks a little scary. But what I'm going to do is to create a layer above and lower the opacity of this layer that I had just drawn. I will try to create a clean sketch. I will proceed with small, short lines to find the best angles. I will maybe try to add some other details that will make the artwork look really cute. I am going to speed this up so that I don't bore you. But keep your eye on what I'm doing, maybe you will get some tips from that [MUSIC] [LAUGHTER] I think it is so cute. I will turn off the sketch below, and as you can see, I am almost finished. I will just adjust this head part. What I've done is that I have found while I was drawing, this had too much of an ellipse I added this as if it was like fur so I will implement fur into it. I have decided to add a little mouth. We haven't talked about mouth. Mouth because usually you just can't see it on an animal. You can add little mouth like this. When I need to do here as well as to simplify this shape that comes from the nose so that the eyes don't touch it. It was a little bit too complicated. I'm just adjusting it a little bit. I think it's really cute. Let me show you the cat again. Here what I've done with the mouth part as just simply drawing these two lines here and that's all. The reason I'm not paying too much attention to the mouth is that I don't want to grab the viewer's attention from the animal and the other features like the big eyes from. It is good if it's just a little line or even if it doesn't even have a mouth. You can even draw a little bit more complicated mouth like this. It is totally okay. Let me just try it [MUSIC] Really nice. See you in the next video where we can make this cute little illustration even cuter with some little character design elements. 8. Painting The Shapes: [MUSIC] Now, something very exciting is going to happen. We're going to start painting the shapes. Now, when the illustration technique that I'm going to show you, I'm working in layers. Not everyone works in layers, but I love to use layers because it allows me so much and what I love to do is to divide my illustration into different parts. Now, this little guy is going to have four layers. One layer for the hat, one layer for the ears, one for the front body, maybe the legs behind will be in the same layer as the ears, and then details. These are the four main layers, and I will add more layers to these basic shapes. In this video, I'm just going to fill in these shapes and I will just show you how. The first thing I'm going to do is to set my background color to gray. This allows me to see my colors better and it already sets a starting point for my values. Then the next thing is to lower the opacity of this sketch and create a new layer below it. Now, you have my favorite brush set with the most important brushes that I use in my illustrations and I will work with the clean shaper. I will just show you, I can choose a color here. It has very, very little texture at the edges and it is just enough to have a clean shape, but still have this little painterly look. I will choose the color for my little guy. If we go back to the cat, [LAUGHTER] it is a pink cat. For this base shapes, I need to choose a base color that I'm going to go with. I think this raccoon will look good with a teal color. I'm just going to choose that. You are free to choose any color. Make sure that it is at this area of the color wheel. It is not too saturated, not too dark, but somewhere here and it can be any hue that you wish to create your little animal in. I want this really to be an illustrative artwork so you don't necessarily need to follow the real colors of the animal that you have chosen. I will go back to this teal. I have my clean shaper, I have the midtones, so the middle range color and I have my layer, then I'm going to draw one. I will paste it below the sketch, and I will just start with the first shape, and that is the shape of the hat. Now, I can see that I cannot see too much this midtone. As I set the background color to a midtone. This is my mistake because usually I set it a little bit lighter. Now set it either lighter or a little bit darker. I will set it a little bit lighter now. Now I can see my shapes. I love art, so pass it a little bit more. [MUSIC] Now I will create a layer below it and just do the front body. [MUSIC] I will create a layer again below, and now I will add the ears and the two legs. [MUSIC] Now the tail. [MUSIC] Super cool. Now, we are going to continue with the shading and I'm going to show you that under shading technique. [MUSIC] See you in the next video where you can learn all about that. 9. The "Undershading" Method: [MUSIC] In this video, we are going to shade our shapes and we're going to talk about the under-shading technique. Now the other shading technique is very easy. It will give basic dimension to our shapes and it will be covered with texture. You will not need to shade the texture itself because this under-shading will create the effect that it is in shadow too. Let me just show you this little cat again as an example. I have shaded right into the shapes but if you see individual shapes, let me show you they are shaded below the texture and the texture adds variations. The layer of the texture will create the texture itself. That's a logical. It will add light because it will be in a lighter color. Shading will add color variation and adds dimension at the same time. I will show you what I'm talking about just in a second. I will need color for shading. The easiest way is to choose the darker value of the same color. I will just grab it to this part or this area of this color wheel. Simply just choose a darker version of the color and choose the shader brush from my brush set. Any brush, mainly airbrushes will work well. Any brush that is textured and a pressure sensitive and has transparency will work very well. I will choose the layer of the head and actually Alpha Lock all these layers. As you can see, let me show you at this part. If I'm adding shading here to the sides of this shape, it will add dimension already but keep in mind, we will need to add a little gradation to it to create dimensions. Everything is rounded in this illustration. When we are shading rounded shapes, we are shading with gradation. If we have a sphere, for example, or a circle, we made a sphere from it if we add shadows to the edges. In this illustration, we are not setting light. If you wish to set light so that for example the light direction is from this part, you need to keep this part of the hat, the original color, and just place these shadows to the other side but you need to keep in mind to do that in every body part. That is a little bit more advanced. If you are a very beginner, just do what I'm doing. I will just push it a little bit at the outside of the shape to add this smooth gradation. As these brushes pressure sensitive if you push a little harder, it forgets a little bit darker. But if you are doing this really smoothly, you can create this smooth gradation. To enhance it, you can get back the original color and very smoothly at the edges of this shading, just got back from it. It immediately added some texture into the shape. Now what I love to do is to add shadows to the shape of the eye. I will make it a little bit smaller. The reason is because it is another element in the head and it will have a little bit of shadow. It will help me with the placement of the eye as well. It will look more natural if you add it into these holes. Think of it as if we were building up this little guy here. Now, I just tried to imagine the colors the raccoon had in his head. Now I will just get back this reference photo. This part at the eyes is darker. This hole is a little bit darker. This shape about the head is lighter. We are going to work on it in with the texture, but we can help to it with shading already. I'm going to just shade a little bit this part of the head around the eyes. This shape here. Maybe this as well. I can see the shapes that I have drawn here like this. Get back this original color and just make this part a little bit lighter. Maybe I will lower the opacity and already paint into it, I will make this middle part a little bit darker. I will work on it with the textures later. This is lighter, this is lighter, and this part up here will be lighter here. Can you see how much of variation we already have in this illustration? Pretty nice. Let's move on to the body. I will go with this dark version. I will just shade around. I will darken this inside part of the body a little bit. Then I will go to the ears. I will shade the outside part of the shape and add this dark shadow inside the ear and here as well. At the legs, I will just shade around it. I will go to the tail and do the same. Just go around with this shadow. If you don't want to add these darker parts, you are free to do so that will maybe make your artwork a little bit more easier. Just do the basic shading thing as I've done a detail. I'll just shade around the shape. Just simply. I will turn off the reference again. Now in the next video, [MUSIC] I'm just going to add the eyes so that it is not that scary. Then we're going to add texture. I'll see you in the next video. 10. Painting the Eyes: Let's just create the eyes. There will be the most important part of this illustration. I will grab a little yellowish light color like this. I will create a color palette for you so that you have these colors. We'll just place it in here, and I'll just add this into it. I have this light yellowish color and for the eyes, I will use the texture shaper. That texture shaper is similar to the clean shaper, but it has a little bit more texture in it. I am on a new layer and I will just make the base shape of the eye. [MUSIC] This already looks really nice. I will just adjust it a little bit more. When you are doing like grabbing back from the shape that you are actually creating, make sure that your eraser is set to the same brush that you are using. Oh my God. [LAUGHTER] This is so cute. What I'm going to do is to create another layer and make it a clipping mask. What a clipping mask does, is that it clips the layer into the shape below it. I'm going to be able to draw only in today's eyes. I think that his eyes will be this brownish color. Again, I will choose this orangey-brown color. Maybe a little bit more orangey, yes, and shade with the darker version. I will choose a texture brush and I will fill in this second shape within this first shape. I will make it a little bit bigger. [MUSIC] Oh my God, this is so cute. Let's just add a little shading to these too as well. What I'm going to do is to keep this color and go to the main shape and choose the shader and make it a little bit smaller. Just again, oops, I will need to alpha lock desk and just add a little bit of shading around this yellowish color. But maybe it darker. I will make it a little bit darker. Alpha lock I said. Just a little bit, it will add a little bit of variation into the color. It will not seem flat. To the iris as well, I will go even darker. Go to the iris and alpha-lock it, and add a little bit of shading around. Now what I want to show you is that with the shader brush, we can not just shade, but add light as well. I will go to the very light color, but maybe a little bit more saturated here. By following this inner pupil, just add a little bit of light. Like this. It will again add to the color variation. Cute. I will adjust the shading here a little, really nice. Now, create another layer, again, make it a clipping mask, and choose the very, very dark brown and that will be the pupil. I will go back to the texture shaper again. [MUSIC] [LAUGHTER] This is beautiful. Let's just add the light. I will choose the white and the clean shaper add this little light onto a new layer. Cute. Going back to this shader, and to this light color and I will make it a little bit bigger and just add this reflection into it. Like this. You can create variations within the eye color till to the pupil, you can add some cool stuff, like maybe a little bit of this hazel color into the middle [inaudible] like, again, has more variation and reflections. Now I'm in the layer of the pupil and just adding a little bit of color inside it. But can you see this? This is super cute. Now we have the eyes ready. See you in the next video where we're going to play with the texture. 11. Adding Texture: [MUSIC] In this video, we're going to add textures to our illustration. Now, what we need at first is the texturizer brush that you can find in the brush set. We will need to create a new layer below the eyes because we are not going to add texture to the eyes but below them. Now I'm going to call my reference photo for help again. What I'm going to do is to choose these all lightest parts and the darkest parts and add them in the face with the texturizer here. I have the texturizer and I choose a really dark color, a little bit darker than the shading was. I will make it a little bit bigger I will enhance this shape around the eyes with this dark color. Make it even darker. [MUSIC] A little bit enhancing the shading that we already done. Now I will choose a lighter version of the main color. I'll add this shape around the nose. Don't worry we will add the nose soon. I will add this shape here. I will add a bit of this here. Now what I'm going to do is to create the fur. Now, this texturizer brush can function in two ways. If you push harder, you get a big texture. I will put this side. If I want to add texture to the whole, I can just do this but if I want small lines, I can just not push it that much. What I'm going to do is to speed this up now. I will just add little fur lines like this to these lighter parts, and choose a darker version of the color. A little bit as the original color was, but maybe just a little bit darker and add lines where I have these shadows. I will just show you the cat again to show you how I've done it here. I've just chosen a really light color and done this to the whole image. This is what I'm going to do here, but add a little variation by playing with these light and dark parts. I will turn off this reference photo again and just continue adding these lines. [MUSIC] When it comes to the tail, we have to add the stripes at it. I will just go into the tail, choose this darker version, and actually with the texturizer we can just add these stripes. It is good that it is textured. It has a little bit of transparency. If you can see it already has that shading, the under-shading that we have done. Above that, I will go back to the textures and just again exchange it and add this little fur with one color then another. [MUSIC] Cool. How nice it is. In the next video, I'm going to add some details; the nose and the mouth, the legs, and the scarf. See you there. 12. Crafting Details: [MUSIC] This is going to be another fun part. We are going to add the props and details to it to make it even nicer. I will create a new layer and I will start with the nose. What color the nose will be? I thought it would be good to have it brown, so that there is something brown as well in the nose. I will choose this darker brown for it, and I will choose the clean shaper. I will just add this little shape here, and I will try to make it as perfect as possible. Nice rounded triangle. It can be an oval, anything you like. If you have noticed, I'm not exactly following the sketch. I'm just trying to little bit get it loser and adjust things as I feel and not strictly follow this sketch This is cute. I will Alpha Lock it actually, I will go even darker, grab the shader and make it small, and shade around this shape a little bit bigger. With this lighter one, I will add a little bit of a light and with this even lighter one, I will make it small, and add this cute little light here. Maybe here as well. This is really nice, and I will choose the sketching pencil and I will add some details with it. I can create a new layer, and I will add the mouth, like this. I can even add lines to enhance things so maybe this shape. Let me see. No. Maybe I should add it with a light. Let me see. Yeah, it looks good. I will enhance this shape of the nose with this light. I will add few lines here at the eyebrow, like this. I don't like this line, so I will adjust it, like this. I can add dots there. Let me erase a little bit like this. I will add with this dark blue, some dots here and there. I will add eyelashes, and let me see if it works. What is really dark or if I should go with this really light? Let me see. This light works better because it can be seen. Maybe adding these eyelashes, [LAUGHTER] will make it even cuter, really nice. I can add little fur to the top, whiskers, are really cute. I will actually turn off the sketch so that I can see better what I've done here. I am not very satisfied with the nose, so I will adjust its shape a little bit and actually turn it a little bit like this. Very cute, oh my God, [LAUGHTER] this is beautiful. I think I need to darken this in the middle to add a little bit more contrast to it. Let me just do that. [MUSIC] Let's add the scarf. I will create a new layer, and I will choose a reddish burgundy color, like this. Maybe a bit more saturated one, and I will just go with a texture shaper. Turn back on this sketch and just add to it. I will place it below the head, so it is easier to work with it. [MUSIC] I will Alpha Lock it and choose this orangey color, and with the texture shaper, I will add some stripes. This looks like a Harry Potter colored scarf. It doesn't matter. I will Alpha Lock it and with the sketching pencil, I will just add these little parts of the scarf. Really cute, oh my God, and what is missing are the legs so I will create another layer. Choose this very dark. With the texture shaper, I will adjust add the legs. I will change the color of these eyelashes to this very dark blue because it looks better to me now. Everyone can make mistakes. [LAUGHTER] See you in the next video where we're going to talk about the mystery of drop shadows. 13. The Mystery Of Dropshadows: [MUSIC] What are drop shadows good for? Now drop shadows are everywhere. If I just place my two fingers like this, you can see this line it is a drop shadow. It is called inclusion. It is basically everywhere, I have a wonderful brush, the drop shadow brush here that you can choose. Now, choose black, now go up to the top and create a top layer. Now we're going to add shadows everywhere. Makes sure that the opacity is at the half approximately, and it is approximately the size eight. We are going to place a drop shadow where things touch. For example, at these ears, then to the eyeballs like this, I'm placing two layers to make it a little bit darker as this brush works like this, it gets darker the more layers to put on each other. Now, I will add a little shadow below the nose, maybe below the cheek, little bit below the eye like this. Then below the head, I will place two of them here. Below the scarf, appoximately follow the shape of this curve. I will add below the whole body. Then where these legs are, maybe here, don't worry we will blur these shadows together, so it will be not that distracting. Then add a little shadow behind the head, where there is the head and the tail, and the body and the legs. Like this. Now I will go to adjustments and gaussian blur. These are not sharp, these are really nicely blended little shadows, as you can see, it already added such a nice free dimension to our artwork. Now I'm going to create another layer below, with all here, I will turn off the sketch, don't need it anymore. I will make the brush a little bit bigger. I will make circles below my Leila raccoon. Maybe a little bit here where the tail is, and I will again, gaussian blur it. I have a totally cool drop shadow below my record. Now he is in space, I love it so much. Maybe I will blur this part of the shadow. So it's not that harsh. gaussian blur a little bit again wonderful. This is what is incredible about drop shadows. They are totally simple, you only need a transparent brush and transparent layer of black, and you just go some blurry and you have a smooth gradation, nice brush. You have dimension, extra dimension, and you have already space in your character. It is like a few seconds step, this is really a pro tip [MUSIC] to see you in the next video, where we're going to add a little background and then we are going to be finished so see you. 14. An Easy-Peasy Background: [MUSIC] In this video we are going to add a little background to our character. What I'm going to do is to select all the layers that I have here. Make sure you have all layers and then group them. This way you can just turn it on and off and select and make it smaller and maybe place into the middle of your Canvas. Now, think about what you are illustrating for. If it is for Instagram, for example, you can just take this into another Canvas and place it into it and add a background to it. Let me just show you how I would do that. I will create a square-sized Canvas. I will go back and just duplicate this new group. Now I flatten it. This means I have a simple single layer that I'm just going to grab and place it here. Wow, [LAUGHTER] so nice. I will make it a little bit bigger. Now we can play with the background color. We had it gray, but you can have a different color. Think about what would fit your illustration the best. Would it be this orange color? For me, it is an absolute yes because it fits my illustration for pretty well. I will make my raccoon a bit bigger. Wonderful. What I love to implement to my artworks are little patterns. I will create a layer below this character, choose a lighter version of this color, and grab my sketching pencil, and I will think about pattern that I can add into it. If you have some stamp brushes, you can use those. I love to add random patterns to my background, so it is really a handmade things. I'm going to speed this up. I'm going to experiment a little later. [MUSIC] Last thing I love to create as adding my logo to my artworks. I will just go to my previous artwork and just hold down and just insert my logo here. It's there. Finished. It is finished, so what do you think? I am super excited to see what you create in this class, and see you in the last video where we're going to do a little recap on what you have learned. I just can't wait to see how cute is. I'll see you in the last video. 15. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Congratulations, if you are watching this video, it means that you have gone through all the process. Now, you are ready to upload your class project into the project gallery. I really want you to do so because I am so excited to see what you create and you get feedback from me. I also invite you to check out what others done in the class. Give each other feedback as well. It would be really great to have a little conversation on what was easy, what was hard, etc. Feel free to share your thoughts also in your class project. If you are sharing your artwork on social media, make sure to tag me as the artmother. Also follow me on social media, on Instagram and Facebook, and also here on Skillshare so that you get notified about the latest classes, challenges and announcements, and also leave a review for the class so that I know what you think about it and so that others can see if the class is a good fit for them. Now, let's just do a little recap on what we have learned in this class. In this class you have learned how to stylize an animal, how to apply the cuteness factor to the proportions to make a character cute. You have learned an illustration process with the other shading technique and applying textures and creating light reflections in the eye, we solve the mystery of drop shadows and created a full illustration of a character on a background. [LAUGHTER] I hope that you enjoyed the class and you are welcome in my other classes too. I'm always so happy to see a student in more of my classes as I can see their progress. You guys are so amazing. I love that you do this class projects and oh my God, you are so creative. See you in my other classes and I wish you all the best and happy creating. [MUSIC]