Drawing Animals: The Basics of Character Design 2 | Seahorse

1. Seahorse: Intro: Welcome back. Always so great to see you guys here with me on Skillshare. I'm going to go back to what I do best and we're going to draw some animals today. We're going to draw a seahorse and I'm going to do a series of drawing more animals, just like my first character design class when I do the penguin, make sure you check that class out if you haven't already. I'm going to do more of these animal classes because that's what I do best. That's what people want to draw and people want to see. So we can do this cool Disney style with Disney eyes and cute and cuddly and just memorable and lovable characters. Recently on Instagram, I drew this cute little seahorse and I decided, why don't I draw another seahorse for Skillshare, make a full tutorial of just how I think about designs, shapes, lines, my whole process, and making a really cute, memorable character design as we're drawing this seahorse and as we were developing his look shapes, I'm going to be telling you why I'm making certain decisions. That's where you're really going to learn how to do these character designs on your own for other animals. I'm going to include my brushes, a color palette. But just so you know, you can use any color you want. And when I do these tutorials, I want you to be creative. If there's something that you like better than what I'm doing, then you do that because ultimately this art is for you, this class is for you. It's for you to learn and for you to get better. And I want you to take all of what I teach you and make it yours. 2. Class Project: All right guys, so if you haven't already guessed, this class project is going to be drawing a seahorse. You can draw the exact seahorse that I'm drawing. You can make your own seahorse. You can change the seahorse. You can make him with a bigger head, a bigger pot belly. You can change the colors. I might have already said that. Make sure you name them because he's going to need a name. And when you're finished, if you can upload it to the group project so everyone can see. So I can see, I love seeing you guys work. You can upload into social media and tag me. I'll share it. I love showing what you guys create. And I really love when you guys take this and run with it and do your own thing. Make sure you download the brushes, the faves, pressures which are included. Make sure you download the image of our little seahorse that we're going to use for reference. And also make sure you download the color palette and the color swatches. That way if you want to use the same colors I'm using, it just might be a little bit easier. And also I'm going to include the sketch that I made before I colored my seahorse. That way you can reference that as well. You can look at it closely, see exactly what I did. If you want to trace over my, my seahorse, you can do that. Whatever's easier because everyone learns differently. I just want to make this as fun of a process. And I just want you to be able to learn the best way that is best for you. I think that makes sense. All right, so let's move on to the next video. We're gonna get into making a new canvas, the size of the canvas, and importing the image so that we can finally start drawing. 3. First Things First...: Okay, First things first, make sure you download the sea horse that's included with the class. And you can also download my faves brush pack. Okay, so now we'll go into procreate and we'll make a new canvas. And we'll make our canvas 3000 by 3000 pixels, 300 DPI. I already have the preset because I use it often. 3000 by 3000 pixels, 300 DPI. And just another note that I like to do is most of the time your Canvas will be completely white. I don't really like completely white. I like it to have a little bit of warmness and so it's not so tough on the eyes. So what does I do? What I do is I kind of just make it a warm, whoops, let me go into background color. I just make it a warm color, something like this. So hopefully you can see the difference on the on the screen. It's just a little bit easier on my eyes. And then when I'm doing my drawing, I like to use my red. And you can see it just fine. Here. Also be sure to download the included brushes. These are my current favorite brush pack. Their brushes that I've tweaked and I've made perfect for me. Feel free to tweak them. There's also some stock brushes in there that I use often. And just so you can quickly access the brushes I'll be using. And I think they're the best brushes. Sorry. 4. Sea Shapes: Okay, so now we can start drawing once we bring our image in. So we're gonna go to the little wrench and insert a photo. And we're going to click on our little seahorse. And I'm just going to resize him. So first I'm going to take the transform tool and I'm just going to turn into a straight. And then I'm going to take the selection tool right here. And I'll go to freehand. And basically you can just crop them out. And then three fingers swipe down and cut and paste. So now we just have, I'll delete this layer below. And we just want to have a nice clear canvas so we can draw our little seahorse. All right. So you can feel free to place you see yours anywhere on your screen that's comfortable for you. I kinda like having it on the right. I'm I'm right-handed. So if you're left-handed, it might be a little bit different, but displace it. So if feels comfortable for you. Another tip, you can actually use the the reference tool. Let's see if I, if I remember how to do that. I actually haven't used it in a while. Is it Canvass reference. So then this little box opens up, and right now we're just using the Canvas. You can import an image. So right now we have this on the Canvas. So I'm going to tap on this reference box. I'm going to open it up a little bit. And I'm going to make this bigger. So you can actually move this around and you have a little more portability with your reference. And then I'm Mike, actually be better for you than putting on the page. I'm just used to putting it on the page. But I just wanted to show you this reference option because it is really helpful. So let's close this. And if you missed where that was, which is go to the little wrench. And there's a little reference option right here. So that's how you get the little reference window. Okay, So now for the fun stuff, the character design work, you can see multiple times I always check to make sure I'm on the right layer. It's the worst when you start drawing on the wrong layer. So I'm going to use sketch master to and really, really like this brush because it's nice and thick. And it's really easy for me to draw rough sketches and not get too detailed. So when I look at a character like this, I always look at what are the shapes that makes this really, really beautiful. So right here, we can start with this obvious circle. And it's always nice to just start with the most basic, basic of shapes. Basic, I don't think that's a word. So we'll make our little circle here. And that's sort of like a nice little centerpiece to start our drawing. So I'm just going to follow a lot of these. I guess I can just draw right on this. Wanna make sure that you can see it. So let me choose a color I can go back and forth to. Okay. So these are the shapes that I see. I see this circle here. And that's what we've drawn. So there's also this curve which goes back. So these are just some of the shapes. I'll use a different brush so you can see a little bit better. So this is what I see when I look at this. So that's pretty much how my mind sees the seahorse. That's how my mind breaks it down. And that's what I do with all animals. And I know that we should be drawing by now, but I think it's important to just show you how my mind works and what I'm seeing when I actually look at, when I actually look at this. So that's actually when I look at this, that's how my mind breaks it down into simple lines and line work. 5. Rough Sketches: So the first thing I saw was this line coming off right here. So I'll go ahead and sketch that in. And it kinda comes up a little bit. And you have that curve, that line right there. This little bigger comes down a little bit. And all of this and just do a fun shape like this. And that's where the stylization comes into it. There's a lot of nuance with this shape. But essentially, let's make it a nice long, rounder shape like that. And then I make the jaw line that I make with any, any creature, any character. I'm gonna make this a little smaller so that I can bring it up a little higher. So that's the basic shape of his head. And now we want to try and get this nice long line here. We can start with that. We can start with the belly, but you just want to be, just want to practice that line down the back. So here we have this going over his head and then a nice long, quick stroke. And these are actually better if you can do them faster. If you have to go back and forth, like if you have to erase it and go back and do that. So just try to practice. Let me go back to my yellow here. You can even trace it. And you just wanna do a line like that. That's all you wanna do. Don't think too much about it. But that's what you want to follow. Sort of like a, I guess it's not really an S-shape. She's a curve shape. But it's important to really let it flow, let your lines flow. So now we can see we have a little arc right there and then as big as little pudgy belly, I won't say it's big as it is pudgy though. We have a little neck there. And it comes out and CLS. I almost complete this shape because right now I'm just worrying and worrying about his body. So that's why I sort of just complete this shape. Just to get that shape out of there. And it's already a nice, Just a nice set of lines. And that's all you're really looking for at this point. Because you can always, you can always adjust it. Take a look at this negative space here. So you might have to, if you don't have enough space here like mine, this is mine is a little bit further away. And here's another trick that I always do. You can use Liquify and turn liquefy up. Down here. You can use Liquify and you can adjust little smaller and you can adjust your sketch. This is something that I do a lot. If you think maybe this is, maybe this is bigger than what you've done, what you drew can make it a little bigger. But it's important to adjust your sketch. If you feel something is wrong or if you just want to see if something looks better. So I'm always adjusting my sketch and just matching this negative space in here, all this negative space, all that information is just as important as you're drawing your lines and everything like that. Okay, So now we're gonna go with this nice, beautiful curl, which is one of the reasons I really love seahorses. So this dip comes out, step sort of comes out and, and comes around to a nice little curl at the bottom. So here's the dip comes out. And you notice some very light with my drawing. And just do a nice little curl. And this, this might take some work to sort of get this curl so that it's got an equal space. So just so it gets a little bit bigger coming out. That might take some work, but just erase it and do it until it looks, until it looks good. And then here we're just going to gradually come off this line right back into the belly. Let's take a little bit closer to my sketch. That looks good. And then I want to, I'm just going to erase some of this, some of this sketch it so it's not so thick. And it's going to make sure that this line is nice and defined. There we go. And I'm just going to adjust him so ease. A little straighter. Okay. So this is a really, really great start. So next, he had his little thin. So we're going to do the same thing. We're just going to sketch out as little fin. Looks like it comes out like this, comes around. This part comes out. So that's what I'm thinking about. The thinner. So it's kind of in this little dip right here in between his on his back. So just do some quick lines and just make sure it's nice. And just make sure it looks good. And I do some I do take some sometimes things take me a couple of tries, really stay loose with it. And notice how I try to move my whole hand. I just want to get some real big movements that really helps with it looking loose. And as you can see, there's like some skin that the fin actually starts a little further out. So I'm just going to make them another little line here. Because that's actually, his back is back actually comes out like that. Which is interesting. You learn a lot from drawing these creatures, things that you might not have seen. So that's looking pretty good. And I just want to experiment. You can leave your thin once you get to a place where you like. I just want to experiment and see if I, if I don't want to even be a little bit more whimsical with it. And this is my process. I'm going to try to get this negative space here. Maybe that's, maybe that's what I need. Okay, I think I like that. I think I like that silhouette. That feels a lot better. It just has to look better as a shape, as simple shapes. And I think this is a great place. To end this portion. Keep we work in your sketch. Before you go to the next video, make sure that you like everything, make sure it looks good. I might do a little bit. I might do some extra tweaks. Like yeah, actually I think it looks pretty good. I might my liquefy. And you can sort of pull. I come sort of, there's a lot of negative space here and I've made his tail actually quite big. So I just use my liquefy and just kinda pull down on it and just give them some of that. A little bit more of that space. Make his tail a little longer. But feel free to go through and adjust. And you can add even small details like this. Like this part is it'll like little bumps back here. 6. Finer Details: Okay, So next we're gonna do some details where my favorite things to do is work out the details for my characters. So little mouth, a little tiny mouth, little tiny nose, little tiny nostrils. I, right about here. And he has a bunch of all of these lines. Down here. There's some lines and you can actually see that the tail, everything down here starts to get this nice three-dimensional, you know, where it's flat on the inside and it's flat over here. So that's basically what we're going to concentrate, is also got some, some lines in here. So we'll figure all that out. The main thing you want to remember is we're keeping this simple so we don't need to get really crazy with the details. Let me bring this image up a little bit just so I can see it better. And so you guys can see it better. So for the, I was gonna make a circle. It's kind of right in this section here. So I'm just gonna make a circle right about here. Feels good. So not too close to this as little snout. So that feels pretty good. And I'm going to do, wanna make his eyes. I'm just gonna do a line here. I make the circle. So that's the general AI. And, and I always do, I guess I didn't explain that very well. So let me do it again, just so you can see how I use this circle to shape the eye. So we have our circle here and this is essentially our, our eyeball. Now his eyes are really round, but I like to stylize the eyes. So I start at this point here and I go up. So that's like the top of the eye. And then I make a line and I make one down here. So just sort of cradles. Obviously the, the eyeball would be a little bit underneath, but we don't have to actually draw that. You can just leave it. So I have these two lines and then I make the eyeball there. And then just to make it look good, I'll do a little I I'm I change this I later or change the direction he's looking. But I like to just put this in just so it actually looks like so it looks like something. I'm gonna make the brush a little bit smaller for the mouth. So we have this little mouth here so you can actually flatten it out if you want. You can just erase, oops, I'm actually on the wrong. That's what happens when I don't check. So I'm just going to cut and paste. I'll just put this on the same sketch layer. Okay, So if you want to make the nose a bit flatter, you can do that. You can do something like this. Or we can keep it the way you want. You can make it longer, you can make it bigger. That's when, that's where character design comes in. You can make this really big. You can make it really small. If you wanted to, you could actually make it. So it knows about here. That would be Q2. So that's where the character design really comes into it. You can actually just select it and try out some different nose is, you know, if he did something like this, you can make it really big. And that's when you can really give him some character. And along with some other tips just like that. Since we're in our sketch phase, you can take the eye. You can make it smaller. You can move around at different spots, see where you like it best. Maybe back here, maybe up closer. So just remember that this is you don't have to stick to the, there's no clear way to success. Unless you try out different methods, try out different things and see what, see what looks best, see what works best. So he has little nostrils. So even though you can't really see them there, you can see the little bump. So I'm just gonna make a little bump like that. And I'm gonna do the same one on this side. This now for his mouth. It kinda looks like it is lip is coming out. So that's why I just sort of made this like this. I couldn't make the lip coming out a little bit more, but I don't know how that'll make him look can make it coming out a little bit more. Maybe a little bit less. You can make it a little bit less. I think I like this one. And he actually has a little bit of a actually it's a little bit of a chin here too. So maybe you want to do something like that. And I think I like this. I think that looks good. If you want to make them smile, you can always just do a little something on the end like that. But here's But this is, you know, these little tiny things like making them, making the nostrils, making the mouth like this is really just breaking this down. And you kinda have to know all the answers are going to be in the animal. This is where the character design comes into it. Okay, let me speed this up a little bit. So down here we have some, some flat. And I actually think I drew this on the practice. So yours should look something like this. I do practice a little bit before I go on. So this, this line starts down here and comes out. So that leaves this, that leaves this area. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna match that here. So I'm going to start about here. Come around. So that kinda matches that area. It gives it that flat side. And the same thing. This line here comes up so that all of this is on the inside. So we're going to do the same thing. I'm going to start about here. Come up. And it looks like it kind of curves around like this. So we'll just make this, we'll just make a nice big line to his face like that. And he has all these rich marks. So for now I'm just going to put a line where those ridge marks are. So I remember. And they kinda like make this nice little pattern. So I'll just make some lines here. And I'll just make some lines here. And as you can see, they sort of come like this. So that's the sort of direction that I'm going to give these. So they're kinda comes off like this and it comes over this thing as the lines. And he has four little bumps here and they sort of stretch across his body. So I'm going to do some really light lines here cross his body. And I'll just put a little bump at the end just so we know what that is. Those little bumps on this side too. So I'm just gonna make the uniform lines and make a little bumps at the end. Just so we remember the same thing here. We know where our lines are and I'll just make a little bumper just so I know where all the lines are. So when we draw it, we can make those little bumps. Make one the inside two. And another important step I'm going to do for the I is I'm going to make some round like that. And really light. I'm just gonna do a little like a little eye socket area. So even though that's there, still wanna do this little eye socket area because this is I always kind of shade that darker. And if this is his eyebrow, then I do a little line here just to kinda show his eye lid. And I'll include this sketch. So you can actually look at my sketch. So if you want to open my sketch, you can also look at that. That might help because there's very nuanced things that I'm doing. But essentially you just want, I'm just making this sort of cavities sort of in his face. Whereas I, Fitz and I just do that in all my, all my characters. So we pretty much have our details. This all looks good. We can make this a little bump here. Or it could be as other, I will make that rounder. And so we'd like it's up as other eye on the other side. And I think that's pretty good for, for a little bit more of a detail we can, we can sort of do this little area back here. So we'll just sort of do a line there. And then we can do some lines. Let's see, they all sort of go, they all sort of go like that. They're all sort of like this shape. So I'll stick to that. And I'll make them all sort of that shape. I think it's important when the sketch looks, looks good as well. We'll do some bumps here. These little lines always have, we seem to have bumps except for as little belly here. 7. Extra Credit: And here's a little extra for those of you who want to make his mouth open, which is something I always like to do. So you have to think about the mouth obviously, is, I think if everything is a 3D object, so if I'm going to make the mouth open, I just sort of think of it as starting at the crease coming down. And then you need to have this other side going up. So we'll erase what we have. For the other mouth will kind of erasing here. And I'll just show you again. I'll just redraw it MIP easier. So to draw the mouth open, pretty simple. I just started to decrease. And I can't just draw this shape. And then I make the chin. So let me get rid of this. So I will see you. We'd have as little chin here, which I'll join in to the rest of the line and I'll erase the original line. So there he has his little mouth open. And I always like to give a little Tethys to see what looks better. That looks good. So I'll just make some little marks. Just like in unawares teeth are. So one there and then one on the inside there. If you want, you can make a little tongue, something like that and just color it in. Then he has his little teeth. I really want to show you this as well. So here's another trick with the eyes. There's lots of things you can do for eyes. So I really can't do all of them. But one thing I really like to do is you make a little bit of a curve and you make the line there. And you can do that and sort of similar to the curve that we had. And it just sort of gets them looking a little bit like happier with that little curve there. So that's just another option that you can do with the, I always think it just gives them a lot more personality. I make this little line back here to the eye. 8. Linework: Okay, So now we're gonna do some line work. Let's use Incan. So I'm gonna make a new layer. And I'm a name at linework. Line is good. And we're going to lower the opacity of our sketch. So I'm not going to lower it too much because I don't want I want you to be able to see my sketch, but just lower it just so you have enough. So you can comfortably draw on top of it. But just make sure you're on the right layer. Because I'm always on the wrong layer. And we can make our seahorse a little bit smaller for now, moving over a bit so we can concentrate on this guy. Okay, so I'm using, Let's see if this is a good size to a little test. Think 24 is good. So now we'll start with the eye on the correct layer. And all of these lines, I want to be real clean. This line back here. This line can be a little thinner, so just don't press as hard as you do for that line. This line can be light as well. And then we'll make the eye like that. And you want to curve over it like this. You don't always have to connect everything. Make a little line there. But I don't, I don't really worry about connecting everything. Some of the lines look better when they're not connected. Okay. So now this is sort of just supposed to be the back of his eye, his eye socket. And then we'll just go into our outline. And I always just try to do it in, in very long methodical strokes. Knows this. I'm going to make like a little water drop for as little nostril. This one I'll come around. And what's important in here is making this line, making this nostril behind this line for his nose. It's very important because this one is on the other side. So I'm going to come down like this. Bring it up. Cute little crease on the mouth. Okay. And I usually don't do the line work for the mouth. So I'm going to leave it for now. Later on when we color it a color the mouth and I'll do the teeth just with white. I just don't think mouth and teeth look good with white lines. I mean, with black lines. And you can see this whole shape here. Now you can just kinda stick to your x I'm going to make, I'm gonna make this a little bit thicker. I'm going to make this line a little bit thicker too. Because I I always tend to make this thicker. I'm not sure why I do it or why I like it. I think it just because it draws a little more attention to the mouth. Okay, so now we'll just draw little snout here. And now you don't have to do this little detail. But I felt it when I was drawing, I felt like that might be nice. But you can always just make it nice and smooth and not complicate things. And this is really important working on your line work. There's a lot of stabilization and things like that, but you wanted to just slowly work more and more on your line work. So now we're just going to move through the rest of these lines. Loops. You want to keep it all curved and nice little bumps here. And you can mark off. And it goes down into the tail. All right though. And you might have to do this a few times. You just want it to be as even as possible. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to get if you really get stuck and you want your lines to match, you can always go into liquefy. This is another little tip and trick that I always do. It can go into liquefy and you can sort of maneuver maneuver this line a little bit, just so it's even on, it's always going to be even Steven. Okay, so remember we have these little notches and This might work for you. There's another little tip that I do sometimes is I'll do these little notches first. Sometimes I'll do these little details. So then I can just do my lines. Sort of meet up with them. Maybe it's easier, maybe it's not. I think it's easier. And also turn my Canvas a lot depending on what I'm doing. And here's another, another way to do this. So I'm going to start down here. Welcome all the way around with this line. And then I'll do mine a little notches at the end of the lines. And then I'll just take my eraser, make it small. I can always go like this. Just make a little opening. This is not to be perfect. So you can do whichever way works best for you. I actually like that last way better. I think it works better when I do the whole line because then I can concentrate on the line. Then I can make my little and little nubs. And I think they're actually not even have to do this for that side. But I'll do it anyway. Just a little opening. Okay. I think that looks good. So now let me do the top of the head. We have our far I here. And of course you can feel free to just work on yours and just work through your work through your line work at your own pace. You can pause me, you don't have to listen to my listen to my voice. Just go at your own pace and enjoy it. Have fun. And again, look at mine. If you get stuck with something, just look in mind, See how I do it and match it, trace it. Doesn't matter. Just get through it. Learn and figure out the little things that I'm doing because it's, it's always little tiny things that really make the biggest difference. And I try to kinda keep everything at the forefront of my mind, but there might be some things that I do that I don't explain well enough. Let's see if I need anything. I'll just do a straight line for those. I was thinking about. If I wanted to go like this all the way through, if I wanted to do that or just to a straight line, I've already done it, so I guess I'm going to leave it. Okay. So I think we're in pretty good shape for the line work. We do have this we do have this line. But I'm not quite sure if I want to draw this in black. Actually, maybe I'll just do this one. Because this is a pretty important line, is just like the center line. So maybe I'll just do that one line. Maybe I'll do a line here as well. And for fun you see, this has, maybe I'll do something like this. Just for fun. I don't really like it. Which is 21 line across. I think that's good. Okay. So now we're cooking. I think we can give him some color. So when you're happy with your line work, then we can move on. Give this little guy some color. Really ran the life. 9. Color Blocking : Okay, so let's color in our little guy here. I'm going to get rid of the sketch for now. We don't need it anymore. I'm going to make a new layer. I'll name it color. And the first thing that I always do is color block our whole, the whole thing. So actually if you've got to do the little bumps here, let me do that real quick. While I have you forgot to these little bumps. So I'll just make these little bumps. Okay, so now he's got little bumps. So what I do is I color, eye color block the whole thing. You can use any color I'm going to use to get rid of the sketch here are just minimize it, hide it, de-select it. So many words I could use. And you can use any color you want. I'm going to use this sort of purplish. Whatever color this is Or, you know what? I don't know why I'm, I'm spending so much time on choosing a color. I'll use green, greens, easy to see. And let me change my brush to think butter blade is a good brush. To use. Butter plays a good brush. So now I'm going to layer behind my line art color layer. And we're going to color block. We don't want to color in the eyes. So I'm going to go around the eyes with my green. And the rest is, is coloring the lines. Another quick tip. The reason why I don't do something called a reference layer. So if I wanted to use this as a reference layer, let me see if I can figure out how to do it. I always forget her as a reference or as a clipping mask reference layer. And then I think I can know, okay, what is the right thing. So the problem with RefSeq reference layer, it'll color in your lines for you. If they don't have a break like this, like if it's if everything is solid and connected, then it will color in your lines. For example. I'll go on my line layer and hopefully I'll remember to sit to delete these. If I close this, then go back to my reference layer and still doesn't work. So that's one reason I don't do reference layer because you always have to make sure you cover everything in and sometimes it can be annoying. The other reason I don't do reference layer, let me take this off. Reference layer is because I don't always want reference layer. We'll color this, but it'll color that. It'll color it like this. It won't actually go underneath. So if for some reason I want to change it or if I want to change the nose and get rid of it, That's still going to be open underneath it. I don't like that. So I like to just make a new layer, make it, make a color layer, and then completely coloring underneath all of these lines. I like for my color to be underneath the black. So that's why I kinda do it old-fashion and just straight up color inside the lines. Because eventually we're going to actually cover color the lines. We might get rid of some. But I usually, I think just coloring them while I don't like having my art in with black outlines. I did it for years and years and years. But mostly because I never ever thought I never ever thought to cope with them until one day I did. And I actually made a video about called black outlines are ruining your art. And people were very much in a stir. But for the people that it was intended to, it was a really big help. And they let me know that it was a really big help. Because there's a lot of things that you just don't think of as an artist. There's a lot of methods, there's a lot of techniques. I think that's why things like this, this format and watching people draw. You really get to see, you really get to pick up a lot of what's going on in someone's mind and a lot of things that I do when I'm drawing. Firstly, it's from my years and years of experience making art. But it's also from watching other artists, studying other artist. Because if, if there was something that I couldn't draw or something I had to trace. Like sometimes there's some cartoon characters that I really wanted to draw. And I tried to draw them and they wouldn't look right. And sometimes I would have to trace them. And it's actually nice because when you're tracing, your force to make whatever those fixes are that you're missing when you're doing it in your own mind. Because sometimes you want something to look a certain way, but it just won't get there. It just and it's the little tiniest things. And sometimes when you just trace something, then you kind of realize how important the smallest percentage of a line or a slant or something like that, you realize how important that is and what you realize how important it is. Then you'll incorporate that in your art. And I'll let you know when you need to look up, you can just go ahead and color in your your seahorse. Hopefully you're just coloring in the lines and just hanging out. But one thing, that One thing that's most recent breakthrough that I had was flipping the canvas. And I don't really, I don't have to do it all the time now because I'm very aware that when I'm drawing characters that have both eyes, that you can or you can see both eyes. I'm very aware that my eyes are not seeing things correctly. For example, right now, probably. Sorry, I keep spinning my canvas, but I always have to spin the canvas. And I also want to apologize for it. There's one person who wrote a review on my class and was upset At the sound of my apple pencil hitting the screen. And I do apologize about that. But I also feel like there's really no way to draw on the iPad without the iPad making contact with the screen. So I just wanted to I just wanted to voice that. And I know that you probably understand, but I just had the voice that concern. Okay. What I was saying is your eyes don't see this green straight down like this camera is seeing it. I'm seeing the screen. I'm seeing this screen from an angle. Take water breaks. So this should just easily fill. And now we have some color there. He's really beautiful, but he looks like he is a sort of ocher, sort of yellowish. That's what I'm feeling. So I'm just going to choose a sort of yellowish color. Warm. Very warm. Warm yellow, something like. Now that we've dropped it since we're on our own layer, we can just go to Adjustments, Hue Saturation, and can make some adjustments if we want. Just get it to a place that you like. Maybe a little she be a little darker. I think that's good. You can make him any color that you like. I'm going to go with this nice yellow color. Okay, so let's do the math really quick. So I'm gonna make a new layer underneath the color layer. This one I used for the inside of the mouth and one of these for the tongue. But this darker one that's sort of like a midway between red and grayish red. So it's right about there in red. And this is underneath our color layer. So I'm going to color his little mouth in here. Okay? And now I'm going to make a layer above that. And I'm going to make his teeth. So he is 12 feet. One tooth here. Is one tooth here. That other tooth looks pretty terrible. So majors redo them the eraser. So I made a new layer on the top. And this will be the most simple solution. Just because it's easier. So now he has his two little teeth right there. And if you really want to give him a tone, you can make it, make it above this layer. Underneath this layer. So it is right in between there. You can use one of these pinks. And you can just give them a little cute little tongue if you want. That looks pretty good. And I'm just gonna go ahead and merge those hoops. Merge those layers. I guess I'm merging by hand. All right, and on the same layer, I'm going to go with white. I'm going to color in his eyes, oops, let me use a bigger brush. I'm going to use graffiti brush. It's a little bit bigger. And I'm going to color in his eyes. And now is another tip that I always do because I don't like this. So I only would have to bring this layer backup. You can keep it invisible. But I'm going to tap on the color layer, select. And then I'm gonna go down to this layer where we have all the details. So this, this shape is still selected, the yellow is still selected. So now I'm just going to three finger swipe and I'm going to cut and it cleans everything around that area. So here we have our lines and we're just going to color them in. I like to do the color picker on whatever color I make the body like to make it a little darker like that. And I like to alpha lock our line layer, alpha lock. And then I have graphy brush. And just in case you didn't see what I was doing, I tapped on the line layer and this is alpha lock. When it's checked, that means your line is alpha lock. You'll see this checker mark. So that means that you can color and it will only go on whatever is Alpha locked. So right now the lines are Alpha locked. So it's only going to draw in the lines. If the body was alpha locked and will only draw on the body. Realized I went, I went by there pretty quickly. So let's color our lines back to the color that we had. Make sure that we're on our Alpha Locked Line layer. And I don't usually color in this line the top of the mouth or the bottom. So I'm going to skip that. I don't think we need to color in the nostril, but we might owe these are the lines I'm going to color in. I'm going to skip the eye lines. Except for this one. This one I'm going to color. This one I'm going to color. So that makes that keeps everything bringing your attention right to the eyes. And make your brush a little bigger. Just coloring the rest of these black lines. It looks good. If it's a good place to stop for now. 10. Details & Markings : All right, let's have some fun coloring in his little details. So this is another thing that can be very difficult, but the real money is just figuring out. Let us simplify it. What do you see? We have the yellow, we have the base already. There's some beautiful purple here. There's all these little dark brown spots that are really, really nice. You've got some bigger brown spots here. Thin is a little bit bluish. So these are all things that we can work with and all things that we need to figure out. So first, I'm going to start with these brown specs that sort of go down his back. So I'm going to choose this sort of lighter brown color. This is dark. But since we're making him fun in light, then I'm just going to keep it nice and light. And I'll use my sketch master brush. It looks pretty good. So it's not, it's not too dark. So this is my version of clipping mask. If you know what, how to, how to use clipping mask. But what I do is I, the color layer, I'm going to tap on it, select, and then I'm going to make a new layer here. So now the yellow is still selected. So sort of like alpha lock. It'll only color on the yellow. It's actually looks nice. So I'm going to name this layer detail one. Okay, so he has these dark spots here. And I'm going to interpret, interpret those. I'll make this brush. I'm using the sketch master brush. I'll make it pretty big. And I'll just do these kinda like little stripes here. And I'll kinda make them smaller as they, as they get lower. So we have some little stripes there. So that's close enough. Kinda interesting little details. And if you want, you can, you know, you can always add more, you can always add some up here. Whatever you like to do. I think that looks pretty nice as is. So now he has all these little dots, all these little specs. So that makes me think of a driven snow. So if you're in favor, you can go down to driven snow here. And we don't want them to be too big or too small. So let's check the size. That size is actually pretty good. So that's like 20 to 25. 25. So now I'm just gonna do driven snow over his body. And up here maybe a little bit on his nose. I think that looks good. So they're not exactly, exactly speckled the way he is, but it's pretty close. And I think it's good enough for what I need. So the next thing I wanna do is try to get some of this nice lilac, bright purple. So as you can see, there's lines here, so only the yellow is still selected. So I'm going to make a new layer in-between detail one and in-between color. So right above color. So I'm gonna make a new layer underneath detail one because I want it to be underneath our speckles. And then I want to choose a nice purple, a nice light purple color. I think that's pretty good. It's a pretty good match. And this is where it's tricky. But I think I'm going to use my airbrush. He is kind of a patch here, a patch here, a patch up here. So I think it might be nice to just airbrushed that in, go up to our soft brush one, lower the opacity to about 40 or so percent and doesn't have to be that big. I'll put it on like 17, 16, 17. So we're on our new layer. And now let's see what it looks like. Sort of Airbus shin or these patches of purple are and his body. I think that looks pretty nice. So then there's some more up here. So we'll kinda do some up here. We'll do some down here. Kinda do it in this nice band. Purple, yellow, purple, yellow. Maybe a little bit over here. And maybe a little bit on his nose. That looks nice. And maybe even a little bit around his eye. Maybe even around the eye will make it a little darker. If you want to take some off, you can always use the eraser. You can use the eraser as a airbrush as well. You can sort of even just erase a little bit away. So you can make it just around as I think I like that. And another tip, feel free to adjust the color. So I'm gonna take it off of I made the selection tool so it's not selected anymore. So we have our details here. And now we have, we'll call this detail to, we'll call this lilac. Although you might want to change the color, hue, saturation. Maybe like a different color. Nice blue, blue's nice, greenish. Lots of options. And was make it darker or lighter. And we can make it white. Why it looks nice too. So I'll go back to my lilac. Okay, so, so far so good. I'm really liking the way that this looks. I just want to add a few more little details so I'll go back to my brown. Make sure I'm on that detail layer. Go back to the sketch master 2. And these are kind of EPA has a nice little dark specks on his face. So I'm just gonna give him a few more little specks on his face. That's a little too much. Just a little roundup of specs here. And maybe a couple of here. Just to really give them some freckles up by his face. I think that's good. And you know what, We'll add, I'm going to use sketch master to, which is much thicker. And maybe just add some little pops of brown down here as well. I think that looks nice. And of course you can always stretch these across. On-off phenomena like these. You can always make those little stretches across. But I think I just like, I like this beautiful, nice color that he has here. So next, let's add some shadows to our little guy. And the way, the way I like to add shadow is I'm going to add a layer on top of both of the details. So on top of detail one, I'm gonna make it a multiply layer. So I'm going to tap a little letter here and then bring it up to multiply. And I like to use sort of like an orangey red color. And I'll use graffiti brush and I'll turn the layer down to maybe like 20 percent, see how that looks. That's pretty good. Maybe even a little less. Maybe like 14 percent. And we're going to tap on our color layer, select. And we're gonna go back up to that, that newly made multiply layer. That's pretty good. So now we're just going to add in some shadows will make the brush a little bit smaller. And I'll ask them shadows, basically to the bottom of everything. So it's almost like the light is coming down from the top. So we'll add shadow here. We'll add a shadow here. So kinda like making that nice eye socket dark. We'll color this in because that's in the back. Same thing with this nostril that's in the back will call you that. This gives it a little bit of depth. So we might be able to just color. Follow this line down, I think. And the reason why I make a new layer and bring the layer opacity down. That way we can color over the shadow and it doesn't continue to get darker and darker. And maybe we'll just color all of this in. As you can see, I kind of draw it like it's always trial and error when I'm drawing. So now I'm just going to make some squirrels in here. Like so. And I'm going to call this whole thing dark because that's on the inside. I think that looks good. So now I'm just going to make another little shadow line down the back here. And I think we might need some of these shadows. So I'm going to lower the opacity to maybe 35 percent. And I'm just going to come across where we were. Really lightly. Think I like that a lot better. Lightly is in the brushes now light. And we'll just do some lines down. I'll do some lines up here too. I think that looks good. Lowering the opacity really help because it keeps it from being too jarring. It looks nice. So the only thing, the only other thing I wanna do is make some lines coming through here. So we'll use our eraser and we will actually use Sketch master 2. And we'll use that as an eraser. So see how these lines are sort of like lighter. I just want to kind of touch on that a little bit. So I'm just using this eraser, just making these lines across. Even back here to some lines across. And I'm sort of lining it up with these little nubs. It's like a easy way to kinda tell you where the lines are. And I'm not even bothered if they line up completely because it's really just to kind of just gives the illusion of like these ribs. I'll do the same thing here. I'll just use these little nubs and just make these lines. And I'll do the same thing across. These, make these little lines across. And this is all very, very loose. You can see I'm not really trying to be too, too clinical. I'm just using what we drew. It's kinda like a template for were to add those little lines. And there's a lot of places where you can go. It doesn't always have to be exactly like what I'm doing. But hopefully you understand why I'm doing certain things. So that's our shadow layer. I'm just going to rename that shadow. Another cool trick you can do with the shadow layer, hue saturation, and you can change the temperature of the shadow. You might find one that you like a lot better. Like I think I think that looks good. I'll make it a little more saturated. That looks nice. And just remember if you wanna do more shadows, you then have to go into the multiple layer, 14%. So you have to bring it all the way up and then put it to normal and then match this color. Use that color. So once you have that color, then you can turn it back into a multiply layer and then go back down to 14 percent. That way it won't affect, won't change your shadows. You can still match your shadows. 11. Highlights & Final Details: Okay, So we're almost at the home stretch. Let's have some fun finishing up this little guy. So he needs an I. So let's see what we did for our sketch. So we may desire there for the sketch. And you can always make it there. I will go above this little details. The little, let me clarify here, but the layer with the eyes and the mouth is just needs to go above this white. And actually we'll do another, would do another detail there as well. So first we slow down, I get really excited and I get to make eyes. It really brings the character's life. And we've been working a long time on this little guy. So what color do you want to make the eyes? Do you want to make it brown? Let's see what that looks like. We'll use, I'll use butter blade for this. So we make it a little bigger. So we have brown anywhere you want to make him have him looking? I think that looks nice. It could always be black. Black. Look nice too. Okay. So I'll keep it black and that's pretty much where it was in the sketch. So now I'm gonna make a new layer above that. I'm going to stick with black. And I'm going to use I'll use shadow. The shadow 30 is should just be graffiti brush, but at 30 percent opacity. And essentially I just want to make a little shadow just like that. So just a little shadow from that eyelash. It just kinda gives the eye a little character. And let's shade the eye in a little bit. So I'm gonna go down to where the white of the eye is. I'll just do this eyes, mouth. That's what I'll name that layer. So I'm going to Alpha lock eyes and mouth. And then I'm gonna go to We can start off with white. Color picked white. But now I'm gonna go to sort of a yellowish and just kinda like a darker version of the whitish yellowish color. Doesn't have to be super, super specific, just off of white and kind of warm. So now I'm back to airbrush. Really low opacity because the airbrush is kinda hard. And I just wanna softly. Shade in this little bit. Doesn't need too much. And I'm doing this right on the white of the eye. We need to start again. You can just code this whole IY it again. And you can start again. And I'll just do another pass. I'll make it a little darker. And then I'll just do a little bit darker shadow on top. There we go. That looks nice. I think that all looks pretty good. So now the next little detail, I think I'm, I wanna do. I'll do it over the shadow layer. And I just want to kind of put a little bit of these little white highlights. So let's try add or make it an Add Layer. And I'll just name it highlight. All right, so what's an added layer? And I'm going to use, I think I'm going to use that lilac, that light lilac, I'll make it a little lighter. And maybe I'll just use soft airbrush and I'll make it really small. And I just want to add some of these pops of light c, others these little pops of light didn't want to see if I can add some of those in. Maybe write out the little nubs. Maybe make it a little smaller. And just little white. Maybe going across where we erased before. Maybe little white pops on the end. Just little pops of light where these little knobs are. I think that looks kind of nice. And it doesn't always have to be super perfect. This is just like it's these little things that you'd notice that you don't even know that you notice is it'll details. And they just give it a lot of character even down here. Just as a really nice pattern that I think looks really cool. I like these little brighter. They're kind of front-and-center. Add some air in between these dark areas. And there's a little bit of a pop of light there. Some lines here. Maybe. Let's see what else is a little bit here. And I'm gonna make the tiniest bit right above is I write here tiny bit right there. That looks good. Maybe a little bit right here. Knows. A little bit here on the nostril. And whatever we'll put a little bit on here on the top two. Just for fun. Little dots here, kinda go on down from there. It looks nice. Pretty happy with this little guy. Oh, I didn't want to put a little blue. We can either do blue or we can do sort of purplish. Maybe we'll change it a little bluer. And let's see what that looks. Maybe I'll actually use, we should change the color here where the lilac is. So I'm going to hit select on the color. And then I'm going to go to the lilac layer and the soft brush. And I just want to push this in with this blue is bluish color. Let's see how this looks. I wasn't sure if I was going to use the lilac. But it is kinda is this kind of blue, more blue. So we'll just add a nice blue maybe that just like kind of changes it up a little bit. That's nice. So we're all set with that. And I think I'm going to use this same color. I'm gonna go to our line layer. Still alpha locked. And I'm just going to color that in the same color. And sort of make that line and invisible by coloring it the same color. And now I'm going to make it a little bit lighter. And I'm gonna go back to our highlights layer. And I think I'll use Sketch master to and I'll make it pretty small, maybe around 12. And I just want to add some little light bulbs here. So let's see how this looks. So I'm just kinda making these little white lines for as, for as little thin. I'm just using ad so you can definitely see them. They're a little bit lighter here on the bottom. So I'm just going to make these little white specks on the bottom. And there we go. I like that. Okay. And now if you want to do some extra things, you can can change the color. Maybe you want. You can experiment with the color of the background. Well, that's actually a nice color for him. One thing I noticed, I don't really like how this yellow looks here. So I'm gonna take this brown. I'm going to go to our line layer. And I'll just use the soft brush all the way up. And I'm just sort of color in this brown. And this is actually something that you can do throughout your work. Like for example here, I can color pick this purple and sort of just airbrush the line. Because you don't really need it to be that different. Even here. I can sort of just hair brush in this like so. Same thing here. I can take this color and I can sort of airbrush and this line. And it's really great to experiment with because you don't really, you don't really need this outline. It looks nice because it definitely serves a purpose, but you don't need to always see it. So definitely experiment with lightening it up in some places, matching it up a little bit in other places. But it's also good. It's good here because you need that separation. You still want to have this, these details. Even this one, I can lighten it up a little bit. So these are rather just subtle little tips that I like to do. Just lighten it up. And it almost they almost just melt away a little bit. And just kinda melt away. Not this one away a little bit. I like it there for the detail, but it just doesn't need to be so dark. So you have to find where, find where you like it. But last but not least, we're going to go up to the white where we did our little, his little tooth. And so we'll add white. We'll use white again, and we'll use Shadow 30. And maybe we'll add the shadow to the top. So we'll add a shadow to the top or not a shadow, a little light source to the top. So the sort of goes over is I like that. And then we'll just switch to switch the butter blade. Just have a solid white brush. And then we'll add in, is it'll highlight here. I think he looks great. And I'm going to take the Air Pro. I'm going to take the whatever background color you chose. So now I'm on that same background layer. I'm gonna make a new layer above that. I'm going to use selection. These are your sections. This is just what I do for fun, pretty much. So I am using the rectangular selection tool. And I just made a rectangle here. And I'll just make this a little darker. And I'll fill that. And now I'll go to adjustments and Guassian blur and just kinda just make a nice little gradient there. I'll choose this dark color. And I merge these two. And we get rid of this. We don't need that anymore. I'm gonna take all the layers that we're using. I'm going to write swipe on the mall and hit Group. I'm a label that group seahorse. So now we can move our seahorse around, a movement around to the middle. And so I'm going to choose this darker color. I'll make it a little bit darker. And I'll use my soft airbrush. And I'll just make a nice little loop. And then I just do. I have no idea what I did or how to make that go away. So I'm gonna go back to soft brush. And I'm just gonna do some nice little in the middle. I'll make it a little bit darker. I'll choose this yellow color. I'll use Procreate pencil. 12. Thank You! : All right guys. Thank you so much. I hope you had a good time making your seahorse. I really had a good time creating him and I just love talking through and explaining what I'm doing, why I'm doing it. I hope that that works for you. I hope that you learn. You picked up some tips and tricks. I tried to include as many of them, as many of them as I could. My brain just kinda goes 1000 miles a minute, doesn't want yeah. It's a phrase. I don't think that's a place, but that's how my mind thinks. And I make mistakes when I'm drawing. It's not like I can't really go through things and just have them be perfect. I have to experiment. I have to make mistakes. And you should be okay with making mistakes and experimenting because it's a big part of the art process. It's a big part of what makes you are great. And it's a big part of how you grow and how you get better when you can recognize issues and recognize that there are things that you have to change and things that you should change, and maybe there's things that you want to keep. So that's what this journey is about, that's what my journey is about. And I'm glad you're with me and I can share some of my tips and tricks on your art journey and that we can make art together. I hope that makes sense. It kinda makes sense in my mind. But sometimes I just get a little too excited and things just start flowing out of my mouth. But anyway, I just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time and I appreciate you sharing your time with me. Feel free to share it on social media and tag me drug-free. Dave, on Instagram. Follow me on YouTube. I do free tutorials on YouTube. I do a lot of little short videos. I worked with other programs, things like that. I don't, I'm doing a lot on YouTube and YouTube is growing, so I'm really happy about that and really happy that people are taking it. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube and hit the bell. So you'll be notified when I have another video. I'm doing a lot of lives, maybe about four or five a week. So they'd be really awesome to see you during one of my live videos will not see you, but communicate, communicate with you during one of my life videos, I'm on tiktok. If you're on tiktok, add me, I love to see what you're doing. Facebook, I have a Facebook group, procreate tutorials and guidance. The group is up to about 30 thousand members, which is amazing. I never thought that it would get that big. And also one more thing, be sure to check out my brushes and brush packs on gum road. Just go to drug-free Dave.com and click on Brushes. You'll see all the different sorts of brushes and stamp brushes. Really fun stuff. And I have specific tutorials on YouTube, so be sure to check them out. I think they're really fun and really always a pleasure.