Drawing Cats from References: How to Draw a Cat Illustration in Procreate

1. Drawing cats: Drawing cats is so much fun. Combining drawing cats, simple shapes from Procreate brushes and flowers is even better. Hi. I'm Eva and I'm a full time illustrator based in Central Europe. I will guide you through every step of the process. Even if you don't have any experience with Procreate or drawing, try to have fun during the process so you can end up with this lovely colorful illustration full of cute cats and flowers. During this class, we will start off by looking at references. Then we will start creating silhouettes using simple stylized shapes. Then we will add details and colors before putting it all together in one illustration with lots of flowers as a lovely decoration. I hope when you watch and follow this class, you'll be super happy about your illustration and you will be excited to share it with others. When you are sharing it on Instagram, please make sure that you tag me in the image, not only in the description, because that way I can see your illustration and maybe you will see it in one of the next videos, like these amazing illustrations made by wonderful creative people who watch my classes. If you don't know yet, you can find even more drawing tutorials and classes there at Procreate and other tutorials. I have more than 30 classes there. There is a variety from beginner level to more advanced levels and you can also find different topics. Without further ado, let's start and see you in the class. 2. Canvas and setup: For this class, we will be using Canvas, which is a little bit bigger than in the previous class, where we use also more square ratio. For this class, I'll be using Canvas with width 4,500 pixels and height 3,000 pixels. The DPI of this Canvas is 300. In case I want to print it out or don't want to use it, maybe just on the screen, it's better to have bigger DPI resolution than 72 or 75, which is great for the screen. This will be 300 DPI as I said. This will give me maximum layers of 73, which should be plenty for this exercise or this, we can call it a sketchbook spreadsheet and here we can also name the canvas. Let's call it something, which is not unlike [LAUGHTER] canvas and if you don't see the keyboard, it's probably hiding down here. You can click on that show keyboard and here we can just call it maybe Cats or Cats Sketchbook Spread. Great, and you can check also the color profile here because sometimes predefined, not sketchbook spread profile, but predefined color profile is Display P3. But in this case, I will select sRGB, this first option, which is great for screen we'll keep it to RGB profile. Then you can also check if the time-lapse settings are set to 1080p and good-quality. I think this is quite good enough for time-lapse illustrations and Canvas properties. You don't want to have this activated and the background color is white. If we're happy with all of these settings, we can click "Create" and we are in the new Canvas, which is awesome. Now, let me show you how you can import your reference images into Canvas. 3. References: Now when we are in the new Canvas which we will use for sketching, as you can see, it's more landscape ratio so I can fit more cat illustrations in this one. Now let me show you what are your options when using the references. One of the options which I use quite often is here hidden in the settings and then you would select Canvas, and here you can enable a reference which will automatically go to the Canvas. But as our canvas is wide, there is nothing there, but then what you can do is importing an image and then you can click on "Import Image". Then from the gallery, you can select one of the images and it will automatically appear in this window with reference images. Then you can drag it around by dragging it by this small line here on the top. You can also resize the image within the reference by using your fingers and pinching like bigger and smaller. You can also resize the window by dragging by one of the corners and sometimes this can be really fiddly, but you just have to get hang of it. This is the smallest window that you can have here. You can of course, place it wherever you want. If you are maybe lefty, you can put it here on the right side or put it here on the left, and then you can also resize it while you draw, maybe if you want to use the reference of the cat face so you can just zoom in better. Maybe you want to see the details, maybe you want to see the pause, but as you can see, sometimes you are by accident resizing the whole window, so you just have to try this out and see what works best for you. This is one of the references here, but in this case, I will be importing the reference image directly on the Canvas so I can sketch on top of it and show you what I'm observing in the references because if you take a brush and if you want to sketch on top of these reference, as you can see, it doesn't work. Let me close this, and if you don't see actually the navigation or the details on these reference window, you can just tap on it and these basically options will appear again, and by clicking on this X or closing the window, I'm sure you saw this type [LAUGHTER] of icon already before, just click on that, and the reference will disappear. If you go again to the same wrench icon Canvas and reference, it will remember your last reference image, which is great. Let me close this again and now I will show you how you can import the image directly on the Canvas. Go into the Wrench icon, click on it, and now you can add the reference image, so go to the first option here, click on "Add", and then you can insert photo. Here, I'm just selecting an image from my gallery. Click on it and wait until it's imported into your Canvas. If you want to resize it and keep the same proportions, make sure you have uniform selected and then you can drag by one of these blue dots in the corners to resize your image within the Canvas. You can also drag it to a spot where it will be not obscuring your view when sketching, so if you want to exit this mode, just click on the arrow and it's on a separate layer. To check that, go to the layers panel here on the top right and then you can see the reference images on this layer. Always make sure that you will be sketching on a different layer so by accident, you will not draw on the same layer, and then if you want to save your drawing, it's merged together with this reference. Now, let's start sketching in the next part. 4. Resources: Now let's talk a little bit about brushes and color palettes. Of course, for this class, you can use your own color palette and your own brushes. But I also prepared for you a color palette which you can download for free as a bonus resource for this class. Also, I prepared a fan brush pack, which is free for you to download and test out if you want to use the same brushes that I'm using in this class. Let me show you first the color palette. I will be using this color palette, which I've called cats sketchbook color palette. I will link this in the description of the class. When you download this color palette and swatches for this class, you can use the same color palette because I test out a few different versions and tried which colors can work well together for this sketchbook spreads. I tried different colors for the background and for the sketches of the cats. What is great about the Procreate color palettes swatches is when you download them, they will automatically open in Procreate and they will appear on top of your swatches panel so you can start using them right away. Now onto the brushes. You can download these free Procreate brush pack. In this class, I will be using mostly the liner for the outlines and redefining the sketches. Then we will be using this brush number three, like in the previous class with the floral jumpsuit, because you can create very loose and fun shapes without worrying too much about the outlines, which is one of the goals for this class. Have fun and create loose sketches. This is one of the brushes that we'll be using. Then I will be using one brush for explanation and just showing you what I mean by observing certain parts of the photos. I will be using a brush from my sketch set, which you don't have to use for this class. But definitely you can check out this brush set because they are quite fun to use. I will be using also this sketching brush, which has a nice texture. I like to use it for sketching and feeling the bigger shapes when doing small thumbnails and color explorations. These are the resources that we will be using in this class. You can also use similar reference photos for the cat, but I think it will be quite fun also if you find your own reference photos. But you can, of course, follow step-by-step with my drawings. You can have fun and you don't have to worry about looking for your own references, so you can follow the whole sketching process step-by-step and create your illustration project like that. 5. Silhouettes part one: So let's start with our first sketch. So let me zoom in on my reference image so I can show you what you can focus on. First, let's check if we have another layer, which we don't. So by clicking on the plus sign, create a new layer so you don't accidentally sketch on your reference image. Now I will just show you first what to focus on and then we will start our drawing. So in this illustration or in this cat pose, what is very nice here is this shape and I am using this sketch brush, as I told you, which has a nice texture. But let me make it a little bit smaller, maybe like 7 percent and with double-tap I can undo. I want to show you basically the silhouette of the cat. Try to focus on this. Try to notice, where are the paws and where are the simple shapes that you can see? Here there is a tail which we don't see that well. So basically you can just do this type of shape here. But because we don't see the tail, I would suggest you to sketch it maybe here, or we can put it on the other side. So try to notice this shape when you are drawing. So let's zoom out and we can start sketching, and for this one, we can create another layer and I will keep more space for more cat sketches. So I can zoom in so we can see our reference little bit better, so not zoom out too much. So let's keep it here and now I will create a new layer for our loose cat sketches. Now, go to the brush and from the free brush pack, you can take this brush number three, which is watery flow. Now go to the color pallets and from the color palette, I will take white color to keep the cats in similar color combination and for obvious reasons, if we paint with white on the white canvas, we would not see it that well. So first, I will actually go to the background. So click on the background color and here I will select this light green tone. Here you can choose maybe also green one if you prefer this type of look, or also yellow. I tried all of these colors with these white sketch. So but here I will keep it to light green. And then we will go to the Layers panel and make sure that we are on the correct layer. So again, I'm sketching with white, so I don't have to be distracted by different coloring of the cats because now I want to focus only on basic shapes and simplifying these cats and practicing observation. So let's do this. So first of all, as you see, this part of the silhouette is quite interesting because the ear is sticking out and this one is more or less, I mean, more simple than this one. So you can start sketching, test out your brush how big is it? This one will be probably too big. So let's reduce the brush size, maybe, to 7 percent. Let's test it out. Maybe we can make it a little bit smaller. So 5 percent. Okay, I think 5 percent should be good. So you can start sketching from this side just to follow the silhouette and try to keep it quite loose so you can always adjust it later. So basically, I am not focusing so much on the anatomy of the cat, but just having fun with these shapes and trying to follow the silhouette that I see on the reference picture. This is quite fun and easy exercise to practice observation of the animals and basically any other shapes you want to practice. But I love to use this one, especially when I'm drawing outside and I just want to draw animals or something quite quickly because they move a lot. So as I mentioned to you, this tail is quite tricky because we don't see it. So in this case, I can move it to the side and just draw something simple like this, or you can move it to this side and basically play with the shape of the tail here. So let me do this, and we have quite simple shape of the first cat done, which is awesome. 6. Silhouettes part two: Now let's import another image so we can practice this observation of the simple shapes and drawing animals by looking at them just on the pictures or in real-life. I can move the canvas a little bit further down and now I will import another image as I said, and we will add more definition and shadows to all our silhouettes in the later steps. Let's create another layer. Here we will sketch another silhouette so we can rename this and call it Cat 1. This will be Cat 2. I didn't want that part. Good. Now let's import another image. You can scale the image down, so you don't have to have such a huge reference photo. I can place it here, so we don't cover our silhouette. To exit that mode, you can always click on the arrow. Now I will move my canvas, so I will have space here. I can check the layers. As you can see the image was imported next to the other layer, but now it took over the layer that I created for a cat sketch number 2. I will click on the plus sign, rename this one Cat 2 sketch. We can just keep it Cat 2 so we know what is what and I will rename this one as well. This is Cat 1 and this is also Cat 1. We can also put all of these in a group, but for now we don't have that many layers it should be fine. If you are struggling with too many layers and you don't have space then you can always merge maybe the references together, but for now I think we are fine. Let's go to this layer which is called Cat 2. I can start sketching right away, but for this class sake let me sketch the outline again first. I will go to my sketch brush set and take the texture brush. I will take maybe the yellow color. We can see it a little bit better on this reference picture. I will sketch around the cat so you can see what I'm trying to notice. When I'm looking at the reference picture there is this bomb, there is this curve, there is another curve here and then it goes down here. Again, we don't see the tail now very well as you can see, but sometimes it's hard to find pictures where you see the full silhouette which is the best. You should always try to look for the reference images where you can see the full silhouette, but for now this one has a tail, maybe here or you can put the tail also on this side. You can play around how you put the tail for the cat. Again we have the layer for the Cat 2, so clicking on the plus sign as usual and the renaming Cat 2. Going to the free brush pack and taking this brush number 3 then go to the color palette and take the white color again and now we can start sketching our cat. The brush size is the same as last time. If you want to save the same size, just click on the brush here on the slider and then click on the plus sign and Procreate will remember the size of the brush that you want to use. Perfect. I'm here starting with the head, as you can see just the oval shape. I can zoom in a little bit so we see better with the reference then I can draw the ears. Here, I can continue with the neck, the rest of the body. As you can see, this brush is quite fun because it looks more like watercolor. It's quite fun to use I think especially for these loose sketches. Here I'm adding the chest and then the feed and then I can just connect to the rest of the body. Here I want to make sure I have all these curves which I see in the silhouette. I think this is pretty cute. Maybe I can add little bit more to this curve and you can play with this shape. Let's see, maybe I can add the tail this way as we just sketched it which is similar to the reference. I think this is pretty cute. Let's repeat this process with the next reference image in the next part. 7. Silhouettes part three: Now, let's create another kid silhouette. I hope you are enjoying this exercise because it's quite fun. I think also when you sketch outside and you're trying to basically sketch these silhouettes for the kids as well if they are moving. Let's continue. You create this muscle memory when sketching gets. As you already noticed, we have three layers for each of these cats, so we can go ahead and create three layers right away, and let's rename them, so Cat 3. Sometimes the pen does it own thing [LAUGHTER] as you can see, so sometimes it's better to use the finger to use the keyboard I feel like. This was Cat 3 not Cat 2, and let's rename the last one. I'm thinking about the rename and I write rename, great. Cat Number 3. You can always click on the icon of the layer, click on the "Rename" and the keyboard appears here, or if you don't see it, it's hidden here on the side. As you can see it's here, show keyboard. Perfect. We have three layers. Let's first import another image. Let's take this from the view of the cat. It's little bit in the perspective, but we can adjust it. Use the two fingers to make the reference image smaller and move it to the side. Perfect. Now I can zoom in again so we can see it better as before, so we can draw on the side. Then on this layer, we will create the outline, what we are supposed to notice in the reference image. To do that, I will go to the sketch set, take the Number 22, the texture shading, and for this case I think I will take pink so we can see a little bit better. Here we have the top of the head than the ears, as in the previous case, then we have little bit round shapes around the head and the torso of the kit, and there is the bum [LAUGHTER] the round part of obviously. Then we have the smaller feet here and here in the front. Then the tail is here on the side. Let's sketch that. We have to open the Layers panel, go to the other layer as before. Now, we can take the brush for sketching the silhouette. We choose here, Number 3, go to the colors, take the white color again and as you can see, the brush is still set to the same size as we saved it in the last sketch. Now, I can start sketching those silhouette for the next cat. Starting with the head shape as before, so I will create the round shape then I can add ears. Here, I can focus on the torso, then I can add legs, and then the bum. Nice round like a potato shape. And then we can add the feet here and the tail. More volume here on the side if you want. You can be more precise if you want with the feet of the cat and all the details, but I think for this exercise is nice to keep it as loose as possible. It can be also quite wonky so you don't have to worry about being super precise or anatomically correct. You can also exaggerate a little bit here by adding more volume to this side so we have quite interesting silhouette which looks more like a pair. Let's move on to the next cat. 8. Silhouettes part four: Now let's add another reference picture so we can create another silhouette and you can select another photo that you downloaded or you can follow my references. Here I have a walking cat, so I'll make it smaller again. Click on the arrow to exit the mode. Here I can sketch another silhouette again, so make sure you are on a different layer. Click on the plus sign here. First, we will again try to observe and sketch on top of this reference for us so you know what I'm thinking about. I will go to the sketch set, take the texture shading brush, and take maybe the green color so we can see it. I will zoom in so you'll see a little bit better and sketch around. Maybe actually yellow is a little bit better in this case, so you can see it better. Here we have the tail, the ears. Here it's quite rounded. The same goes on this side and then this paw is hidden here and then we don't see the other paw here. We can maybe add the paw there and then we have the frontal view paw. Let's start sketching. Before then maybe let's rename the layers. This will be kept four, also this one, and now we can create another layer which will be also for the cat number 4. Perfect. Go to the brushes and go to the brush pack and I will again take this brush number 3, then go to the color palettes, take the white color, and we can start sketching. Here I will start a little bit more to the side because we have this other cat here a little bit in the way. Let's start here. Starting with the head again, then I can add ears, then we can sketch the body. Always trying to notice the silhouette as we talked about. As you can see, it can be quite wonky, and I think that that is adding the charm to this sketch exercise. I'm not trying to be perfect, but here, if we are losing a little bit of the neck, I will go back. We still have some silhouettes. Try to find the balance between wonky and almost abstract, and that people can still recognize that's a cat. What is helping us obviously with the silhouette of the cat is that the shape of the head and the ears, and usually the tail of the cat. Here's another silhouette. We have another cat here on our sheets, so we have already four cats. 9. Outlines part one: Now, after we have few of these silhouettes of the cat, let's add some shadows and details. All of these can start looking more like cat drawings and sketch explorations of cat, not just the silhouettes. First of all, let's add some details using a liner brush so we can define the face of the cat and some of the features like the ears and the pause. Go to the brushes, and for this one, you can take the liner brush or you can take any other brush from the inking or calligraphy section if you didn't download these brushes. But for this case or this part of the process, I will take the liner brush, then go to the color palettes, and for this part of the process, I will take the blue color. Let's go to the layers and make sure that you are not on the same layer as the cat silhouette. Let's start with our first cat, which we can see here. Cat Number 1, and make sure that we have a reference photo here so we can reference it and look at it while drawing. Now, click on the plus sign to create a new layer. Let's rename it cat Number 1. That will be the outline or the details. Now click on the canvas to go out of the layers panel, and we can test the brush, how big is it, I think this should work. I have it set to size 1. In this case, I think it's nice. Now, there are different ways how you can draw eyes of the cat and how you can stylize and simplify the drawing of the cat. But in this case, I will keep the face features black and white, and basically just using one color. Not going very fancy with styling these cat features to keep it simple. Even though I said black and white and we are using this dark blue as you already know. Let's start looking at the reference picture and try to notice where you see the facial features and what is important to define this cat. Here I think we need to define the head shape because here it's kind of lost within the cat silhouette. We also need to define the ear because we don't see it here in the silhouette. We can start with the ear, then you can continue drawing the head, and you can close the head shape here. You can also redefine the other ear. And you can draw the middle side or the middle part of the ear as well. Then here we can split the paws, define where they are. To draw the face, you can start by drawing the nose by creating a small triangle. We can zoom in and drawing a line going down. I can zoom in, but you still see the reference image. Then you can just draw these two lines going down as well. This is how I would approach the face shape in this case. Then we can draw eyes by using these half ovals, and then you can make the cat look to the side maybe by adding these circles within the eyes. You can see that this cat is looking this way. You can decide where you will place the iris of the cat. Then we can add these dots, which are next to the whiskers. Of course, you can add whiskers. Nice. So we have one part. [LAUGHTER] Now let's add some details to the paws. You can see they are quite round. I can just add these small lines to the paws. I think two are enough in this case. Here we want to define the belly and little bit of this other shoulder or paw. I think this is enough. Then let's define also the tail and the backside of the cat, and here as well, the paw. I think in this case it's enough. Then we can move to the next step, which is just right here. We can look at that in the next part. 10. Outlines part two: Now let's continue adding some details and lines for this cat. Looking at the reference, make sure in the layers panel that you are on a separate layer with the cat that you want to define. Click on the "Plus" sign, rename the layer. We can add lines to this layer. I'm keeping the same brush, which is the liner, and with the same size. Here with this cat, I can start by adding a chin to define the face shape. Here we also need to define the ears. So you can draw it in a similar way as before. We can also add the outer outline for the ears. You don't have to finish the whole outline of the face. Then we can draw the nose the same way as we did before. A triangle line going down and then adding two lines to finish the face shape. Then we can add eyes. In this case, we can make the cat to look forward. Then you can add the whiskers as before. You can also add the dots here to indicate basically the areas where the whiskers are growing out from. Here I can add a line here to the chest and define this paw as we have here. I will draw one line this way. As you can see, there is a little bit of this shoulder here, so I will draw that like this. Then little bit of that shoulder or basically adjoined of the cat. Then other side of that paw. Then we can draw the same lines as we did before just to define the cat paws. Maybe we can make them a little bit more round. Like we see on this reference image, we have also this other foot. You can draw that. Let's also add this other leg we choose here. Perfect. We can add one more line also here to finalize the shape here. Now if you compare with this other cat, this other cat has little bit smaller eyes, so I can go in and make the eyes a little bit bigger. Make sure that you are on a correct layer that you drew before. I can add little bit more volume here as we add in the other cat. I can also move the eyes little bit higher. I think this fits a little bit better with the other cat now. Perfect. Now we can move to the next cat. 11. Outlines part three: Let's continue with our next cat, which is here based on this reference. For that, we have to go to the correct layer, which is here. Click on the Plus sign. You can rename it, Cat number 3. Perfect. We still have the same brush and the same size of the brush. With this cat, we can also define the ears like we did before. Just to the inner side of the ear, the outer shape. We can maybe add the top of the head and chin as with the other cat. You can try it again. You can see it's a little bit more rounded. You can make it more round or more angled. The cat is looking a little bit to the side. Again, I will start with the nose first, creating that small triangle. Small line going down, and two more lines going outwards. As you can see, she's looking a little bit more to the side, but I'm keeping the face looking forward, so keeping it quite simple. Now I will add the eyes, looking to the side. Perfect. Making sure that the eyes are approximately on the same height so you don't have one eye higher than the other one, and also trying to keep the size of the eyes the same. You can also copy paste the eye, so you can delete this one. Let me make the eraser bigger. But for the observational purposes, is better if you draw both of them. But let me show you how you can do this. You can select the eye with the freehand selection tool with three fingers sliding down. You can duplicate and move the eye to the side. You can zoom in, so you make sure you keep the eyes on the same height. Now you have the same size of the eyes. Here you have to make sure that you merge the layers again. Perfect. You have same eyes here. If you have issue making the eyes the same, this is a quick tip or tool you can use how to make the eyes the same size. But if you want to practice, I suggest that you try to always draw the eyes separately. In this case, when you are just trying to create fast, loose sketches and observations. Let's add the whiskers as before, and add few dots. Perfect. That's nice. Here we can add the top part of the paws, like the shoulders. Zoom out. Here I will add the lines for these paws. These are the same paws as before, but we are drawing the lower part. I think because I made this line a little bit more straight, I can draw this line straight as well. Let me make the eraser bigger. Let's try that again. Perfect. As well as before, we can draw these curved lines to suggest the paws of the cat. Now we can add these lines for the outer side of the silhouette, and add lines for the paws here in the back as well. The same goes here. Let's separate the tail from the body here. I think this is good for this outline of the cat and we can move to the next one. 12. Outlines part four: Now, let's add lines and definition to this cat as well. Let's find the correct layer. We have the walking cat, which is number 4, click on the plus sign, rename the layer. Perfect. We can define this cat as well. First of all, I want to separate the tail from the body, so I will add a line here. Maybe we can make it more straight. I think this works better. Then we can create the chin as with other cats. Perfect. Then add the definition in the ears, the outer ears, also on this side. Now, I can add a nose, which is a triangle, again, adding a short line here, and the two lines going outwards. Now, let's also add the eyes. As before, you can copy-paste one eye with the selection tool, freehand, using three fingers, slide down, duplicate, and move the eye to the same position and distance from the nose. Exit the tool by clicking on the arrow. As you can see, in this case, it doesn't work that well because we didn't finish the eye in the same height. So in this case, I would suggest going back and drawing the second eye by hand. Make sure that you are on the correct layer. Now, I will draw the eye by hand. What I mean is not duplicating it. Then drawing the iris again. As you can see, it works a little bit better because it's not a copy-paste, so it doesn't look like it's mirrored, and you also practice drawing the eyes. Try both versions and see what works better for you. Perfect. Now, we can add the whiskers. As you can see, I'm exaggerating the whiskers because I think that's quite fun thing to do. Then you can add the dots. Now, let's define also this lower part of the cat. First of all, I will add the torso or the belly, so I will create a line here. Then we will define this front part of the torso, which is separated from the backside of the cat, so you can just draw a line here and finishing it going to the front leg. Then you can add a line here just to separate the front leg from the torso. Now, we can also add the paw. We have these lines here as before. This paw, as you can see, it's a little bit tilted, so if you zoom in, you don't see the lines on the paw, so we will not draw it there. In this case, we will draw them here on the side, so not from the front, like on this one. I can just draw a few lines here. To create this shape of the paw, I can just create short a line here. Here, we don't see the backside of the leg, but as you can see, we sketched it here, so let's add the lines for the paw here as well, which is quite cute, and we can add the line for the paw here as well. If you want, we can add the lines here. This is up to you, you don't have to add this one, but I think it works nicely there. Perfect. We have lines for all four of our cat, and now we can start adding shadows and other details. 13. Adding shadows: Now, when we have all the lines for all our four sketches here, we can start adding shadows. To do that, I will go first to our first good again. As we started with this one, go to the Layers panel. I can find the cat that I want to add the shadows to. I will click on the outline layer. Here, I will select Alpha Lock. Clicking on the icon of the layer and selecting Alpha Lock. We can draw just within our silhouette and shape. Now, go to the brushes. For this part, I will go to the brush Number 3, but you can use any other texture brush that you like. But here, I want to keep it similar to the textures and brush that I use for under silhouette. From the color palette, I will use the second color in the second row. I will make sure the brush size is still the same, which was 5% in this case. Now, I will look at our reference. Here, where I see the shadows, the most are under the chin of the cat, also here under the shoulder, and here next to the paw in the middle of these two, and a little bit maybe we can add here to define the tail and the back part of the cat. We can start adding these shadows quite simply with this brush. Here, then separating the body from the leg so I can add a little bit of shadow here. Then, as I said, the shoulder and under the chin of the cat and the leg. Maybe we can add a little bit of the shadow also here on the left side because we can see that there is light from the top so the cat is a little bit lighter on this side and here it will be darker. Perfect. We have simple shadows on this cat as well. Now, we can move to the next one. Go to the Layers panel, find the cat, click on the icon, select the Alpha Lock, and make sure you have the brush that we had before. Now, we can add shadows to this kitty as well. In this case, I will add shadow under the chin as well just to define, basically, the separation of the head from the body. If you want to have these nice textures, you can just move the brush back and forth. As you can see, the brush will create this smudgy look. If you want to add more definition, you can create more opaque strokes with another movement in creating basically and using more pressure. Now, I will move down here. I can see the shadows more here and here next to the paw. It's a little bit hard to see with all the patterns on this cat but try to know where you see the darkest area on that reference photo. Here, we can add the shadow on this side of the paw. As I said, maybe at the bottom and here at the back part of the cat. Here, you can make the brush a little bit bigger and then we can add some shadow here and here as well and also separating the paws from the body. Nice. Let's move on to the next one. Find the silhouette again. Just get Number 3, click on the icon, select Alpha Lock, and then we can continue adding shadows as well under the chin again. Just moving the brush from right to left. Then we can add shadows again separating the legs from the body like we did before. Adding shadow here in the middle and here at the root of the tail as well. Now, looking at the sketches, we have the tail separated from the body with a line as well. I will go and edit on this one as well. So going to the brushes, taking the liner, selecting the other color that we used before, which is this dark blue. I will zoom in on this cat, find the correct layer, which is cat Number 2, and I will add the line there as well. Now, we can add shadows to this last cat. Let's find the correct layer. Cat Number 4. Click on the icon, select Alpha Lock, go to the brushes. Take the brush Number 3 as before, go to the color palette, and use the second color in the second row as before. In this case, we will add the shadow under the chin again. We can add a shadow here as well. As you can see, I'm not drawing outside of the silhouette. The Alpha Lock is helping me with that. Here, I will add a little bit of shadow on the torso. As you can see, it's also here. We can add a little bit of shadow here, separating the leg from the body. We have all the shadows. In the next part, I will show you how you can make these sketches a little bit more interesting. 14. Adding colors part one: Now when we have the shadows on all our cats, we can start adding more patterns, colors, and textures. Here you can make it a more of your own and add textures on the cats and beetles that you like. But in this case, I will show you how I can use different references and add them to all my cat sketches. Go to the wrench icon and select Canvas. If you don't have that selected, click on the reference. As you can see, it's showing me the Canvass reference. But here I can import another image. In this case, I will take the reference image of this cat because I find it quite interesting that you can have the dark paws and dark tail and also the ears. Even though here we don't see the stripes, but there is another pattern on the back. We can add stripes, loosely inspired by these reference photo. Let's go to the layers. I will find the first cat, which is this one. Still keeping the drawing on the same layer, I will make sure that I have the same brush, which is this number 3 brush, which is watery texture, go to the color palette and now select a different color that you basically didn't use for the shadows. In this case, I will go for this darker brown color, which is the last in the last row. I will add these details, as I mentioned to you, to the cat sketches. First of all, let's add the darker tail. You can make it a more realistic or more flat. You can add the stripes which are flat, keeping the illustration flat or you can add a little bit more realism by curving the strokes in the shape of the tail of the cat. I think this is quite nice to add this type of detail. Then here on the back I can follow the shape of the cat and add few stripes, and also here. Add the dark ears. Here I need to zoom in and make the brush a little bit smaller to fit in the shape of the ears. Maybe that's too small. Two percent, I think it's fine. I can save the size of the brush as well. Just draw on top of the ears. Perfect. Now, making the brush bigger again and I can add the color at the bottom of the paws. The same here. Here I think we can make the brush a little bit bigger. Let's go back and maybe sudden jumped back with we don't want that. Seven percent and saving the size. Here, I can loosely sketch at the bottom of the paws using less pressure here on the top and a more pressure here at the bottom. I will have more color here at the bottom, so the paws are darker. The same goes on this other paw. Here I'm making the movements in this direction following the shape of the leg. Lovely. Let's move to the other cat using the same texture and the style. 15. Adding colors part two: Now we can continue adding these details and colors to the cat number two. Let's find the correct layer. We choose this one. Make sure that Alpha Lock is on, and you have the same brush, and we still have the brown color. Now you can add color to the end of the tail. You can add stripes as before. You're creating these hybrid of a cat, but that's okay, but you can keep the same styling or the same breed of the cat as you have here. Adding stripes following the shape of the body of the cat. Maybe I can add a stripe here, even though it's not there, and making the brush smaller and adding color to the ears, and a little bit darkening the paws, making the brush bigger again, adding little bit more color to the tail. I will take the middle size of the brush and darkening this part of the stripes. I can compare with the first cat, and here I can make the tail a little bit darker. I can find the first layer, and make the tail darker, so we have the similar style as this first one, also adding color to the paws. I think the rest is similar. Now I can find this third cat. Click on the correct layer, make sure you have the same brush, same color, and you can add similar coloring to this third cat. First the tail, then we can add the stripes. Then we can add the stripes here on the top. Then add darker paws, and the ears as before. Maybe we can make the brush a little bit bigger and make these stripes slightly bigger. I think that can work here. Also I can add the stripes here. Just to add more color to our cat. Perfect. Let's move to the fourth one. Find the correct layer, which is Cat 4, make sure the Alpha Lock is on, correct brush, same color, and now we can add color to this one as well. The tail first, as with the other ones, then we can add the stripes. I can add one stripe here. I can create darker paws as before. Let's do that again, that was maybe a little bit too much. Also this one. Now here in this case it can be a little bit trickier because we have the frontal part of the body and backside, and as you can see, actually this cat has two stripes here, so we can try to replicate that. Having inspiration from both cats. Then on this side we can add stripes like this, and like this. I think that can work. Then we can add a stripe here on the paws, and then adding darker color to the ears as well. Perfect. Now we have stripes on all the cats, but we can add also another cute details to these cats. Go to the color palette, select this fourth color in the second row, and we will add pink to the ears of the cat. Then we can add little bit of pink color also to their cheeks. You can make the brush a little bit bigger. Now, find the correct cat, so you don't draw on the same layer. This is Cat number 2. You can add the cheeks, and make the brush smaller and add color to the ears. Now you can move to the first cat as well, which is here. Add color to the ears. Make the brush a little bit bigger, the middle size. Add color to the cheeks, and go to this cat as well. You can add the color to the cheeks. Make the brush smaller, and add details to the ears. Perfect. We are done with coloring the cats, and in the next part, I will show you how you can add more fun details to your illustration. 16. Adding more colourful details: Now when we have all the cats it will stray the with them with details, shadows, and some stripes. Let's add the more fun details and more color to our sketch books, spread illustration, and keep growing practice from observation. To do that, I can hide all the references because I don't need them anymore. Go to the Layers and then you can click on each layer to hide the reference and also the line art, the outlines that we sketched because we don't need them anymore. We have these ones and also we can hide the reference here. Perfect. Now go to the top of the Layers panel and create a new layer, and we will call it Flowers and Leaves. Perfect. Now, go to the brushes and make sure that you have the same brush selected, but you can use any other brush of course as before if you prefer different brush. Go to the color palette, and in this case I will choose this first pink color in the third row and we will draw a few flowers around our kit. Let's start near this cat and I can draw a few flowers growing from the ground. Here you can be of course more creative and there are all all different types of flowers that you like. You can try to keep it simple, or you can go more in the realistic direction, or you can draw similar flowers that I'm drawing here. You can play with the shape of the flowers. I can add more flowers also next to this cat. I can make the brush a little bit bigger maybe the middle size which was 5%. I actually liked, it may be smaller. Let's go back and I can draw more of these flowers next to the cat and I can had another one here. Let's add some growing flowers here as well. First, I'm using just one color and then I can add more colors to these flowers later on. You can just play with some shapes, and try using different shapes or the same shapes that I'm using. This flower doesn't work that well, I think so. I can always go back because it's pretty quick to draw, so I can draw this one again, just to have the petals more defined. Some flowers here. I can add a little bit more color to these flowers, so I can go to the Layers panel, click on the icon, select the Alpha Lock, and now I will go to the color palette. I will take that red color, and I will draw on the bottom of these flowers just to add a little bit more color variety to our flowers. I will add the color only to the these ones which are kind of growing from the bottom and maybe making the brush a little bit bigger at the middle size for this part. I think this works a little bit better and now I will make sure the Alpha Lock is de-selected. I will make the brush smaller again, go to the color palette. In this case, I will take this darker green and I will draw stems for these flowers. I can add few leaves. You can add few leaves also floating next to these flowers and continue creating the stems for the flowers that you created. You can play with different layouts and fill in the shapes or feeling the whole sketchbook spread with flowers if you are in a mood for that or just add a few flowers here and there just to practice drawing different shapes. I can add few leaves here too, so we have a cat in the middle. Here, I can see this flower is in the way, so I can use the selection tool, move this flower to the side maybe just here, and now go back to the brush, and now I can draw the stem. Perfect. I can go to the color palette, take the lighter green color and we can add little bit of the lighter green to the leaves as well. I'm adding this lighter green only to the top part of the leaves, so we have some variety there. We can add few leaves here too, and here I can add a darker green color as before. I'm going back to the lighter green to filling these spots and I can add few green dots as well to fill the areas of the canvas. You can go ahead to draw more cats as well just to fill the full canvas with things around, then just to have nice field sketchbook spread. We can add a little bit more details to these flowers. Going to the color palette and selecting the white, we can add few dots in the middle of these flowers, add few lines on these, maybe few dots. You can add another flower and play around with this part. You have more shapes on your canvas. I can add more floating flowers here. As you can see, I'm still using quiet simple shapes, just filling in small details on the canvas. We can add few lines here as well as before at your dots, also in the middle of this flower. Same goes here and maybe we can add another white flower on this side and of course you can add the stems for these flowers too by using the darker green color as before, and adding leaves to this one through. As you can see, it's quite fun to fill the whole canvas with details, flowers and other things floating around. Just have fun and play with these types of shapes, drawing flowers and leaves and stems and maybe dots. I'm using still the same color palette. I'm using the pink, red, greens and the white for these details on the canvas. I added a few more flowers and few more cats to the composition just to fill the canvas as I told you. This is one of the cats that we drew together then I repeated the shapes of the flowers as I showed you previously. Here is another cat from the similar reference using the same technique then we have this one which we sketched together then I added another one which is lying on the side, so this is another sketch you can create. This cat we made together and I added more flowers around, and then we have this one which we made also together. You can play around and fill the canvas with the more cats and just try different colors, different patterns, maybe different poses. I can't wait to see your take on this project, and your cat poses and textures, and maybe flowers and colors that you will use. 17. What to draw next?: How did it go? I can't wait to see all your awesome artwork. Please share your drawings and illustrations, also the work in progress if you want in the Project section. If you want to expand on the knowledge you learned in this class, you can watch my other classes about characters and also about colors called color palette and color and light master class. Visit my teacher profile to find them. If you would like me to share your projects on Instagram, please tag me in the Instagram stories, in the post and post description so I can help you and your art to be discovered by more people. Thank you so much for being here and watching the class. See you next time.