Drawing People in Cute Outfits Inspired by Fashion Illustration

1. Introduction: Drawing characters in cool outfits is always fun. It can add a lot of personality and stories. They are illustrations. If you want to feel more comfortable drawing stylized characters in close, inspired by fashion or your own imagination. These clauses for you. Hi, my name is Iva Mikles and I'm an illustrator and designer based in Central Europe. Creating engaging characters helped me to successfully work on many projects big and small, such as lego Friends animated series, which aired on Netflix. Illustrations for software companies, magazines, product the illustrations and explain our illustrations for varieties clients, for their websites and presentations. In this class, we will go on a journey of designing stylized characters in outfit, using simple shapes and colors, textures, and details. So you get more comfortable and have a strong foundation when drawing characters inspired by fashion trends and your own imagination. You will learn how to simplify the shapes, fabrics, fold, and shadows. So you can create cool outfit which will make your illustrations and characters stand out. You will also learn about proportions, silhouettes, character poses, and techniques of how you can work with the real-life references and translate them in your stylized character design, you will gain a solid skills for developing your character design style further. And we will be practicing with fun exercises to make the whole experience more delightful. To help you with the exercises, you will get access to freebies such as templates with references to draw fabrics, posing the characters, cheat sheet for character proportions. Figured them blade to style your characters. And bunch of photo references to Brown Bear imagination. By the end of the class, you will make one or more character facial illustrations. And I hope you will also have a bunch of new ideas for even more efficient designs, expressing your patient design sense and style. I will be using Procreate, but feel free to use any other drawing software or medium you prefer. And before we start, don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare to get notified when I release new classes and make special announcements about the giveaways. I also invite you to follow me on Instagram where you can see my newest artworks and the stories from my life as an artist. So without further ado, let's get started with expanding your horizons and drawing awesome characters. See you in the class. 2. About the Class: First, let me tell you a little bit more how I structured this class. In the first part of the class, we will go over some theory using fun mini exercises. You will learn useful tips and tricks for fashion illustration and your art. In the second part of the class, we will create the project together. Each lesson, we'll take you through one step of the process. From researching the inspiration, setting up the Canvas, sketching the concept, blocking the colors, adding textures and details to final effects and adjustments. 3. Hanging Fabrics: In this lesson, we will start with a great warm-up exercise. We will practice observing the shapes and we will draw and simplify the fabrics from real-life references. And you will also end up with a cute illustration at the end of this exercise. In addition to this, I will take you through my current favorite shortcuts and tips while using Procreate. And here is a prototype in this exercise. When looking at objects, always try to notice the overall shape and how you can simplify it before adding shadows and details. So we have our, our iPad and as you can see, I set up one of my artworks as a background. So of course yours will look a little bit different. But what we will obviously do because we want to use Procreate, we will open the app. And as you can see, I also have a quiet bit of different artworks with different sizes of canvasses. But for this first exercise, we will take one of the downloads of the exercise sheets which you can get into resources. And to do that, you can just click on the photo and import the image which you download it and you will have more of them and you can put them in the one album. So for now I just put one. So I'll open that. Now we have also the reference image and the color palette I want to use for this exercise. And probably you are familiar with the basics of procreate. So we have this canvas which is not too big, not too small for this exercise, it doesn't really matter. So let me take the pencil and I will also share with you some other tips how you can approach the drawing. So let's open the brushes. For this exercise. I will be using this brush. And as you can see, I created a folder for my favorite brushes which I use for more clean lines. So I call this folder edges. But originally you can find it here. In this first example. Let me zoom in a little bit. I mean, of course you can zoom in also in your own image. You can see we have this nice fancy thing with like colorful windows and buildings. I think this is enabled in Italy. So you can see this quite often in some of the southern countries and I'm sure, you know some other places where you can see this hanging clothes from the windows. And I think this is a good exercise to start drawing February x because we have this simple geometric shapes in form of rectangles. So let's start with this first, bigger ones. And I will be selecting these colors for the base shapes. So I have a color picker set-up here with this Modifier button. And then with Apple pencil. You can set it up in the Gesture controls based on your liking. You would go to gesture controls and eyedropper. And you can see that I have it here, Apple pencil with the Modifier button, and it's activated. Okay, so I can start observing the shape of this cloth. And I'm not trying to be perfect or precious about anything. We have these two curves where the cloth is hanging. And we'd, of course we double-tap. You can go back. I will make sure the shape is closed. Then I can drop the color in. And as you can see, we have this small halo here around. So by dragging more to the right, it should fill in the shape, but it didn't. So let me do it one more time and I will drag fully. This is too much overflow. I think this is fine and it should remember the amount of flow I want to use for this. Of course, you don't want to draw on the same layer as I just did. So let's go back. And I will create a new layer. So let's do it again. I will adjust the brush size and you can save the brush size by clicking here. And this is quite useful when you're drawing. So in addition to creating a new layer for our cloth hanging. Let's draw these lines first. So we can align these fabrics on the wire hanging in the same height, so it looks a little bit more believable. I will make the brush a little bit smaller because this is tiny detail. We can save these two if you want. And I will draw a line. And if you want to have it perfectly straight, just hold and the line will be straight. And you can also edit the shape if you want to have it in little bit different angle. Okay, That's it. And then let's do another one. Okay, I think this is fine. And I will create another layer for the fabrics so we can move them in case we want to. Now I will go back to the bigger brush size which we saved here. And sample the first color and observe the shapes. Again, make sure the shape is closed. And we have our first fabric here. And if you feel like the canvas is not big enough for you and you want to draw a little bit outside. You can resize the canvas, of course. Let's do that. And you can see how many layers you have available based on your tablet. So this will influence the video if you want to export it. So if you are planning to make videos for posting on social media, don't resize the canvas. I will continue drawing the shapes based on the reference image do they have? And then we will add more detail. So let's do that. And I liked this hand-drawn look. So that's why I'm not using the line tool and the quick shape Help. Now as you can see, because I have them on the separate layer, I can use the selection tool, keeping it in uniform, and I can move all of them more to the left so I can add maybe one more and I can resize them down. I don't recommend resizing up or scaling up the shapes because then you will get more pixelation. I feel like it would be nice to have different sizes. So I can take the selection tool, switch to free hand and make one of them smaller. So I'll select this one. Okay. I think this works. Okay, Nice. I will add the attachments for debt. I will make the color a little bit darker and less saturated. And I'm drawing simple triangles for that. Okay, I think they look quite good. Now, I am also happy with these, so I will merge the layers. If you want to use them again for something, you can always duplicate the layer or the whole canvas. So I can hide these layers. Move this one and pinch and merge these two. Now, I will create another layer and create a clipping mask, which is here. And you will see this small arrow. And it means that we will have anything drawn on this layer clipped to the layer below. So we will be drawing only within the area of these pixels. So as you can see here. And if I unclip this, then you can see it's outside. So let's delete. Now. I will take purple, maybe not as saturated purple as this. Maybe like this. Okay, that maybe can work. Let's see. And we will create shadow. So let's test if this color is okay. I will change it to multiply. Let me move this so we can see better and reduce the opacity. Okay, I think this can work. I will delete this with just eraser. And what I want you to focus on here and notice here is the tension. As you can see, how the fabric is attached to these wires. So we have the tension here next to the wire and then the fabric is hanging loose, of course, pulled by gravity. So we can see these lines and curved lines coming from the top part. So I will draw some of these shadow lines or the tension lines, which is telling me visually that the fabric, because it's soft, it will be hard material. You don't see these lines. So we need to switch from eraser brush. Check if we are on the correct layer. Let's see if the brush size is fine. Yeah, I think it's fine. Okay, Then I will replicate some of these lines. And I'm modifying the pressure. First. I'm pressing softly and then harder and it makes the brush shape little bit different. Okay, doesn't mean already looked like fabric. I think it's quite fun so we can reduce the opacity a little bit more. And you can of course also adjust the shape if you feel like it can be a little bit more straight. So I can delete parts of it here. And maybe I need a little bit bigger brush. Okay, I think this is great. And then I can add another layer as well with a clipping mask. Let's add details. And these I can set maybe doesn't need to have blending mode. I will take this yellow. I will make it slightly lighter. And as you can see, there are few lines here. Okay, I think this already adds nice details to the fabric. For this one, I can add few lighter dots and maybe changing the hue as well. Okay. Okay, and we are done with this practice exercise. I hope you had fun. And if you want to add to it, you can, of course, add few windows, maybe flowers, and just create the full scene if you like. And, um, yeah, let's go to the next lesson. 4. Shadows on the Trousers: To build on the previous exercise, in this lesson, we will practice observing shapes and shadows on trousers, which I think is quite useful, especially when we want to draw outfit. While looking at more references, we will think about and practice how you can reduce the amount of detail to move away from realism, the word stylized illustration. Okay, and now let's go to another exercise and let's open the second practice sheet. This time. As you can see, we have little bit more complicated fabrics or fabric shapes, not just hanging cloths or towels. So what we can do here, we can look at a silhouette and the shapes. And we can either draw separately or next to these images. Or if you feel like you want to practice on top of the image, we can do that. So I will show you that one for this first example and for second example here, we can just do the observation. So let's create a new layer. You can sample the color from the photo, even though it's quiet the saturated. You can make it more saturated. Just dragging it up. And let me zoom in. With the same brush. I will just follow the shape of the genes and drag-and-drop. Okay, I have approximate shape for these genes, which is fine for now. I can take the shape and move it here. Okay, so you can see both images and our drawing. Now, I will create another layer as we did before with a clipping mask. Change this to purple for shadows. And I will try to look at these shadows and draw some of them. I don't want all of them because it will become too complicated. So maybe I take this one, this one, and some of it here, but I don't want to overdo it in this area just to not to bring too much focus on it. So I can do one shadow here. Good. Maybe one shadow here. Okay, I think this would be enough. I can reduce the opacity as before, set it to multiply. Yeah, I think that works. Create another layer with a clipping mask. For some details. I'll reduce the size of the brush as we did before. Maybe for this one, I can take less saturated color just to add few details around the waist here. So this means this line and this with a button. I think that's okay. Okay, reduce the opacity. Okay, I think this can work. Let's do the pens for this guy. And as you can see, it's little bit different. I will do it with observation. This one is a little bit curved, even though it's also shape of the pants. But guys have a little bit different legs usually. I mean, of course there are exceptions, but as you can see on this image, the leg shape is pretty straight. So let's just do that quickly. Again, making sure the shape is closed. Drag-and-drop. Add few of the shadow lines. If you are not sure what color you used here, you can go back, that was 44 per cent normal. And you can sample the same purple. And of course we can save it in color palettes if you want to have it the same. That is to multiply again and 44%. And here as you can see, there are so many of these folds. So just choose View, which will indicate that the jeans are folded. I need to make the brush bigger. I think this is enough here. I can do this one here. This may be here. And I can use the same color. Maybe that looks better. I feel like when I'm looking at these genes, can add a button. Maybe eats to live. So I need to go back. Okay, I think this works. So you can find different images of genes and try to just practice the shapes default, how you would add them. And later we will look at other tips, how to draw outfits. But I think this is a great exercise to start and you don't have to draw all the shoes and the rest of the body just now. 5. Practice 1: Simplify the Folds: In this lesson, we'll practice simplifying the shapes using a fan object. We will imagine visiting a flower shop and we will look at the world of flower bouquets. We will try to observe the shape and then redraw the same shape in more simple lines. Also, you will be able to work on developing your own style during this exercise. And why a flower bouquet. The paper used for flower bouquets is a great breakfast tool when learning about fabrics and fault and styling the fabric folds. So let's do that. Okay, and now I opened another practice sheet. And on this one, we will be focusing on simplification. As you can see, there are lots of folds and shapes and details and the flowers have so many petals. So let's just look at how we can simplify this thing. We can practice this on more simple shapes before we go to more complicated outfits and white flowers. Because actually the paper which these flower bouquets are in its folding similarity to fabric, but it easier to see the folds and overall shape because of this little bit harder vapor, at least in my opinion. And you can use this color palette or you can create your own. I am using the same brush here as in the previous exercise. I will draw the brown bouquet paper shape in two steps. First, I will draw a random shape that I see in the photo. And then I redraw this shape with more simple lines. Okay? So the shape is something similar. What I see, I can move this to the side and think about how I can simplify the shape. Maybe let's keep it here. I will not use it anymore so I can just scale it down. And I will create a new layer. And I will think about straight lines versus curved lines. Maybe I can use even straight line for this because we have some curved lines in this part. Okay. It's not super straight, but it simplified shape. And I think it's easier to read. I can delete this layer or hide it. I don't need it anymore. And I will create another layer for the flowers. And I will try to simplify them as well. First, I will create few leaves, and I will be using these two colors. Another layer for the other leaves. So I can drag and drop and move the leaves if I want to. As you might have noticed, I'm also thinking about simplifying the leaves and I'm using this elongated almond shapes for all of these greens. Now, I will move. What do we have so far to the side so I can use more of the canvas here. And to select all the objects I am sliding to the right on each layer to highlight them. And afterwards, I can drag all the objects to the side, as you can see. Then I will create another layer for these flowers. And for the flowers here, in this case tulips. I am using almond shapes again. And for each of these flower heads, I'm imagining three almond shapes connected at the bottom. And for the petals at the back of the flower heads further away from us, I'm using another layer below the one that we already have. And I'm making these petals slightly darker. And then going back to layer with a darker green, I can add the stems. One more thing here, which you can notice is this back part of the paper, which is behaving kind of like asleep. So it's little bit darker and we can edit on a separate layer. Okay, we are done with this exercise. And if you want to add more flowers, of course you can. So maybe one more here, one more here, or more leaves. And as you can see, you can use quite simple shapes to represent the flower bouquet we have in the photo reference. So every time you are drawing your subject, try to observe first the overall shapes and the silhouettes. And afterwards, Try to think and consider how you can simplify those shapes even more. And now, let's go to the next video. 6. Practice 2: Style the Shadows: In this lesson, we will continue with our flower bouquet illustration and the exercise. We will start adding and styling the shadows. As you can see, I added few more flowers to our bouquet, but of course not as many as in the reference, so they are still readable. Now, we will continue with this one and we will add few shadows in the fault and some details. I will be adding the folds on a separate layer with a clipping mask again. And I will be using darker color tone. Okay, this one is maybe a little bit too dark. So I can sample little bit lighter, brown from here. This is maybe too light. Or you can sample a color from here. Depends on you. And go slightly darker. I think this can work maybe a little bit darker. Okay? So what I want you to notice here is actually the default is not only the tension as we looked at with the fabrics, but you can sometimes see these curved shapes with a more volume in it. And you can translate them into triangles or like this curved triangles. So you can always try to add kind of like a triangle shape for any shadow on the fabric. So this is what I would like you to practice here. As I mentioned before, I think it is easier to practice observing the shapes and drawing fabrics by looking at this type of material first, because you can spot the shapes of the folds easier. Then on the software fabric material, which can have many more folds and shadows and colors and transparency, basically many more details and textures. So practicing observation on the paper faults and their shadow shapes will help you build your visual memory on how you can draw shadows when the material faults. This means you can use these rounded triangle shapes of shadows later on the fabric as a stylized version of the shadows there. Because they look more simplified and you will see how I do it in the later lessons. And I also think it is always nice to add some flowers or the flower bouquets to the character illustration later on. So you can also use this part of practice drawing for your character illustration. So here I can add maybe two or three triangles. Now, what I want you to think about is actually how you finalize this triangle and the styling on the outfit themselves. So I will create a new layer, which is another clipping mask. And let's look at few shapes. So as I mentioned to you, you can just create a simple triangle with the curved bottom. Maybe it's a curved triangle with curved edges, like longer triangle. And as you can imagine, there are so many different types of shapes you can create as these triangles. But what can be the next thing? How you can style them? As you saw, I use quite similar tone in tones, the shadow is not too dark, so that's one of the options. So it's somehow quiet light, then your style can be quiet, let's say contrasting. That you will use very dark shadows compared to the objects you are drawing. So that's another option you can do. You can also use Blake all the time. Another option is, let's go back for the same color. But what you can do, you can emphasize the fault with a darker outline, maybe on just one side or the whole thing. You can outline all the shadows. So that can be also your stylistic choice. I can copy this one with three fingers. Duplicate. Okay? Here. As you can see, I can also use three values in this. One, shadow area, creating something like a gradient, but with more defined edges going from dark to light value, you can, of course have a smooth gradient. I can merge these layers. So what I can do is also a fold. I can do this. I can take more textured brush, maybe from something from painting. Let's take Nikko rule. Maybe can work. And you can erase parts of the shadow. So it will be kind of like disappearing. So it's like a salt gradient. Or you can also, another way that you can style the faults is drawing few lines to represent the shadow imitating shading, like with the ink pen. As you can see, you have so many options how you can style this fault. Maybe you can use sharper edge and softer blending within the shape and use different color tones. So try to think about how you want to style your faults and maybe what colors you will use for the shadows. Will it be the purple as we used on the separate layer with different blending modes. Another idea here is you can maybe use a darker value than your object, as I did here, light and darker beige. So this will influence the outcome of your final illustration. And I will be probably using this type of method, maybe without the outline. So I will probably do one color shape and then lighten the part of it. So I can lock the layer so I can draw within the shape without creating separate layer. The lighter tone. And they're all within my shape. And as you can see that it's this subtle difference. Looking back at these ideas of styling, you can achieve different look in your character illustration later on by styling these shadows and folds in the fabric. In addition to other stylistic choices you will make. Now, let's go to the next video. 7. Practice 3: Sleeve: And after we practiced with a reference of a flower bouquet in the previous exercise, it's time to start applying what we learned two parts of an actual outfit. So in this lesson, we will start practicing with a sleeve because it's quite similar to a paper in the flower bouquet and it allows for a nice transition to an outfit. I believe that practicing with a part of an outfit will help you to become more confident when drawing the full outfit lighter. So let's do it. Okay, and now in this exercise, we'll focus on drawing this leaf without the hands because they are a little bit tricky to draw. And we will focus on the simplification of the overall silhouette and then the relationship between the straits and curves and where we can break the silhouette. You can use the same color palette and maybe add the flowers if you want to. So let's start with the silhouette first. Now, I can create another layer with a clipping mask and the darker shade for folds. And as you can see, they're darker areas and lighter areas on default. So I'll first start with a lighter areas and try to see the triangles as we talked about. Now, look in the reference photo and try to notice again the tension as we practiced with the hanging fabrics in the first exercise. To see the tension on the fabric, meaning where it's pulled and therefore creating folds. I see that tension and the fabric being pulled near the elbow, creating the folds there where the armbands. There is also slight tension on the fabric, on the sleeve from the flower basket, as you can notice, pulling on the fabric. And that's why there are more folds on the forearm area, not only by the elbow. And in addition to this, there is also a little bit of tension from the shoulder, the fabric pulled down by the gravity and the whole arm and the rest of the torso. So when drawing the shadows and fault, I am following the direction of the tension and creating the simplified shadow shapes in form of triangles as we did before. And these triangles here are combined in bigger shadow shapes. So you can imagine like two triangles together. Next, as a stylistic choice, I will add another layer with darker tone within these folds. And the styling of the shadows, again, depends on your style preferences and the look you want to achieve when you are happy with your shadows, the faults. Let's dialyze the silhouette of the sleeve more to emphasize the folded fabric. And I want to create these heavier, thicker fabric. So I will emphasize the folds on the silhouette. As you can see, there is more like a straight line here in these folds because of the fabric type. And it will create more interesting silhouette for us. And to do that, I will erase part of this practice silhouette, shape. Of course, this can be done with masks, so we don't lose parts of the drawing. But for this exercise, I will just add and delete part. Like this. You can break the silhouette and it creates quite interesting shapes, I think. So you can create a silhouette which ends directly in the shadow. Maybe you can even curve at this part and straighten this shape. So I think this is a good practice. How you can work with breaking the silhouette and you can play with it like with scalping, because you are creating different shapes and curves and maybe adding an erasing. So just the overall silhouette. Then I will add the flowers now, just for fun before we move to the next exercise. Hi. 8. Practice 4: Stylize the Sleeve: The continue on our journey of styling and outfit. In this lesson, I will share with you a couple of ideas on how you can stylize and finalize your detail outfit using our puffy sleeves sweat for example. And because all of us prefer different styling and wanted to create something which is more unique to us. During this exercise, I encourage you to explore and think more which level of finish, details, stylization, and realism you like in your fashion illustration. Now, let's have a look at few examples and ideas, how you can do that. As in the previous lesson, I will show you a few examples how you can stylize these shapes. And in this case, the shapes, this leaf silhouette and the shadows on the sleeve. And as you can see, I added few lines just to indicate where the body will be, even though we are not going to draw the rest of the body just yet. But I can show you quickly how you can approach this type of style. You can just draw on top of the picture and imagine where the outlines will be. Just a few simple lines. So this is how you can do it. So now I copied the layer so I can just add to what I already have and compare the options next to each other later. Another idea on how to style these can be that you are making the shadows much darker and more contrasting to the rest of the drawing. So that can be part of your style. And as you can see, it's already creating quite different styling. So that one of the things you can do, I can undo this. And let's look in another idea how you can style this. You can add details. So for example, I really like to add these types of details on sweaters because it's usually on both parts, around the neck and on the, near the hand. And it's creating nice detail in the illustration. So I can do that by just adding a few lines here at the end of the sweater. And it's creating already this super cute detail. I think I will duplicate the layer so I can just add to what I already have and compare the versions next to each other later. Another idea is what I also like to do is to change the shape near the end of the sleeve. Just to create this type of like balloons leaf shapes. Then you can delete part of the end of the sleeve. Let's look at another idea. I can duplicate this again. Right now. I'm not too concerned about the pixels, so I can just make this bigger. So something like this. And then make the sleeve here at the end thinner. Again creating completely different look from this one. You can make this more straight following the arm. So this is another way how you can style it. I can duplicate this middle design because I kinda like it the most. I can put it here on the side. So I can just add to what I already have and compare the options next to each other later. And different idea how you can style this is that you can make this shape much bigger and use even the quick shape, edit shape. I think this is fine. Drag and drop the color. And it's this huge balanced leave, which is also quiet cool. I can duplicate this again just to try different style. It's good to name the layers. Here. I can erase parts and work with more angular shapes. So for example, like this. And as you can see already, it's definitely different styling. So you can see totally different look and feel of the illustration already by just adjusting the shape of this leaf. And we didn't even change the folds. And as I showed in the previous lesson, you can style the faults in completely different ways with shading so I can hide again some of these alerts. Look at another idea, what you can do. For this. I will create another layer under it. And I can create something like a outline. Even though we didn't work with the outline from the beginning. I liked this hand-drawn field where you don't have just one thickness of an outline. And you can use these for the overall illustration as well. And that you can just add more details. We can merge these because we don't need it anymore. I can duplicate this. And another stylistic choice, what you can do is add some stitching, which is also showing the oversize shape of the sleeve. And then if we go back to our shape here, you can also combine the curves and straight. So for example, I can do this and then create another shape here and erase. So you can add to the silhouette. And maybe I can erase this and make this part more angular. And even curve it if I want to. So as you can see, you have so many options, how you can style it. But here just few. How you can design your character. You can add different types of faults. Work with a breaking the silhouette, shading of the fault, different details. For example, these are ripped edges on the sweaters. Then you can work with outlines, other details of stitching and curved versus straight lines. So now let's go to the next lesson. 9. Silhouettes: After we practiced with a fault and styling of default sleeve, sleeve shapes and styling, let's move on to the whole figure. And so in this lesson, we'll practice observing the characters and drawing character silhouettes. And now, as you can see, I chose few examples where we will practice seeing the silhouette and observing and thinking how we can simplify this silhouette. We have two frontal views and one side view without too much perspective or foreshortening where you don't see the parts of the body that well. So what I will do now, I will just take a brush and some color and try to see and notice the silhouette as you probably practice before. So on a separate layer, they one of the colors. And you can adjust by roughly block some of these silhouettes so you don't have to be very precise or anything like that. So just to see the silhouette Here, I want to keep this out of the silhouette. Now I have this first name. So we had these three silhouettes. But what someone actually gave me the tip was that you should focus on the outside of the actual object to see the silhouette better because it's easier to simplify and notice. So let's do that. And that's another practice which is a grade when you want to practice simplifying silhouette and seeing the silhouettes. So I can zoom in. Maybe I need a darker color so you can see it better. I'm trying to use more straight lines this time. And I need the rectangle to fill the shape. Okay? The next one. Now, I can reduce the opacity. So we can see the silhouettes better. And I use this technique a lot when I'm drawing outside because then on the complex shapes and people are moving and it's harder to notice the silhouette of the object. And to simplify, I think it's much easier to actually try to notice the surrounding area rather than the object to practice the silhouette. So this is one of the tips I would like you to practice. You can take this sheet and practice with these silhouettes or find your own references and try to see the silhouette with this negative aspect kind of outside and inside of the silhouette. 10. Proportions: In this lesson, I will share with you tips and tricks that I use when I want to keep the proportions just right. And we will look at average female proportions. And you will learn how to use the guidelines to place the joints and parts of the body proportionally. We will look at characters in front view as well as the character in three-quarter view in a pose so we can see the difference. And after you take advantage of these guidelines and tips, you will be a character proportion master in no time. Well, obviously with some practice. Okay, and now let's look at the female proportions and how you can start styling and keeping the proportions the way you want to. So one of the main things, I split the canvas with eight lines and then I have two additional lines for the feed and the shoulders. As you can see, there are a part for the female figure because you can construct the figure by using parts which are the same size. So that's how you can keep the proportions easily. So we have the numbers here, and as you can see, they are indicating the evens split between the parts of the body. The second thing is that you can see on the second line there is where the chin would be approximately. Of course when you're styling, it would be in a little bit different place. Then we have the elbows and waste are approximately at the same height. Next, what I want to mention are the bottom of the knees, not the middle part of the nice about the, this line indicates the bottom part of the knees. A proximately, we skip the hands, but the hands and wrists, wrists are somewhere around the pelvis and the hands. And somewhere in the top middle part of the ties, not meat of the thighs but a little bit higher when we don't talk about styling. And then we have heels. So the last line is the heels of the character. But when we see the character from the front, usually we can see the feed or the toast little bit in the front. So you can add another line just for the feet. So these are the basic proportions and how to keep them when you want to style the character. I talk about this in my other classes. So please check out those if you want to. Have more practice and see more examples about, let me show you quickly what I think about when I'm styling the character. So this is one of the ways how you can think about styling the character before posing. Using these geometric shapes for the torso and for the hips. And why is this useful? Because you can use this simplified geometric shapes or boxes to construct and sketch up the character in different angles and proportions easier. As I said, the simplified shapes are very useful when constructing the character and posing the character. Opposed to these rectangles we just looked at, or the pink boxes. I actually like to use stick figure and imagining the character skeleton combined with the circles for the joint placements to construct the character. And you can see it here. So I like to use the placement of the joint and then connecting these joints with lines. And for the torso and pelvis, I like to use ellipse shapes because it's easier for me to draw in this way. But if you prefer more at these geometrical shapes, that also a way to go. Now, I will show you how these boxes can be applied in side view and three-quarter view, which is already boast of it. So first, let's look at the side view. So here we have the side view character. As you can see here, these pink geometric shapes or boxes are placed in the same height on the grid, is on the front view character. Now, let's look at a three-quarter view. In this three-quarter view, The being geometric shapes are still aligned with the proportions on the grid in the front view and in this three-quarter view. But this time we can also see the side of these geometric shapes. Here. I mark them in the darker color because we can see the character from the side a bit as well. The character is rotated. In addition to this, you can see that the pink boxes are angled too, because the character is in a pose as well, with one shoulder and the hip higher than the other. That, as I said, I prefer working in this way with actual stick figure, using these ellipses for the ribcage and the pelvis, and then using the joints. But you can combine these two techniques when you want to create poses which are maybe a little bit more difficult. But we will practice creating this stick figure quickly on the next example, where I look at the different poses before going into the project. And again, when you want to get more comfortable and confident when drawing character poses and gestures. Please also check out my other class. In this class, I will take you through the journey of making your character is more lively, expressive, and dynamic by using simple shapes as here, but with more examples, will be also drawing more poses. Breakfast, action lime, and many different gestures. So as you can see, this is how I would approach basic figure and then the styling. In now we can head to the quick practice before we get to the project. 11. Poses and Proportions: I believe that practice makes progress, and I like to say this quite often in my classes. So in this lesson, let's practice drawing the figures in proportion using the tips and tricks from the previous lesson. And this time we'll look at some real life for the references. So you can be more comfortable with drawing people before adding cool outfits. So in this lesson, we'll practice sketching people using simplified shapes to get the poses with the right proportions easily and quickly. As you can see, I have the grid with the character we looked at previously, and I import it to reference pictures from the frontal view as this character. And I place the imported images on this cheat sheet page with propulsion lines to match the generic figure silhouette on the left. So imagine they are, or basically notice that they are aligned with the top of the head, waste, the feet and so on, with the silhouette on the left. And to sketch, make sure you are on a separate layer and select any brush that you like for sketching. So first of all, as we looked at, you can work with these more geometrical shapes for the shoulders and the top part of the body, and the bottom part, if you prefer that. So to do that, you would just try to see where are the shoulders, waist, and the hips. Of course, you can imagine that you can use this technique when drawing outside from real life as well, when looking at people walking around or sitting in a cafe. And using these simple shapes helps you to sketch these poses quickly. Also in very limited time that you have when you are doing people moving around outside, right. Because you can't tell them to stop because you are just showing them. For that. I definitely suggest you go and check out some drawing lessons or live drawing lessons. Maybe they are in your town. They're very helpful. Okay, So this is one of the ways that I mentioned. You know, how you can sketch it, the characters with simple shapes. And now I will sketch on top of this photo references using the other technique that I mentioned and I showed you, we choose using the stick figure plus the circles for the joints and ovals for the torso or half oval for the torso. When you add the shoulder line and oval for pelvis instead of the more angular shapes that I just used in the previous example. So I can take some white color so we can see it better. And when sketching using the stick figure technique, I usually start with the head or a shoulder line, as in this case, and a half oval for the rib cage to have a core starting point for the character pose. And then I draw an oval for the pelvis and hip placement. This helped me to imagine the line for the spine by just imagining a curved line connecting the middle of the ribcage and middle of the oval for the pelvis. So that will be super easy to sketch later on when I have the ribcage and the pelvis oval. In both of these techniques that I just showed you, we'll help you sketch the human body, people around you and poses easier and quite quickly. So it's up to you which of these techniques you prefer the previous way with more rectangular shapes for the ribcage and the pelvis, or this technique with more round shapes. And I really enjoyed this technique using the ovals and then the circles for the joints to get the proportions right compared to the more angular shapes for the torso and the pelvis. Like this, I can create an interesting pose and silhouette for the character that I'm drawing quiet quickly. And when I don't see where the elbows are, I usually do it more like a half way. So I have the proportions. Correct? And then for the hands in this stick figure sketch, I will just draw two connected lines too, such as the pound and the fingers. And for more ideas on how to simplify hands, please check out my other classes too. Okay. And with the spine, I always try to do more curved shape. And then you can exaggerate the action line as I talked about in my other course. So try to practice with this sheet. You can download it. You can practice on this figure as well just to try to see the joints using the stick figure technique. And when sketching start with the shoulder line, as in this case, and adding the rib cage, pelvis, spine. So I scheduled the joints to keep the proportions and then I would connect the skeleton. And you can apply to almost any pose. But I suggest you to start with more frontal views and side views for practice. 12. Proportions and Styling: In this lesson, you will learn more tips and tricks on designing your characters and making them more unique with a specific style. More style, you might ask, yes. What makes an artist and designer is a specific choices you make. For example, the color that you use, how you stylize the outfits, what details you add, poses and silhouettes that you use, and also the way you adjust the proportions. So I prepared a silhouette template for you as a cheat sheet in the resources section so you can import it or print it out and easily play around with the proportions from that starting point. So like this, I'm saving you a step of drawing basic generic proportions yourself. So let's look at some of these examples. Okay, and now let's get to the female proportions. So first we'll look at more traditional female proportions and then we will stylize it. So you can import this image as a background, which is one of the download. And then you can insert a photo and select the figure. And it should snap directly where it's supposed to be on this cheat sheet page with propulsion lines. So imagine or basically notice that the silhouette is aligned with the top of the head, waste the feet and so on, as we talked about in the previous lessons, if it doesn't fit directly how I'm showing it here, you can resize this as a separate image because it's on a separate layer. Stylize, uh, let's duplicate this layer and we can move it. Make sure you have sniping on. So it stays in the same spot. And then we can move it next to our other figure. And now we will play a little bit with these proportions. So what I want to use for this exercise is scaling and selecting parts of the body. So now I will show you an idea how you can adjust one of the parts of the character to change the look and feel of the silhouette. And this is just one of the ways how you can adjust the proportions of your characters. So here, let's change the size of the head. And in this case, I will make the head bigger, which you can see quite often in animation. And y bigger head. Well, the bigger head on the characters makes the characters more cubed. And who doesn't like you'd characters in animation. Okay, and now let's adjust and stylize the other parts of the body is an idea what you can do and stylizing proportions of the body on your characters later on, you have so many options. And to do that, I will use the symmetry tool. I'll go to Canvas, drawing guide, edit, drawing guide, symmetry, and move it to the middle of the figure. Okay, Done. And now I can adjust the figure and it will do it on both sides. So another thing I would do is adjust the neck. Because this is another common thing in animation as well. The neck is pretty thin. The same goes to race. So I can do this and it adjusted in both sides, as you can see. Also the ankles. We can also make the feed smaller. Because then the characters look much cuter as we talked about. Then another common thing is to make the waist smaller. As you probably saw in some of the Disney animations or other cartoons. The females have these pronouns, hips and quiet small waist. And another adjustment. What we can do is to make the shoulders smaller. Again, so there are more pitied and cute. Okay, so as you can see, we adjusted just few things and the character or the person already looks much different. So another detail what we can do is hair and you can just draw it on the layer below. I already did it. So let me just import that. In addition to these changes on the body of the character, you can change and adjust and stylize the hair silhouette of your character illustration. Compared to the more realistic hair shape which we can see on the left, we can exaggerate the hair silhouette and make it bigger. I can duplicate it with sniping, move it to the other character. And because this one is stylized, I can make the hair much bigger and shorter. So we have more volume. Let me fix the hair here. For more ideas on how you can stylize the hair on the characters. Please check out my other classes as well. So this is another way how you can stylize the figure. And it would be great if you copy this figure a more times and try out different options. So I can take this one and this one and move it to the side. Okay, duplicate this one again. And use the symmetry tool as before. I will copy this here. Okay, which one is my figure now? This one. So try to play around with different proportions, move things around. You can play with the symmetry tool or just cut and paste and erase and paint. But try to think about the proportions. Copy again. Maybe make the arms longer, shorter. Maybe you want to exaggerate the palms or the feed. Maybe you want to make them much bigger. So you can also use the free hand selection tool and just make the feet bigger. Play with the proportions of your figure and try to keep an eye on the original proportions if everything still works. So play around with the proportions and see what you like. Okay, and now let's move to the next lesson. 13. Inspiration: In this lesson, we'll look at more concrete inspiration and references. References are good thing to have, especially for subjects which you don't draw too often. For example, specific people, poses, silhouettes are interesting fashion pieces. Gathering inspiration is not only beneficial for your personal illustrations and projects, but also for client work. So when new projects come your way, you may already have some references in mind or you know, in which direction you want to go. So let me share with you some tips on how to find interesting references and inspiration for this topic. So first step here is to try to search for character photo references in a side view or in a front view, because it's easier to draw and you find interesting poses in emotion walking in a side view. And the second tip here is to consider interesting silhouette. Maybe a person standing with one leg out in front view, or as already mentioned, side view of a person walking. Now, let's look at some references and start with our concept. So now before we start sketching and setting up the Canvas, Let's look at some references. So first, I would like to show you references on Google and how I like to search. So what I like to do is maybe search for oversized outfits or movie outfits or other like different outfit of the day you might like. But what I like on oversize outfits are the different silhouettes you can find. So for example, I really like how this shape kind of goes from more narrow to wide to narrow and then you have the legs. Other thing what I like about searching through Google, it's that you can of course, just save the multiple images on your desktop and then use them in the app. But also what is grade? Is these different suggestions for maybe outfits you might like. So combination with denim jacket or like different aesthetics or of course Instagram. So you can search for Instagram outfits, hashtag like outfit of the day. You might already know that because of the feeble illustrate this. So if we just look at oversize outfits, that can give you also an idea what to search for in maybe Pinterest. So that's another app, of course, I like to search through because there are a lot of fashion curated images. So as you can see, I created a mood board with collection of interesting outfits which I lived on Pinterest. And these are just my example. So you can already now start thinking about what kind of fashion or outfit references you would like to see on your mood board. What I'm looking at are, again, different shapes, patterns, and colors. And when I searched through Google, I stumbled upon outfits from Copenhagen fashion shows. So that can be something which you can search for where you look for outfits, for characters, our fashion show, so for example, Copenhagen or Milan or New York. So there are many different ones. And again, the silhouette here is quiet, interesting. And of course, the overall colors of the image can be nice inspiration for you. And other thing. What I look at with these fashion outfits are the poses. What can be interesting? Active pose, which we can exit Jerry later. So for example, on this one, I really like the movement where you actually have this nice action line and the silhouette is broken here. But maybe I can make this top part more interesting. And as I mentioned also before, are maybe moving inspirations. So what I really like about this movie are the layering of the outfit. The movie was called simple favor. And then you can have one outfits silhouette, and then there was this big skirt just under it. So that's a great inspiration for the outfit. Again, if you are shopping for clothes, maybe you can get inspired by some of the outfits there to like some online brands and you can just make a print screen and save it to Pinterest. So what I'm planning to use for this one or another tip, which I will share with you for when you look for inspiration and you are not sure about drawing characters from all different angles. I would suggest first to draw characters, adjust from the side view or frontal view. So not to go too much into different foreshortening when you draw characters like from different angles because that might be too difficult. So what I really like is actually this code because it has nice color and detail. So I might use this one for details. And I really like also these ones with flowers. Because as we drew in previous exercises that can be fun to add to our character. And one of the first images which I found is actually this one from Milan Fashion Week. And I love the silhouette of this sweater and again, the movement of these legs. So I will start off with this image as my base and work through that. And I will show you one technique where you can combine different images and sketch on top of it when you're not comfortable yet drawing just from your imagination or just looking at the reference. So that's what we will do in the next lesson. While we are still here in Pinterest, I will make a print screen of this image because I will use it later. So just with these two buttons, I find saving references like this, making a screenshot and cutting off the parts of the image that I don't need. Quite useful. And obviously you can imagine, I'm not going to copy the photo exactly in my illustration. I think this is good. Maybe like this. And then click Save to photos and you will have the photos you are using in your gallery so you can use them later. So make it print screens of pictures you want to use and maybe combine them in your illustration. And before we move to the next lesson, try to collect some of your favorite references so you're ready for the next steps of the process. And after that, we should have everything ready so we can start sketching our composition and concepts in the next lesson. 14. Setting up: In this lesson, I will show you how I use photo references together with our guideline template for the proportions when drawing on the characters. In addition to this, we will create our canvas and adjust the settings for our needs. I believe that setting up the Canvas based on your output is very important because it's very helpful to get the resolution and the DPI right in the beginning. So you don't have to redo everything from the scratch later on. Because if you start with the Canvas which is too small, you will most probably have pixelation issues with the final project and your image. On the other hand, if your canvas is too big, the number of layers in procreate will be limited and the final file may even fill up your device storage space too much. So I believe it's about balancing these two aspects. So let's do this. As you can see, I have the iPad setup with different apps on the home screen. And few of them are on the dock at the bottom of the screen, so I can access them quicker. If you haven't used the split screen on your iPad yet, I will quickly go through how I like to set it up with the apps I use the most when drawing. Next, let me show you how to add the EPS to the doc. If you don't have them there yet. You can simply hold and apps. We'll start moving as you can see, and you can drag it to your dog. So if they're just do the activate, click here. And if you want to remove it, just hold weight. And then I can move it back here. So it's not there anymore. Okay, now, let's go to Procreate. I have all kinds of different canvases here. Click on the plus sign to create a new canvas. I have, again, different size canvases. And let's create some bigger canvas. I was thinking something like a3 or a4 just to have, as I'm European, I'm thinking about these sizes, but you can see A3 is around 11 inches by 16 inches. So I will create this canvas. Now. I will resize the canvas from vertical to horizontal by rewriting the size in the Canvas settings, I'm changing 11.7 inches by 16.5 inches to 16.5 by 11.7. And I'm doing it here in the Canvas parameters as you can see. Okay? So we changed the size from being vertical to horizontal because that's what I want to use for this project. But always check the final requirements for your project where you want to use your illustration will be using 300 DPI. And I think this is good. I can click Done. Let me check the Canvas information and layers. How many layers I have available. So I have 55, I'm guessing for this illustration, I will use around 20. So this will depend on the type of your iPad and the memory in your iPad and the whole app. So just create something where you will have enough layers to work with. You can name your project canvas simply character. Or you can choose something more descriptive, like fashion character for example, or something even more specific. I will keep it to just character for now as I can always change it later in the Canvas gallery by clicking on the name there. Okay, click Done. Next. What we will do as well here is to use the lines for practice. When you're more comfortable. You don't need to use it anymore. But now, let's do it for our example here. So let's insert the guidelines which you probably have by now saved from the resources in your gallery to import the picture there on the wrench icon on the top-left. And then tap on Insert photo. When you are in the gallery, select the image which I have saved in this album. So you might have it in the reason pictures. It doesn't have to be very crisp. So we're not going to use it in some full resolution. So I can just quickly resize the imported image to fill the screen that on Fit to Canvas, which is quite handy shortcut. That should be good enough. Maybe I can make it a little bit smaller depends. I think these will fit. Okay. So just de-select. This is prepared to activate the dog. Slowly slide up from the bottom of the screen, then touch the line and drag it up for the dog to appear. And then select the app where you have the references. In my case, it's been the rest step. And move the window to the side of the screen until it magnetically snaps to the place. I always make the window smaller as well, so I can have more space for drawing and sketching. And to do that, just slowly swipe the split screen to the side. Now we can see all our references here on the side, which is quite useful. You can, of course use the split screen with browser app or photo gallery app, the same way as you can see me using the Pinterest app in this view. One last thing before we start drawing are the colors. I will be using these colors for the illustration. And one of the main colors I'll be using is this dark red one and maybe blue. And you can watch some of my other classes where I talk about how I select the colors. And for this illustration, the red color was mainly inspired by this code which I want to use for the top part. Okay, so in the next lesson, let's start sketching. 15. Character Sketch: The blank canvas can be quite intimidating. So let's look at couple of references together to get some ideas for sketching the character. And I will share with you all my secrets. Well, basically, you will see my thinking process when looking at references and what I'm considering when I want to create a unique character. I hope this will help you to kick-start your creative flow and you will be ready to start your own concept sketch and combine your references into an amazing character later on. So now, when we have the canvas setup, Let's start sketching our character and Ford practice. I will import some of the images to help us with the initial proportions. But normally I would just have the reference is on the side and sketch just by looking at them. But for a beginning and practice to get the proportions right and to see the silhouettes better. It's nice exercise. So let's do that now. I will import one of the pictures which I found. And I liked the pose of this one, even though it's not a female. But I like the silhouette of this side view reference, the placement of the legs while walking and the shape of the jacket on this character. So I will reduce the opacity on this one. So it fits our proportion lines. So top of the head, then heels. Because we still have some hair here. So it can be something like this. Okay, good. Let's reduce the opacity a little bit more. As we practiced in the previous lessons. Let's catch on the separate layer, the skeleton and the overall proportions just with a simple stick figure and the shapes. So I will stick with this purple color. And for sketching, I will be using this brush. And here in the brush studio, you can check the stabilization and the streamline. Because the streamline smooth out the line while you draw and it makes a hand-drawn lines straighter than they would naturally be. But in the sketching stage, I don't want the lines to straight. So I will keep this setting like it is here. Okay, I can reduce the size. These should be fine. And let just sketch some of the basic things. So I usually start with the head and I'm making the head smaller as we practice to feed within these two lines. Because that's also part of my style and how I stylize the characters. Then I will place the shoulder joint, the torso. And the action line should be somewhere here. And I talk more about the action line and posing the figures in my other class. So if you want to practice more, please head over there as well afterwards. So here I will place the hips and the hip joint. Then I will sketch the other leg as well. So we will have one leg straight on this sketch, which is on the ground. And the other leg in motion is in the reference. The knee somewhere here. So it's like how far away? The leg, which is in the movement, doesn't have to be exactly like in this photo reference. And I can find another reference image for this other leg and the foot have emotion later on. So I don't have to design it right away. And then one more thing what I want to do here is the shape of the jacket. Here. I liked the interesting silhouette of this jacket and how it is more narrow on the top and wider at the bottom. Then I will draw some pens on the stick figure legs. On the straight leg, I will draw them like on the reference and on the leg in motion. I will exaggerate the shape more and draw it further out. Okay, for this step, this is enough because I will not draw the arms and hands based on this reference. So I can hide these reference for now and import another one. So in this reference, I really like the sleeve and its faults and also the shape of the cardigan sweater or what is it? So let's reduce the opacity of this 12 and put it under the sketch. I will reduce the opacity of this sketch as well. I will set it to multiply so we can see the reference below better. I will sketch another layer with more defined the jacket. I will change the color to more blue so we can see it better. What we adjusted. I'll reduce the opacity of this one. So we can see this reference little bit better. Okay? So here I will start with the silhouette of this sweater jacket, and I will build up the interesting shape on top of the sketch where I already have from the previous reference image. I really like how this leaf goes out of the silhouette. So this is quite nice shape also here. And then I can just end the sleeve with this more narrow part. And sketch also this band of this leaf. And here is a little bit more straight. So I will add that shape. I also really like the color on this one because it's more diagonal. And it's contrasting nicely like juxtaposition with this bottom part edge of the sweater. So I will do this diagonal line. So we have two of them. And also in this part, I like how it's folded here. So I will sketch this fold and maybe end swear here. So there'll be like a shadow and we will have to adjust it to the leg shape later on. So this is it. And then I can follow the shape here in the front. So it's more straight. But I will end the shape of the sweater similar as we hit that jacket before. So follow my previous sketch here. So here I'm combining the sketches and I'm keeping the lower part of this sweater more narrow in this version as it was in the previous reference. Okay, I think this is fine for now. And I can see the head doesn't fit here with the neck right now. So I can take the previous sketch. Let's hide this one. I'll take the head from the original sketch and I move it a little bit and scale it down. Okay, this is fine. And let's import one more reference here. So I have the reference for the pants. I will flip this, reduce the opacity so we can still see it and try to fit it so it's aligned with our sketch. And I will also stretch the reference photo here to match it with my sketch. So it's easier for me to draw and use these new photo as a reference for the legs, pants, and shoes here. Okay, I will make another layer with little bit darker color this time. And here I'm following the previous sketch and I'm keeping the pens and the first leg straight and the second leg in motion as before. I will make them wider because I like how they are folded here. So I'll keep the same position of the legs as before. I can take inspiration from these shoes. And now I will sketch the second leg. So here as we had that followed, I will sketch it so it fits with the fold. And I will draw the second leg. Following the knee placement approximately. So I will bend the leg here. And in this case, I need to move the shoe from the reference lower so it is aligned with the shoe on the left. As I don't want the character in perspective, bad, in more same both side view. So I can put it more here. I think they should work. Okay. I also really liked this bag here. So let's add that because it's adding nicely to the overall silhouette. And I can add some flowers here, so I can find some references for that later. And here I can also mark some of the shadows, how I want to sketch them lighter. So I can do them here. Here. And maybe the side scene of the pens like the stitching. So let's hide this one. And I can mark the shadows on this too. Okay, I think we are done here, so I will not use these references anymore. So you can either delete them or if you have enough space, you can, of course keep them, but I will delete these, can open my references on Pinterest. And here, as I mentioned to you, I want to find some references for two full hours. Maybe ellipse may be in different angle. Okay, maybe these flowers are fine. Okay. And then as we talked about layering, Let's find nice reference for the layered sweater shirt. I quite like this one. I will add another layer on this jacket. So what I really like on this reference is the curve of this sweater and also the fault on the sleeves and these ribbed edge of the sweater. So I will add that now. I'm looking at the shape of this leaf here. So I will round up this part little bit. And then I can repeat the same flow here on the jacket. I will take this fault to this top part sweater and maybe keep this one straight because it would be too much of the same fold shape just next to each other. And I will keep these lines straight and this line curved. I will also add a sweater detail here on the edge. So the sweater will have this ripped edge. We can at the pocket. So we don't have to draw the hand. This is a detail. And also the stitching which is lower of the shoulder, we can add here later. And I will mark the shadows as well so I can sketch them later. Like the fold here, here, and maybe here. And maybe we can add these details here. Maybe I can try adding some buttons. Maybe not. Because after seeing them, I feel like it would be too much detail in this area of the illustration. Okay, I think we are good with their ideas here. And to balance out the silhouette shape, I will add some interesting hair shape on my character as it looks quiet empty at the top part of the silhouette compared to the bottom part. Maybe I can add the hair band or some bigger hair. And I talk about the hairstyles in my other class. So you can also watch debt for more ideas. But I think for this one, I will do a longer hair. And now on another layer, I will put everything together in one more precise sketch. I will reduce the opacity of all the sketch layers where they hit until now. And I will begin tracing on this extra layer on top. And I will end up later with nicer and more clean concept, which I can then use for the color blocking. So when you are happy with your concept sketch as well, please do the same and then I will meet you in the coloring stage. Okay, we are done with the sketch, and in the next lesson, we will start coloring and adding the base shapes. 16. Color Blocking: In this lesson, we will start applying the first colors in our character fashion illustration. I will be using a color palette inspired by the photo references that I showed you in the previous license. I will show you increasing coloring process that will make the coloring process more fun. And I also believe speed up this part of the illustration. And of course, please feel free to explore your own favorite color palette to make the illustration more unique to you. Okay, and now let's put down the basic colors for our illustration. As you can see, I have the cleaner sketch. I can hide all the other layers. I can group them so we are more organized. And as you can see, I exaggerated the flowers little bit more and I made the hair also a little bit bigger for my style. And you can think about what you want to exaggerate. Maybe you want to exaggerate the feet or the shoes are much bigger or smaller, you can make the flowers even bigger, hair bigger. So you can play around with the proportions of your character. So now I will set this layer to multiply so we can see it reduce the opacity of it. And I will create a layer below. Switch the brush. I will take the brush what we had before. And as you can see, I have these three brushes which I saved here for cleaner lines. These two are more or very clean line when I'm not using the selection tool to create shapes. And for this case we will use this brush which has more rough edge, which little bit of texture to our edges. So I will take one of the colors which will be base already in our character. So I don't have to redraw that part. I will take this blue, afford the whole base of the character. And I will carefully follow the sketch what we have here. I will do that now. And you can also go ahead and create a silhouette for your character. Okay? And if everything is close properly, I can now drag and drop the color within the shape. Okay, so I have to shake the threshold so it doesn't flood the whole canvas. Okay, this seems to be fine and I can check if it is field. Okay, well, let's hide the sketch for a second. Okay, I think it looks fine. And if you have some leftovers like this, I can create another layer, create the clipping mask, fill the whole layer. And now this small mistakes or how to call them are gone. So you can see the difference. Okay, it didn't change the outer shape. I can merge these two shapes and turn on the sketch layer. And as you saw, I was using clipping mask, and that's what we will do with other colors as well. So we will stick to our silhouette. But because we carefully created the shape for the overall character, I can now color the rest of the shapes much easier. So let's start maybe with the code, because as I showed you in the references, I really like these kind of orangey red for the code. So that will help me to determine the other colors of the character as well. So I'll create a new layer. I will take the red color. And mainly I need to be careful in this part and in the outer shape. It doesn't have to be very clean because we clip it to the shape. Okay, and here I can go outside of the shape as I told you to close it, I can fill it with color and clip it to our shape. And we have one of the shapes are ready now. So now let's do the sweater, which will be under the code. I want to have the sweater wide to contrast nicely. So let's change the background so we can see it better. I need to reduce the lines here so we can see the background. I can still keep the lines in case I will use them again. I can bring this layer out of the clipping mask and connect the lines so I can see them outside of the silhouette. Okay. I can fill in the shape and bring it back. Okay, that works nicely. And to reduce the amount of layers, I will draw the shoes on the same layer because they are the same color. At least I plant them in the same color. So this is how I can keep myself organized. And if I go out of the shape, which I don't like, I can just erase it here. Okay. Okay, Nice. And on the same layer, I think I can draw the color for the bag as well. Okay, I think that works nicely. And now let's draw the face. Here. I want to be a little bit more precise because it will be on top of the hair and then the hair. I don't have to be super careful around this area. Okay. And I will put it below the sweater. I think it works. Okay. And now I can create the hair. For the hair. I don't need to be careful at all and you don't see anything right now. But I think I closed the shape. Let's try it. Okay, great. So I have the hair. What else are we missing? We are missing the flowers. So let's create a base like darker green and then we can build the other greens on top of it. And we are below the sweater. Okay. Okay, Great. And now more to the defined flowers. I will, I will create another layer for the flowers. Maybe I can add one more flower here, even though I didn't sketch it there. Here, I have to be careful not to cover the pants. Okay, I think this is good. And now let's add shadows. So I will create another layer. Above all the layers. Create Clipping Mask, set it to multiply and take purple color, and hopefully it will fit with all my elements. So let's test it out. I will start with the shadow here and fill it with color. Okay, I think it works quite well. I can reduce the opacity. I think that works, and maybe I can make it more saturated and a more blue. Let's see if that better. It's a little bit lighter. Okay, I think this color works quite well. So multiplies set around 43%. And I will continue filling in the shadows and trying to observe the shapes as we practiced in the previous exercises. So I mark them down where I want to add some of these shadows. And I will keep adding them on the same layer. I will also add the shadow under the sleeve because that's where less of the sun will get. Because if we imagine the light coming from the top, maybe top right, there will be a shadow and that does leave as well. The same. There'll be a shadow under the jacket. And as you can see, it's creating different types of shadow on different colors. So which is quite nice. I can add shadow to the bag as well. Maybe like this. And we're still drawing within the silhouette. And I can add some shadows to our flowers as well, quiet easily. So on bec of these leaves. And you can add also few details on the flowers like this, as well as on the leaves. And now let's add a shadow on the hair as well. And because we have the face in the foreground and we have all the shadows on one layer. I will create a selection. By clicking on the layer. Select. It will select the face. Now, I will invert. And I can draw on the multiply layer of our shadows. And I don t have to be precise the face. So this is quite handy when you want to create this type of shadow. Nice. Now, I will select the sweater, coloring in the shapes. And I can continue selecting these shapes. Okay, I will also add a few shadows on the sweater and also the shadow under the neck. Okay, Looking at these shadows, I think I can change the hue to be a little bit more blue. Okay, I think that's good. And I think I already do use the opacity slightly. Okay, I think we are good and we can move on to the next lesson where we will add some textures and some details. 17. Texture and Adjustments: At this stage, we add some spice to our illustration, which is, you might have guessed it, the pattern on the outfit. And this pattern is very easy to add to our illustration. And at the same time, it's quite unique. In addition to this, we will also add the face to our character, which will breathe life into our concept at this stage. So let's do that. Okay, and now let's add some pattern to our jacket here. So what we are going to do, we will use brush with the pattern. You can also import an image and clip it to this shape if you don't have to use the brush. So either you created some type of pattern you can place here as an image, as a PNG. So we can still see the color behind it. Or you can draw by hand. And we want to add the pattern under the shadows. So I will create a layer here. As you can see, when I draw the dots as a pattern, just like this. It is on top of all the layers below and covering both the jacket and the sweater. But I don't want that look because I want the pattern to appear only on the top jacket. So let's go back. And I will make lighter color, maybe this light beige. I will go to textures. And as you can see, I have these two brushes here. This comes with the app. So you can duplicate this brush. Go to the brush, go to the Grain, and increase the scale. So I think maybe something like this would work. And as you can see, this is the brush that I created. Now, I can draw on top of the code. And as you can see, it's creating this lovely texture. And you can press harder or softer to create more solid shape. But don't lift the pen and start again because it will create more blurry texture as you can see. So I can leave it as it is now. Here. I can set it to maybe Screen Mode, Color Dodge. Maybe normal is fine. Okay, and now as you can see, it's going also outside of the shape of our code, which we don't want. So I will go to the code shape, select. The code is selected, and now going to the pattern layer and mask the layer. Perfect than now the pattern is only on our code. I can reduce the opacity because maybe that's a little bit too much. And I think this is quiet, lovely. If you want to adjust the color, you can always go back to the hue saturation. And maybe I can reduce the saturation so it's more white. And I can also increase the brightness. Perfect. And now let's add some details on a separate layer. Let's add the face. Because that's quite nice. Because it adds character. Because it adds more personality to our character, of course. Okay. Now I can add few lines to define the sweater. These can be lighter, purple. Just to make the shadows. We can sample the color, but I'm the shadow and add details that way, so it's matching. Here. I can add the edge of the sweater as we saw in the reference. At the end. I think we can add some subtle looking buttons here. And another detail which we can add here that we saw in the references, the shoulders teaching on the jacket. Also the scene on the pants. Here I can make it more blue. And maybe also on the shoes. And also few strands of hair. Also few loose strands of hair. Okay. I can hide the sketch now because I don't need it anymore. And try to see if I want to add more definition. So let's see how this looks in multiply. And here, let's also test out the opacity of the layer. Okay, I think this works fine. And I will add another layer with more defined shadows. So let's duplicate this one. I will drop darker color. So it's a little bit darker. And now I will add a mask to it. Thick brush. I will take the brush from my other lesson, which has more texture. And draw with Blake within the mask. So I can reduce the shadows a little bit more. And I will keep the darker spots only in the areas which I want to emphasize. I can add the mask to this one as well. And reduce the edges of the shadows too. If you want to add back to the mask, you can simply draw with white. Okay? I think this works very nicely. And here we can also try out the different color of the shadows to test out a different look and feel. But before we do that, let's make a copy of the canvas so we can go back to the original version if you want to, after we make all the changes. Now merging the layers with shadows. So we have one shadow layer. And here I will change the blending mode of the layer to normal. So we can see it better. We can lock the pixels. And now I can change colors quite easily. And for the shadows on the pens, I can test out this slightly darker and more saturated blue. Okay, I quite like this look. So the shadows here are more subtle now, but still nice and bright. Okay, that's nice. And I can go for more saturated red for the jacket. And I can also change the shadow of the hair to these more saturated dark red. So please test out different colors for your shadows to find the look of the illustration that you like the most. And to keep the consistency, I will keep the same darker saturated blue, green also for the flowers. Let's see how it works on the flowers now. Just on the leaves. And on the flowers, I can try this darker red. What I did on the jacket. I need my work nicely. When we set it to multiply, we will see sometimes the purple works very well on all surfaces. And sometimes I like to change a shadow color because I just prefer little bit different look, but it's up to you, as you can see on this bag. I think it works quite nicely. But maybe I can try lighter purple. Let's try it with multiply what loop we will get. So let's go back to multiply. I like it on the flowers. I think that's quite nice. So we can set the color, something like this. And I will maybe change the shape of the on the back. Something like this. I think that's pretty nice. I loved the purple on the sweater, which is, I think great. So here we can go more saturated. We still see it. I think that's pretty nice. Let's try different background. I will keep the background color on a separate layer so I can swap them around easier. And I will try yellow. It's pretty nice, but the flowers are blending in. So let's try green. Okay, these pale green, I think works very nicely. So I will keep the background in this color. And now we can move on to the next lesson. 18. Details and Effects: At this stage, we are almost done with our character efficiently illustration. So in this lesson, we will make our character more unique by adding a few more colors, storytelling details, and vile new patches. You will also learn how to add nice professional-looking finish your illustration with some use of cool texture effects. All of these adjustments help the character to jump out of the bait. And people looking at it will be like, Wow, this is so cool. Well, let's hope so. And now let me show you how you can do that. Let's start by adding a little bit of storytelling detail that I mentioned before. In I think a good place for debt is to write something on the bag. Here is many people like tote bags and they can relate to them. And also you can have a bag from the place that you visited, or a bag with a favorite quote or something like that. This type of detail, we'll add a nice storytelling to our illustration and can tell our audience more about our character. Here, I can test out a subtle orange or beige color. I don't want to have it so visible. I mean, still visible, but not too dominant in the illustration. And as I said, you can write the name of your favorite city. For example, maybe a CT that you visited, a favorite quote, or a logo or name of a festival that you like. You have so many options. I will write a part of the phrase, I love New York because I imagine this character shopping for flowers with this type of a tote bag. Maybe she visited New York in the past, or she lives there. You can decide, or you can let the audience decide, right? That can be part of the story there. Plus, you probably guessed it. I really like the New York vibe and other places you can visit there and creative activities that you can do there. So that's my decision there, what to write on the bag. And I can't wait to see what you decide to add as a storytelling detail to your illustration. So you can make it more visible or like this. And maybe I'll reduce the opacity and color of this one a little bit more. So it doesn't take over. Okay, I think this is enough. Now, zooming out and looking at the overall illustration, I think I need to emphasize the shadows in some areas a bit. Because I want the sleeve and other shapes in the silhouette and the outfit to be still visible and recognizable even with this awesome pattern, which is quite dominant in this design. And to do that, I can create another layer, select the shadow layer, and draw with them. So I will take the color from the shadow, make it slightly darker. Set it to multiply. Okay, reduce the opacity. I will edit also to decide. And a little bit on top of the hair. And same here and this leaf. All right. And here I can also add few more subtle details to make the illustration a little bit more interesting. Maybe subtle lines here on this sweater. Okay, I think that's pretty cute. And then I can add color to the shoes and pants, Lima bean. So to do that, I will create another layer. I will take gray, purple, these saturated. Another detail which I think will make the illustration more interesting is some color on the pants. So I can add a subtle white line which can represent the stitching or a fault on the pens. And I will delete this from the details. So we will have this white line here. Okay? And I think that everything is working quite nicely. And if you want, you can add the second hand here in the background, within the silhouette or separately if you want to introduce a little bit more color, but I think it works, okay, as it is. And now let's add also the shadow. To do that, I will create a separate layer. I will rotate the canvas a little bit so it's easier for me to draw thick purple. Hey, I think this is fine. Set it to multiply and reduce opacity. I think this is pretty nice. And before we move on to add some of the effects, Let's go through the layers just as a recap or just like overview. So you can see which layers I used and you can work with as well. So what we had was the line reference, which we don't need anymore. Then I use separate layer to test out different backgrounds and switch them on and off. Then I have a shadow layer which I can set to multiply. This group is for the sketches which we used before. Then I have one silhouette layer and all the other colors which are clipped to this silhouette. So the colors of the outfit. Then I have layer with the texture on the code, with the mask. So I can mask the texture normally to the code area. And then I have two layers with the shadows. One darker, one slightly lighter. And then I have the layer with details. And here is our original sketch, which we use to create our silhouette. Okay, and before going to the final adjustments on the whole canvas, which will apply to all our colors in detail. And I also adjusted the face slightly. I made it a little bit bigger. I edit few colors like the lips and nose. And this depends on your style. Of course, how big the head and the face should be compared to the buddy. And I also adjusted the skin tone to be slightly darker. And now I can go ahead and copy this canvas and to do the final adjustments and few tips on nice effects when you want to export your artwork. So I will select this. So I will duplicate the canvas because I want to merge the layers in order to add this effect. So I will delete the sketch and group everything else. Okay? And now here I will delete this layer because I don't need it anymore. I will group these layers. I can flatten this group, just make sure you have the copy of the other one before I will duplicate this layer. So I can apply the filters and effects on the layer separately and then play with the opacity of the layer later. So let's apply the first effect, which is this one. And it's quite fun to play around with because it creates this nice texture. So by sliding to the right, you will adjust the amount. I think 4% works quite nicely. And as you can see it, adding these nice detail to some of the colors. Okay, this is good. And now I can reduce the opacity of this layer maybe to how? It's fine, I think. Then I will duplicate the bottom layer one more time and add one more effect. And I will select this effect, which is also very fun because it adjust some of the colors. I think it's mostly visible on, for example, these shoes here. So let's adjust. And if I move the slider to the right quite a lot. You can see the difference here on these shoes and depends. So let's keep it maybe to four per cent. And it adds this nice color adjustment to some of the edges. So I think this is enough. Okay. There you go. Here is the final character. And if you want to export the character, you can, of course, export the time-lapse video. Or you can export a PSD and save it to a computer, JPEG image or a PNG. And if you want to do animated gifs, you can of course, check out my gift class and animation there. So I have more tips in that class. So I hope you enjoy the class and I can't wait to see what outfits you will create and what references you will use for your characters. 19. Bonus: Extra Character: In this bonus lesson, you can watch my browser's of illustrating another character to get even more inspiration on how you can approach your own design later. And in this example, I'm drawing the character in different pose, combining various references and color palettes. And I'm also drawing hands, which I mentioned are more tricky to draw. So you can always hide them in the pocket of the outfit if you want to. All right. Yeah. Hello. All right. Yeah. Hello. 20. How Did It Go?: So that's it guys. I hope you enjoy the class learned new tips and tricks, and now have a bunch of ideas on how to approach your own character facial illustration. And I also hope that you are super inspired and you want to create more character illustrations now. And you might have already researched a bunch of facial images as references. And I would love to see your projects, so please share your awesome creative ideas with me and other students in the project section. And in addition to that, please share the class with your friends and family so they can come along the journey to also please leave a review so I can learn from your feedback and to learn about my new classes, announcements, and giveaways. Follow me here on Skillshare and on Instagram at art side of life. To add to all of that. For more videos, also check out my YouTube channel where you can find a variety of content. And also for freebies, beeps and update. Please sign up for my mailing list at art side of life, the gum. So thank you again for being here and see you in my next class.