Drawing People Portraits with Procreate Symmetry: Stylized Character Illustration

1. Introduction: Drawing character portraits [MUSIC] it's a lot of fun. Adding cool hair, fashion props and flowers can create a lovely lush look in your character illustrations. If you want to feel more comfortable drawing stylized character portraits, as well as major process of drawing portraits with lots of colorful details easier, this class is for you. Hi, my name is Iva Mikles and I'm an illustrator and designer based in Central Europe. Creating interesting characters with lots of colorful details help me to successfully work on many projects big and small, such as LEGO Friends, an animated series which aired on Netflix. Illustrations for software companies, magazines, and illustrations for various clients, for their websites and presentations. In this class, I will take you through the journey of designing stylized portrait illustration with lots of botanical details, fun hairstyles and fashion drops while using simple shapes, bright colors, and symmetry. So you get more comfortable and have a solid starting point when designing your own character portrait illustrations. You will learn how to use symmetry and balance portrait proportions starting from sketching the basic shapes, finding the right placement for the facial features, and adding hairstyles and accessorize, before putting it altogether in a large composition. During the class, you will gain a solid skill for developing your character design style further. In addition, you will also get a cool freebie. Color palette ideas for your character portrait. I will be using Procreate, but feel free to use any other digital software or medium you prefer. Last but not least, before we start, don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare to get notified when I release new classes and make announcements about the giveaways. I also invite you to join me on Instagram where you can see my newest artworks and explore the stories from my life as an artist. Also, I would love to see and share your projects. So don't forget to tag me in the stories or in the posts. Let's get started with expanding your horizons and drawing awesome portraits. See you in the class. 2. Class Overview: [MUSIC] First, let me quickly tell you how this class is structured. Firstly, we will go over the tools and brushes that I will be using during this class. Then I will share with you the gestures which I often use to make my process easier. Afterwards, we will look at the symmetry tool and how you can use it to your advantage for illustrating portraits. Afterwards, we will go over the face proportions and what to consider when constructing the portrait. In addition to the tips on drawing facial proportions, I will show you how to use symmetry to balance the facial features and the proportions in the portraits. Then we will jump into looking at references and sketching hairstyles which I think is so much fun. I will also show you references and ideas for various cool accessories that you can consider for your portrait illustration. After that, we will talk about how you can create a lush feeling in your portrait illustration, as well as use compositions inspired by real-life reference images. Afterwards I will also share my tips and show you my process of bringing the concept sketch to color using symmetry. When coloring, first we will fully color the character and then we will add all the flowers and leaves in color to create that lush feeling with lots of flowers and leaves and colorful balanced composition with depth to help the character stand out. You can take the project in parts. First making the character and then adding the botanical elements when you have time. To make your project and illustration unique and more in your style and more you, I suggest that you try making your own design choices along the way to develop your aesthetic. For example, using different facial feature designs, maybe you can draw the mouth or eyes differently than me. Also trying out different hairstyles is always fun. You can try out different ways to draw hair from references and as you know, we all like different looks so try to make it your own. Maybe drawing your current hairstyle or a hairstyle that you would like to have. Also, try developing your own style using different color palette. In addition to that, try different simple leaf shapes or different flower shapes. Maybe adding your favorite flower design. Making your own design choices can be challenging but also fun and very rewarding, but most of all try to have fun during the process. Now, let's start and see you in the next video. 3. Brushes and Gestures: [MUSIC] Now let me show you the tools, brushes, and gestures which I will be using in this class. Let's do that. Here I am in Procreate and I will open some older artwork so we have something to locate which is colorful and more interesting than just blank screen. Let me start with brushes. I will have a smaller selection of brushes which I will be using in this class. I will start with this first brush, which is one of my favorites. You can originally find it in this folder. You can see it right here. Then if we go back to my folder with the favorite brushes, you can see these choke-looking brush which behaves like this with light texture. This brush I created in the brush class, which you can find also in my profile. You can create exactly the same brush. But if you haven't done so yet, you can find similar brush in this section. Let me find it. You can find similar brush in this folder. If you don't have that brush, you can use this one as a replacement. If you want to drag and drop the brush into your favorite folder, simply take the brush and drag it to your folder and just drop it there. But I will not be using this brush, so I'll just delete it by sliding to the left. Delete brush, and that's that. If you're wondering how to create a new brush, you just slide on the selection of your brushes down and this plus sign will appear. By pressing the plus sign, you can create new folder. Third brush you can find in this folder. Originally it is called like this. I don't want to butcher the name, so I'm not sure exactly how you're supposed to pronounce the name, but this is the brush. If we go back to our folder, this 4th brush is also a brush which originally comes with Procreate. You can find it here. It is super cool. It's just right here, one of the original brushes. This is also what I really like about Procreate that there are lots of brushes which comes with the app which you can use. This last brush we will be using, you can find in this folder. You just scroll down and it is right here. I dragged and dropped the favorite brushes into my new folder so I can find them easier when I need them. [MUSIC] These are the brushes that I will be using mostly throughout the class. But feel free to find your own favorite brushes and experiment or follow along with the same brushes. Now let me show you some gestures and tools which I will be using during the class. I will take this first brush. Most of these gestures you probably already know. You have the brush tool right here on the top. I will be just using brush most of the time and tap to undo. Then you can change the brush size just here on the left. I don't usually use the opacity, but maybe we can exploit it during the class. But usually I just use this size of the brush. Then of course, I also use eraser. Then if we open the panels with layers, you can create clipping mask by clicking here on the left side of the layer and selecting the clipping mask. You will see this arrow. Then I also use alpha lock, and you can see the checkered thumbnail after you activate it. I mostly use alpha lock and clipping mask during this process. Then we will be also using drawing assist. You can see that it's activated on the layer with the word assisted drawing. Every time you create a new layer, you have to activate it again. You can deactivate it the same way. Always remember, the assisted needs to be always activated again on each layer. Then I will be using the selection tool. Most of the time, freehand selection tool. If you draw something, you will create a selection. I mostly use it to move objects. If I go to this layer with some art in the layer, I can select the flower. [MUSIC] This is quite rough selection, so not the best. Then you will take the arrow and you can move the object around the canvas or I use swiping with three fingers to duplicate or copy paste, and we will have two flowers on the canvas. We will be using also this function to create more objects during the class. I can undo that. Then I have a color picker set with side button and a pen. [MUSIC] You can choose your preferred method in the settings of the app. One last thing here is the drawing guide and symmetry. We will be using this one during the whole class to simplify our process and also speed it up so we can create the portrait easily and quickly. [MUSIC] In the next lesson, let me show you how I use the symmetry tool. You can get more familiar with it and make your illustration of the portrait easier and faster with this tool. Let's look at it so we can practice and see how it works. 4. Symmetry Introduction: [MUSIC] Now, let's look at the basics of symmetry tool and how I like to use it. You can use the same techniques in your illustration process as well. Here we are still in the same art work, we can practice some simple shapes. First of all, I will go to the settings of the app and I will find drawing guide. I will activate it, and you will see this line appearing on our Canvas. If we zoom out, you can see it's in the middle of the Canvas here. If we go to edit drawing guide, you will see more options. We can see we have 2D grid, we have isometric grid. You can see the perspective grid and you can create the vanishing point, which I also showed you how to use in my other class about the perspective, so go to that class if you want to explore this one. But in this class, we will be using the symmetry guide. As you can see, it is in the middle of the screen and you can adjust the opacity of the lines. If you zoom in, you will see it quite opaque or quite transparent, so you can adjust how you like it. Then you can also adjust the thickness of this line to your preference, how visible you want to have it when you are drawing. Then you can also adjust the color, as you can see, if I do it like pink or red and I have a purple background I don't see it very well. In this case, I will set it to white and I will adjust also the thickness. If you click on options here, you can see we have vertical symmetry set, which means it's the middle of the Canvas. [MUSIC] As you can notice, there are other options of the different symmetries, but in this class, we will focus on the vertical symmetry. There are plenty of things you can do with the other options, but then this class would get super long, so let's just focus on one for now and maybe explore the other ones later. We have the horizontal symmetry here. If you zoom out, I can't zoom out now as you can see. I have to click Done, then I can zoom out and go back to the edit drawing guide and look at the options. If you click on Horizontal, you can see the line is in the middle. Then you have symmetry based on quadrants, which splits the Canvas into four. And then you have also radial symmetry, which have this type of guide, which is great. When I mentioned guide, we can move on to this option which is called assisted drawing. Here you don't see anything happening. When this option is off, you can use the lines as a guide, which we will use in the first part of the class when we will be sketching the face, we will be still using the vertical symmetry, not the radial in that case. But what this means is that you can draw with help of this guide, but nothing else will happen. If you turn on the assisted drawing, it means if you draw on one side of the Canvas, it will appear also on the other side of the guide, which is super-helpful and it speeds up the process quiet a lot. These are the two options which we will be using in this class. One more thing here before we click Done is that you can actually move the guide here by tapping on the blue circle in the middle and you can move the guide where you want it to be, which is super great. You can draw here in this part of the Canvas, then you can move it again and draw somewhere else. I really like this option, and if you're wondering how do I find the exact middle? Again, I usually do just this. You can switch to different one and if you click again on the vertical guide, it resets to the middle of the Canvas, which is super-helpful. Now I will move the guide here so we can just practice and sketch a few shapes here on this Canvas. I will click Done. I will check if the layer has assisted drawing activated. I will take white color, so we can see it on this Canvas. As you can see, if I start drawing here, it appears on the other side, which is super great. I can sketch circles. [MUSIC] Then you can practice sketching half ovals. That can be like top of the eye. You can try a full eye like this. Very simplified eye obviously. [LAUGHTER] You can use this to reflect on the other side. Try different shapes to familiarize yourself with this tool just to see how it works and what can you draw. Because you can draw on one side very simple flower, or you can draw the flower right on the line here and go back. Try a few different shapes to see and get comfortable with how this line works because obviously if you draw a circle just here on the side, it looks a little bit different than if you draw it here, because if you start somehow in the middle, then the crossing of the lines is completely different. Just try maybe circles few times to see how you draw. Because naturally I actually start on the left side. If I am using the symmetry tool, I can just draw from this side and then adjust the curve if I want to with the help of quick shape. But as you can see, it works completely differently than if you just draw a line here and edit the shape. It is editing on both sides, which is quite fun. You can work with a circle and then also tap and create perfect circle, and you can always edit the shape. As you can see, it creates some funky things. Then you can also draw a line which is super-helpful and also quick. You can just draw from one side and just straighten the line. Then you will have a perfect line. [MUSIC] Now try to practice more with the symmetry guide, with the assisted drawing activated and maybe also deactivated and see what shapes you can create and how it behaves. You get a little bit more comfortable and you don't get surprised how it behaves when you draw more complex shapes and when you actually want to create the character. Do that now and in the next lesson, we will start sketching the face. 5. Face Proportions: [MUSIC] Now I will open new Canvas so we can start sketching the portrait and play with the proportions that we want to achieve with the help of symmetry guide. Let`s do that. Here I will go back to gallery. As you can see, I already have a Canvas prepared here. You can create a new Canvas by pressing on the plus sign. Let me show you the settings of this Canvas. If I go here to crop and resize and settings, I have it set to 16.5 inches to 11.7 and 300 DPI. The canvas is big enough for me to actually use the sketch as a base for color drawing so it will not be too pixelated and I don't have to worry about resizing it again. You can create something which is big enough for the purpose you want to use the illustration for later on, especially if you create your own design and you want to maybe print it out and have a high resolution of your illustration. Here I can click "Done". Now, I will activate the drawing guide. As I am in the new Canvas, the drawing guide, it's set to the first option. I will have to go to symmetry again. You can see I have the symmetry guide already set to vertical as a first option. As we have a white background, I will choose pink color for the guide as it's more visually appealing and I just like it when it's a little bit more colorful than just in this dark tones. I can click "Done" and I can check on the layer if it is assisted. In this case, when I want to practice drawing the head of the character, I will disable the option for now. It's not assisted drawing and I will just use the line as a guide here so you can see it's pretty faint here and with the two fingers swipe, you can reset the Canvas to full screen. I will take a different color, something darker, maybe dark blue. You can actually see what I'm sketching. Let me resize the brush. Tested how big is it? Maybe doesn't have to be so dark. I can reduce it for this first step. First, we will use these bigger brush to find the main shapes. Then we will use thinner brush stroke to redefine the face features and proportions. I prefer drawing the circles a little bit smaller, which is more in my comfort zone. You can practice drawing circles on the line and see if you create circle which you actually like. For example, I quite like this one, but you can practice more. You can always erase these and make nicer circles. I'm trying to do bigger circle here so you can see it better. But as I said, for me, it's much easier to create a circle with smaller movements of the wrist even though it's better to actually use the whole forearm. [MUSIC] If you use the whole forearm, you can practice bigger circles with the help of the guide. Now we have bigger circle. If you mark the middle of the circle, you can create a line and hold as one of the first guides to create your portrait. Then I will create another line which will help me to create middle part of the face. Then I will measure these two distances and create a line approximately the same distance as these two. This will be my guide for the base of the chin. Then the next step will be to create cheekbones as two angled lines here going towards the chin. Afterwards, I can connect these lines and these will be the jaw of the character. [MUSIC] We are creating standard, symmetrical adult female character with these proportions. These proportions are not pushed in any way. The next step will be to draw ears. We'd usually start around this top line, and where this circle is meeting the line here. I can draw approximate ears here. [MUSIC] If I split this line, again, this will be a guide for the middle of the mouth here. We have the basic structure of the head, which is super-helpful already just using the line as a symmetry. Now when we have these as a guideline, we can sketch a few more lines to mark approximately where the eyes of the character will be. Let me import a drawing reference so we can compare the proportions of the face with this character, and you can see in real life where the features are. We're still on the same layer. As you can see, the eyes end in the middle of the ear shape and the eyebrows are around the top part of the ear. I will start creating a few guidelines, especially when you're starting out. I would suggest three guidelines for the eye shape, depending on how big the eye shape you want to create for your character. If it is very cute character, maybe you want to create very big eye shape. But for this purpose, we will create smaller eye shapes. Let's create the guideline, starting somewhere around the middle of the ears. [MUSIC] Then I can create another guideline for the top of the eyes and middle of the eye. As I like to create smaller eye shape for my characters. As you can see, the nose and somewhere below the ears. As you can also notice on our guide, the nose, you can place where the lines of the circle meet the guide going through the middle of the face. I can sketch the eyes roughly. The top line will serve for the top eyelid. [MUSIC] The bottom line will help me to create lower eyelid and then I can create the iris. This first line that we created in the middle of the circle I will use for the eyebrow. Usually I start with the eyebrow where the eye starts and ends also where the last eyelash is. [MUSIC] These are the rough shapes for the eyebrow. When you want to recreate the eye on the other side, you want to keep the same distance as your eye size is. For example, if this eye is like this size, I want to keep similar distance on the other side. I can already see that I can move this eye a little bit to the left later on. But for now, let's just sketch the second eye using the guides in the same way. Also other thing is try to keep the same distance and the gap within the eye. Let me show you with different color. Oops, so something lighter. Distance inside of the eye from the corner of the eye should be the same on both sides. Now she looks a little bit like a cat. Never mind. [LAUGHTER] Let's go back. I will take the blue color again and I will sketch the second eyebrow. Then if we sketch the mouth, so this is the middle of the mouth as a guide. If you create, again two lines above and below this first line, this will create your guideline for the lips. You can create thicker top lip, for example and I can take slightly lighter color here to sketch the bottom lip. Now we have very full lips. You can create also smiling character by just adjusting this corner of the mouth. We have very rough guideline and it might seem that this top part is quiet empty, but we will still have the forehead and the hair in this top part. As a next step, I will reduce the opacity of this sketch so this very rough sketch. We can redraw the character on a separate layer with smaller brush size. We will be more precise with the shapes and placements now. Now I will also turn on the Drawing Assist so we can start creating the face features just on one side and it will be mirrored on the other side. It will help us to create very symmetrical face without too much effort. Before we start recreating, you can see that the eyes are a little bit in different shape and also distance from the middle of the face. I can move the drawing slightly so it's matching the guide, or you can move the guide. This should be fine. Now I will go to the new layer and start recreating the face features more precisely. I can zoom in. I can make this one a little bit smaller so it's not in the way. You can see that when you draw the iris, it's a little bit tricky with the symmetry tool. I will just draw everything else but the iris and I will draw the iris on a separate layer so let's create the eyebrows. [MUSIC] If you are curious about designing different face features, you can check out my other class where I show you different styling choices when drawing the simplified stylized characters. Now for the nose, I will draw simple curve to suggest the nose bottom and the nostrils, with a mouth so this will be the middle of the mouth. She will be smiling slightly, and corners of the mouth will be also pronounced. I will draw the shadow under the mouth. Now I can draw the whole face shape. This doesn't have to be perfect because we will still have the hair. The chin here. I can make her chin a little bit wider. You can create the shape of the head which you like. I can make the ears, maybe that's too much but slightly out of the head. I think this works nicely and the top part of the lips. Now let's sketch the iris. I will not use assisted layer for this part because I want the character to look to the side. Let me turn it on Drawing Assist, because if you start drawing the irises on the side, the character will start looking like a chameleon, which probably we don't want that. Let's turn off the Assisted Drawing and I will draw the iris. [MUSIC] Make sure that both of your irises are the same line level. Also if they are more round or more narrow, you want to adjust that so they look similar. I also like when the line of the eye is a little bit thicker to suggest more feminine features when you use the eyeliner so I will make this thicker. Now let's add also the neck with the use of the symmetry tool and the neck starts usually somewhere around the end of the eye. But as we want to create stylized character, I will create the neck little bit more narrow. This is what we have so far. When you have your guide and the irises, you can move around elements with the Lasso tool. I can select both eyes and move them lower to create slightly different character. I don't have then the eyes so high up in the forehead. I will move it slightly here, making sure I'm in the middle of the Canvas. Maybe slightly lower so the character is a little bit cuter with the bigger forehead. Maybe I can also make the whole face slightly shorter and more squashed cuter. I'll select this part and move it higher. With the freeform tool, I can also make it wider and also squash it even more if you want even cuter character. Let's see if I like the proportions. This is like a stair down type of thing. You just look at your artwork and try to see if you actually like the proportions of the character. You can even reduce this part more so it doesn't distract you. I think this works nicely. I will draw the lips separately so I can color them in, in the next stage so I can already use the shape of the lips. I will take different colors so I can see it better. [MUSIC] Try to play around with the proportions of the character and see if you like the proportions by using the selection tool and sketching and using the guide. Now let's move on to the next lesson to explore some hair shapes to create more personality for our character. 6. Hairstyles: [MUSIC] Now I will duplicate my Canvas to explore some hairstyles and hair shapes which we can use in our final illustration. I don't want to mess up this illustration because it's already quite clean and I can use the face features for the final illustration actually. That's why I'm copying the Canvas. In this new Canvas, we will explore the hair shapes and hairstyles as well as some accessories to create more interest and personalize our character even more. Let's do that. Before creating new Canvas, I will take all of these layers and group them. I will duplicate this layer and flatten it so I can use it in my new Canvas. I will go back to Gallery, click on creating new Canvas. It doesn't matter really what size because this is just for our exploration. But I wanted a bigger size of the Canvas so you guys can see better. I will go back to the previous Canvas, and I can take this layer of the flatten face lines and details which we created, and I will drop it in our new Canvas. As we need more space to create more hairstyles, I will make this drawing smaller so we can duplicate it. I will distribute it more times around the Canvas. Maybe just here. I can merge them because I can always move each of them separately. I can duplicate this layer again and move it here to the side approximately. We have space, I don't have space on this side. Let me select this one here, [MUSIC] and distribute them better around the Canvas so we have space. I think this should be good enough. [MUSIC] When you're thinking about the hairstyles, you can, of course, illustrate your own because that's the most familiar to you because that's what you see in the mirror very often. I often end up drawing longer hair which are slightly wavy or straight. It's my go-to hair because I know how it looks like the most. But you can explore different hairstyles which are more interesting, and maybe have different shapes and colors. You can just search for hairstyles, obviously, [LAUGHTER] for example, on Pinterest or Google or wherever. It's your go-to for references. I found few different references which I want to show you, which creates different and interesting hairstyle which are also quite fitting for this symmetrical portrait. Let's look at these references and quickly sketch some of these hairstyles. I will draw the hair on a separate layer, and using slightly lighter colors. We have a little bit different look and feel to the rest of the face. I will import new image into our reference window. [MUSIC] I found some images with different hairstyles, which I like. But there is not such a huge variety of hairstyles. Let's start with a few. As I mentioned to you, I usually end up creating flowy, straight hair because that's what I see [LAUGHTER] in the mirror quite often. But let's draw a different hairstyle first. I will take this reference image, and as you can see, this character has shorter Bob hairstyle. We can turn on the assist drawing. So Drawing Guide, Edit Drawing Guide symmetry because we are in the new Canvas. I can move the symmetry guide on this first phase. I can change it again to pink and maybe adjust the opacity so we can see it a little bit better. We are on this layer. Then I can sketch this hairstyle quite quickly and easily. [MUSIC] Ending somewhere here. [MUSIC] I can add little bit of a loose strands, and then I can delete a little bit of volume here. [MUSIC] To create little bit more asymmetry, I will turn this off so the hair is not only symmetrical, and I can add these fringe words she has. As you can see slightly here on the top. Like this, we already have first hairstyle very quickly and easily. Let's import another image. For this one, I can create this beautiful hair with a lot of volume. Let's sketch this nice hair here. Let's move the drawing guide again with the blue circle approximately to the middle of the face, click "Done", turn on the assist drawing and sketch the hair. Of course, it depends on your style, how you would simplify this type of hairstyle. [MUSIC] I can add a little bit more volume here. [MUSIC] What I like to do is draw this type of hairstyle like this. I will probably create another class just how to draw different type of hairstyles so we can have fun with the type of class as well. For now, this is fine as an exploration. You can add, of course, more volume to it, some loose strands of hair, and just explore even more. [MUSIC] Now we have few different hairstyles and hair shapes for our characters to move on. Don't forget to experiment more with the different hairstyles. Just find different hair references focused on the volume of the hair, which you can add to your characters. [MUSIC] After exploring different hairstyles, now it's time to choose your favorite and take it to the next part. In the next video, we will explore the hair accessories and overall accessories which you can add to your illustration to make it more unique. See you there. [MUSIC] 7. Accessories: Now, let's take one of the characters and copy it on the canvas so we can try different accessories on that one character. Select one character with the hairstyle you like the most, and let's add some accessories. Now at this stage, I will take this character and move ahead with that one. What I can do is now to, again, group these layers. I can duplicate it, flatten. I will still have the copy of this layer so I don't have to worry. Then I can select these three character heads with different hairstyles, I don't need anymore, I will just cut. As you can see, I still have these layers so that's why you see there. Now, I can duplicate this character with this hairstyle. As I can see, it's taking a big part of the canvas now, I can group it, flatten, make it smaller, so we can actually fit the accessories. And it's fine that we are losing a little bit of the resolution here because it is just for the reference. Let's see if I can fit it on the canvas. I have the layout for the characters which I can test out the accessories on. Of course, you can search for different references for the hair accessories, either on Pinterest or Google, or try to draw some of the accessories you like to draw the most, maybe some hair band or different type of hair bands which you use at the bottom of the hair or whatever you use in your hair. Or we can add glasses or earrings, necklaces, that type of thing of accessory. I will show you some of my references which I found online, which I can add to my character, and how you can do it as well. Let's do that. I will create another layer for the accessories so we can see them better. I will take yellow color, we can create rough shape for them and then we can outline them, especially the one we like the most. Let's open some of the references. One of the images we jumped out at me when I was looking for reference was this one because I loved the glasses, that they are transparent, which can work super well on the character. I can sketch that on one of the characters, I can turn on the Drawing Guide, or you can just free hand drawing this because you can use always the drawing guide later on when you want to have it precise. We have the symmetrical guide. I will go to this character. Done and of course I need to turn on the Drawing Assist. Now it should work. Perfect. As you can see, it already creates so much visual interest on this character by just adding these glasses so it's pretty cool. You don't have to worry about making it super defined and in the proper size and shape because you can always adjust it later. Let's import another image. I really like this hair band, or like a scarf in the hair. I think it can look pretty cool on the character, so I can add it to this one. I will edit the Drawing Guide, move it again. I think it should work. Perfect, it's on. I can draw the scarf roughly here, just to color it in, which is easier so I can see if I actually like this reference. This can work super nicely. Then I can draw the shape maybe of the hair band. Let's see. I downloaded actually another image because it's not super visible on that one. I can take this reference image. As you can see, it's slightly asymmetrical, which is also quiet nice. After drawing the basic shape first, you can adjust it by disabling the drawing assist, and I can make this part slightly different. Also this middle part. I think this can work well. It's little bit different, so it's not super symmetrical. Now, I can disable the reference images. You can, of course, also draw from your own imagination. Another thing which can work super great, I think, are the earrings. I have to edit the Drawing Guide again, bring it to this character. I can draw the earrings super quickly. Maybe those are the type of earrings you can wear or you just like them on the character because they are quite interesting and make the whole illustration different. Another idea we can add to the character is a hat. I can add the hat. So maybe she's on a summer holiday. I can also combine the accessories that I sketched. I can duplicate it and maybe edit to this character, which I think works quite nicely. Now, I'm happy with this character with these accessories so I will use this one as a reference. When I have the character and combination of accessories that I like, I can call this finished, and I can move on to the next stage. See you there. 8. Composition: [MUSIC] Now, when we have our character with the hairstyle and some accessories, let's add some greenery to our sketch as a next step. As you can see, I have a copy of this layer with all the characters. I can select just the one, which I want to move ahead with. I can invert, cut. I have to hide the layer so we can see what disappeared. I will also hide the drawing guide for a second, move the character to the middle so we can see it a little bit better. Now, I can enable the drawing guide again. I need to edit because we need to position it correctly again. This is fine. Let me show you the reference which I based this idea on. [MUSIC] I actually find different reference images for this type of illustration when adding flowers and greenery to the portrait. Let me show you some of these which we can use as a reference for our sketch. [MUSIC] First of all, we already saw this reference where we can see some flowers. I think that's super nice. On a separate layer again, I will make this reference slightly smaller so it's not in the way. As you can see, we have our character here. I want to add some florals to the illustration. What I really like on this one is that there are some flowers around her neck, so I can add some random flower shapes here. Of course, you can design your own flower shapes. I can add some of them here. [MUSIC] I think this already adds quite a lot to the illustration, which is super nice. Then, let me show you another reference. In this reference, I really like the amount of greenery, which you can see in the background, the flowers and the greenery together. What I can do, I can turn on the drawing assist so we can draw the leaves little bit faster and we can add some of them already to the background of the hair, and add few flowers as an idea. This is already super cool. Along the way, I will give you more tips when we will be coloring how we can make this portrait even more balanced and nice. Let's import another image. In this reference, I really like how you can see some of the flowers also in the foreground. Let's add few of the flowers here as well. Also the shape of these flowers, it's pretty nice. [MUSIC] You can see some of the flowers going around in her hair as well. I think this works already pretty nicely. Just looking at few different references, we can add lots of flour ideas and botanical elements to our sketch. [MUSIC] Now, we have the idea for the character composition sketch with the botanical elements and some accessories, and now we can move to the next part where we will start coloring the character using the symmetry so we can be more efficient and faster, and have the easy process while creating this illustration. Let's do that. [MUSIC] 9. Base Colors: [MUSIC] Now we can duplicate the Canvas so we can delete the layers that we don't need anymore. I will go back to Gallery, I will select the Canvas and duplicate it. Now I can go back to our Canvas portrait and select the elements I want to use as facial features which we can just recolor later on, and the rest we will use as our guide. I can delete this flattened sketch as I don't need it anymore. We still have this as a reference, we can hide this sketch because it was as our rough guide. From our head shape and the facial features I will select the face and the inside of the ears which I want to use as a recolored elements. [MUSIC] I can cut and paste, and I can take the facial features, top part of the mouth and irises, and I will bring it here to the top and I will group it and call it face. I will delete this layer and I will be using these two as a sketch reference. I can reduce the opacity here so it's not too distracting. I think this works. As you can see, we have the same face shape on the other sketch already, so I can also delete actually this sketch and we don't need this group. We will have the facial features and the sketch layer. I will set this layer to multiply, so I can draw with color under it and I will still see it. I will create new layer and I can start coloring on this layer. Let's call this sketch. [MUSIC] I recommend using limited color palette for this illustration as it will be easier for you to distribute the colors around the composition. Here is the color palette that I chose for this illustration. [MUSIC] When choosing the color palette, try to think about the main colors for the background, then for her hair, for her outfit, and then you can distribute the rest of the colors around the composition based on these main colors so they work well together. I will start with the background color because I want it to be one of the brightest colors in the composition, and then work with the rest of the colors together with that. I will go for this brighter purple for the background, and as you can see it's already pretty bright and we can see the face features and the outline and the shape for the hair and our floral elements. The mouth is still gray because that's what we used for the sketch. So for now I can use multiply so it fits within the look and feel for now. Then as a next step, I will start coloring in the face shape and the neck shape. [MUSIC] When choosing the skin color for your character make sure that it doesn't blend with the background. So the character can still stand out in the illustration and the background is still working well with the color of the skin for the character. Now I will turn on the Drawing Assist, so I will make sure it's in the middle of the face and you can see I think it should work well. The Drawing Assist is on, and I will be using this brush to block in the shapes for the head and for the neck. I will choose quiet, light color for the character because the background is pretty dark even though the color is quite vibrant. Of course, try to explore different color options for your characters. [MUSIC] As you can see with using the Drawing Assist, it's super quick to block in the shapes. Now I can just drag and drop the color within the shape, and it's super quick. Now I will create another layer for the neck, [MUSIC] and I'm creating a separate layer for the neck because it's easier to create the shadow under the face layer so you don't have to worry about the edge of that color when you're drawing. Make sure that the layer is with the Drawing Assist again and the guide should stay in the same place for all the layers that you create now. [MUSIC] Make sure that you connect the neck behind the face shape, and again you can just drop the color within the shapes that you created. [MUSIC] The next step is to add shirt or the outfit for the character, but I didn't sketch it yet as you can see in the concept, what we have so far, because I'm just planning to add very simple shirt so we can just use the symmetry to create this shape. For the shirt I will create another layer of course. [MUSIC] For the shirt I will choose yellow color because it works quite well with the background and it still stands out from the background as well as work with the skin tone. Make sure that the Drawing Assist is on, and create the shoulders. [MUSIC] Again, you have to make sure that you connect the shape here behind the shapes that you don't see, and then I can also connect the shape here. Now let's test if we connected the shapes well, I think that works. When you compare the colors, as you can see, the yellow with the skin tone doesn't work that well because they are very close to each other, very similar. I need to go back and either use the color adjustments, or choose a different color that you already saved. I have this lighter color already here so I can just drag and drop it into a shape, and as you can see, it works much better within these shapes. If you are not super happy with maybe the shapes of the shoulders and you want to adjust it, you can always erase parts and it will adjust in both sides. We can fix our shape if you want her to have not so bright shoulders, or create a better curve here. I think this works quite nicely. I can zoom in and see if I want to fix these shapes. I think this works well, and now I will create hair on a separate layer. [MUSIC] Because the hair is also a big part of this illustration, I will use another contrasting color which works well within this composition and within this color palette. So I'm going to choose white color for this hairstyle. On this new layer, I can rename it. [MUSIC] We have hair, check if it is with Drawing Assist, and now I can simply follow the shape of the hair that we created before. Close it again and make sure that is closed also behind this shape. [MUSIC] As you can see, this was super quick, just drawing simple shape and drag-and-drop because we did all the hard work before when we created the concept. Now let's create a new layer for the accessories. Because the accessories will be on top of the hair, we need another layer above the hair. For the accessories I am choosing similar color to the outfit so we can distribute the colors around the composition. Again, drag-and-drop. Super easy. I can maybe fix this side because I want it to be a little bit more narrow, [MUSIC] and now I will create this top part without using the symmetry. [MUSIC] Super nice. Now when looking at the colors, I think I can add little bit more color to her earring. Let's do that. I will take a red color and drop it into the top part of the earring, and then I can take also darker green and add it to the bottom part of the earring. Pretty cool. [MUSIC] Now as a next step I will recolor the face. [MUSIC] 10. Shading and Details: Because we drew these facial features squared nicely in the previous step, we can just recolor them and it speeds up the process quite a lot. I will open the group with the facial features. I will select this top part and I will activate the Alpha Lock. Now, I can recolor parts without drawing outside of these shapes. I will choose brown color for her eyebrows. I will turn on the Drawing Assist, and I can just color the eyebrows super quickly. I will also recolor the nose and the mouth. I can see there is a little bit of mistake here on the ear and I can just delete that part. I think this works nicely. Maybe the nose is still pretty dark, but we will see when we add more colors to the face. Now, let's add the white to the eyes below the layer with the iris. I recommend not using pure white, but something a little bit of whites, something more in yellow tones so it doesn't stand out too much, and it still looks pretty natural. [MUSIC]. As the next part we can color the lip. I will change the blending mode, so we can choose the normal colors which are not blending with the rest of the illustration. I will choose a bright red color for her lips. Need to turn on the Alpha Lock, and I can just color in the lip shape. Now, I need to also add the bottom part of the lip and I can do it on the same layer. I just need to turn off the Alpha Lock, and I will choose a lighter color for the bottom lip. [MUSIC] This part is done. Now, let's add little bit of face shape definition by adding a little bit of color to the skin tone. In this style, I like to create is just to color half of the face without creating hyper-realistic shading on the face. But you can decide to do that, but for this illustration, I want to keep it fairly flat. I will create new layer, create a clipping mask so I can draw only within the head shape, so clipping mask, and I will choose a slightly darker color for the face than what we already have here, which is this one. I will just draw through half of the face, and I will connect the shapes, and I'll just drag and drop the color. Now, it looks quite dark, so I will reduce the opacity. This should be fine. I will delete the part where it connects to the nose. [MUSIC] Great. This is done. Now, I will add the shadow under her neck. Again, new layer and clipping mask. The shadow under the neck is quite dark usually, so we can first start with a lighter shade, and then I will add a darker shade to create stronger cast shadow. [MUSIC] You can always reduce the opacity if you still think it's quiet dark. I think that can work like it is. Then, we can add a little bit of shading also on the face. It's still flat, but with a little bit more definition. I will add little bit of darker color around the eyelids, [MUSIC] under her nose, and a little bit under the mouth. Because this is usually where some shadows will be created when we have light from the top. Then, we can add a little bit of darker color in the ears and under the hair. [MUSIC] Here we can make sure that we have again, clipping mask so it doesn't cover the top of the hair. Let's reduce the sketch so we can see the rest of the illustration better. I think it works pretty nicely. Then, we can also add some red color to her cheeks. Adding some color to the cheeks of the character, you can bring even more attention to the face of the character, even when you have the illustrations which are a little bit far away and the face is not so big in the composition. For this part, I will use this brush which I showed you in the previous lessons. I will choose the color which is slightly more pink than red, and I can also reduce the opacity of the brush while drawing, so I have more control. Let's check if I'm on the correct layer. [MUSIC] I think this works nicely. [MUSIC] Let's reduce the opacity. Let's zoom out and see how everything works. I think we can add some shadow to the head scarf and little bit to the earrings. I will create Alpha Lock and I can bring in the reference so we can compare the shadows there. You can always bring in the references when you want to check something or base some details of your illustration on the photograph, so never feel bad that you want to use references because we can't remember how everything looks in the real life, especially when we're practicing. When I zoom in on these headscarf, I can see that there is a shadow around the knot and where these parts of the scarf are coming out of the knot. I will take the color which I already have on the Canvas, and I will take slightly darker color tone to add shadows. I will zoom in, change the brush to the one which we used before and add simple shadows. [MUSIC] I don't need this reference anymore, and I can add little bit of shadow on these earrings too. Great. I will also add a little bit of shadow on the shirt here to create little bit more definition around the neck. Now, after we finished the face details and coloring the face, we can add more details to the hair. Let's do that. I will create another layer above the hair shape layer, and I will create a clipping mask. Now, I will take a bigger brush and create the shadows within the hair, and I will take blue color to do that because I don't want to have black shadows in this illustration. I will make the size of the brush bigger. This should be enough, and I will do the shadows without the drawing assist, so there is little bit of variety. [MUSIC] Great. It edits so much definition already to this character. Now, let's create another layer so we can create few more loose strands of the hair. I will create this above the shape of the face. [MUSIC] I'm creating an extra layer on top of all the other layers, so I can create these loose shapes of like lose hair, which can cover the face and it can break some of the beak shapes of the illustration. [MUSIC] Great. You are almost done. Now, let's add little bit of texture to the outfit to create even more visual interest. I will create extra layer above the shirt layer, create a clipping mask, and now I will choose this brush, which I showed you before. I will take the darker color, and we can make the brush a little bit bigger. We will have one layer with a clipping mask above our shirt layer with a darker yellow, and I'm using the same as the one we used here. Now, you can simply draw on top of the shirt, and you can create the super cute pattern very quickly. Now, you can check your drawing without the sketch, which already works super nicely. [MUSIC] At this stage, you can already call your illustration done if you don't want to add any greenery or flowers because it already looks quite cool. I hope you are enjoying the process until now, and if you want to add more botanical elements and flowers, see you in the next video. 11. Flowers: [MUSIC] Now, when we are finished with the character, we can start adding the botanical elements like flowers and leaves through our illustration. Let's do that. first what I will do, I will group everything so we can navigate easily in the illustration. [MUSIC] I can collapse the group so we can see it. I can rename it. This is a character. [MUSIC] I will be adding leaves and flowers in more layers so we can create a sense of depth. They will be layers above the character, as I showed you in the concept sketch, that it can cover her hair or front of the outfit, and then there will be also leaves and flowers in the background to create this depth in the illustration. First let's start with the flowers on the top. Because we can use the symmetry tool, it will be much quicker than if you have to draw every flower separately. I will be using quiet simple shapes because we can add more flowers into the illustration. I will go back to the basic brush and I will take blue color. As you can see, the flower is already appearing on the other side. [MUSIC] Now, I can also turn on the reference with the Canvas so we can see what we are drawing [MUSIC]. This flower is inspired by a daisy flower, even though it has more angular shapes. I will add yellow middle for this flower, and I will draw few of these flowers. [MUSIC] Now we have four flowers. Now I will take the selection tool, and I will move some of these flowers to break off the symmetry, but still using the benefit of speeding up the process. I can duplicate also this flower. They are not exactly the same because they are flipped and I can also make it smaller. Great. I will merge these layers and I will move this flower little bit lower. Because the flower has yellow middle part, the same as the t-shirt, I will change the middle of the flower. [MUSIC] Great. we have first layer of the flowers done super quickly. Now let's add more flowers. I will create another layer. I can rename it so we know what is where blue flower. On this layer, I am planning to add a red flowers so we can distribute more of these red color around the Canvas. Turn on the drawing assist. This flower will be still very simple, but we can add few more details to it. Let's start somewhere here. I will create something like a tulip shape. You can find more references for the flowers online, or you can join one of my classes about drawing flowers. Drag and drop the color. I will make this little bit more round. [MUSIC] I think these types of shapes will be nice. Let's make another one [MUSIC]. Then I can drop the color. Checking the shape. I think it works. [MUSIC] I have three. Maybe let's add two more here. [MUSIC] Now, I will turn on the Alpha Lock, take this brush, and choose slightly darker color and add slight shadow. I will also add few lines to suggest the petal shapes. Super quick and easy. [MUSIC] Now we have more of these flowers. On this side, I can move some of them so they're not the same. Let's take, for example, this one and move it up. I will move some of these flowers as well. I think this works. I will delete these few flowers as I don t think I will need them. But you can save them for later if you want to. Here, it would be nice if I have little bit of green, so I will draw a green stem for the flower. [MUSIC] As you can see, I'm keeping all these flower shapes quiet simple. If you want to add little bit more complicated design, don't forget to check out my other class where I show you how to draw peonies, for example, and how to approach flower drawing in general. I am using some outlines there and more detail so if you are curious about drawing flowers, definitely check out that class too. Now let's add another layer. I will create similar flowers, but this time in more pinkish tones.[MUSIC] [MUSIC] I'm using the same approach for all of these flowers. First, creating the shape, then adding a little bit of grain, and then adding some detail and using the Alpha Lock. Every time you want to add more details you just have to disable the Alpha Lock. [MUSIC] When you are adding more flowers you can always rearrange them and move them to feed your composition better. I will move these red flowers slightly lower and maybe I can make them smaller as well. [MUSIC] After adding few different types of flowers which are still very simple in shapes but there is a little bit of variety, let's add some leaves. [MUSIC] I will create another layer and I will use darker green. As with the flowers, I will keep the shape of the leaf quite simple. I will turn on the Drawing Assist and I will start near the hair band and checking the shapes in the preview. [MUSIC] Now I will add a little bit more leaves also around the flowers so the whole illustration can feel more lush and full of leaves and greenery. [MUSIC] As you can notice, I am working on the layer below the flowers and still above the character layers. Another leaf here. [MUSIC] I'm using the same process for the leaves as for the flowers. I can add another leaf maybe here. I think that works. Now, let's add some shading with Alpha Lock again and the grain. [MUSIC] This is super quick and then add few details also on each leaf with the darker color. Maybe I can add details in lighter color. Let's see. I will add details in lighter color here. [MUSIC] I will move the elements around again. I will set up more layers because I feel like it's too close to this earring and I can move the whole bunch little bit to the right [MUSIC]. Now I need to move these leaves [MUSIC]. I can flip them and also rotate them. Just test out what works the best for your composition. But notice if you flip the elements and rotate them too much, they lose a little bit of the crispiness. But because these elements are quite small, I think it's okay in this illustration. You can always fix the edges if you feel like you need to so they are crispy again [MUSIC]. Now, to bring even more lush feeling into the illustration, I will create more leaves in the lighter green tone this time so there is a bit more variety in colors. I will create another layer [MUSIC] which is below the darker leaves and I will take lighter green color. I will speed up this process a little bit because I'm using the same technique, creating new layer using drawing essays to speed up the process while creating the shapes. Then I'm using Alpha Lock to add the shading and details. Then the selection tool to move the elements around the composition so they are not at the same height in the illustration. Let's do that [MUSIC]. Then you can add even more flowers using the same technique. I have two layers of darker leaves and lighter leaves and I have three layers with different colored flowers. You can end here. You don't have to add more flowers but I think I can add few more yellow flowers and maybe some white flowers. I'll just do that on a separate layer [MUSIC]. 12. Greenery: [MUSIC] Now we are done with all the flowers and leaves in the foreground of the character. In the next part, we will add few more leaves in the background, as I mentioned in the previous lessons. I will zoom out. I can group all of these layers. This will be foreground. Now I will start creating layers in the background. This should be quicker process than the foreground because we don't have to move around the elements as much, and we can create bigger shapes for the leaves. I will follow the same process as before. [MUSIC] As I mentioned, we don't need as much variety in the background because it will offset the foreground. I can just move these leaves little bit higher or lower, so not too much moving around or creating too many elements. I will just take the lasso tool, and I will move these leaves slightly higher. Maybe when I'm looking at all of these leaves, maybe I can make them also slightly smaller as they don't have to be as huge. But this is up to you and your preferences. [MUSIC] I can rename it, and now I will create darker leaves below the lighter leaves, again with the same technique. But this time, if you want to create even more variety and have fun drawing different leaves, try to create different shapes for the leaves. Maybe small stems with small circle flowers even, just imitate blade of grass with this field flowers or just other shapes you can come up with. Just have fun and add more variety to the background. But you can stick with the same shape of the leaf, if you feel like it's enough and you don't want to add more shapes. [MUSIC] As you can see here, I'm creating simple shapes as with the previous leaves, and now maybe I can show you how I can come up with a new shape for the leaves, which can be based of a stem. [MUSIC] Maybe even fern shape of the leaf. I know how this can look like because I was drawing a lot from the reference and real life, so I don't need to actually find the reference for this shape anymore. But feel free to find more references for different shapes of the blades of grass or different field flowers, because that can be quite fun to add to your illustration. Just really have fun with some of these shapes, they don't need to be perfect. As you can see, I'm mainly creating them with solid colors because we already have quite a lot of details in the illustration, so we don't need to go overboard with shading them or detailing these leaves. You can just come up with imaginary shapes as well, of these leaf shapes. As I said, they don't have to be perfect. You just have to check the other side, if it was reflected well because it's not covered by the other leaves here. I can add maybe this stem flower type of thing situation. [LAUGHTER] Maybe something like this with few lines. I can add just simple circles at the end. It looks a little bit maybe like a forest berries or almost like a rose heaps shape, even though rose heaps are not round. But I think this can be quite cute as a detail. Maybe one more here, so I can do this. This is pretty cute. Maybe something like this here, so they are growing upwards. [MUSIC] I can just move them around as I told you. They are not exactly the same. You can add lines and details to these if you want to. I'll follow them again. [MUSIC] Great. Then I will select this one and move it lower. [MUSIC] Move this one higher. As I can see I am missing part of it here, so I can just fill in the shape quickly. I think it's looking very good, and now let's add another layer with the very flat shapes just to push the character out of the background a little bit more. [MUSIC] Here I will create another layer. This is dark green, and we'll create purple. I will just choose darker color than the background. Let's do that. We need drawing assist and create similar shapes that we already have. [MUSIC] As you can see, I'm not inventing any new shapes right now, just repeating the shapes of the leaves and the flowers that we already have in the Canvas. [MUSIC] As before, you can also duplicate elements so you don't have to redraw every element. [MUSIC] Now after adding this third layer of flat colors in the background, let me show you this quick effect which you can add to this layer. Go to adjustments and select chromatic aberration. You can slide slightly to see this blur on the flowers. I think five percent is enough. You can see it created this super cool funky effect. I think this looks super awesome. We added so many leaves, flowers, and other details to this illustration. Let's quickly look at the organization of the layers one more time. We have the character in the middle with all the elements of the face, hair, and the details. Then we have the layer with foreground, with some of the flowers there, leaves, and we organize them based on the colors and shapes. But you can organize the leaves and flowers on a separate layers, how it fits you. Then we have the layer in the background with different elements there. We have dark purple, darker green, and lighter green element. We can group them as well into the background. [MUSIC] Now we edit all the elements to our portrait illustration. We worked with proportions, sketching the face, creating different hairstyles, different hair accessories, and portrait accessories. Then we created all these layers for different flowers and leaves to create these large portrait illustration. I will see you in the next video for a few last thoughts. 13. Tips for Uploading Your Project: First of all, congratulation on finishing your botanical portrait illustration in Procreate. I can't wait to see what you created with this class, so please upload your project in the project gallery. A quick tip here. If you have trouble uploading a big project file, I found the easiest way to take a screenshot of your artwork and upload that one. You can find it just under the Project and Resources tab. If you are short on time, feel free to upload the work in progress and your sketches. You can always re-watch the class and work on the project when you can and upload the final illustration when you are finished. You get the options to upload a cover image, and the title, and description. The cover image should be 690 by 388 pixels, which is aspect ratio of 16 to nine, which is like a widescreen or a wide rectangle. In the description, you can include both texts and images, so you can upload the same image as the cover image or add work in progress. Here, it can also be a square, not only a rectangle. By the way, I love senior artwork in progress too, so please feel free to share your sketches, color explorations, or whatever you created along the way. Once you are finished, click "Publish" on the top right and your project will appear in the student's project gallery and I will get notified by email. You can see all the other projects here too. It is always nice if you guys support each other and like and comment on each other's work too. I regularly schedule time to check all your awesome illustrations and share some of my comments and tips so we can connect better. If you'll like me to also share your illustrations on Instagram, go ahead and tag me at art_side_of_life, in the post image, and in the description of the post, or in the stories so I get notified and I can help you and your art to be discovered by more people. Speaking of sharing and discovery, I will be sharing your projects from time to time, also in my newsletter so you can be discovered by more people too. I hope you had a lot of fun with your illustration and learn a thing or two about portrait illustration using Procreate. By the way, if you want to take your knowledge and skills to the next level, also check out my other classes about drawing people and more. For example, find your style with character portraits class will help you to explore various ways to draw stylized and simplified facial features. Drawing expressive and dynamic people class will help you to get more confident when drawing character poses. Color palette class will help you to get more confident while choosing your own color palettes that you love while creating fun illustrations. To take your understanding of color to the next level, watch my color and light masterclass, where we deep dive into a variety of aspect which influence color so you will be like, aha, that's why. When trying to figure out why some artworks look so vibrant or have a certain mood. In the composition class, we will dive into variety of concepts which you can apply to your illustrations to make them even more amazing. Please visit my teacher profile to find them. Don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare to get notified as soon as I release a new class or run giveaways where you can get a chance to win Skillshare membership. If you like the class, please leave a review, even a super short one because first of all, I appreciate it so much, and second, you will also help other students to discover the class. Thank you so much for joining me in this class and stay creative and uniquely you and see you in my next class.