Go wild with colors in Procreate

1. Presentation: Hi, my name is Marissa Angeles and the messiah figure stressor and 3D model and based in London, UK, if you're looking to improve your parenting skills in Procreate and explore your creativity. This is the course for you. In this class, we're going to learn how to make an illustration pop from your Canvas using an unconventional color scheme. We're going to start our journey from a drawing that you can download from the resources you can use your own. Then following the steps, we're going to create a neutral color base. And on top of this, we're going to build our lovely radish illustration starting from IT perimeter using an ink brush, the domain, and then smaller details. After that, we're going to create some volumes by adding the shades and chiaroscuro using a very functional brush. When the illustration is finally completed, we're going to play with some color variations in order to achieve a very creative. But without any further ado, let's dive into it. 2. Workflow Overview: Okay, let's take a look at this illustration. We have a finished illustration on the left and a drawing on the right. Here, we have some color palette. So our goal is to reproduce this starting from a drawing. Let's take a look at the layer structure. What do we have? We have these antique paper, which is this layer here, a drawing, which is this guy here. You can see that the layer is set to multiply by a few switch back to normal. I'm able to see the white background as this was a scan that I made. So again, if you switch to multiply, the y is going to disappear, only revealing the pencil drawing. Here we have the color palette and we're going to use these three colors to pay in this illustration. Here, there are many websites where you can find nice color combinations like Pinterest, coolers or Adobe colors. Procreate. It's got this harmony here. If you switch from classic to harmony and you choose a color, you have a combination out of the box. And if you move around the spectrum, you always have three colors that they get along pretty well together. Let's take a look at the illustration structure. If I open the group, I have a number of layers. Starting from the top, we have the perimeter. So let me make it bigger for you. So we've got the perimeter, which is this bigger, thicker line. We've got the small details inside which are done with a smaller size brush, another round of details. So there are two layers for the smaller details that can be done in one layer only it doesn't have to be two. We have the white ink, which is this one here. And then we have the light layer, which is the lightest part of our illustration. The shadows, which I clearly the darker spots. Let me hide these two. And then we have a base color layer. You can see that the lights layer is set to normal, the shadows is set to multiply, and the base color is set to linear light. I'm going to explain later on the reason for this, but if you want to follow along, we're ready to start. 3. Base Colour: Okay, so what we want to do now is to close this group layer, press and hold the drawing layer and move it to the top. Make sure that it's set to multiply. And palpably, we're going to reduce the opacity slightly. So you can see there is less visible. Then you want to select the group and create a new layer. So you have a new layer underneath the drawing. So this is very important. At this point. We can grab this dark color here. So you press and hold the color up there. We want to choose a brush. We're going to choose the studio pen brush, which is basically under inking. And then you can select the studio pen brush. If you click on it, you can do drawing pad and then reset all brush settings. So if you do so, Oliver style from the same point. This is also very useful if you messed up with the settings of a brush and you want to go back to the default settings. Naturally, you want to test your brush. Okay, so in this new layer, we're going to create the perimeter. So we're going to hide these layers. One consideration is that these color doesn't look like that. And why? Because this layer is set to linear light. But if I switch back to normal, you can actually see that these two colors are indeed the same. If we switch back to linear light, we select our layer. And now it's time for creating the perimeter. Here we're going to follow locally the perimeter given by the drawing. You can adjust the brush size according to your needs. And doing this step, we want to create the outset. Everybody say like a cat out, always sticker that we continue with this. Now we can close the perimeter here, and now it's time for the leasing route here that I can actually color these up straight away. Then we can sort out these bits here. So now you have to be 100% sure that the perimeter is closed and watertight. Why? Because we want to grab this color without releasing slide to the right a bit and activate the color dropped threshold just a bit. It's good practice to check if some pixels haven't been colored. And at this point, we're ready to switch the layer mode from normal to linear light. And by doing so, we get an exact replica of the original illustration. At this point for the sake of clarity, we want to rename this layer by tapping on the text into base color. And this step is now completed. We are now ready to move to the actual creation of the perimeter. So let's have a look how to do it. 4. Perimeter: Okay, so what we want to do in this lesson is to recreate the main perimeter. Ending the following lesson, pain, there's more details. So we want to create a new layer. Then switched from dark brown to black. These black or this black are exactly the same. Check the brush. Now you can see that this brush is a bit of a distressed look. The stroke is not a 100% clean. And this is because it's a different brush from the studio pen. And in fact, this brush here, It's called the Ink Bleed brush. Again, we can reset all the brush settings. We have something like this. Now we can try the brush next to the completed illustration. And we can see there's a quite big difference in size, but we can clearly reduce the size and see if we get any closer. It'll be probably slightly bigger. Eight per cent. I can test here. Let's do eight per cent. Then I just undo this. Let's hide this small dealers layers so we can focus solidly on the actual parameter. So after creating this layer, I can rename it into perimeters. And then I can start. Now I'm going to trace the entire leaf. Then going back down. I'll do the stem, the leaf behind. Then I move to the other leaf. And then you want to close the shape. If you don't particularly like something that you've done or it wasn't particularly successful, you can undo that and try again. Now the other side of the batch. And to finish it off the list of root. And this is now down. We can actually are the little hair. In the next lesson. The stroke is probably slightly thinner. Doesn't really matter size. We're here to learn the technique, not necessarily do an exact copy. So see you in the next lesson where we want to add the small details. 5. Details: Okay, In this lesson we're going to make the details inside the leaves. Naturally we want a thinner line. But before moving on, I spotted that I made a small mistake, but it's not a huge problem. I can select the relevant layer, switch to the eraser, probably choosing a solid airbrush and quickly fix it. This is something you can also do towards the end of the project. Now we want to make the details in the following lesson, the small details. So let's just focus on the details now. We chart the main veins, the main structures. Now we can create a new layer that we want to name details. If you want to recreate the same layer structure, you can place it underneath the perimeter layer. So that was a percent. The new thickness could be well, 4%, maybe five per cent. Let's go with 5% then. And now we want to draw the veins, something like this. We can simply do the smaller veins. We can do the leaf behind. The leaf here is lively flipping. Having this manner, we're going to approach the rest of the details. Again, we don't want to get too crazy about making an exact copy. We have the freedom to do whatever we like in the end. Now we want to add the d that's on the spherical part, the actual radish. We can do this. You can also break up the line. In fact, you don't want a continuous line on spherical shapes as interrupting the line gives us a sense of movement and dynamism and also simulates that the light is affecting the area. So you want to create something like this. Also some more circular lines near the root that gives the impression of spherical volume. Now we cannot this more head that were part of the perimeter layer, the original illustration. Now we can do them now. So with this quick strikes, we can create these. So you press and release. And if you do so at the end of the stroke will taper off. So you get thinner. And that is given by the pressure that you apply. Then there is this vertical lines running down. And this is to emphasize the spherical look. So we can ask them trying to break up the lines a bit. I also do that on the other side. For me, it's simpler if I rotate the canvas by 180 degrees. We can also add the lines on the stems. And now we can add this smaller details in the next lesson. Let's go. 6. Small Details: We now ready for the small details. First thing first is to create a new layer and rename it into small details. So the thickness for the perimeter was 8%. The details was five per cent. So for the small details, we can try probably three. Let's have a look at the original illustration and see if this is similar. Yeah, there could be three per cent. So during this process we're going to add these superficial dealers will surface details, bits and bobs that you might expect covering a badge of this guy. And at this point I think we can hide the drawing. We don't need to see that anymore. So I illustration looks cleaner. I'm going to start from this area here. I want to add some short and quick lines, maybe following the biggest shapes next to them. One longer line and one shorter. We want to emphasize the sense of dynamism movement. We can actually see that something is going on over the surface As he doesn't have to be a copy of the other one. You are free to evaluate the illustration and say like, Oh yeah, maybe I need a line here or it feels right. If I put a line there. Now, we can jump to the other leaf. And the only consideration now is to match the level of description between the two leaves. As it would look weird if one leaf was full of details and the other one was not. So we want to have a fair balance between the elements. Using now this method, we carry on until some description. Now we can focus on the rounder shape. Again, we want to follow this spherical volume, but also the parallel lines always be some shorter cannot spaced out lines. We want to treat these area has the leaves. Now the root. We're going to add the protruding hair later on. Now we can add these bits kind of circular, maybe bumpy blocks. You can see that they are not closed circles. There's always a part that is not completed. This is again because the elements or the sense of dynamism to our artwork, and this is exactly what we want. 7. Shadows: Okay, well, we want to do now is to recreate these shadows here. Don't be scared. That's very simple. You can see that the shadows is set to multiply and the base color is set to linear light. So if we switch to know more here, you can see that these color gets quite fluorescent. And this is because the layer underneath is set to linear light. So if we switch both of them to normal, you can see that this color was our base color, and then the shadow color is this color here. It's a bit confusing, I know, but there are many layers to play with. It's just about trying them out and see if you like an effect in particular. So let's go back to Linear Light and multiply. Now, we create a new layer, rename it into shadows, switch from normal to multiply, and nothing happens because the layer is still empty. Now it's time to paint. There are many different ways to paint them black colors together. And I published several courses so far that you can check them out. For this class, we're going to use the heart blend brush, which is a brush where you can paint and blend at the same time without switching to a blending brush. You might have noticed that there's an arrow pointing down here. Because this is a clipping mask, which is an incredibly powerful option of digital painting. If you want to activate it in your layer, you click on the thumbnail and then click on clipping mask. Now, if few paint, you're going to paint only within the boundaries given by the layer below. In fact, if you unclick the mask, you can see the actual paint. The great thing about this brush is that you can paint. And then if you gradually released the pressure of the brush switches to a blending brush. So you can actually blend. And this is a great press, press, press to get darker tone. And then you release to smooth things out. You might want to get used to it or watch my other classes about this brush in particular. But now it's time to paint the shadows. So now with this brush, Let's try a four per cent. Because I want to paint these shadow here. I can start from the outside, which is not going to be visible because it's outside of the clipping mask. And then move in. I'm applying the same kind of pressure. And then I can lie. We released the pressure to activate the blending function. And then you get something like this. I want to reduce actually the brush size to maybe three per cent. I can do the root. Now I can move to the stem. I can reduce even further, maybe to 2%. And here you can see that the leaf is lightheaded thing and it's darker. So I can apply some pressure, release a bit, then reapply some pressure to differentiate the tone slightly. And these could be the level of treatment I'm after. Now you can focus on this area that as you can see, is in the shade. So I can press, press, press, and then release. Can do the same along here. You see that when you get used to it, It's pretty easy. You just need to familiarize yourself and learn, actually modulate the pressure. This one is going to be like a flap. So naturally you would imagine that behind these is going to be darker. Has lacked this coming from this side. So it's basically coming from this side. And naturally, as the leaf is not facing the source of light, it would be in the shade. And now we have this cast shadow from this leaf onto this leaf. So you want to follow the EPA ramus health belief, applying a consistent amount of pressure. And then with some lesser pressure, we're going to blend these brushstrokes. Easy peasy. I want to reduce the brush size of B as I want to paint a stem. Something like this. I can probably make this darker. Now it's time for some smaller details on the rounded shape, not so different from before. We just wanted to shade these areas a little bit. Not too much. This is a similar same, same, but different. But we're now ready to move to the lights. Let's go. 8. Lights: Okay, so what do we have now to do? We have the lights and we have the white ink, which will be done in the next step. So for the lights, they're going to be just a few brush strokes. It will come to approach these in the same way with it for the shadows. In order to do this, we want to create a new layer, rename it into lights. We clipping mask the layer. And then we want to grab this lighter color. So we have this color There's getting fluorescent because it's influenced by the base color. For this step, I want to try and see if this is probably what I'm looking for, is probably is if you imagine that the light is coming from this area here and this is spherical, you would guess that the highlights are around here and there will be correct. You see that the brighter parts here, and we have the shadows on the side. And the relation between these two values gives the impression of volume. So we're going to do the same. We start from this spot here. We spread out this light. I can probably reduce the brush size to five per cent. You can press and then release in order to blend the colors. Here, you want to create some bright spots so I'm applying some pressure, but not too much. Then I do the leaf that is on top of the others. Just a tiny bit. Now, if you want to, you can add some small Adidas using the lighter color. There is not necessarily present in our original illustration. I would reduce the brush size to be about 2%. And I would pay these bits here. You see that it's better. And also a bit here. And maybe some lights here. Now, the stem. The other one. Maybe I can add some highlights at the bottom of the stems. So if you then release the pressure, you really able to blend colors together like in a watercolor if you think about it. Now, you can see that we described our new distraction or be more compared to the original. And lastly, I'd be on the root. Right? So now we're ready for the next step there is about adding the white ink. So let's have a look at that. 9. White Ink: Okay, what is left? Is left the white ink. So the white ink layers here that both delights. We want to follow the same layer structure so we can create a new layer and call it white ink. But this time we are not going to create a clipping mask as we need this layer and clipped, I can switch to white or off-white. And I go back and select the brush that we used for the black king steps. So again, we want to double-check the brush size if it's correct or is similar to what we have done so far. In this step, we want to only focus on the highlights. You can actually see that the white lines are running along the black ones, but not always, you will need to place these lines where the strongest light would fall, like if it was a reflection. So I can start by doing some fungi. These, you want to break up the lines as we already learned in the previous steps. Some high notes here. Here. We can jump to the other leaf. And all of this I will get a lot of light. Obviously don't want to overdo, even if it's quite tempting, is quite satisfying, but you want to be in control and not to be carried away. You want to be the one who's making stylistic choice is known the other part of your brain. Now on the radish itself, some shorter lines, much shorter than the black counterparts. Then all the bits and bobs. Now I'm designed to these quite important. Then along the route debate. And I think this could be enough. We are now ready to finalize our illustration, but before that, we need to fix some bits in the cleanup lesson. So let's have a look at that. 10. Clean Up: Okay, So the illustration could be done. So at this point, let's forget about these. We can close the group and actually hide it. We can also hide the color palette so we can focus only on the illustrations. Now, we can select the base color layer. Then select the eraser with the heart airbrush, which is a solid brush. While you want to do, is to go and check the illustration and fix these bits. You only need to do that on the base color layer, Yes, The rest of them are all clipped. So you basically need to check your illustration if there's any imperfections like here. Here. Until it's nice and clean as refining is quite important. This is it. We now ready to finalize our illustration, adding some color variations in the next lesson. So let's have a look at that. 11. Colour Variations: Okay, now, when you finish and illustration, you can evaluate your work here. You can say, for instance, maybe the lights are too strong, so you can decide to reduce the layer opacity. You can even play with the latest mode, but this is up to your choice. But what we can do now is to select the first layer, then swipe, right to make a multiple selection up to the base color, how we can group them. We can also rename the group into illustration B. For the sake of consistency, we can rename the original illustrations into illustration a. While we can do now is to duplicate this group by swiping left and hit duplicate. It gets read that as the layers are influencing each other. But let's rename it into illustration. See, you want to select now this hero here. You can activate the snapping function if you want. And this is kind of forcing the elements to move by fixed ratios. And let's move it all back where the original illustration was. Now you can open the group, select the base color layer, click on the Magic Wand and select Hue, Saturation, Brightness. And this is a lot of fun as you can shift the hue, which means the color. And now you can choose whatever color you like. So if I go with this green here, I want to select the shadows layer. I'll do exactly the same. You want to shift to a similar color or any other night I combination. That can be for me something like this. Now you can do the same for the lights. And I think I'll go with this bright and looking color, which makes the illustrations popping out. Well, we can do now is to create an additional layer on top of the painting layers, but beneath the ink layers and clipping mask it. This time we can select a soft brush, which is under the airbrushing library. That we select. A color, can be anyone you like. I think I'll go with this pop of color because they loved the purple, violet, and pink range. You want to increase the brush size quite a bit. And you simply paint over the illustrations and look how much fun is this. Then you free to explore every variations. You can shift color, make it more blue or red or orange. The sky is the limit. You can also increase the saturation, which is the amount of Karla you boot team. And also increase the saturation of the green elements a bit. But let's say that we are happy with something very creative, like in this case. This is it, this is what we have done, and this is our color variation and our class is now completed. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and I wish you all the best. Please get in touch if you have any questions or if you want to share your work with the channel, I'll see you at the next class, but for now, Bye bye.