How to Come Up with Drawing Ideas Using References: Digital Illustration in Procreate

1. Introduction: Creating unique illustrations, using a variety of references can help spark your imagination for your art. Hi, and welcome to a new class. I'm Eva, and I'm a full time illustrator. In this class, we will look at a variety of references to help you come up with new drawing ideas. We will also practice and do quite a few sketches before creating more defined layout and add beautiful colors together step by step. I will also share with you tips to speed up your process when drawing a meadow with lots of grass and flowers. In addition to this, I share with you tips on drawing a bike before we draw a girl and the dog together. I will also share tips on how to adjust the proportions of your character if you need to. Even if you are a beginner and you to procreate. I will take you step by step through the process. I hope when you follow and watch this class, you will feel super happy about what you created and you will feel like, oh, I can't wait to share my illustration with others. When you are sharing it on Instagram, please make sure that you take me in the image, not only in the description, because that way I can see your illustration. And maybe you'll see it in one of the next videos. Like these amazing illustrations made by wonderful creative people who watch my classes. So if you don't know yet, you can find even more drawing tutorials and classes, they are procreate and other tutorials. And I have more than 30 classes there, there is a variety from beginner level to more advanced levels and you can also find different topics. So without further ado, let's start and see you in the class. 2. Resources and canvas setup: For this illustration. The canvas size is 4,500 by 3,000 pixels and 300 DPI. Like with other classes, I also prepared Freebies as a special bonus for this class. They are not necessary to do the project, but if you want some bonus stuff to try, I prepare the color palette so you can create the illustration with the same colors as I do. I also prepared a rough sketch so you don't have to create everything completely from scratch and blank paper. You can also download the freebie brush set and you can find all the information in the class description. We will hang out together for a while. So if you want, bring some water, make some tea, maybe a different drink, or prepare a snack. I usually have a coffee or water nearby. I find it important to stay hydrated, so at least get some water. When you are ready, let's get started. 3. Initial Idea - Creating a rough sketch from your inspiration: All right, we have the canvas, but let's start at looking at some references. Before doing the rough sketch, let me open Pinterest here on the side. I wanted to show you this reference because this was one of the first references that I saw which inspired me for this illustration. I wanted to do with ocean and maybe the sparkles and maybe something here in the foreground. Let me go to the layers and I will create a new layer. Or you can sketch on this one. We can delete this one and basically sketch on this. I will also change color of the background For this exercise, I also created a color palette for you, as with the other classes. But first I will start with something, Beijing for this first rough sketch exercise. But I will move the color somewhere to very desaturated color for this sketch part. But of course, you can do any color for this part. Maybe let's make it a little bit less saturated from the brushes. I will take the expressive pencil brush, but you can go to any drawing brushes, excuse me. Actually, sketching brushes are better for this. I would suggest maybe six B pencil or you can take something staying in sketching brushes. And six pencil, I think is the best because it's just for the exercise or I actually like also HB pencil. But let me just go for this one because this brush helps me to create more expressive strokes. If you want to basically practice with some other brushes, yeah, you can explore these. For this sketch part, I will take black color or this very dark purple. Let me test it out. Okay, I think this is quite good, and I can reduce the opacity of this brush. I can also reduce the canvas so I can see, where am I? I will just create this first loose sketch. I can see there is sky and water, basically. This is the first idea. And maybe basically like a ground here and there will be some ocean with these sparkles. Okay? This is one of the other references that I found. Let me make it bigger so you can see it better. I really like how this water kind of sparkles here. You know, it's like quite nice inspiration, I think, for our illustration. So we can basically take a mental note, or you can just write it down, that the sparkles, spark sparkles. And also the sparkles show in different clusters. So they are not in same distances from each other, but they are maybe more of them together in one spot. Let me just play it again so we can see it. They are in one spot, like curing more and then they are less of them in the other spots, how pretty there is. All right, Let me stop this. Sparkles sparkles in clusters. When we will be drawing, This is just for the mental node. Okay? And then okay, let's go back. Okay, and this is another reference image which I found. I think it would be super nice to actually have maybe a bike here so I can set. Let me go back to the other brush which I like. I thought it would be pretty nice to have basically the ocean, exactly how we sketched it. Here, here is the ground, so we have the ocean with the sparkle, the same idea there. Then we would have maybe a bike. Here is just a very rough random idea for the bike. As you can see, there is a road and then there is grass here. I thought like, okay, that would be cool to have a road and maybe some grass. I also quite like the idea of the tree here. Maybe I can add a tree somewhere around here. These parts of the image are not so interesting. Let me show you another reference. Okay, here is another reference. What I really like about this one is also the color of the bike and also the basket I was thinking like. Okay. That would be actually quite nice to have a basket here. Maybe flowers. We can maybe have flowers here in the foreground. Maybe whatever flowers you like. I'm not sure if I like these tulips actually here, but maybe this can work. There is also grass in this part. I can add some of these grassy areas here. Okay. And here is another reference which I quite like because there is just a bit of the tree here, so there is no tree trunk. So I can actually make this part a little bit of like thinner and not so overgrown and I'm not sure if I want to add clouds in the background. Maybe it would be too busy. Maybe we can add like birds or something there. But what I also really like on this reference are the very tall grass, whatever plants or whatever there is, the wild field plants, maybe I can have bigger plans here in the foreground. These are some of the main references which I wanted to work with. We will do some warm up exercises for parts of this illustration. We will also look at some other references. These are just the first initial idea. I will close this part. What I can do now, I will take the selection, I will take the rectangle. I will this sketch and I will duplicate it. I will just put it here on the side and maybe make it a little bit bigger. And I will reduce the opacity of this one because I want to redraw some of these part B and I will sketch on a separate layer. I will just make the brush a little bit bigger. Let me make this bigger so you can see it. Let's see, 9% Okay. Composition wise, I think the horizon line can work quite nicely here. Then I think the ground can be a little bit higher somewhere here. Let me reduce this other sketch even more. Okay, I think this can work. Then we talked about some of these bigger leafy shapes or wild plants. This would be, I think, nice. We will design them more. But this is just like very rough sketch. I can make these edges more straight so we can use it for our cleaner version. All right, and then the tree I think would be nice if maybe something like this we will have the openings in the tree to have more light there. Then we can have some of these smaller bushes like we saw in the taller grass there. The bike would be probably if it is smaller. Okay. So something like this. We will practice drawing bike in one of the upcoming lessons, but I guess this is something. Yeah, it looks like bike. Okay, let me give it another try. So it looks a little bit more like a bike. I'm making these wheels of the bike a little bit more tilted so there is a sense of movement. Okay, And then me, I'm not drawing the character yet because I can find references for it later. Okay, this is the idea for the bike. The path can be a little bit more narrow. I would say something like this. Maybe the bike can be even smaller. It doesn't take such a big part of the illustration. Okay. I think resizing at this stage is still okay because it's a rough sketch and it doesn't have to be perfect. All right? And then the sparkles there will be somewhere here. And the character will be sitting on the bike here with some hair. And then we will redefine it a little bit later. What else for this rough sketch? All right, I think this is enough for this rough sketch. You can of course, also download this rough sketch, which you can find the link to it in the resources if you want to have the same starting point as I'm having for this illustration. Okay, now let's move on to the next part. 4. Warm-up sketches: drawing the flowers from references: All right, now let's start with some warm up sketches. As we have already, the rough sketch, I will bring back the Pinterest references. I think we can start with drawing some of the flowers because that's easier way to warm up rather than drawing characters. I will be sketching again with this brush, but you can take any brush for this sketching. I am using this darker base just to create these rough sketches. I don't want to be too precious about these sketches, really don't worry about the shapes because these are just for random ideas. I'm sketching this flower here, it's like tall, and the leaves are a little bit more rugged looking, not too detailed. Then I can see there are smaller flowers around. Maybe I can sketch something like this. They have different height. This one has also some petals which are smaller. Then if I look at some of these small other ones, they have the smaller round heads. But they are not like round round, but bit more flat. Then I can see also that on this reference there are very thin, I don't even know what it is, but probably old or new flowers or maybe a long grass, maybe something like this. This is too detailed. But we can build the field with different shapes because as you can see also on this reference, there are different shapes of flowers and different sizes on the field. Let me go to a different reference. Okay, here we have another reference. I can make all of these flowers a little bit smaller then move on here. What I like on this one is that we have more lines here then the has the shape on the top and then it just goes down. Then again, there are smaller parts here of different leaves. Then this flower is more like this shape. They are also tilted in different ways. I can see this one is tilted to the right, and then there is another one, just quite small. Okay. I think this is enough so I can make this one smaller as well. All right. Here is another reference from this one. I quite like this flower. Let me sketch the rough shapes because we are not drawing like precise botanical shapes right now. And these are just for the ideas. I will bring back some of these references when we want to add details later on. I also like these ones because they are quite round. I think that's pretty nice. And they have shorter stems Also there are these interesting shapes. I don't know the yellow flower, but it can be also green. If we draw it, maybe it can look something like this. Almost like a fern. I think there is fern here as well. Then you can create some of these leafy shapes similar to this. There is also daisy here, a lot of smaller lines. All right, let me make this reference a little bit smaller. Okay, so we have the rough sketches for the flower ideas which we can use in the foreground. And now let's go for another practice, warm up in the next part. 5. Warm-up sketches: drawing a girl with a bike from references: Okay, next, let's practice sketching the character. Again, I want to keep it a very rough just as a warm up exercise and observing the shapes and not focusing on details. And that's why the bigger brush size helps me to keep that in mind and not focus on details. I can just create very simple shapes, not focusing on action lines and perfect anatomy and perfect body shapes, but just the idea of the girl and the bike. I can always move around some parts. It really doesn't have to be perfect. Just an idea. You can draw the feet or you don't have to. This is the bike. Of course, she has better walking pose, but this is just to explore if I actually want to draw this pose pose or not. For example, what you can do, you can always chop parts and tell them it fits the pose a little bit better. If I want to have a shorter skirt, I can always move it and re draw the pose. We would have the feet here. Obviously, the seat of the bike is little bit closer to her, it's not so big. Then she has the head. All right, so this would be very rough sketch if you want to actually redraw the sketch later on, I will show you that in the later lessons where we will redefine the sketch. Again, just a rough sketch. Just we can choose from the ideas for the characters. Okay, let's look at other reference. Okay, now we have a different pose. This is not very sideways view, so let's just do our best and maybe something like this. And then trying to recreate the pose from sideway view or seeing it from the side. She has both feet on the pedals, but as I see already now, this post might not be the best because it's not very clearly visible where the feet are. But other than that, I like that she has a dress, you can play around different outfits and really creating proper shapes and everything. It's very hard to keep it rough because I'm already like I should fix this part, I should fix this part and make it look proper and redefine it. But again, try to keep it very rough and simple even though it's quite hard to keep it this way because I'm like the sketches anyway. Okay, let's move on to the next reference. Okay, here is another one. What I like on this one is that she has this torso kind of moved to the back and the arms are quite stretched. And a lot of these references have heads, so maybe you can draw a head on your character. This one already has these flowers in the basket, I think, which is super nice. She has this one leg here and then on the pedal, then we have the wheels. It's connecting here. Okay? The set basically, she would need to go a little bit higher. Okay. Something like this because the seat is aligned here. Okay. Maybe it doesn't fit the mood which we wanted to have with the ocean. Plus also I think the tilt of the torso is maybe a little bit too much, maybe something like this. Plus she has the leg on the ground which doesn't really fit. Or maybe she does because she is maybe like stopping to see the view. You can really decide if you want a pose like this, I will make this one smaller. I can make actually all of them smaller. We have space for more poses. Okay, this pose is quite nice because we can see both feet quite clearly. Maybe this leg is too short. Maybe we can outstretch this other one, maybe a little bit more. Okay, this is too much and it's also behind the other leg. She also have quite stretched arms, but at the same time she looks quite relaxed. We have the bike handles beat. The shape of the bike is quite nice. So let's make the wheels. And then, as with the other reference, I can already think about these baskets to add. Then I also quite like the shape of this bike. Okay. And this leg needs to be bigger relative to distance to this bike. Okay. I would need to make the head smaller, because somehow I make them always a little bit too big, so they look more cartoony and cute. But I think so far, I like this pose the most. Okay, here is another pose which I can maybe fit somewhere. Let me see. I can put it somewhere here. Okay, then maybe you can draw the character that it's like standing with the big flower arrangement there. Again, with the head and the bike. This bike has these like straight lines connecting the shapes of the bike. And I think I like the curved ones which we looked at before. Okay, so this is the rough sketch for this one. As I mentioned, I think I like this idea the most. I will take the reference what we looked at before, and I will redefine this one later. But when I looked at some of the other references, there were also dogs in the basket. So let's do some warm up sketches for that one as well. And really don't worry about the roughness of your sketches because they can really look also stiff as the first sketches usually are. And then it gets a little bit better. And then you will like some of the sketches more than the others, but really don't go to details. Don't fix them right away because these are just the ideas to help you decide. 6. Warm-up sketches: drawing a dog in a basket from references: Okay, now I will practice sketching some of the dogs. For example, here, it's hard to see, but I can zoom in on this reference. But the dog is quite small, we have quite big basket. Then the dog has this more square shape of the head and quite small snout and bigger ears. Then it's sticking out from the basket that g we will have the other ear somewhere here. Basket, again, quite a rough sketch. Let's just move it to the side and I will open another one Here we have another reference here, the dog is more frontal view, but we can make it work with this basket I guess. But I don't think I would use this type of basket because it's not so cozy as like Baker basket with the brown warm colors. Then we have a different dog face shape. He has this fluffy ears. Then the body shape we can see through the basket here is the nose here. To redefine the shape here, I think that would be quite nice to do on a separate layer, but we can make another class just about sketching dogs and make it look perfect. From this sketch. We can't really tell the shape of the dog for this exploration, I think that's enough just to see the silhouette and decide if we like this type of dog or it doesn't work for our illustration. This shape of the dog wouldn't really fit for this illustration, but I think it's good to do it. Okay, staying on the same layer. And I will create another sketch. All right, for this one, I think this dog from the side view, is quite cute. And I think that would work much better for our illustration. But this dog is still rotated towards us, which maybe it's not the best. But what I like about this poll is that he has the poll outside. Maybe I can maybe implement that. And also that his ear is sticking out. I think that can be quite nice. Then he has these spots, which is pretty cool. The top of the head is quite flat, then the rest of the body is following the shape. And then we would have this cute shape on the top of his back and also on the face. Maybe this can be one of the dog poses that I will do for the illustration. Here is another reference which I quite like because even though this dog is not in the basket, but I like his open mouth, which is quite nice and the tongue sticking out. Also, his ear is quite visible in the silhouette. And then you can add a basket and maybe make the dog actually a little bit smaller. Because obviously this huge do would not fit into the basket. But maybe you can make him smaller and maybe use this type of Pow sticking out from the basket. I think that can be cute. Combining these two references, I think that's pretty nice and maybe making his snout a little bit longer with the free form selection tool. Okay, I think something like this can work. Okay, let's move this guy. So we have space. Okay, then we have this cute corgi, which I couldn't resist to draw the corgi because they are just so cute. This shape almost looks like a cat. That the cats have smaller noses compared to dogs. Oh my gosh, this looks quite creepy. Okay, let's not focus on the face with this big brush because that's a more difficult, we would need to make the face a little bit chunkier. We would have the smaller feet, but I think this would be ult the basket and I think the silhouette would not be very readable for this one. Even though Corgis are like super, super cute. This ear is much smaller, not like a cat. Then you have the bigger dog nose and smaller eyes. We can work on the dog drawing class in some other time, but we'll have this basket on the bicycle and then we have the handles here. It can work if you really work with the colors. The silhouette is not very clear, but otherwise, yeah, can work. I think Corgi has a better silhouette maybe than the other fluffy dog which we did before. I'll just move it here. Let's make another one. Let's this one. What I like also about this reference is that the basket is a little bit tilted, which is quite nice and it has texture the top. Maybe you want to design your basket in this way because you can see bigger part of the dog. I quite like the spots on this and the ear is quite big and he's looking down. It's this recognizable shape of a dog, even from the distance. Then I can add the markings on the face. If I draw the dog, we will have these spots, the ear, and then you can create these patches and make the snout maybe a little bit thinner. Okay. I think I can combine some of these dogs into one illustration. I like the tongue sticking out the leg and maybe some of the spots, so Perfect, we have another warm up exercise, and now let's move on to the next part. 7. Let's combine the sketches: Put all the warm-up sketches and inspiration into one illustration idea: Now I can combine some of my rough sketches into more clean up illustration. But not overly clean because we will be redefining everything more with color. We will not create precise line work here. Let's turn on the sketch that we worked on before. Here are some of the sketches. I can merge these layers now. I think I'm pretty happy with them. I can duplicate the layer so I can see it better. Then I can merge these layers. Now I can use only this one. I can duplicate it again, so I can keep this one in case I need it. Now with rectangle selection tool, I can delete these two with three fingers swipe down. You can cut or delete. I can make this sketch bigger to fill the canvas. It's like approximately something like this. All right. Now, actually thinking about it, I need to reduce the sketch because I want to paste some of my other sketches on top of it so I can see it a little bit better. Now, I can turn on some of these flowers that we sketched. I will change the blending mode to multiply. I will duplicate this layer again, so we can see merge these two. I can, I need to switch to the freehand selection tool for references. I can resize these just to have them here. They feed the illustration. Okay, so size and reposition some of my references. They are here in the foreground and I can use them as a reference when I'm drawing in color. Now let's bring in some of these characters. As I was saying, I need to disable this one so I can see it a little bit better. Change this to multiply, I think this pose works the best. I will take the selection tool again, cut this one out, cut and paste, and hide these other ones, change to multiply again, if it works okay here. Perfect. Okay, I think this works nicely. Then we also had the dog. Let's hide this one for a second. From the dogs. I will use this, maybe add the ear from this one. Cut and paste, I can also duplicate the ear, or you can just draw it so it doesn't have to be exactly the same here. I will duplicate and paste it. On this one, I can merge these two layers, hide the other one set to multiply. I can duplicate it in case I want to use it in the bigger size, but probably not. I can scale it down, flip it horizontal. Here I have the character. I can move the dog a little bit here. And from the character I can erase the basket. Then we had the flowers perfect. Now I will draw some lines on separate layer for some of these references. Because when adding color, it would be difficult for me to see through a full silhouette. It's easier to have lines as a reference. Let me show you that part in the next lesson. 8. Let's redefine our illustration sketch: Redefining the rough concept sketch: Okay, now let's redefine the sketch a little bit more before going to the next part. I will create a new layer on top, then change the color to something dark. Then from brushes, you can choose something which is more opaque, maybe H, B pencil. You can continue on the separate layer, and then you can reduce the opacity of the layers below by clicking on the M for multiply and then reducing the opacity to see the sketch below, I need to reduce the opacity here so we can see everything better. I will also reduce the opacity of the flowers, also the dog. Then I can sketch on this layer. I will set that layer to multiply as well. Check the size for my brush, I think this is fine. Then I can zoom in and bring back Pinterest references. You can choose any other references that you like. As you see, I have this reference in other direction. What I can do, I can go to Canvas and I can flip the canvas horizontal and use this reference for my illustration. This character has a little bit straight back or more straight that I would want, but what I like is the shape of the arm or like the placement that it has the bend here. I'm going for the simplified shapes. Doesn't have to be anatomically perfect or anything. I also like the shape of the hand. Then it's going on top of the handlebar, keeping it more like a mitten. There is the shape of the hand, but the character will be quite far away. You don't have to worry about exact shape. Then I can draw the second hand in similar position here. Then we will have the handlebars going down. I will look at some of the other bike references for this part, or you can use actually this bike reference, which is not that bad. I can actually draw maybe this part. As I can see, I need to move everything a little bit higher. I wanted to do the wheels a little bit tilted because I want the character to go forward and indicate this movement. But of course, you can make the wheels more precise. Rounded wheels. I'm not sure if I like this shape part of the bike, but this lower part is quite nice. I can always redraw that part. Then we have the seat, the legs. I think I will use a different reference, something like this, and then, oops, I need to take the dark color. All right, let's go look at other reference. Okay, on this reference, I like that the legs, one is more straight in the foreground and another one is in the background. I will use that for this illustration. I can even outstretch the leg more so just to exaggerate the simple shapes, I like the pants on this character as well, and this curve on the shirt. And this one has more curved back, which I like the character is more tilted forward. Then we can add short sleeves, I think. Okay, and the shoe. All right, I think this is enough from this reference. Okay, now I have this bike reference. I will flip the canvas back. I can use this one for a reference. I can draw the head for the character as well. And it doesn't have to be, again, just perfect head because we will redefine it later on when we will add color. I think I will add tail maybe for the character, it's moving in the wind, something like this. I don't have the reference for that right now, but you can also watch my hair drawing class if you want to explore drawing hair more in the simplified shapes. Okay, I think this is enough for the head shape here. Now let's redefine the bike shape. I will change this one. I think it's a little bit nicer when the bike is more straight, especially in this part. But maybe there is like this little curve. Then we will have a curve here, then it's connected here, it will be recognizable as a bike. When you add wheels, you don't have to worry that much about it. We just need the petals. Then we need this part and how it's connected. Then the placement for the basket seat. And then it's like straight, also connected here. Then this one has this connector here. Maybe a light. Okay, Probably the light doesn't fit there. Then we will add the basket with the do, it needs to be attached here somehow and another basket here. And what I also like on this reference is that maybe we can create like shorter pens and we can see how it looks in color and make sure that the wheels of the bike are approximately aligned so they are in the same height. And what I also really like on this bike is that it has the black tires and then it has also the white tire in the middle. Now let's look at the dogs. I will flip the canvas horizontal Again, make the brush a little bit smaller. I will just redefine the dog a little bit more. Maybe the tongue can be also here, but I think, yeah, this is pretty cute. Or I can make him like more excited, that, oops, I changed the color. The tongue would be here on the side. Whatever you like more. Then I have the chest here and the pow what we sketched before. And then we can add the color perf and I can hide the references. And now I can just redefine some of these flowers a little bit more. Okay, I redefined the sketch a little bit more, and in the next lesson, I will start adding in color based on the composition that we just created. 9. Let's add color to the water and the sky: Coloring the water and the sky: All right. Now let's do the coloring. You can duplicate the whole canvas video sketches, so you have a back up. And when you are ready, you can merge the other layers. I can have all of these merged together. The light brown stuff is on one layer, and then I will have the light sketch on the other layer. This one will be also multiply, I can keep it in case I want to have it. Then I merge the two, I can delete this one. And then I will draw on the layers below the sketch. I can group these two and call this sketch. I think actually, I need to reduce the opacity of this one even more. We are able to see the colors better. Now I can go to the new layer. For the coloring brushes, I will be using this brush number eight. Mostly with some texture which behaves more like watery gash. In that case, if you want to create something similar, you can use your own brushes that you like. Or you can go to painting folder and you can take for example, gh brush or you can go to the drawing folder. Then you, let's see, This brush is also quite nice with nice texture. Okay, now I will go back to this brush number eight. Then from the colors, I will first start with this lighter blue tone. We will start building colors from the background to the foreground. I will take the selection tool, rectangle selection tool. I will create selection for the sky. Then I can paint the sky behind the tree. I need to adjust the brush size. Let's see, around 24% is good. I will create brush strokes from left to right. Then I will take this lighter blue and draw more strokes under this darker blue. Then I will take the lightest blue. Then I will sample some of these colors when they are meeting in the middle. And I will blend them a little bit more together. Perfect. Now I will go to adjustments and I will find goals and blur. I will blur this. Let's see, I think 7% works quite well. Now I will create a new layer, go to selection tool and take the Knangel selection tool again. Now go to colors. I will take the darkest blue here and continue with the same brush. I will adjust the brush size to around 25% I will paint these brush strokes similar how we painted the sky. Now I will go to colors again, and I will take this lighter blue tone and I will paint in the middle. Then I will go to colors again. I will take this lighter blue tone, which is more in turquoise section. I will paint here on the side little bit also here. I will make the brush a little bit smaller, then go to the colors and I will make it a little bit more saturated. I will paint over in some areas one more time. Then go to the colors again. Let's take this lighter blue which is here, and I will paint in this middle part. Then go to the colors again, and I will darken one part here, which is here on the top, near the horizon, and also in this part. Now go to the Gs blur again, let's blur this part out as well. I think 5% works well here. Now go to the layers and create new layer. Go to the colors and take the lighter blue again and paint in this middle part. Now I can make the brush a little bit bigger as well Perfect. And now go to the adjustments and sell Motion Blur and slide from left to right. All right. Then go to the adjustments again and select Go Simpler. And let's see, I think 4% works nicely. All right, let's color the green parts in the next video. 10. Let's add color to the greenery: Coloring the green areas: Okay, now let's paint the greenery and the path. Go to the layers. Let's create a new layer. Now go to the colors from the colors. First, select this dark green tone, but not the darkest. Then I will make the brush around 20% and I will paint over this frontal green part. And I'm creating these random shapes. Then I will make the brush a little bit smaller and I will go over some areas one more time. Then I will go to the colors again. And I will take this lighter green and paint over some areas again. Then go to the colors and take this lighter green again, paint over some parts. Then go to the colors again, and take the lightest green paint over some of the other parts which you maybe haven't painted in yet. Now go to the colors again and take the darkest green and paint over some smaller areas as well. Now I will reduce the opacity and paint over some areas. One more time, I will sample some of these transitional colors, Make the brush even smaller. And paint in some areas one more time. Make the opacity a little bit bigger perfect. Now go to the colors. Take the mid green tone and we can paint some of the greenery here for the bushes and behind the bike. Then make the brush a little bit bigger. When creating the bushes, you can use the rounded motion strokes, or rounded strokes. And the same goes also on the other side. Then go to the colors and take the darker green and let's create more color variety at the bottom of these bushes. Now go to the colors again and take this lighter green. Then we can add some of that green there too. Then take also the lighter green, the same as we did here on the foreground. And let's add that lighter green there too. Here you can create these stabby or dotted motion, still like circular, but lifting the pen a little bit more. I will go and take the mid green again and paint over some areas. Then sample the darker green paint in some other spots. Then I will take a smudge tool. For the smudge, you can use any brush that you like. It can be as this brush or the quash. Basically, just choose where whichever brush you like. I will my smug brush and I will make the brush a little bit smaller. I will smudge some of these areas, but not all of them because I want to keep some of the textures and shapes. Then I will smash some of the grass texture perfect. Now let's add the path on a separate layer. I'll create a new layer. And I will move this layer under the greenery layer. From the colors, I will take this lighter base color. I will go back to the brushes and still keep the same brush as I used for everything. Then I can color in the path perfect. I think this works. And now we can create the three on the top. Go to the layers and create a new layer for the three. Now go to the colors. Let's start with this one. I will create similar rounded shapes like we did on the bushes next to the path. Then go to the colors again. Take this darker green, make the brush a little bit smaller, and create smaller shapes. Then go to the colors again. And now take the darkest green, and I will add some of that green here in the corner. Then I will sample some of these greens here from the bushes and paint over, adding back some of the darker green again. Now I will take a little bit of this sky color, make the brush smaller, and I will create these gaps in the tree, so you can imagine that the light is poking through. Then I will add some of these leaves here, maybe falling from the tree. Maybe add some loose shapes here on the edges. For that, we can add some lighter leaves as well on the edges. And I will add a few lighter spots here on the shape, which is darker. All right, now let's move on to the next part. 11. Let's draw some grass: Drawing grass on the meadow: Now let's add grass because that's also quite fun thing to do. But it can be very complex and it can take a long time. I'm also working on a grass brush, which I hopefully will be able to share soon. But for now, let me show you a different technique which saves you some time where you don't have to draw each grass blade. Let's create a new layer. I will use the same brush as I used before, but I will make it a little bit smaller. Let's see if 2% will work. I will start here on the side. I will sample the color here and see how big are the brush blades. I think this can work. I can create few brush strokes creating the grass blades. Then I will sample another color here and create few more of these grass blades. Then I will sample another color and create a few more of these. I will sample one more and add more of these blades. I will also add a little bit of these darker ones, this mid green tone. All right, I have a sample of the grass here. Now I can go to the layers and I can duplicate and move it to the side. And then I can duplicate this layer more times and distribute it around canvas. So let's do that. You can flip some of them horizontal. They are not the same when you are running out of the layers. You can merge them keeping one layer separately. And then I can duplicate this layer. I will merge these layers together and I will duplicate the first one again. Then you can also make some of these a little bit bigger and a little bit taller. All right. Now I can merge most of the grass together and I will keep one layer separately. Now I can paint over some of these grass blades. I will create a little bit more variety. I will, I will sample some of these shades which are already there, and I can paint some of these grass blades back in. All right. Now I will go to the smash tool and I will smash some of the areas perfect. And now we can move to the next part. 12. Let's draw some flowers: Draw flowers and more plants in the meadow: Okay, now let's create the foreground flowers. I will go to the layers and create a new layer. Go to the same brush as I was using until now. And take the darkest green color and follow the shapes which we created in the sketch level for the flowers. I will choose the yellow color, and you can choose, of course, any color that you like. Then I will sample the color from the sketch, and I will add some of the darker color in the middle of the flower. I will continue creating more flowers here. You can alternate the colors. For example, I can take the white for this flower and go back to the yellow color for the other flowers. Then I can also take that purple color and add flowers in purple. The same as we were looking at in a Francis. Perfect. Now, when you're done, you can create another layer. We will duplicate this layer in case we need some of these flowers. Then I will hide the duplicated layer. I will copy this layer again. I will make it a little bit smaller. I will move some of it in front of the bushes. We can have some of those flowers there too. Then I will duplicate it one more time and move it to the side. They overlap a little bit and I can make it smaller. Let's see, maybe something like this perfect. Then I can merge them. I will delete some shapes from there. It's not exactly the same. I will make some of these flowers even smaller with the free hand selection tool, it's a little bit better. And then I will draw in some of the shapes. I can make some of these flowers here too. Then I will add some of these white flowers. And then I will add grass as well. Just in this part, I'll make the brush a little bit smaller. And also some grass blades in this darker color just for the variety there. Perfect. Now we can check if we are on a correct layer and then I can duplicate this layer. I can move it to this side as well. I think maybe I can flip it and see how that fits. I think that can fit perfect. I will delete these flowers, or maybe I don't have to delete them. Maybe I can move them to the side and make them smaller. I think this can work. Then I will draw some of these grass blades here too, to balance it out. Maybe I can add few of these white flowers. All right, I think this works. And now we can move on to the next part. 13. Let's draw the bike: Adding colors and details to the bike: All right, now we have quite a lot of detail already which is great. Now I can merge these background flowers together. They are here, these two layers. And I want to keep the foreground flowers on a separate layer. And now we can color in the character. I will color in the character behind the grass blades which are. Let me see. I think it's part of the grass. Yeah, we need a character behind below the layer with the grass. I will create a new layer. I will go to the colors. Of course, you can color in the character with the colors that you like based on the references that we looked at. For example, I like the bike color in yellow. Flowers in yellow colors, not flowers. I like the bike in yellow or blue was nice also. Turquoise is pretty blue will not work here because we have blue background. Then also we already have yellow here. Maybe this type of darker purple can work. Or we can alternate this darker purple into something different, maybe red or pink. I was already thinking about these colors. I obviously created the color palette for you, as in the previous classes. At the end, I decided to go for a pink color for the bike. I will start with the pink color for the bike, and then I will add colors for the character. I will start painting on this layer. You can test out the brush size and just feeling the shapes that you already created, you can reduce the sketch. You can see the shapes that you are drawing a little bit better. I don't think we need this part of the sketch anymore so we can hide it so we can see the other shapes better. Okay, we are here, I can, to be more precise about the shapes of the bike and for the wheels, let's create a separate layer. Click on the sign and move the layer behind the frame of the bike. Based on the references that we looked at, some of the bikes had these black and white tires, which I think is quite nice combination. Let's do that. I also mentioned that I want the wheels to be a little bit squished and not very round. Also, I'm trying to make imperfections on these wheels, so they are not perfect geometrical shapes because I think it adds a little bit of the charm to the illustration. Then I will make the brush smaller to indicate the middle of the bike wheel. All right, when you're happy with the wheel, you can duplicate the layer and move it to the side. Just make sure that the wheels are approximately in the same height and align with the structure of the bike. Then you can also flip horizontal, first vertical and then horizontal. The wheels are a little bit different. Then here I will delete a little bit of this white part and add here to the side. When I'm happy with them, I can merge the layers. Then I can add the set in the basket on the bike. For that, I will take this darker beige, brown. I will make the brush also a little bit bigger. I will paint in the basket. When I'm looking at this color, I think we can make it a little bit less saturated. Will go to the color palette. I will less saturated, I will add it to the color palette. It's similar but a little bit different. I will paint over this basket. Then I will add the set. Then I will add also the frontal basket. Then add this pink part for the bike. Then I will sample the color, and I will make it a little bit darker and I will put it also on the color pallet. Then I will make the brush a little bit smaller. I will draw a few lines on these baskets. Now I can add the flowers to the baskets. For that, I will create a new layer behind the bike. Go to the cal pallets and take the mid green and create leaves. And these longer plants, similar to the references that we looked at, I will do the same here. You can add any flowers that you like. Here. I'm thinking about some big tall plants. You can think of any flowers or plants that you like. Maybe this girl is traveling with peonies or any other flowers that you like. Then I will take the lighter green and then I will add few leaves in that color too. And then I will take the lightest color and add a few of those, and also the darkest color. All right. And we can also add some of the florals there. And I can add also some in red color. All right. Now let's move on to the character and the dog. 14. Let's draw the girl: Adding colors and details to the girl on the bike: All right. Now let's call in the girl and the dog. I will create a new layer. We need to create new layer above the bicycle. From the colors, I will choose these lighter tones, so they stand out against the water. Or you can choose darker tones. The skin and the hair still stands out against the water. Just be careful not to use the same color range as the water will go. For first coloring the pants, I will select this blue color. I will make the brush small, 1% I will color in the pants. Let's see. Maybe actually 2% it's better. I'll just color in the character. Now for the T shirt, I think I can take this red color, which would work nicely with the pens, and I will color in the shirt. Then I will add the shadow with the darker red. I will add the shadow here at the bottom in the fold a little bit. And then on the bottom part of the sleeve and front of the T shirt. Perfect. Now I will color in the arms and then I can add color to the face as well. Then I need to add some shadows. So I will take a little bit darker color to add the shadow at the bottom of her face and on the neck, also here on the arms. For this part, I need to make it smaller. I need to probably create a different color on the bike. I will go back to the bike shape here, I will actually add this brown because I think this works better for the handlebars, the darker color from the basket, and add that to the handlebar, and also here as a shadow perfect. Now going back to the character, I will paint the hair with this darker brown. If you want a refresher about painting hair, you can always go back to the class about painting hair that I have in the teacher's profile. You can just go to the teacher's profile to find that class. As you can see, I made a mistake coloring on the bike layer. If you make that mistake, you can just select the area, cut and paste, bring it to the character, and then you can merge the layers. Now I will go to the colors. And I will take this lighter brown and I will create a few highlights on the hair. Then I will go back to this darker brown and I will also create a few shadows. Then I can also add the hair band in this purple color, which we have in the flowers, maybe a little bit brighter. Then we can also add the face. Zoom in on the face. For that, I will create a new layer and see if I can do it with this brush or I can take smaller brush maybe. Let's see, I think this brush can work. You can work with six B pencil or a monoline brush. For this part, I will take black color for the eye, I will for the mouth. And because the character is quite far away, I will not go in detail for the face. I can create a nose bit more pronounced. I can add an eyebrow inside of the ear and maybe bottom of the nose. I think the eye can be a little bit lower and a little bit more tilted, but as you can see, it's getting more pixilated when you tilt it. I need to draw it again. If I want to have it a little bit more in a different position, I think this is fine. And then I will adjust the hair a little bit more with this brown color. Okay. I will add a fringe, and then I can merge the face and the head together and throw a darker shadow under the chin so we can see it a little bit better. All right. I think this is fine. And we can move on to the next part if you want to work on the face, for example, you can add more hair. The fringe is quite bigger. That's also nice. But for this purpose, as the character is quite far away, I think this works nicely. Oh, we forgot the shoe. Let's draw the shoe. I think the shoe can be in red color. Pedal of the bike may be white from the top and black from the bottom. And then we can add a gray middle part for the chain. We can add that gray also to the middle of the wheels, but that's on the separate layer. Let's do that now. We can move on to color the dog. 15. Let's draw the dog: Adding colors and details to the dog in the basket: All right. Now let's color in the dog. To do that, I will create a new layer. Actually, maybe it can be. No, because we need to have the dog under the basket shape and behind the flowers. So we have to have it on a separate layer. Now, I will go back to the brush that we have before and I will take the white color and I will color in the dog. Then I will go back to the colors and I will take the black color and I will color in the ear of the dog. I think his paw, maybe it can be like this grayish paw and then he has these spots, Then his nose can be black as well for the eye. I need sharp brush before then. I can add few. Going back to the texture brush, I can take the gray color and I can create a spot on his back. Maybe one smaller spot here. Maybe I can make the ear little bit bigger. Then I need to add the tongue. I think the pink is quite good for that. I need to take a little bit darker pink to add shadow in his mouth as well. Let's go back to the sharper brush again. You can use HB pencil for this one or monoline brush. Then with the darker color, you can add the lips for the dog and maybe some teeth as well. Then you can add this cute eyebrow. And I go back to other brush and let's add color on the dog as well. Perfect. 16. Let's adjust the proportions: Adjusting the proportions of the girl: Now you can turn on the, oops, not the drawing guide, but reference to see how the character looks from the distance the leg. It's hard to read because of the shorter pens, even though I think they're cool. But I think I will make the leg a little bit longer. To do that, I will go to the character, go to the selection tool, go to the freehand selection tool, select the pens, and go to the free form, and I will stretch the pens. Then I will go to Warp to adjust. Perfect. And then I will go to the adjustments and I will find liquefy. I will the leg a little bit more. I can make it smaller. Perfect. I think this works so much better. And then I can add a little bit of the shadow there as well. And then you can add also le of the detail on the genes. All right. Perfect. Okay, I also think that I can make the head of the character a little bit smaller. It's on one layer, but this is up to you and your style. But I think for me here it would work a little bit nicer. If the head is smaller, I will select the go to the arrow. And with the free form, I'll make the head smaller. I can check on the reference, maybe not as much, maybe something like this, perfect. And then I can adjust the hair band with a war for the neck. I can do a paint over there. I can also paint over the edges of the hair band. And maybe it can have like this little bow. Maybe that's too much. Okay, I think this is fine. And now we can move on to the next part. 17. Let's draw the water reflections: Adding water reflections and sparkles to the water: All right, now let's add some sparkles to the water. I need to zoom out to the layers to create the layer here. We need a layer above this lighter layer. And create a new layer with the plus sign. I will keep the same brush. Go to the white. I will create few shapes in the background. We will create similar approach like we did with the grass. Now I will duplicate this layer with uniform. I will erase few shapes we don't have the same combination here. Then I will merge these two layers and duplicate again. Then I will make them also smaller erase few from those, I will duplicate the layer again, flip horizontal. Then I will merge all of these layers. I will select some parts and I will duplicate it again, and continue duplicating these sparkles around the canvas. Then you can make some of them bigger, merge the layers if you have too many. And then you can select and duplicate again. All right, I can merge all of them together and set the layer to screen. Then I can duplicate the layer so they are a little bit stronger in opacity. Then I can merge these layers together, go to adjustment, and go to motion blur. And blur them slightly. I think 14% works well. Then I will create another layer and paint over a few shapes with more opacity. Okay? And then I will set this layer to screen as well, and I will merge it together. Then for extra thing, you can create new layer and we can create this sparkle effect. You can draw this type of sparkles in some areas. You can create something like that with the new layer, I can create actual sparkle with the star set. If you have this set, you can just add few of these stars there just to create this extra glow. But of course this is optional. You don't have to create these stars. You can also draw them by hand if you want. You can alternate the size. I think here I will delete a little bit from the shape here because it was two round and the same goes here. But other than that, the sparkles on the sea are quite nice. That's great. And now we can add a little bit more of the texture on the path and the birds and some of the flowers. 18. Let's draw some textures: Adding textures to the path and the grass field: All right, now let's add the birds to the sky. We need a new layer for that and I think we can add it above the sky. I need to go back to the original brush. I think I will keep the same brush as I was working with the whole time. I will take a gray color. I will add the gray here to the color palette. I will draw birds like suggestion of the bird. Of course, not realistic birds because they're stylized and in the distance as well. But you can create more realistic shapes if you want to. But I think for this purpose, I think these shapes work quite well. I think I can reduce the opacity. They are not so strong in the shape. Maybe I can add a little bit of suggestion of clouds. I will create a new layer for that. With the same brush, I will take this lighter color from the horizon and with the circular movements. With the bigger brush, I will create these type of shapes. Then I will take the color and make it slightly lighter and some shading like that too. Okay. I can reduce the opacity of this little bit. I think I can make the sky a little bit darker here. All right, I think that's enough. Now go to the layers and create a new layer above the path. And select Clipping Mask from the textures. You can take some of the texture brushes, for example this one. Or you can go to the free brush set that I prepared for you. From that one you can take the sponge brush dry, which is like a dry sponge, and we can create some texture on the path with that one. For that, I will take this light base, I will add a little bit of texture with that one. Then we can add some darker spots as well. For example, with this darker base, then you can take the sparkle grain. Or you can take some of these brushes from the grain set and add few of these darker grains with the darker spots. Or you can also draw them by hand if you want to. Then I will take the darkest color and add few spots with that color. I will go to the layer with greens, then I will switch back to the basic brush that we were using the whole time. I will draw a little bit darker shades around the path so I can sample the color from here. I need to make the brush smaller, then I can add a little bit of the brown. Maybe I can take it from here and add some of that brown here too. We can add the shadow, we need to take slightly darker color and just draw the shadow under the character. Perfect, I think this is enough now create a new layer and we can add a little bit darker spots on top of the grass. You can take this brush from my free brush set, or you can take some of these noise brushes that I have in the noise brush set. You can also draw this part with a soft airbrush so it doesn't have to be textured. Now I will take this darker green. I will draw on the bottom part of the grass. Then I will create a new layer above this grass layer. I will make the brush a little bit bigger. I will paint a little bit on top of the grass. I will reduce the opacity. I will set it to darker color. I think I can reduce the opacity even more. I will create similar layer like that. One more time, I will set this to multiply. I think I will reduce the opacity of this one as well, the one we created under the grass. It's not so strong. I think that works quite nicely. 19. Let's add the last details: Adding the last details to the illustration: Okay, now we can add a few small flowers on top of the grass, so you can create new layer. Go to the basic and with the same colors that we had before. I can add few smaller flowers. And then I can add few of them above the grass. So I can go here. I can add few of the red ones as well. All right. I think that's enough of the flowers. And now find the layer with the foreground flowers. We have the copy in case we need to use it again. But now you can go to adjustments. And you can select the motion blur. And we can blur the flowers a little bit. Maybe 17 is too much, let's see. Maybe 10% Then I can go to the Gs blur and blur it one more time. Perfect. Then I can also go to the tree, we have to find the tree. We can blur that one a little bit with go sin blur for that one, I think 3% is quite nice. Then I can go to smart blur. A little bit of the edges. You can imagine that we are focusing on the character. I can blur some of these flowers as well, so I need to find the correct layer. All right, perfect. I think this works a together quite well. I think the colors work nicely. I hope that you enjoy this process. I can't wait to see your take on this illustration. 20. What to draw next?: How did it go? I can't wait to see all your awesome artwork. Please share your drawings and illustrations, also the work in progress if you want. In the project section, if you want to expand on the knowledge you learned in this class. You can watch my other classes about characters, also about colors called color palette and color and light master class. Visit my teacher profile to find them. If you would like me to share your projects on Instagram, please take me in the Instagram stories in the post and post description so I can help you and your art to be discovered by more people. Thank you so much for watching and I hope that you share your illustration project with others and see you in the next class. Bye.