How to draw a Cartoon Illustration in Procreate from A to Z

1. What is this course about : Do you want to become an illustrator? Perhaps make your own children's book, easy-peasy. Now you can do that from the comfort of your home. Using the digital tools available, like Procreate. That's why I have designed this course. Why I'm going to guide you step-by-step how to use the digital program, but also how to draw a cartoon character. You don't have to be trained in classical drawing to be able to draw simple and nice cartoon characters. And sometimes it is even an advantage. In this course, I'm going to teach you how simple doodle drawings you can start designing your character. Will go for the steps of outlining the character, adding two basic colors and then shading the chapter. I'm going to show you how to treat the light, where the light is coming from and how shading gifts of volume to declare. We are going to go for the steps of highlights and how these enhance the volume of the character. Where to put the highlights. How did it enhance or character design? And last but not least, we're going to talk about polishing or character, how you can add texture so your character design looks more appealing and more hand-drawn. So rolling in discourse today. Let's get started. 2. How to start: Now this is the final image that we want to accomplish. Let's start. Let's start with a new file and go to layer one that's from the default setting. Choose a pencil. I'm going to choose a pencil from the basic library, like inking. And I'm just going to try out some pencil. It doesn't matter what you choose, something that you feel comfortable with. And I'm going to drag the opacity down a little bit. I want this to feel sketchy. And I'm going to start sketching really roughly without caring about keeping things clean. Drawing two spheres, one for the head and one for the body. Now I want the head of the kitten to be turned to the right screen, right, and its body, the screen left. For that matter, I want to find the middle line of the head. So draw a vertical and a perpendicular line where the middle of the head is going to be and put another sphere for the nose. Now, the lower part draw as an ellipse as another sphere, very roughly. That's going to be the lower part of the ketone. The cheeks. Don't be afraid to draw many lines, just sketch it out. We're going to refine that later on. Now find the middle line of the body. Do another line of this lower sphere. That's where the middle part of the body is going to be. Now I want to find the mouth of the kitten. So it is going to be singing. So I'm going to do another sphere on an ellipse on the line that I drew vertically on that upper sphere. Now, let's draw the eyes. So I'm going to draw two spheres on each side of this middle line, the vertical line that I drew. You can do the same. So now I'm going to continue and try to draw the pulse. I'm going to draw the arms. So I'm going to draw the kittens right arm just by drafting it with two lines. And I'm going to imagine that it's fingers are spread around in a dancing pose. I'm just going to round on some fingers. They might not look like fingers right now, but also, I'll do this sphere, this circle around it, just to make sure how big the hand is going to be. Draft more lines to find where the arm is going to be. Now I'm going to continue even when the legs and the other arm, you'll see that I'm jumping from one place to the other. And you can do the same because that's how you're getting used to, to see the whole pulse and not just get stuck into details at that stage. At this stage, allow yourself to experiment. I want you to follow me in this steps because I'm experimenting with this sketch. And you can see how easy it is to go for from back. And not be afraid. Your own enemy is only your mind. Thinking that you have to draw everything nice and pretty from the get-go. And that is not how it works. Now, I'm going to erase the dots. I did try to do it too, because we want a different pose. And you will train yourself to make mistakes and to reduce things, to do things wrongly. So I want to make a chunkier arm that fits the character better. So I'm going to repeat the process with another sphere by the place where the arm is going to be. And I'm going to jump to the other arm to see how thick I want the arms to be, how junkie? Because ketones are fluffy, we want them to look fluffy even as cartoony characters. So I'm continuing, even let the body and the legs, I want to see how the pulse is going to be. So I'm going to draw the upper part of the leg with another sphere. You can define everything with spheres and the lower part of the band underneath with another sphere, smaller one, or an ellipse. This leg is going to be behind the body. We have the middle line there, so I can imagine whatever leg is starting. And I'm going to do the other leg stepping on the ground as if the kitten is dancing. You see that you can change this at anytime. Now I'm defining the upper part. Of the right leg or kittens, left leg, right. Screen, right. I mean. So now let's add the microphone and the hand-holding it again with two spheres drafted. Don't care too much to draw clean lines. You see, I basically just doesn't fit. Let's put in the years there and make some notes in the air. And now draft even the other hand, again with spheres, define the poem with the spheres. The finger with the spheres, and draw on top of the lines that you already drew. Make many, many scribbles. And let's define the eyes. Again. Again, draft on top of the lines that you've done and tried to make leaner spheres. Basically. Let's add some ellipses to make the chicks fluffier. And again draw on top of the line of the lower part of the head. The more lines you have in one spot, the better you'll see the shape because it will be revealed to you by the thickness of the lines. So I'm adding some hair very roughly. I am adding another sphere for the poor order, the leg. And I'm refining everything. Now. I'm making this middle line on the stomach, which is going to be the dress, the little skirt, the kitten is going to have. It's going to have like eighties costume, dancing costume. And as you see, I just scribbled on top of the lines. That's why I want the opacity a little lower. Because I want to have a thinner lines and I thicken them as I go. That's how I I see where the shape is because in the beginning I don't even know what the shape is. But you see how easy it is. The more you draw on top of the lines, the more you see where you have to put the next line. And that's really the process. So I'm going to do a flower here again, describe everything with just spheres or ellipses. Very roughly. They're not even correct at this stage. And I'm going to scale the kids and down to make a better composition. To do that, select the arrow on the top corner, and it will activate the Select tool. So you can drag it down later on. Now with the free hand tool on top corner in the Procreate, you can select the arm for example. And by the Select tool, you can adjust it and move it around. If you feel the shape is not correct. I feel like I want to have more space between the mouth and the microphone so I can see the kitten's face better. That's why I decided to move the arm a little farther away. If you kitten has the same problem, just move it. And even if you see a little gap there, the white gap, don't worry about it because this is just the initial sketch. We are going to refine this later on. And you see I draw more lines on top of the existing lines. Lines. You're basically refining the drawing one bit at a time. One line at a time. Bravely without worrying too, making a mass, basically you're looking to make a mask. Now I'm defining the pattern of the skirt here. And you see what the main, the main idea is. Let's remind ourselves what we want to accomplish here. We've just gone back to this final drawing. So now when we clearly see what the legs are, I'm adding some nails and I'm adding the socks on the lower part of the leg with some lines. I'm just going to bulge them up so they feel like thick socks or do you used to have? And I'm going to round up the hair, define more the ears at some eyebrows to give more character, two or kitten and continue redrawing. Draw on top of the lines, make them thicker, make them darker. Now I've deleted the finger because I want the finger to point upward more. You can do that if you want. If you feel comfortable with what you've drawn, just leave it as it is. That's the chicken make any changes. And now we have an eraser. And comparison to my other lectures. But what I never use an eraser. Now, I have the possibility of the digital program to erase and move things around. Now I reshaped the mouth or darken it and add some eyelashes. And they saw the kids and it looks cuter and cuter. And this drawing is going to be redrawn over again. So for such details are just for me to feel what I want to add more. And I'm going to bulge the chicks more refined them. This is just the drawing that I get a feeling for. How I want things to be. I'm going to add a ground here so I can feel what a kitten standing. And we're done for now. Let's continue refining it in the next lecture. 3. Drawing the outlines : Before we start, let's have a reminder of what we want to accomplish here. Okay, so we have our initial drawing, which is very, very rough as you see, but we have our kitten, there, is still a nice drawing, right? So let's go to Layer menu and add another layer. And let's go to layer one and open the layer and drag the opacity down on this layer like that. So we barely see the drawing of the kitten. And on that second layer, don't forget to click on the second layer and choose a black color from the palette up there. And now we are going to trace on top of this sketchy kitten, sketchy drawing. We're going to trace with cleaner lines. So zooming and start tracing on top of these sketching lines. You can see that you can come as close as possible to the main shape when you have a rough drawing like that. And now I'm going to draw the flower as close as possible to this line. At the same time, I'm refining the lines I see. Here is nice because we do have the tools and the possibility to erase from this part on. It is just technical and it's very meditative. What we're going to do here, you're just refining, redoing. And you don't need to think too much because you have already derived drawing. What I want to show you here that you as a beginner, you don't have to panic when you start drawing. Every artist starts from a sketch, from a very, very rough sketch, doodle and doodle. And you see you draw lines on top of other lines and you move lines around. You move shapes around until you are happy. And the simplest tool I can give you here is that you can describe any shape with the sphere with a rough sphere. Now I want to make this ear, for example, a little pointy because it's not a bear. It's a cat. And cats have pointy ears. So that's why I erased the ear. That was described with the sphere. But now, because we have the rough drawing, I can just do the pointing of the year a little bit and still have the roundness of the rest of the year. Now I'm going to clean up the chunk of hair that is here. This is one way to describe hair, just drawing chunks of hair instead of hair pieces, small hairs. And this is a cartoony way to describe the hair. And now I can make the pointy ear here. You see that it's easy when I have the sketch underneath the ear and I know how the shape is going to be and where the ear is, the position of the year. That's why you basically do all this sketch drawing. It's not only to describe the shape, but to try out where each shape, which shape comes forth, and which one should be behind something else. And you'll see that I have drawn many times, but I still need to try out which the best line is going to be. So the eraser here is very useful. And what I want you to see here is to learn about the process and basically get rid of your fear of drawing. Your fear that you have to do it right the first time. Because when you compare yourself to other artists, you see them drawing nice pictures and you admire them and you say that, well, I can never do that. I can never draw like that. But I want you to see that each artist starts with a messy, sketchy drawing. It starts by. Finding, searching for the shape of the character and doing it over and over again. And here we can erase, for example, as you saw that I've erased one arm and redo it again. But you can also start a new, you can just choose a new file. And if you're not happy, you can start over and over. And I want you to see the process here with me. Now, I'm trying to draw a tongue which I haven't drawn roughly in the drawing. It's a detail that I want to put there. So you see that I'm doing it three times until I get it right where I want it to be. How much I want to be seen from this tongue. Because I want this kitten to be more lively. I didn't need to put the tongue there. But when I have some details, when I have the mouth, I can just try this out. And I feel the mouth with color by grabbing the black dots, the black dot from the palette out there and dropping it in the closed surface. So if your lines aren't closed and you have to make sure that they are close because otherwise all your drawing is going to be black. Or you can just draw that with a pencil. It doesn't matter. And now I'm drawing the cheeks. Let's continue with the eyes. Drawing outside the eyes and the pupils now draws fear and hold the pen. Don't release it. And there is a feature in Procreate that makes the sphere smooth, which is a very nice feature, and drag-and-drop. The black color within the pupils, makes sure the lines are closed. So not all the drawing gets black. And here we have the kittens ice. The more the facials are finalized, the more life you will get. Indicating in your character very, very soon, very early on. Which is nice because you will feel motivated to draw the rest of the body. This process is both very meditative, but also a little bit tedious. In my opinion. Maybe you prefer this one because you don't need to think too much about finding the features. But for me, the process where I find the features of the character, the more sketchy process is to prefer a really here is just you put on a nice music and just follow the lines you already drew and try to refine it a little bit. That's basically what it is to it. And now draw some eyelashes and the kitten gets cuter and cuter. It basically comes to life. Now, let's continue with the hand. I'm going to draw the finger that is closer to the mic and then continue with cleaning up the microphone and continue with the rest of the arm. My kids, and it's gonna have three fingers. Or poor. Country doctors often do have three fingers or forefinger, whether thumb. If you've noticed. This is I don't know who came up with that, but it seems to be a nice balance for cartoony characters when you have chubby hands, to have just three fingers. And now I'm just going to trace on top of the dress and continue with the rest. The other arm. And just trace on top of what you've drawn. That's basically all there is to it. The lines suggest to you, which is the best way to draw the line. Draw it as smoothly as you can. And you don't need to do a lot of thinking here. So you see how easy this process is when you release yourself from the fear of failing, from the fear of making the perfect drawing. From the get-go. You'll see how you can allow yourself to do the end to discover here characteristics. And now I made that thumb which was not there. But because I already have the arm and the hand there, it's easy to see that something was missing. And I needed to add some there. And now I'm refining the dress or skirt. And adding some small details like black corners. I like as if there is shading beneath the, each part of this triangular shape just to create some volume of the dress. And this is something that I do out of my knowledge of how perspective works. You can just follow that and just do the same. But the best thing for you to do, things like that is to observe really how to patterns look like, how to dress look like. There is a very good exercise to do by just observing costumes, observing patterns, and clouds. It's very useful for you when you draw character design to have a stack like a mental library of clothes that you have observed that you have in mind. Now, let's continue with the legs and the pulse. Some small nails on the, on the legs on the pulse. They are very decorative. Of course, kittens don't have nails like that, but this is also the creativity. You have. What kind of elements you want your character to have, and how you can simplify them. You don't want to draw every single detail. You can also simplify it. And the simpler your character is, the better it's going to be. Actually, this is something you can think about. Don't push yourself to add too many details. They will not be necessary. Just strive to make it around, to make it cute. Focus on the eyes and the facials and the mouth. And that will always give you a cute and successful character. Now I'm going to just drag and drop the black color to the notes that I did. It's a graphic elements to describe that the cat is singing. They don't need to be there, but it's just fun to do. This is a symbolic language that people understand. When they see nodes, they hear music, even though they don't know what is nodes represents exactly. But we associate them with music. And now I can even hide the lower drawing to see how overdrawing looks like before I continue with refining some features. Now, this arm didn't feel quite good. And I'm going to redo it just because it feels that it was too complex. It had too many lines. That's what I was talking about, about the simplicity and the character. Sometimes you need to just simplify some shapes. They will always look good. Anyway, the simpler it is, the better it's going to look. Now, let's feel even the microphone black. And now I need to draw the lower part of the microphone, which I totally forgot. This can happen too, about the drawing suggested to me that something was missing. The more complete your drawing becomes, the more you'll see those tiny details and you will feel compelled to just fix them to redo them. So this drawing is done. I'm taking another look. And what I see is that this little arm is kind of, it feels like it needs to be chunkier. So I just erase the line and make it chunkier and make it smoother again next to the microphone. Because it needs more volume to be able to grip this microphone. Because the microphone is not soft at the microphone is a solid material and that's why it feels like the arm needs to feel as it goes around it and not squeeze it like it was before. This is easily fixed when you have your drawing almost complete. Here we go. We have our kitten, clean and nice. Now, let's go forward and start coloring. 4. Preparing for coloring : So welcome back. Now we have our outline done and let's prepare to color. To do that, go and create another layer just below the outline and on top of the sketch layer. In this layer, we're going to create our mask with a thicker brush, like some brush on the brush menu. Choose a brush that has a rather harder Blend, and choose a gray color. Now we are going to color all the character with this gray layer on a separate layer. Make sure you are on a separate layer and you don't draw or paint on the layer where the outlines are. And the reason why we are going to do that is that we are going to create a layer mask. So we can then continue coloring without being bothered. We're going outside the lines. You'll see this third layer is there. I can sync the opacity so I can see it better. And I can just continue trying to not go outside the lines, tried to be as precise as possible, because this is going to help us later on go into a flaw and just add colors without worrying. To go outside the lines outside the outlines. This will keep our drawing clean and it will save us time and will basically make the process more enjoyable. So take the time and duties process because it will save you time later on and assure this process is a little boring because fun is just to color this cute kitten, just gray. But believe me, it's going to pay off. So make sure you're thorough. And you can see through the outlines if you have to just drag the opacity down, even the outlines on top. And again, make sure you're painting on a separate layer and not on the layer of the outlines or the other layer with the sketchy sketch, with us, sketchy drawing, so to say. So go through thoroughly all the character and I'm going to speed this up to the end of this process. So we are done. Here is our layer, does we're going to use only as a mask. So click on that layer. And from the menu that comes up, choose, select. This will highlight the selection tool. Now, your layer is selected as a mask and you can start painting on another layer. While this layer is selected. This mask. We'll give you the possibility to paint freely without going outside and the outlines. So select the color we are aiming for pink kittens. So I'm going to select a pink color like that. And I'm going to choose a wider brush. Just increase the thickness of the brush and start painting. And now you don't have to worry to go outside D D outlines. But that only applies to the gray area. So you Still have to be careful around their head. The head meets the dress and what the hands meet the dress and this other parts. So you can see I've increased the opacity of the outlines here to make sure I can see better. So continue filling in the spaces for the hands and the legs and the arms. So I'm just going to speed the process up and paint the head, the arms, the legs of the kitten. And here I see that the mask and gone outside the outline. So I can go under great layer and just erase the gray mask and continue back to the pink layer. It is only enough to have fixed the grade layer and the other colors will adjust themselves. Now, I'm going to create another layer, and I'm going to place it below the gray area, not above because everything above the gray area is going to be mask. So I want to make some background and I'm going to choose some, some sketchy brush. And I'm just going to paint below the mask and the other color just to make the drawing look prettier, to have more definition and more life to it. So I'm just going to simulate a paint brush. So my drawing looks like less digital. That's what we do when we've created a digital tools or drawing does become a little boring. So we created this paint brushes that simulate painting and Canvas. So now that looks good. Now select the gray layer again and click on Select on the menu to activate the mask. Add another layer, choose a thicker brush, and let's add some color to the hair. Let's add darker pink. You need to be more careful towards the edges that borders with the head because we don't have mask, separate mask for the hair. And, um, let's choose a white color. Make another layer on top of the hair. Choose a yellow color. And let's fill in the flower and kittens hair. So let's select some eggshell white and fill in the white areas there. And when we are done with this basic coloring, Let's continue with the rest of the coloring in the next lecture. I'll see you there. 5. Adding colors : Now let's continue adding more colors. Repeat the process with the gray layer selected. And the way I showed you in the previous lecture, choose another layer. And let's add a color to the dress. Let's have the upper part of the dress, the yellow. I'll add another, another layer on top of the layer, the pink, and start painting with a yellow, the top part of the kittens dress. This process is very much enjoyable. You have everything on place. You have your character there, and you just have to use your creativity to add different colors. So fill in that. And let's go ahead and choose another color for the lower part of the dress. Let's choose a greenish color and something went out. You can choose another color if you want, add another layer. Make sure again, the gray layer is selected. The mask is active, and start painting while making sure that you're more careful around the yellow part of the dress because we don't have a mask for the most part. You can split all these colors and add separate layers in the same way. But it can be a little tedious and it can be a lot of layers, but this is up to you. You can decide to do that if you have more time. Why? If you want to experiment with layers and when you get better at painting and drawing in Procreate, to me, I like to have as little layers as possible and choose a rather to be more precise and more careful around these outlines for every element. Now, let's add colors to the eyes and the mouth. So go to the pink color and add another layer on top of that. And choose white color and fill in the areas of the eyes like that. Now I'm not going to create another layer, but I'm going to keep on adding the facial features of the facial color on the same layer. So I'm going to choose a red for the tongue. And I'm going to choose some pink for the nows, adding it on the same layer. So I keep my layer count lot. Now I'm going to add another layer. And I'm going to choose a bluish color. Again. This very pastel colors synchronized very well together. And I'm going to make the socks with this color and add another layer. Choose again some darker pink. And I'm going to make lines like stripes on this Sachs. Like really eighties kind of socks for the Dancing Queen. Costumes are really important when you draw and when you design characters because they can give you a lot of personality to who the character is and give you the right vibe to show your audience and create more mood and atmosphere for the character. And that's it. Now, this is done. Now, let's add some mail paint to the kitten. I'm going to use the layer of the face, so I don't have too many layers and I'm going to choose, again darker pink. And I'm going to add some pink nail polish to the kitten. That looks really nice and cute. And very ages, right? So with that, I think are coloring is done and it is time to go for the next chapter, which is shading. 6. Shading: Hi there and welcome back. Now we're going to talk about shading. So we have our basic colors in place. And for some that might be enough. But if you want to add some volume to a character, some more final polish, I'm going to show you a way to do that by adding shading. Shading is exactly as it says. You add shadows to the part of the character which are not touched by the light. For that matter, we need to decide the direction of the light. Let's say the light comes from this way. So we'll go on every color and make the opposite direction to what the light is coming from a little bit darker. It doesn't have to be super realistic because this is, after all, a cartoony character. And now we're going to work with this Select tool that we have by clicking on the layer and selecting Select option. So now we don't have to worry to go outside of this colored area. So what we'd want to do now is to select the color, for example, the yellow color that we're working on now. And to do that, tap on the little square over here and move the circle to the color you want to select. You will see the color changing over here in the corner to yellow selected. Then you release your pen and go to the pellet option. So basically just click on this yellow circle there to choose the palette. Now, you want to choose a darker yellow color. So just drag your pencil to feel like which color is dark enough. He shouldn't be too dark to black, but something in-between. And select that color. And now we are ready to paint the shadow of this particular yellow dress. Now you can zoom in and because you have the layer selected, you don't have to worry to go outside the lines, outside this yellow area. And you can freely just choose your brush, maybe a thicker brush, and start to paint on one side of of the dress. Because as we decided, the light is coming from the other direction. And in the places where you think it's going to be shaded like around the stomach, around where the the right arm is lifted up. It's going to leave a slight shadow on the dress and now beneath the, the skirt. So now we are ready with that. And let's go with next element. This is the skin or kitten's face and the hands, arms, and legs. So let's do the same thing. Let's select the pink. For this one. I've actually done a new layer because it's a lot of area to cover. I want to have safety, so I've added another layer. You can do that, but you know the process either do that or paint on the same layer. And you'll see I've added layer 13 here. So I'm going to paint on top of that. And I want to make sure I have the right brush. And I'm just going to slide down the pan to choose a slightly darker color. But I still want this color to be pretty bright because I want my kitten to look cute. I'm just drawing it out here on the arm as you see. And I'm going to paint the area which is on the opposite side of where the light is coming from. And just feel how it should be. You can always change it. You can always erase if it gets too dark. Now, I've drawn an arrow to make sure where the light is coming from. And when I change the color, how I want to change the color back is again, click on the square, on the left side and go and tap on the color you want to choose. Again, makes sure you're on the right layer. Because now the layers are getting too many. Always make sure you're on the right layer because you don't want to erase when you are happy with your painting. So this is something to have in mind. And in fact, many artists always draw or paint on the wrong layer. So don't be discouraged if you just mess it up. It's a digital painting. You will always be able to redo what you've done. If something goes wrong. So just color that part of the of the legs, for example, where you think the light doesn't bounce. And there is a lot to learn about how to put shading on a character, but I'm going to keep it pretty simple and follow this tutorial as it is. And you'll see, you will learn a lot how to add light later on to your own characters when you're on your own and you don't have me to guide you through that is basically just imagine Delight, good not to bounce if the light is coming from this direction, from this direction. So I'm going to do the other hand, I'm going to add shading to a part of the fingers that are banned. Shading on one side of the pointing finger and shading on the lower part of the arm. Just to make sure I'm on the right layer. I'm always making sure I'm on the right layer. And I was. And so now we can just paint freely and add some shading on the face. Now you can zoom in, in Procreate. That's a nice thing. Nice feature in digital painting because you don't have that if you, if you draw on and if you paint manually, I can see that I have this selected, my layer. I go back to the pink layer, to the face, and I again select the select tool and I see of him painting without that for awhile. But that doesn't matter because I'm still careful with the shading. Don't freak out if you don't select it. This is just help tools to help you feel freer and paint free. I don't worry too much about the technicalities, but if you forget to select it, it doesn't matter. You can always erase as long as you're on a separate layer. With this big shading, you can always erase. Now, I've shaded the hall, right eye, i ear the kittens right ear because it's going to be in shadow. If the light is striking from above. And just a little part of the year is going to be in the light. Just think like that. Imagine where the light would come from. It is going to be even more observant when you watch people, especially and not kittens, because we don't have this kitten in real life. It's a cartoony character by just observe people and see in different lighting which part of their faces and their bodies are shaded. And try to analyze it just for yourself, just as a game when you are outside and if you have an extra time and you don't want to hang on, you're more bile and scrolling through Instagram. Just observe. Observation is the best way to learn drawing because this information is stored in your memory. And when it comes to things like that, like we are coloring this kitten here, it will come immediately to you where the dark spots are if the light the light is coming from certain direction. So I'm just adding the shading. It's a flat shading. It's nothing really difficult with that. And now I want to make sure I'm in a different layer because we are done with the face and I'm going to do some shading for the hair. And I'll repeat the steps. Click on this little square. Choose the color that you want to add, shading to add another layer, usually on top of the layer that you want to shade or just paint on the same layer. If it's not too much, if it's not too much of a layer, you can choose to paint on the same layer if you don't want to add too many layers. So again, click on the square and choose this pink, dark pink color for the head, for the hair. And now go to the menu and choose a slightly darker color. There is no more to it. And it becomes a habit. If you draw more and more, you can, you're going to be drawing it quicker and quicker. And you're gonna be more intuitive when you choose your colors. Because this is also difficult. I mean, how do you decide what colors to choose? This is your personal touch here. When you decide what colors to choose, this is where you make your painting and your drawing unique. I'm just showing you the steps and how it's done. And later on you can be free to make your own choices. Just avoided the black color to match dance, make the shading shadow to black. Try to choose brighter color because your painting will look fresher. And now I'm going to the daisy. Daisy, and I'm choosing again the color, the same method as the London, the beginning. Nothing more to that. And I'm going to choose a slightly darker grayish color. And I am have the Select tool active, as you see on the upper left screen corner. And just make some shading on the daisies on the lower part of the days is to make them look thicker and have more volume. And or kitten. And the shading of our kitten is pretty much done. Sometimes it's not good to overdo it. You want to keep it simple because we went for this flat, cartoony style. So we want to keep it that way. The last thing I'm gonna do is the yellow part of the daisy. And I'm going to select the yellow, choose a darker yellow color and just add a shading to even this column. Here is our kitten. Have more volume and more life to it. 7. Highlights and Polishing : Welcome back. Now that we have or shading done, Let's do some highlights. The highlights or the opposite of the shading there, basically the bright spots on the other side of the shading where the light is coming from. Any bouncing on the surface. So let's go to or pink layer, the face and body. And let's select the mask, make sure it is selected. So we have this mask layer, and let's now do another layer On top of that and choose a much brighter color. Select the pink color again and choose a brighter color. And the layer is going to be on top of the shading there. So start painting where you think the light is going to come from. I'm starting from the fingers here. As you see, I'm adding some light on the part of the fingers, or the light comes directly to just a small stripe of light. And you see how much more volume it gets immediately. So I'm going to go through the whole character and choose the lighting. I'm going to do the chicks, you see that you barely notice it, but it makes a big difference in the way that the kitten fields there are volume fields start to get more three-dimensional instead of just flat. And I'm going to add some on the ears. And on the other ear. You see that I'm painting on top of the shading layer. Now I'm going to choose a thinner brush and I'm going to add some lighting on the opposite side, just by the counter of a kitten. That's because the light bounces from the environment. It's called bounce light. And I'm going to continue adding light on the other side of the kitten of the face. And then continue with the body with adding light to the fingers. On top of the fingers and DR. How and where to add highlights is something that you're going to land eventually. Because it's also process of intuition. I'm feeling where the light can be. And you don't have to do too much of it. Because if you overdo it, the kitten will look like a balloon. And it is not a balloon. And now I'm going to go to the yellow layer, the dress, and I'm going to select it to activate the mask. Then with a little square there, I'm going to activate the drop select box and I'm going to select the yellow color and select it and drag the slider to something brighter. Not too bright. And I'm going to start adding highlights them. And this light is going to be a little broader because the shape of the stomach is around her. And if I do it in this way, I will enhance the feeling of the body being fluffier and around her underneath. You'll see that this time I've used the same layer to paint both the highlights and shading. That's okay. And now I want to add a small detail. I want to add some cloth or wrinkles. So I'm just going to make this triangular white shape on top of the other layers as if it's a wrinkle that is sticking out from where does skirt is studying. Also, I re-select the shading color, the darker color of yellow, and add some volume, some shading to this wrinkles as well. And I'm doing it in the same layer. So what I do is basically I select on and off different colors with the same method, with a little square dots, we choose the other colors. I hope you've gotten a grip on it now and it's easy to use. So now let's continue with the hair, chunk of hair. You do the same, you select the layer, you'd click on the little square. Select the color drug in the blood menu. Choose a brighter color and just add a little. Highlight on top of the chunk of hair, and immediately you get more volume to that chunk of hair. Now, let's continue with the next to next part. Let's select the skirt. Go. And again, make sure that you select that layer. Now, click on the Select menu, add another layer. Click on the little square box, go into the palette menu and choose a darker green color. And now you can paint the same way you did on the other elements. Now, I see that I have forgotten to add shading on that layer. So that's I'm gonna do here. I'm just going to add the darker shading color. Even though we are in the highlights lecture. It's easy to forget because your image looks pretty much finalized now and you're adding details and it might forget things like that, but that's not a problem. Just added afterwards. So now I'm adding it on each chunk of this skirt because each chunks simulating that is a part of a volume in itself. So I want to add separate shading to it all, not to the whole skirt as a whole. And that will actually make it look as if I added shading to the whole skirt. So when you add shading and highlights to this object, you treat them as separate objects, as you have described or summarized or simplify these objects into simpler shapes. You treat each shape as if it's a separate volume, separate objects, like I'm doing now with these chunks of wrinkles on, on the skirt. So continue adding the last shading element. And now you can add the brighter side of the skirt, the highlights. So we're doing it in the similar way on the other side of the shading. And I'm doing it on the same layer. Now. I go forward back either adding layers. And it is really about how I feel, how much do I need to redo? If I have to reduce something? How much hustle it is two, to redo it on the same layer. If it's too much hassle, I will just choose to do it on another layer. If it's not, it gives me a better flow to do it and the same layer. But sometimes if you have to redo, That's what you do. I mean, you'll learn new lessons. It's about your judgments, about how afraid you are of making mistakes. And I mean, they're not really a mistakes, is basically just extra work. Because you've done your lessons, you, the kitten is already there and you can do whatever you want now you can experiment with light, with highlight and shadow. So now let's do the socks, that 80 socks and we go to the blue layer. Here is nice to have separate layers for the blue and the pink, because it's much easier to do the shading that way. And I will choose a darker blue for the shading. I have also forgot to make the shading for these little details so we can do it now. And we're going to do around each shape. You'll see that I have outlines that are added like that signify that they are chunks of cloth. The sock is not straight, it's not sitting tight on the leg. So I need to take that into consideration and do a shading and a highlight for each chunk of cloth. And I immediately just take this blue layer and add a highlight at the same time very quickly on the same layer. And now I want to do that even for the pink layer, the pink stripes on that. So I go in and choose strip, pink color, darker one. And I'm going to follow basically the line of where the blue shade is ending and try to simulate it, even, even for the thing being stripes, because they're a part of the same chunks of cloth, therefore, for the SOC. So I'm going to do in this way. And then the next, the other leg. And then I'm going to choose a brighter pink color and add highlight as well on the pink patch. On the other side of the pink part. Very quickly. And now we are done with them. So now what we have here is a lot of layers. So we want to combine some layers. Now we are done with everything and we think that's okay. That's what I'm gonna do, is select a layer and scroll down to the Merge option, merge down there. And I'm going to merge the layer below this one. And I'm going to repeat the same step for the next layer and merge the highlights and shading with the face with the basic color of the face. So I'm going to see what else I can do this with. And I'm going to do this with weather, a skirt. So I'm going to choose the highlights and the shading on the skirt. And I'm going to go again to the merge down in the menu and merge it down with the skirt and the same with the hair chunk. I'm going to merge this down. And I'm going to do that even worth the flower, merge down the highlights and the shading. And let's see what else do we have? I'm going to leave the rest of the layers this way because I want to have the facial and the separate layer, and even the socks, the different colors. So now let's add some shadow below the kitten. So choose another layer on top of the background layer, and choose a slightly grayish color. And now with that selected, start painting some gray shadow of the one leg because one leg is on the ground but the other one is in the air. So let's delete this black outline here, go to the outline layer and just delete the black outline so we can have a bigger scope because space to make these adjustments, this shadow that the kitten is dropping the drop shadow. And I'm going to cut back on the shading, the shadows menu. And I'm going to bring the opacity down already by selecting the layer and clicking on opacity. And now I'm just selected the black color instead of gray. And by bringing them positive down, the color will become gray. And by choosing black color, I can adjust how much I want the transparency or the grandness of the shape of the shadow to be. So I'm going to make a spherical on the elliptical spots that the leg that is up is dropping on the ground. And I'm going to bring the opacity way down because we have used a very soft and light color palette with all the colors. So I don't want to have very strong color there. And I'm going to increase the saturation of the kitten and the pink genus of the kitten and not see, can I have maybe another color for the kitten? Experiment with colors. This is something that you can do after you are done. We're basically done. And by combining even the layers of the shading and the highlights. Now, we can experiment and we can have a simultaneous change of all the color older layer. So I've made the pink color a little bit stronger. Now, let's get to the fun part and add details. Create a new layer on top of all the layers, even on top of the outline there, go to the inking menu and choose the same pencil as you had when you did the outline. Now, let's add more small dots as a graphic element for the whiskers. And let's draw the whiskers starting from each one of them. You don't have to draw all the whiskers. But just three or four is going to be enough. So you don't destroy the silhouette of the kids. And now it looks much cuter. Go to the eyes and draw the outline on the upper part of the ice, thicker. It's going to have is going to simulate eyelashes. Now I'm going to choose white color. And add a reflection of the light in the eyes so the pupils become more alive. And i'm, I'm going to drag down the size of the brush again, and I'm going to add some small highlights on the tongue as well and one on the nodes. And now, let's also add some highlights with a larger brush. Go back to the airbrush menu inches the same brush that you use for the whole process. And now add, choose a darker gray color and add some highlights on the microphone as well. Because this is also a surface that we have to consider. It has volume. When everything has volume, even elements that are black, they have to have volume as well. So I'm going to add some dots of highlight because this is a glossy surface. The microphone has metal or a glossy surface, so some small dots and a line of white, completely white that describes the glossiness of this material. And now we have our kitten done. We've gone through everything. So now we're gonna do something interesting. Got the gray layer that we created in the beginning. And select it with the Select tool again from the menu. Click on the layer and on the menu that appears, go to select to make the mask active. And now create a new layer on top of all the color layers. Besides the outlines. And go and select a pinkish color. Something like dots. Now, got the brushes and choose a texture brush. I'm going to choose this rectangle brush and now increase the size of the brush. And drag the opacity down of this layer and add it to multiply. Make sure the layer selected and with a large brush, just brush on top of this kitten. And it will create a texture, just very light strokes. It will simulate a crayon color. And now it looks hideous, of course, but that's fine because you can drag down the opacity way down around here. And now, just this little thing makes the kitten a look more hand-drawn. It creates a gradient texture on top of the digital drawing painting. So it just is more appealing. Of course, this is up to you if you felt that this is not necessary and you want to have the digital look of the kids and that's also, alright, that's just a different style. So we are done with our kitten. And I hope you enjoyed this lecture. And now you know how to approach your next character in Procreate, buy from me.