Illustrate Giraffes In Procreate

1. Introduction & What You'll Learn: Hi, I'm Vinita, an illustrator and a designer based in Singapore. And in this course, I'm going to show you the process I follow to illustrate giraffes in Procreate. To make this process easier, I have created these guideline sketches in the form of stamp brushes. We'll start the illustration by using these stamp brushes as a foundation, and I'll guide you step by step in illustrating a semi realistic girafe. I will be demonstrating on this particular sketch, but you can pick any other sketch of your choice and follow along in the class. The class includes plenty of examples and a bonus lesson where I'm showing you how I turn these giraffe into a seamless pattern in Photoshop. So see you in the class. 2. Project & Examples: For your class project, you can illustrate any giraffe of your choice using the technique shown in this class. I have plenty of tips and tricks and guidelines and sketches in the resource section of this class. There are a few reference images and color palette, too. These are the four sketches that are available as a stamp brush. So before we start this class, I want to share my examples of finished illustrations. This can help you decide which one you want to go for to follow along in the class. The technique I am demonstrating in this class can be used for any animal of your choice. There is a brush set in the resource section of this class, but you can select any brush of your choice depending on the style you want to follow. These examples can give you some tapes and ideas on how the patterns are placed, for example, on the face, the shading near the neck, the hair at the back of the neck, I will be looking forward to your beautiful giraffes in the project section of this class. 3. Canvas & Brush Setup: So let's start with our canvas and brush setup. When I open my Procreate app, this is how my gallery looks like. We'll start by creating a new canvas. For that, I'll tap on this tiny plus sign. Here in the list at the bottom, you'll find some default canvas sizes. But to create your own we'll tap on this tiny plus sign again. For most of my projects, I use a size of 3,000 by 3,000 pixel. But for the giraffe, we can keep a little more to the height. So I'll keep my width as 3,000 pixel, but I'll increase my height to 4,000 pixel. So we have a canvas size of 3,000 by 4,000 pixel and the DPI as 300 and I'll tap create. We are ready with the canvas here. Let's move on to the brushes. When you download my brush set from the resource section and open in Procreate, you'll find it in the brush library here. Either you'll find the brush set at the top here or at the extreme bottom. The name of the brush set is giraffe class. And in this brush set, you'll see the top four brushes are the stamp brushes, and the bottom four are the brushes for the illustration. These are guidelines or sketches with four different poses of a giraffe. Let's see how they look on the canvas. I'll simply tap this in the center. This is the first brush. Let's see the second one. I'll select the second brush, and I'll tap on the canvas. I'll reduce the size of the brush, and this is how the second brush looks like. I'll hide this layer so we can check the other two brushes, select the third one. And the fourth one. I'll increase the size of the brush. You can use these brushes as a guideline to sketch. You can even edit and copy and paste their faces or different parts of the body. Now let's move on to the other brushes. I'll hide this layer add a new layer. I'll select the first brush. It is a brush that you can use for sketching. All four brushes are default brushes from the Procreate library itself. I've just made few changes in the setting depending on my illustration style and comfort. This second brush is to add your base shape to the illustrations. Now let's move on to the third brush. The third and the fourth brush you can use as per your comfort. You can use both of them for adding details and highlights to your illustrations. I like to use this third brush for my highlights and shadows and the fourth one for the details to add details to your illustration. This is a pressure based brush. So the more pressure you add, it gets wider. It's great for adding small details like hair and towards the eyes. We will also be using the same brush to add pattern to Ariaf's body. Next is the color palette. You'll find this file in the Resource Section two. When you download this color palette open in procreate app, you'll find this in the color panel under palette, either at the extreme top or at the extreme bottom. Now, one step that we can add here is tap on these three dots and set this palette as set as default. So this will help your palette show here in the first section. It is easier to pick up colors from here while you're illustrating. I'll clear all my layers, and let's move on to illustrating our giraffe. 4. Illustrating Giraffe - Part 1: Now, my first step here is to change the color of my background. I want it to be slightly darker because the base color of our giraffe is very light. It won't be visible if your background is white in color. To change that, we'll go to layers, tap on layers, tap on this background color. You can keep any slightly darker color of your choice. I'll be keeping mine as this light blue. Next from the color panel, I'll select a shade of dark gray or black so that we can add our sketch to the canvas with the help of our stamp brush. You can select any stamp brush of your choice and follow the same steps we are doing in the class today. I will select the first one and stamp in the center of the canvas. Now, to make sure this is in the center of the canvas, we'll select this sketch here under snapping. Make sure your snapping and magnetic is on. I'll make this sketch slightly bigger. And now, when you're moving your sketch, you'll see these golden lines. When you see them vertically and horizontally both, that means it is in the center of the canvas. This is how it should look. Vertically and horizontally. Now deselect. Now, once you have your sketch on your canvas, we will reduce the opacity of our sketch. I'll reduce to around 50%. Next, we can add a new layer. Pull this layer below our sketch layer. On this layer, we will be illustrating the base color for our giraffe. Before we do that, let's get our reference image on the canvas. For that buil tap on this wrench icon menu. Here under Canvas, tap on Canvas. We have an option called reference, toggle on this option, and you'll get this tiny box on your canvas. You can move it around. I'll keep it on the left corner, tap on image, tap on Import image. This will open your photo gallery, and you can import your reference image from here. There are plenty of reference image in the resource section of this class. These are royalty free images that you can use for your reference. I'll be selecting this image which has a similar body. So for each sketch, you will get this similar image in the reference images. We will be referring this for the pattern and the shading on the body. For the face, we can refer to a different image. Now let's move on to the layers. We have this one new layer. I'll rename this as my base layer. Next, we can select our brush. I'll select the studio pen brush. We'll select our base color from the color panel. We'll be selecting this first off white color, and we will be adding a base color to our giraffe. I'll be adding an outline for the whole giraffe, and we will be filling it with the same color. Now, there can be one more step before we add a base color. That can be a sketch layer. You can use my stamp sketch as your guideline. You can add your own details and edit the shapes and everything depending on your own style. I will be slightly speeding up this step, so the class is not too long. You can pause the video and continue with your outline. You will see there are many places where I am going over the sketch lines wherever I feel I want to alter the shape or the size of that particular area. Once you're done adding your outline, fill it with the same color, Make sure you slide right on the screen for the threshold. Now we have a base color to our giraffe. Let's move on to the second step. For the second step, we will add some shadow to our illustration. You can refer to your reference image wherever you can see these shadow and darker areas. For this, we need a new layer on top of our base layer. Add a new layer, tap on this layer and add clipping mask to this layer. Next from the brush library. I'll select my shading and highlight brush, but you can even try my fourth brush that is for the details or any other brush of your choice depending on your style. Now, from the color panel, I'll select this second right orange. Even for the color palette, you can experiment with different shades of orange, yellows, and browns. We can start by adding our shadow from under the neck. This is a pressure based brush, so the more pressure you add, it gets darker. I will reduce the opacity of my sketch more so we can see the shading clearly. I'll reduce it to around 20%. Now, sure, if you see this area has a slight depth, Next towards the legs near this front chest area, like you can see in this image here. Next where the neck is ending here. Next on the leg at the back. Near the tail area? Now, let's move on to the head. Some shadow on the legs, too. Now, once I'm done adding my first layer, I want to select my smudge tool. Under Smudge tool, make sure your same brush is selected. When you select your brush under the Smudge tool, you can even play with this opacity. The opacity can increase or decrease the intensity of the smudge. This smudging step is also optional. There are few people who like it without smudging. I'm following this step because I need my end result, the end giraffe illustration to have a more softer feel to it. Now, let's move on to adding some giraffe skin pattern to our illustration. For that, we will add a new layer, tap on this layer and tap clipping mask. We'll go to the brush library. I'll be using my fourth brush here, but you can use any other brush that you're comfortable with. Now, from the color panel, I'll select the same second orange color. Before we start, giraffe can have different patterns and spots on them, depending on their species and the location they're coming from. So you can do a little research and decide on which pattern you want to add to your illustration. So let's start with the neck first. We'll cover the neck area with the pattern. We'll follow the center line here, like in the image, you can see here. The patches kind of follows the center line. Also, you can see the mirror effect here. Like you can see towards the upper area here, it starts with a smaller marking. I'll follow the center line and add these tiny patches. These spot patterns are similar to our fingerprints because they are unique to every individual animal. I will slightly increase the speed of this process here, so the lesson is not too long and you can pause and add your own details. If you are following another sketch of giraffe, make sure you follow a similar reference image, so you can see how the pattern looks in that particular pose. Let's see how it looks on the back. You can see in the reference image, it is following the shape of the back. We need to follow the curve of the belly here. This will give your giraffe more dimension. Now, if you see towards the legs, the spots are getting smaller again. And as I go down, I'll gradually increase the size of the spots. We are done with the body here. Let's move on to the face. Now for the face, I will import another reference image, tab clear, Import another image. I will import the image where we can see the face clearly and is in similar position. This looks slightly similar. And if you zoom in, you can see there are few spots on the face too. I'll try to add similar spots on our illustration. You might have to reduce the size of the brush as the area near the face is too small. Even more smaller spots near the ears. For our next step, we'll add some shadow to this spot layer. Once we are done with the face, we'll go to layers again. We need to switch on Alpha lock on this layer. For that, I'll tap on this layer, and you'll get this option called Alpha lock, tap on Alpha lock, go to the brush library, and I'll select my fourth brush here. But you can even try the third brush. Now from the color panel, we need a darker shade of the same color. This is the color we have for the spots. We need this color which is slightly darker. I'll make it more darker and less saturated. Now because this spot layer is alpha logged, whatever brush stroke or color we add is only going to show on the spots. I will be adding this to each spot, and wherever I feel it needs to be darker or needs shadow in those areas. I'm holding my Apple pencil slightly tilted. It gives you more wider and smooth brush strokes. I will continue this for all the spots. Let's move on to the second part of illustrating this giraffe. 5. Illustrating Giraffe - Part 2: Our next step will start by adding a new layer. For that we'll tap on the layer, add a new layer, tap on the layer and add clipping mask to this layer. Now, from my brushes, I'll select my fourth brush. We'll start with the eyes first. You can follow along with the same eyes that I'm doing here, or you can have your own style for the eyes. So when you're creating a print or a collection where you have multiple giraffes, for it to look cohesive, you need to have similar style of features on all the giraffes. I'll go to the color panel and select this white color to add reflection inside the eyes. Going back to my dark brown color. So we can add this little nose to the giraffe. Now with the same color and the brush, I'll just increase the size of the brush. We can add this dark area on the head. Now, with the smudge tool and the same brush selected, I'll bled some of the areas where I feel it looks too rough. Now for the years, make sure your brush is selected. With a slightly smaller size brush, I'll add this hair like detail following the reference image. Now, let's move on to the tail with the same brush and on the same layer, I'll quickly add this hair like strokes. Now, let's move on to the feet. I'll quickly add another reference image where I can see the feet clearly. I'll cover the ends with the same color following the guideline and the reference image. Now let's add some highlights to them. This should be on a new layer. We need a lighter shade of the same color, select the color and diagonally go left. Now, following the reference image, I'm trying to create that shape of the feet. Now with my smudge tool, I'll blend some of the edges. Next, I'll be adding another layer of shadow. For that, we need a new layer. This should be above our base layer. So you have to go back to the base layer, add a new layer. Make sure it is on top of your base layer and below all the pattern layer. From the brush library, I'll select my second brush from the color panel. I'll select this second bright orange color. Now we need a reference image where the head position is very similar to our illustration. So I'll clear this. I'll tap on this, clear, Import another image. And I'll start adding this another layer of shadow following the reference image. You can see where the orangish yellow color you can see in the reference image. This gives a nice vibrant finish to your illustration. Make sure you have covered all the edges on the legs. Otherwise, when you hide your sketch layer and place this giraffe on a light background, it will not be visible. Now, under the smudge tool with the same brush selected, I'll blend some of the edges. For the face, we need more defined lines. I'm trying to follow the reference image as much as possible, but you can add your own details depending on your style. I'll select a more darker shade for the mouth. So blending with my smudge tool. So this is the last detail that I'm going to add for our giraffe. That is the hair at the back of the neck. If you see in the reference image, they're very short but covering the whole neck. For this, we need a new layer that is below our base layer. So add a new layer and pull it below our base layer. Next, go to the color panel and select the darkest shade from the color palette. From the brush set, I'll select my fourth brush. That is the Tamer brush. And I'll start adding these short strokes following the shape of the neck. So we are finally done with the illustration of our giraffe here. I'll close this reference image window, and I'll change the background to white color. And we are done with the giraffe illustration here. In my next lesson, there's a bonus video on how I'm turning these giraffe into a seamless pattern in Photoshop. 6. Pattern Process: So I air dropped my illustration to my laptop and imported in Photoshop. My canvas size for the Photoshop file is 5,000 by 5,000 pixel with 300 DPI. My first four layers are these Giraffe Illustration, and the other few are some plant illustration that I want to add in my seamless pattern. So the first step I always follow is to select all my elements and group them, and then duplicate this group, so that I have an extra copy of them, hide my first group, open the second duplicate group, where I will start working and turning them into a pattern. My second step is to switch on my Pattern Preview, which is under view, go to view, select Pattern Preview. Now I'll try to move my elements around and try to build a composition until I am happy with my pattern. I'll speed up the video a little bit. Enjoy the process. Let's try some background colors. I hope this process and the class inspires you to create your own beautiful giraffe print. 7. Final Thoughts: To recap, we learned how to illustrate giraffes in Procreate. A lot of tips and tricks on illustrating any animal of your choice, how you can turn these giraffes into beautiful patterns. I hope this class has been beneficial to you. If you have any question regarding this class, you can post in the discussion section of this class. I will be looking forward to your beautiful giraffes in the project section of this class. You can follow me on skill share to get notified when I publish a new class and you can follow me on Instagram two. Thank you for taking this class with me. See you in the next class.