Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Mary. I'm a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. I have two beautiful cats who I'm obsessed with drawing, and they inspired me to make this class. In this class, I'm going to walk you through my process for drawing pets from start to finish. Starting with finding the right reference photos to learn pet proportions, to sketching and coloring our drawings. We'll be looking at how we can give life and expression through your drawings to give the cutest result and experiment with different styles in animals. As a special bonus, I will show you how to emphasize pets with all black fur and my process for drawing different types of animals. For your project, I want you create a fun and expressive illustration of a pet, it doesn't have to be your pet, using the techniques used in this class. Whether you're a beginner or advanced illustrator, this class is for anyone who wants to improve their skills of drawing animals. I'll be using Procreate on my iPad for this class, but feel free to use any other digital software or traditional methods. Ready to draw your pet? Join me in the first exercise where we use photograph to break down pet proportion. Let's get started.
2. Class Project: For this class project, you'll be drawing an expressive pet portrait using the process I use in my own work. The following lessons will teach you how to use photo reference to break down pet proportion, how to sketch and line your art, and how to shade and color to create a nice finished piece of art. By the end, you should have your very own pet portrait that you can share and admire. Personalized projects like this are my favorite because you have more motivation to finish, because it's for you and it's fun. That's the difference. Don't worry if your illustration looks like mine or not. You can be at any level or use any style that you want. The key is to have fun and create a finished product. Before you get started, be sure to think about your medium. I'll be using Procreate on my iPad, but you can use whatever's available to you. Don't forget to select your subjects. I'll be using my beautiful cat Yumi, who has nice stripe pattern, which can be difficult to draw sometimes. I think it's good to use as an example. Right, Yumi? See you in the first exercise where I break down how to use photo reference for pet proportions.
3. Warmup: Pet Proportions: Hello, welcome to my first lesson. I'm going to start discussing how to find reference for your pet portraits. The kind of photos you're looking for are ones where you can see the full body of your subject. You don't want anything cropped off like a paw or a tail because you never know you might want to draw those details and it'll be harder later on. Try to find well-lit photographs, clear ones that have enough contrast that you can see details. You want your subject to look like they do in real life. You want them to look as best as you can get them framed. You don't have to be a photographer to take good pictures of your pets. Personally, when I see my cat looking cute, I take a photo. I might try to frame it as well as I can and get the whole subject in case I do want to draw it later, but lighting and stuff like that can be edited. Just try to catch your pet in the moment if possible. There are obviously good and bad examples. I wouldn't want blurry photos, photos that are too dark, photos that don't show my proportions properly for my cat. So it's up to you, use good judgment, I recommend having photos that show their eyes or their facial expressions so you can have a more dynamic and expressive drawing. If you do decide to Google the photos for this class, please remember to stylize or change up the pose of the drawing so you're not directly copying from the photos because photographers are artists too. All right, let's say you found a photo that's okay. It's maybe a little blurry and maybe a little dark and you want to edit it. Let's take the photo I have of my cat Yummy, here on the left. I'm going to zoom in on this photo. It's dark, so I really want to brighten it up and make it clear so I can draw the details of her fur. First thing I'm going to do is make sure I'm selecting her layer, now I have, and I'm going to go to an "Adjustment". First, Curves; Curves has to do with the lightest lights and the darkest darks in the photograph. This slider deals with reducing the darkness or increasing the darkness. I think it's pretty much good as is. The other end increases the light or decreases the amount of light. I'm going to add more light in or what you would call increase the exposure of the photograph. I don't want it to look like that where the light is [inaudible] , but I want it to look as natural as possible, right around there. When you go to another adjustment for Hue, Saturation and Brightness, I want to increase the saturation a little because to my eye, her fur should be more brown tone, and the brightness, just to get some of the detail back. After that, I'm going to sharpen it, so I can start to see the fine details of her fur more, and you can just go all the way if it needs it. Yes, the background around her doesn't look accurate anymore, but what I'm focused on is her in the subject because that's all I'm going to draw. Now, if you were to draw some of the background elements maybe then you would have to worry about making sure those are clear for your drawing as well. All right, and that is a good enough reference photo that I can draw from and not feel limited by the quality of my photograph. Once you've found your reference photo, it's time to break down the shapes. I have here a photo of my cat Yummy and my grandma's dog Mojo to use as an example, since dogs are quite different than cats. I'm going to add a new layer. I'm just using a 6B sketching pencil and this sketching pencil would be good for this exercise. All I'm thinking about really is breaking down the basic shapes of these animals to make it easier for me to draw them. I'm going to decrease the size of a pencil. Let me start with Yummy, I'm thinking Mojo is the smallest. I'm drawing her body shape. It's pretty much a circle and I keep going from there. Her upper torso has its own shape and her head and her limbs and tail can be drawn as cylinders with joints. I'm putting a dot where her joints are and then drawing cylinders around them, curving the cylinders around the joints. It's easier to break down and understand. These are all simple shapes and her ears are simply triangles. Now let's move on to the dog Mojo. Dogs can be taller or more compact, then their limbs are very more greatly in size. So it's good to understand your proportions of the specific dog you breaking down and not use other dogs as reference. I'll start in the same way, the body shape; an oval. Then I'm going to do the head shape and the limbs. There's the joints and just drawing in cylinders. You can tell they're cylinders because you can add these curved lines that inform the shape that you're drawing, that might help you. You can do the same for the tail and the foot is another oval. You could draw the hip here as well. Then I could keep breaking down the shapes like I can make the ears triangles. The nose as circle, the eyes more circles, and you can keep going until it feels like you have a nice structure down. This is just a tool to help you understand the shapes before you draw them so you can understand what's meant to be round and what has more form than other parts of the body. You may be wondering why we're breaking down the proportions of these animals. It's because later on in the process, we're going to draw some light and shading on the figures, and it's good to always be aware where the shadows are, and how the shapes are in form. When I'm drawing this, let's say the body shape later on, I know that since this is a round section, the shadow is going to be more intense towards the bottom and then lighter as it gets to the top. We can pretend that these animals are figures or these very simplistic shapes that are easier to draw when we're thinking about light and darkness. Going back to the breakdown of Yummy, I can already tell I'm going to change some things to make it more my style. In the next lesson, I'm going to talk about stylization and how I use it in my work. See you there.
4. Tips for Stylization: Hi there. Welcome to the next lesson. I'm going to discuss some tips about stylization and why I use it. Why do you stylize? For me personally, it's to add character or expression to my drawings because I really like to have cute and more simplistic drawings. I'm not drawing full realism which some people might want to do for their style. I am somewhere between a cartoony or anime type of style. What is cute? You might think puppies or babies and you'd be right. That's typically what people tend to think of as cute because there's a science to it. Puppies and babies have a very similar proportions, the eyes are big, and the mouths and chins are small, and the heads are big compared to the body, and that's a formulae of what is cute. You can think of it for the triangle method. If I draw a triangle with the corners on the top, being larger on the top, and I draw a cat the same way with the eyes large and the mouth small, there's an obvious cuteness. You can do this for anime characters and people too, and you'll get a very cute effect. In Chibi anime it's very much like that. If I flip that triangle upside down now making the mouth and jaw area the larger part, that cat or baby is going to look bizarre, it's no longer cute. It can look angry or masculine and just abnormal, and so that's not cute. It's good to think about that when you're drawing so you can premeditatively decide if you want a cuter drawing or more realistic drawing. I don't draw on a realistic style, but feel free to do that if that's what you find aesthetically pleasing because this is just supposed to be for fun and you should like the end result. One way I stylize in my work is the fur. I've been drawing fur like this for a while. I think it started when I was drawing anime hair because it's very spiky and fur like in its essence. The way I draw furs, I think of it like a textural outline of the figure. Cuter, let's say a kitten might have fluffier wave-like patterns, while a more grown adult cat or dog might have spikier fur just depending on the breed or the impression you want to give off for that animal. The subtlety of your points versus curves is really important and it gives an energy to the drawing and also will decide if it's more subtle and soft versus hard and rough or spiky. It's not hard to draw a fur. I tend to just point and flick my stylus or my pen and just do small marks to build up this entire outline. I'm not drawing it all at once. I'm thinking about it. I'm erasing as I go because, although it looks like a scribble per se, it's really intentional and I want this fur to flow and have movement to it and actually look like the right type of fur and not just some style I've given to fur in general. Those are my tips for stylization. Remember to take your own approach and do what you like to do. I encourage you to look up artistic reference for the type of style that you're going for so you know what you want to do in the next lesson which is sketching. We're finally starting our project. See you there.
5. Initial Sketch: In this lesson, I will show you my sketching process and when I think about while I sketch and the tools I use. I've opened Procreate. I have copied the reference image that I'm going to use in the corner of my Canvas so you and I can see it easily. I'm using a square canvas, about 2000 pixels wide and high. That's a good quality for Instagram, which is why I chose square, because a lot of my pet portraits tend to do well on Instagram and it's just easier to post when things are already cropped the right size. This is just a sketch. The brushes I use vary a lot when I'm sketching. I just like something that has a difference in opacity versus pen pressures, so I press harder and I get darker. I like to have a little texture, especially in my pet drawings, because to me, they're just more organic and more fun when there's a little bit more texture and movement to the drawing. I'm going to choose my brush. I'm just going to go through regular 6B. Keep it more on the small end. I like to keep my sketch not at 100 percent opacity so I have more room to build up my lines darker with more passes. The color I'm going to choose for the sketch, I like to pick a color that I think is the overall dark theme for the drawing. I don't like using black because I think it really flattens art. Based on the color tone of this drawing, I would either use a dark red or a dark blue. I think I'm going to color pick our teal and yeah, it's more of a navy blue. Now, I don't like drawing on top of the photo because I think it makes me draw too realistically. I tend to go towards the head. That for me, if I draw a head well, it tends to make the drawing more smooth or I get more confidence as I'm drawing. I'll just start out with a circular shape, and unlike the other one, I'm sketching in what I see a little bit more. I'm drawing the ears more organically than just shapes. I'm thinking about their angles and how I want them to present, and the sides of the face. I'm going into the chest area. For me, that's its own shape against the body, and then the body comes behind that. I'm drawing the arms as cylinders again. Round the ends of the paws. I'm going to use my fur technique as I sketch. Just dropping in some of the fur texture on what will be my outlines, my final aerial lines. It helps me decide if I want to move things around a little bit. I have to drop in the cross section of a face that helps you draw the eye line and you show where the face is pointing. I do this for humans too. I just want to put in general shapes for the eyes at first to not completely saw myself on where they are. I want to move them around a little bit and see if I want them bigger or smaller. I definitely always tend towards bigger because that's just more cute for me. I'm just roughly sketching in. I have a scratchy sketching style. I'm not really a refined sketcher. I think of it like molding clay. One thing I want to know is I tend not to completely close things. I'm not going to completely draw her eye like an almond like that. That's not part of my style. I like to leave things a little bit more open or separate them by a color change, like you'll see later on. A lot of things will be left more open and less focused. You can't forget the nose. I like to draw a more simplified triangle shape for the nose. Draw in the extra circles for the pupils. I'm going to redraw her outline, I'm adding tufts of fur, and I'm trying to decide if I want to make the ears bigger or smaller. For the mouth, I keep it as simple as possible because I think it helps with my style. I draw a couple of the dots for the whiskers. Not everything I'm seeing in the picture. I don't really draw her mouth going all the way like that. You can, but I just think it looks cuter to draw it smaller and more simplistic. I draw it on the tuft of fur line for the chin, I want the cheeks to be a lot fluffier, so I'm adding that in. I'm just thinking about cuteness and fluffiness, and if it looks like her, but that I care about more later. I'm taking my eraser and I'm going back over parts I don't like or parts that I think may needs smaller or larger, or just need redrawn. It's a really organic process. The first mark I make is not going to be the final mark. Make the brush a little bit bigger as I go. But as you can see, I've made her head significantly bigger than it is in reality. But that's just what I like to do and that's part of my style. I tend to add the tail later on because a lot of the times, I like to make the tail move or be shaped in a way that might not be accurate to the reference. I'll just sketch it in. I like to give some movement to it. I'll just draw it. I like to have some curl to the tail. But it's looking odd, so I think I'm going to select it and just move it around a little so if feels more accurate. I think I need it to come more from behind her and I'll just erase this bit. For me, I really like the sketch to be a playful step. I'm moving things around, I'm resizing things, I'm playing. I think I want the ears a lot bigger now that I'm looking at it. She definitely has bigger ears, and I want the sketch to be right. I don't want to spend a lot of time in the line art section because to me, I don't find line art the most fun and I want to get it right the first time. I don't want to erase a lot in the line art phase. It's important to get all your experimenting out really on. I sketch in her markings. I'm really not doing it in a permanent way. I just want to see what they look like. See if I want to move. Do I want to move her mouth and nose? Maybe. Just angle it ever so slightly, different. See, if I bring it up, it starts to look like a Pokemon. If I bring it down, it makes her look more older. I just got to get it right in that sweet spot of what I think is perfect. I think color really helps sell this thing because you really start seeing the contrast and the details, and the sparkles in the eyes, and colors of the eyes. She's just got like a smug expression, so I'm just making her mouth a little upturned. Add in some glow. Markings. Add in some tufts in the ears. I really want to breakaway the shoulder area from the body. Really emphasize that drawing and some more markings, just scribbles. Nothing has to be perfect. The breaking of the fur is how I show the forms coming forth and back. Sometimes, it might look too messy. This is a messy sketch. I made a cardinal rule error. I made this sketch on the same layer of the reference photo, but that's an easy fix. I'm just going to select the sketch and copy and paste it. Then now I'm going to select this and grab it, and then move it out. Now, if I turn that off, I have my sketch on a completely different layer. I'm going to take it and I'm going to reduce the opacity, maybe like 30, 40 percent. Make a new layer. I'm just basically going to start the process all over again, but maybe a little bit more refined. I'm not going to have to draw the shapes first. I'm just going go in with the lines, and this is by no means the final, but this can be more closer to what you would consider finalized lines. I think it's really smart to go in a few times if you just aren't getting the right vibe. I'll redraw something probably too many times, but a couple of times at least sometimes, to really get what I want. It's important that you make sure your sketch stands alone. After I finish this part, I should turn this part off and make sure it still looks good, because sometimes your mind will fill in the gaps. As I sketch in, for people, is where I'll start thinking about highlights. I'll take my eraser and then I'll just circle as the highlight. I don't know why, but I've just sealed it for me right away. She automatically just becomes more dilly-eyed and cute. I see one more little smile line right there. That's cute. Then I like to do three or four dots for the whiskers, and I like to sketch long whiskers. She especially has very long whiskers. It's part of her charm, so I've got to get those in. Get her chin. Mark the suggestive chin or markings. Yeah. This is looking more and more like what I want the finished product to be. I think this is a good final sketch. This is a good place to then go do line art. I know where I'm going and I don't have to redo a lot of things, but before we move on, I do want to talk about making sure you flip your canvas, because a lot of times, you'll see if you've made things tilted or disproportionate. I don't see a lot of problems, but I'm going to go into Liquefy, which is on your Adjustments, and I mostly just use Push, which is all the way on the left. You can vary the size, and the pressure, and the amount of distortion, and just even move things around subtly without having to erase or redraw. Since it's a sketch, if the lines get a little blurry, which can happen pushing pixels around, it doesn't matter. I try to only do this part for sketches. I try not to use this on my final work because it can make the resolution go down. You can make the brush really big and really affect the entire drawing. You can change up bodily proportions and make the tail a lot bigger, and stuff like that, and then that's all up to you. This is a good way to play as well. Let's say I want the Expand option and I make the brush point large. I can make the head go crazy big, and maybe you like that, maybe you don't. I'll pinch it back down. Yeah, you can really play up with proportion and size and stuff without having to redraw, which I find very nice. Make sure you flip your canvas back or keep it flipped the other way if you like the way that looks. Then I'll see you in the next lesson. Remember, your lines don't have to be perfect, but try to get them most of the way there so you don't have too much to redo in the next lesson, which is line art, where I show you my process and what brushes I use. See you there.
6. Refining the Sketch: Hi. In this lesson, we will refine our sketches to create a liner. My goal isn't to create heavy outlines or anime-like cleanness. I just want to find an outline layer that I can use for my coloring step until it looks clean and refined. I'll be using the dry ink brush. It has a little bit more texture than some of the other inking pen options, like the studio pen, for example, that's more calligraphy like. But what defines it as an actual inking brush is a property called streamline, which can be found in the stroke path, stroke options section of the brush settings. Streamline is what I would call a computer algorithm that smoothes out your lines. It's mostly used in inking lines since you want to create smooth lines that don't have lots of shaking or jaggard motions to them. For instance, streamline is at 25 percent for the dry ink process, that's a pretty good amount. That's the amount I like to use often. If I increase that amount, I'm getting the more smooth, clean line, almost feels like I'm pulling the line along with my stylist, instead of me actually making a mark. But if I reduce it back to 25, you can see the computer algorithm changes and makes it more nuanced. But for a line-out layer, I like this because it helps me get the smooth result quicker. Color-wise, I'm going to continue using this navy blue that we started out with. But first, I want to reduce the opacity of my previous sketch layers. Let's move the first one really down, like 10 percent, and the second one down to like 40, 30 percent. I wanted there enough so that I can see it, but not enough that I'm going to confuse my new layer with the previous one. I tend to stay towards the face to start because that's where I'm going to spend the most time and I don't want to get lazy on the face. Start with the eyes. I'm going a little slower for the liner because I'm thinking a little bit more of what this shape I'm making of the line. I'm not just making one pass, I'm building up a shape of the line, creating an eyelash effect. If your lines end up looking shaky or you feel more uncertain as you're making them, remember to increase the streamline and that will help your compliments. Don't be afraid to rotate your canvas to get a certain angle. Once I get the features placed in, I start working around the head, I'll do the forehead. I'm just doing it for the same way like before. Slowly making sure I add texture in my marks. The slower I get, the more of a ruffled fur look I can achieve. If you don't like a section of whether you do, just undo and try again. Nothing is set in stone. It helps with the fluffiness, if you vary your line weight. For the little toes, I just add a couple lines, is separate. Now that this is good and the whole outline is done, I've drawn all parts of her body, I'm going to draw in some of her darker markings. Really, where only her black fur is showing up. I'll use some of the other color changes in the actual coloring section, but I want the black parts to be defined here. I'm just doing just chalky stroke marks, because a solid line, I think, is too much and I'm scribbling in the black. It helps to create some little, white gaps that help add some texture. For the most part, this is just scribbling. I think that's all I'm going to do for the markings for now. Anything else will be done in coloring these. Feel free to go in with your eraser. More sketch here, sketching pencil, the 6B, because I like that texture, but you can make it the same brush you're using. In summary, you can choose whichever brush you feel comfortable with. Just remember the streamline option is always there to help smooth out those lines. Follow me into the next lesson, where I'll go over coloring. I'll share my entire process from start to finish and give you tips and tricks so you can do your own. Our pets are almost done. See you there.
7. Adding Color: Hi, welcome to the coloring lesson. Here we're going to bring our pets to life with color. My approach to coloring pets is a lot like coloring on paper. I tend to use one brush and create many layers to get the effect I'm going for. I don't render blend that much and if anything, my approaches like watercolor, where you're creating layers of color to create one effect. I start by flattening the entire subject in one color. Normally a medium tone present throughout the subject. I'm going to use a 6B sketching brush, but with the max size turned all the way up. You can see that here in the brush settings, properties section, I just slide the brush size all the way up. That way I can cover the full subject with the textured brush and not have to be limited to smaller strokes. I'm going to choose a color, a brown tone that I think works for her. I always create the saturation a little higher than I normally would. For this flattening layer, I'm going to put it under all the other layers, and when have the opacity all the way up and you can vary the size as needed. I'm just going to start drawing around the subject. For the most part I'm trying to stay within the lines, but going outside the lines can look nice, more sketchy. If you just draw the outline, you can then drop in the color to fill up the entire image. Now that I've gone all the way around, I'm just going to grab the color from the corner and drop it in. You can see there's some whiteness around there which I don't like. I'm going to go back, drop it in again and increase the color drop threshold, so that's the flattening step. Next I'm going to use clipping mask to add more color layers. You might be wondering, what is a clipping mask? Well, let's see. Clipping mask can be found in the layer panel, you're just going to add a layer on top of your current one, and then you have this option to create a clipping mask right there. You see that arrow pointing onto that layer. Now anything you drawn this top layer will only appear on what you already have on your flatted layer, so you can stay within the lines. Next up, we're going to create another layer on top of it using our clipping mask. I'm just going to light in and bright in the color we already had chosen. Maybe add some more red or yellow tones. I just want it to stand out. I'm going to lower the opacity with these next layers because I want to create a gradient with each mark so it has a variation. You can change the size of the brush depending on your needs. I'm just going for some lighter colors of her bass tone now, so I see definitely making the brush bigger. I'm going over it more where I want it lighter and leaving the darker parts, and I'll make the brush really big and I'll just sweep in the lighter color. Well, that's a lighter layer. Now I'm going to go through and do her more cream white tone fur. I'm just going to go to layers and add another one and make sure I hit clipping mask. This is where it can get interesting, you can decide if you want the layer to go under the layer you just drew or above it. So do I want the white to stand on top of these other colors? Yeah, I do. I want the premier white fur to stick out a little bit more. I'm not going completely all the way to white because I want to leave that brightest white for the eyes. It doesn't have to be perfect because I'm going to go in. With an eraser when I'm done and refine it. Take your time, this is fun. This doesn't have to be a stressful part of the step. Next step I'm going to add another layer clipping mask. I'm going to make it a light pink color. Now I'm going to actually create a layer under. I'm going to go here and I'm going to make a darker layer. I'm going to start doing some of the darker tones and her fur, and I can color pick and then maybe change it. If you're uncertain from the color choices, you mean you can go in adjustments; hue, saturation and brightness and play off the hue slider. Does it look better if I make it brown? Does it look better if I make it like really saturated reddish brown, maybe a greenish brown over here, back to blue. I'm thinking this layer is standing out a little too much, so I'm just going to reduce the opacity, so let's [inaudible] less. I haven't made her paws whites yet, so I'm going to do another white layer. Then take a break and do the eyes and the nose. Now just so I can have a fresh mind, may I go back to the rest of the fur, and then do this on top of all these layer is, still using clipping mask. Her nose, I wanted to do a burgundy, mauve color. The eyes, her eyes in real-life are a golden green color, which change a lot depending on the life. I'm just going to choose a color that I think looks right, but I might change it later. Now I dropped in the color of the eyes, this is a good time to add some highlights. I make a layer above everything and you can use the same 6B or go back to one of the inking brushes if you want more clean, looking highly, I'll go back to the dry ink brush. I use pure white, I do that by double tapping in the upper left-hand corner of the color wheel, right here. You can do a variety of things like, I can mimic the photograph and have highlights in the upper corners here. What do you do to one eye, always make sense the mirror to the other and it just looks more natural. That's simple, you can just do that, or you can add a little extra one in the other corner and now we're getting into the realm like cuteness. You can also play with the pupil. You can reduce the opacity of your line, and so you have a more subtle highlight and you start adding. I like a rim lighting on the inside of the pupil. That can sometimes be really cute as well. You can also add fun things like cards or stars, or even add smiles. But I'm not going to do that right now. I like this the way it is, you can add some more dark spectral highlights, so it makes her eyes look like the Galaxy. I like doing that sometimes, it makes her look really dreamy. I'm going to go back on the eye layer and something else. Alpha lock is a lot like clipping mask, but to its own single layer. If I click "Alpha Lock" then anything I draw on this layer will only color on what I've already drawn. I want to create a little bit of a color difference. I'm going to color pick that color and make it a little bit darker. Go back to my sketching 6B, lower the opacity. I'm just going to make it darker towards the top. If you look at your eyes in the near, there's a shadow always, and it just makes sense to include this and it helps it look more realistic and have more of a visual interest. I think I'm going to do one more shadow layer. Very subtle and then I'll be good. I'm going to do it over the other brown fur tone layers so they don't compete with each other. If any layer looks too saturated or dominates the drawing too much, remember, you can always bring it back a little bit by lowering the opacity. You can also make it more vibrant by changing the layer to, let's say multiply, so that combines the colors that you already have on there and makes it one just like watercolor. I'm looking and thinking a lot, making decisions as I go. I don't have this completely figured out. Now I'm going to add a few detail marks. I like to go through with a lighter color, maybe white, maybe a light brown. Make my brush really small, zoom in and just create a new layer and just add a few more fur marks. It's a subtle texture. But for me, I think it really helps. I'm just going to add these lines randomly that show that she has lots of variation in her fur color. It's not one flat color. After that step it always just looks so much better to me. I haven't forgotten her whiskers. I will make the background a different color so you can see them because she does have white whiskers. I'm just going to use this golden color fur now and bring this layer over it, and choose white, really white, and go back to the inking brush because that's easier for longer lines. I'm just going to draw her whiskers in like before. Make sure you can do this on the highlight layer and another layer above it. I often will just erase them and try to make sure they're not completely straight, a little curve. Looks nice. Now she looks more like herself. I think I'm done with the coloring now. What do you think? I like it. If you're having trouble because your pet has all black fur, no worries I'm covering that in the next mini lesson. For everyone else, I hope your pet is looking super colorful right now and don't forget to update your progress in the project gallery. I'll see you in the next lesson.
8. Trick: Black Fur: Hi there. If you have a black pet like I do, you know it's hard to capture them on camera. You can edit pictures you've taken by using the methods we used in the early lessons. Also remember to mess with the contrast and the brightness, so you can see the most of your pet. Remember, natural light gives the best results, and adjust your exposure to match your pet before you take the shot. One thing to remember is, even though your pet has black fur it doesn't mean you only use black to color them in. If you look at my cat, Holly, you can see she has brown tones and shades of gray. You too need to see the full color spectrum of your pet. Maybe they have blue tones, so play with the lots of shades of dark and light blue. If you have trouble showing your line work, go back over it with white, or a lighter color, so the fur can pop against the dark colors. Don't be afraid to edit to make things clear, because art is about communication. If you like this coloring tip, stay tuned for the next class, and my goal for all the finishing touches on how to make your illustrations complete. Let's finish this.
9. Finishing Touches: Hi. Great job making it this far. Now you have fully drawn and colored your pet illustration. In this lesson, we are going to choose background elements and export your work. First off, you need to decide if you want to draw a background for your pet. Maybe they're laying in the grass or on their bed, that's up to you. You can use techniques we've discussed to execute any elements you want to add. Personally, I've decided to add a book to my illustration since Amy loves laying on them and tearing them up. It's very on brand for her. I'm going to choose a background color first. Normally, a complimentary color would work. I'm going to select the color of her nose. Go into my Color Panel, select Harmony and Complimentary from the set of options. You can see the exact complimentary color from that color from her nose. I can select this, go on a new layer, below everything, and drag it, and I think that looks really good. Next, I want to add a drop shadow. I'm going to add a layer right above my background, choose my sketching brush. I've been using my sixth beam, making the opacity really low and large. I think I'll choose the color that I used for the liner, and then I'll just make a general lie shadow below her. There. Now, what else you'd want to do is make this a multiply layer, which helps it blend into the background more and then lower the opacity so it looks realistic. Now there's more texture and separation in the drawing. Finally, you might want to add a little extra details. You can add stars, different types of stars. There's diamond-shaped stars that you can fill in. You can make this as sketchy or as clean as you want. Other options are like, let's say, a thought bubble. They could say anything. They could say something funny or sassy, that's up to you. Then there's anything you can really add: flowers or stars. I like doing something simple like this. Or I just make a heart and a line. Once you have finished, you can spend as much time or as little time on this as you want. If you want a simple, clean background, that's totally cool as well. Let's say we're finally done. Now you want to export your work so you can share it. All you're going to do is go up into the actions, hit the Share button, and then you have a list of choices. You can share the entire image or specific layers, and you have different types of files. Procreate and PSD will retain your layers so you can edit it later. JPEG, PNG and TIFF will fly in the image, so you can't edit the layers anymore. JPEG is standard to use because it reduces your file size, so it's not hard to share and it's not too large while retaining the quality. I always hit JPEG. You can share it wherever you want. I tend to just save the image to my iPad. This file type is perfect for posting here on the Project Gallery, on Skillshare or on Instagram. You've exported your project and you're finished. Congratulations, and don't forget to post your projects below. I'll see you in my final thoughts up next.
10. Final Thoughts: Hi, hope you guys had fun and enjoyed this class and you have a really nice illustration that you can share. If you want to leave a comment or review, please do so below, it really helps me. This is my first class, so any comments or concerns are needed and loved because I really want to continue making classes and sharing my passions with this community. Don't forget, I've included pictures of my cats, Holly and Yumi, in the resource section, so you can get started quickly without having to take photos of your own. I hope you had fun and you have a pet portrait you can be proud of. Remember to document each step of the way in the Project Gallery because we would all like to see your steps and progress. If you feel discouraged, just remember, skills grow over time. It took me years to get comfortable with my art to share it online, so if you're uncomfortable, just remember, lots of other people are too. Try to be confident because I definitely want to see your work and I'll make sure to leave comments and critiques for whoever wants them. Make sure to save that in your project so I know what you want me to review. Also, when you share your project, don't forget to link your social media, like Instagram, so we can follow your other work. If you're interested in my work, you can find my Instagram @maryrosedraws. Thanks again. I hope you enjoy your project and you feel accomplished. Let me know if there's any other classes you like me to do because I'm really interested in what you guys have to say. All right. See you in the next class.
Mary Rose, Illustrator & Designer
