Ink With Me: Octopus

1. Intro: Hi, my name is Elizabeth Weglein and I'm an illustrator of mostly mermaids and marine life. In my Ink with Me series, I'm sharing the Inked techniques that I use in my artwork and sharing how we can apply it to my favorite subject matter, marine life. I love illustrating using stippling techniques in this flash sheet style. So I built this full Ink with Me series to share what I love. Today is the seventh course and the series, and we will be inking an octopus. This Ink with Me series builds on itself. So you have the option to follow along and create a full flash sheet of marine life to build your skills. This stippling, I've marked this course as an intermediate level, but if you're a beginner, you are more than welcome to stay hover. I would suggest going back to the beginning of this series to start with more basic concepts with stippling to build up to where we are with today's class. So far in the series, we've covered jellyfish, Orca, sharks and dolphins, seashells, and tropical fish. In this course I'm sharing Rican find great reference images, the best materials to use, no sharing, various stippling techniques that we can apply to our subject matter octopus today. Don't forget to hit the Follow button here on Skillshare so that you know, when I come out with my next course and let's get started. 2. Class Project: Your class project for today is to staff a picture of the octopus that you inked in today's class. If you are following along and doing the full flash sheet, don't forget to snap a picture and include that in your class Project as well. 3. Materials: Alright, let's talk materials for today's class. Things are pretty basic. You need pencil eraser pens and paper. So you'll want to grab a pencil. I prefer a, this is a three H pencil. I prefer something with a really hard lead so that I can sketch really lightly and erase easily. I will use a little bit of a darker pencil today, so you guys can see it on the video. But I suggest a really light pencil. Also, of course you need an eraser. I like these little clips, erasers because it's a little bit of a smaller point than a big block eraser, but use whatever you like. I also have a paintbrush so that I haven't never used with paint or anything that I keep to move eraser shavings off my paper to keep the oil from my hands and any other dirt off the page. Might want to grab one of those as well. For pens, you will need any Fine Liner Pen. Any brand works for you. It's, there's tons of options out there. I love the Micron pens. I have a whole set here of a bunch of different sizes that are very well loved, but they come in different colors if you want to do something other than black. And like I said, tons of brands out there. You should be able to find something at your local craft store. And then for paper, I have two papers that are my favorite, either marker paper or Bristol paper. I use the Strathmore brand. Again, it's really easy to find it any of your local Art stores. The marker paper is great. It's such a nice, smooth surface and I use this a lot if I am inking in fine liner and then sometimes I go back and color with marker. I love using that paper. Bristol paper, also very smooth surface, very nice. And this is what I use for my final pieces usually because it's a little bit thicker. That's what my flash sheet is done on. Either one is a great option, both great for inking. So those would be my suggestions. I'll go ahead and grab your materials and next we will start practicing some stippling Techniques 4. Stippling Techniques: Okay, so let's start talking about stippling techniques. If you've been following along for the full series, you'll know that I start with a little pen test at the beginning of each of these lessons. I do this just so that I have a reference point of all of the different sizes of fine liners that I have. If you are coming to this class today with only one pen size, that is totally fine. That is completely up to you and your style and how you like to work. I like to use multiple different styles. So that is why I have grabbed a bunch of different microns today so that I am ready for whichever one I want to work with. I'm just running through with some lines, some dots, and just noting the size next to it. I am also getting really close to needing to replace a lot of these sizes. The one thing with stippling is matter, how light you try to be with your dots. Eventually the pen tips just give out. So you do have to replace your pens ever so often. And I have been doing a lot of dots lately or all of my fine liners. And then I also have a little bolder to appear to for outlining or coloring in if I want to use that. Okay, so now we have our pen test ready to go. So we have that for reference. And now let's get into practicing some different techniques. So since I've marked this as intermediate, we're not going to start at the beer beginning by this point, you guys get shading. Your more dots is darker areas, less dots, lighter areas. You know the basics and you can make some decisions about, you can outline areas or you can just do dots. It's very just a style decision for you. But I am going to draw some boxes right here because what we are going to practice today is creating Textures. Let's start with these two boxes here. I've done the octopus as one of the more advanced options in this course series because they have a lot of texture to them and unique textures on their skin. So that's what we're going to be working to recreate today. You can achieve that in two different ways. Like I said, that the pen tests you could be working with just one pen size today or you can work with multiple. So we're going to practice it both ways. So if you take a look at the reference images that I've provided today, they have a speckled like surface and we're going to practice creating that texture. So first we're going to stick with one pen size. So I'm going to introduce my very, very well-loved zero to size that is almost completely worn off. Really need to replace this one. So what I like to do is work from dark to light. So what I'm going to go in first and do is add in some darker speckled areas. And then we'll go in and shade around them. We're now really following any particular photo for this. We are just getting a feel for it and practicing some dots. I of course immediately regretted how large I drew these squares. And I can tell you that I'm not going to fill it up. Put just making a bunch of spots on here. Let's stick with that. Bring in a little bit closer. And now we are going to shade around this. Let's treat it as this is gonna be the darker side, and this is going to be a little bit lighter. And you can shade it really evenly or you can leave some highlights in it and it is totally up to you. But I'm going to Create this darker side over here. We want to make sure that you can still see that texture. Again, I could choose to outline this part, but since I didn't even fill up all square, I'm not gonna, not going to outline right now. I'll leave some highlights, round spots. Do the best I can so that you guys can see what I'm doing. Alright, so that kinda gives you an idea of creating a spotty texture here and shading around it. And again, this is all done in one pen size. So now let's see how we can do it in multiple pen sizes. So again, this is gonna be a personal decision. You could use a ton of different pen sizes or you could just stick to, to really up to you from mine. I'm going to use two different pen sizes. I'm going to use the 03 and the 005 just to kinda give it a big contrast. So I'm going to use the 03 to again create these darker areas. Has another pen that definitely needs replacing. C. Hard to get the camera to focus. Sometimes it gets distracted by my hand. Once again, I drew this absolutely gigantic square, which I will not be filling up. All right, so that gives an idea there. And then I will be kinda following the same idea with this one where this will be the lighter side and then this will be the darker area. I will start with the darker area. I feel like even with just that, you get an idea of the difference, that it makes it somewhat subtle, but you could make it a lot more dramatic if you wanted to, based on the sizes that you choose. You could choose to go one way or the other, whether you want to always use one pen size and your illustrations or if you want to switch it up, even from design to design, or within the same piece are really just depends on the look that you would like to create. Still going around and leaving some white areas for a little bit of highlight. That kinda gives you an idea for the different ways that we can create these textures. I think I'll leave the stippling techniques at that. And it will be way more FUN when we're actually illustrating our octopus. In the next lesson, we will get into practicing on our first one. 5. Inking: Octopus #1: Okay, so we're going to get into inking our first octopus here. So again, I have my reference photo from Unsplash. You can find it under the Projects and Resources tab so that you can pull it up. Or again, you're welcome to find your own and still apply these techniques to your own illustration. I have mine sketched out right here. And the first thing that I'm going to do is outline my sketch. Again, this is totally and artistic choice. You can outline it if you want or you don't have to, and you can just do dots as the outline. It is completely up to you. But I am going to do an outline. I am going to use my trusty zero to size and get to work. So just keeping this outline pretty simple. Octopus does, has some good texture to it. So I'm not using super smooth lines right here. To Kohl's parts over here with a tentacles I chronic. I love this reference image. It will be PFK-1 to include a hand as part of the illustration too, but we would be here all day then. We are keeping it simple. It's just the octopus lost, but a typical kind of peeking over here. And so we are all set with our outline. So then the next thing that I want to do after I've waited a few seconds for the ink to dry is I want to erase all of my pencil marks so that I am not doing that at the end. And I kept my sketch pretty simple. But if you want to sketch more elements that you don't want to erase right away. Of course, that is totally fine. Like I'm gonna leave this part right here. That was like a reference for the head. That's most of my pencil marks gone. My plan of attack for this illustration is going to be to work on the head first. And then I'm going to start down here where the tentacles are in shadow and kinda work around in this counterclockwise way. So first, I'm going to start with the head and work on the texture right here. There's some kind of speckled areas and texture and then the shadow down at the bottom. So like I said, we will start there. So choose whatever size you want to start off with. And let's get into it. And just like we did in our practice areas up here, I am going to start with the darker speckles that are going on. So I am going to use the zero for size. Let's get started. Again. I always put this reminder out there. You can follow a reference image as closely or as a loosely as you want to, it is totally up to you. I know that for sure ISV one of the people that got sucked into trying to recreate every single detail from our reference. And it's just not necessary. Person who is seeing your final piece did not see your reference image. So don't get caught up in exactly matching all of these details. All right, I think I'm pretty good with that texture to start with. What I'm gonna do now is moved down a couple of sizes and start to shade. I think I'm going to use two different sizes as I'm shading the rest of this, probably the 02 and the 005. So I'm going to start once again with the darkest area, which is gonna be down here. Keeping in mind that pretty much above each of these little darker patches, there's a highlight above that. So I want to make sure that I don't fill that in so that I can create as much depth as possible. I have been illustrating it so many octopus recently and I've just had a renewed fascination with them. I just think they are so cool and there's so many different types that are all different. I always love in nature documentaries and I just feel like every single one there's some really cool octopus. It's always such a highlight for me. Awesome number what I was a kid. I am from the Baltimore area and we have the amazing National Aquarium at the inner harbor, and that was always such a fine place to go. And one of the visits, the octopus, which I think they have like a giant Pacific Octopus maybe, but I don't really remember what type it is. But it had laid eggs, but it I'd lay them on the glass. And it was just really cool to see. And I'll always remember that. Right. So we're just working in more texture. There's also something dramatic lighting on this reference image, I think from the surface of the water. And I'm kind of ignoring that a little bit. I think that's just one of those things. If I get too wrapped up in it, I will be here for hours. Alright, I think I'm going to move down a size smaller now, again, keep in mind with stippling to, you can always make an illustration as light and airy or dark and heavy as you want to. That's another big stylistic choice. I feel like I've tended to go a little more light and airy with my illustrations, partly because sometimes they just do not have the patience to sit here and just do dots for hours just to make an area really dark. But I follow some artists that do a really good job with that and it's so cool to see. So definitely try it out. If you're going to try it, I would definitely suggest sketching some things small so that you are not trying to fill an entire page that way. Right? And then I'm going to go back to zero to for a second and fill in right here. I should've learned more of the words for the anatomy of an octopus before I started this. Maybe next time? Filling that in with a simple gradient. So the I is kinda downturn, but I know that octopus have this rectangular pupil to there. I adding that in, right, and I will continue on shading her some dark areas around the eye. So I'm going to start with that. I'm using the zero to size still. I'm just going to do some Dot outlining right here. Right? And then shifting down once again to the smallest size. Alright, so that's kinda the head finished. And before I fill in the rest of the body here, I am going to go through and do the tentacles one-by-one and then we'll finish with the larger body area in the center. Okay. So I'm going to start with the darkest areas and I'm just going to sketch out right here where that shadow falls. And then pretty much all of this underneath is in shadow. And let's get started. So you can still see some texture even in the shadow. So I am going to go through and create that first. Now starting shooting around it. Alright, that was pretty simple. And now again, it's pretty dark under here, so I'm just going to do lots and lots of dots to darken this up. I'm leaving some area at the top here because it is a little bit lighter. So I'm just going to do that part next. Right. And now we will move on to the rest of the tentacle. Again. It's really dark under here and then kinda right there. So I am going to start there and then work this way. And doing some little Dot outlines here whether you can see little suction cups. Why am I blanking on that right now? Once again, over here Alright, keeping it pretty simple, but there is our first tentacle, onto the next tentacle. And I'm going to again start with the darker areas first, which is going to be along the top here and then the bottom. And then I'll kinda cut off, I guess like right there of where we're doing dots for now and then we'll go in and do that with the body. I'm going in with my 02. We will darken this up. There's a couple of spots along the way. I'm just gonna keep filling this in. And then we'll go in and add a little bit of the texture that's happening towards the middle of the tentacle. Then as I don't think I've mentioned in this class yet, the, it is totally up to you how fast or slow you apply your dots. Some people like to be really slow and meticulous with their placements. And you could also be like me and do it quick and randomly. I would say I tend to do it a little bit slower than I'm doing it right now. If I'm working on a true like final piece. But it is just totally up to you. Just darkening up here where it kind of heads into shadow. Okay. Then I'm going to go back to my larger size, the 04, and add in some of the texture that's happening. Once again, I am loosely it following the reference photo. You want to follow it exactly. That is totally fine. Keep it a little bit more loose. Alright, so added some texture. And then go back with the zero to for a bit to do some more shading. We'll finish off with the 005. Really feel like for one of these classes and easy to just stick with the one bigger size and do the whole illustration and just see what that feels like. Because I'm always mentioning that as an option. I'm just using one size, but I just never do it. I just think it will be interesting to try that out and see what it feels like. All right. With our smaller size Alright, let's kinda the basics for that one. Now, let's move on to our next one over here. Okay, So for this one, I am first going to take my really small 005 and outline the little suckers on here. Which again, you don't have to outline if you don't want to, you could just do dots around them. Or you could just pretend that they don't exist and just shade it in whatever works for you. Alright, so I've added that in. And now I'm going to work on the texture and the darker areas, but it's kind of, let's say right there. Grab the zero for first. All right, so there is some good texture to start with. We can start shading. And again, you can see I'm cutting this off like right about there. And we will go and do that as part of the central body. After the tentacles. A tough part here of course, is trying to shade in between to give it some depth, right? And then go in with our final small size. Alright, and I'm gonna call that one finished as well. And Lindsay going, we can always go back and evaluate how everything is looking once we are finished with everything. But right now we will keep chugging along right to the next one. Alright, so same thing as before, using the zero for size to start creating Textures. Using a mix between dots are spots and lines to create that look. Right? Right. Pretty much another one finished for now. We'll just repeat the same process over again. These two are pretty small. I'm just gonna kinda do them at the same time. Switching sizes once again and finishing out your shadow area. And then this tend to go, you can see some of the suckers right here in the reference photo, but they're so tiny. I'm just not going to bother hombre on. All right. Then before I switch to that smallest size, I'm just going to do this little bit of tentacle, this peeking out. I'll go back with my smaller finish these up. Alright, so now all we have to do is just fill in the rest of the body here. So for the millionth time, I'm going to start with the texture, grab that zero for, and start creating the dark areas. Trying to figure all the way I can do this where you guys can see. All right, So it out some texture there. Now we will start to shade. So I signed a step back and see how close we are to being finished with this one. It's another thing with stippling is you have to make sure your face isn't glued to the page and you never take a step back because stippling this I you take a step back. You're like, oh wow. But when you get wrapped up too closely in every single.it gets harder to see the bigger picture. Right on to the final bit. All right, one step back, I think I'm going to call that finished. You can always go back and make certain areas darker if you want to, you can make certain areas lighter. You could go out a thicker outline, which I might do. It is up to you, but I'm going to call our first octopus finished 6. Inking: Octopus #2: Alright, it is time for our second octopus. So this is gonna be the one that I am adding to my final flash sheet. So if you are following along with the full project, this is the one that matches my sketch. As a reminder, the reference image again is under the Projects and Resources tab so that you can pull that up. For this one, just like the last one, I'm going to start with a quick outline. So going in with my trusty zero to size, laying down that outline. So again, you can be as detailed with all the different things you're outlining or not. Totally up to your preference. And then just like a lot of the other courses in this series, I am going to probably go back at the end and add a boulder outline to this. I am starting with a one here with the zero to Pen. Alright, so there is our outline. And then again, I'm going to give this a few seconds to dry and then I'm going go in and erase most of my pencil marks. Right? Racing. And like I said, I'm gonna erase most of the pencil marks, but there are definitely something I'm going to leave in for this one for a moment. All right. I'm going to tackle this octopus similar to the other one. I'm going to start with the eyes and the head here. And then we will just work around counterclockwise and knock out all of the different tentacles. So the first part here, I'm going to grab a smaller size and I'm going to tackle the eyes. This I overhear is kind of hidden angle, right? One and then Orion and then I'm going to shade around the eyes because that's the darkest part of this octopus. This down a bit. Alright, so just slowly darkening up that area. Filling that. And then similar over here as well. All righty. And then we are going to start with the head up here. This octopus is definitely still has a lot of texture, but it's generally lighter color than the other one that we did. So I'm not going to use a boulder pen size and the 02. I am just going to use this to start adding in some of texture dots and lines. This is I'll be using mostly for the texture. And then I will go down and use a smaller size for the shading And again, this is one of those moments where you can either really try and match the reference photo if you want, or you can go a little bit looser with it and just kinda create your own texture. All right, let's kind of the basics. And you will start shading with our 05. I'm trying my absolute best to make sure you guys can see what I'm doing. Again, if you ever feel a, you start to lose the texture when you're shading, you can go back in with your other pen size or even a larger one if you need to darken up any of the areas. But also don't forget to pause for a second, take a step back and see what it looks like from a far. All right. And like I said, since this one is pretty light-colored, I think I'm going to leave that there. Now that I've finished most of the head, we're gonna go in and start tackling the tentacles. Must start with this little section back here that has pretty much all in shadow from the head. I'm going to pick up my zero to size and first start where the shadow is darkest. Which in creating the little dot outline for darken that up. And then I'm just gonna go back in a little bit, just a little bit of texture in there, a little bit of variation. And then we can switch to our smaller size. I'm just going to use the smaller side a little bit right there. A little bit right here. Okay. And that's the first tentacle done, but it's barely one, so I don't know if that counts, but alright, and then I left some of these pencil lines in here because this shows where this tentacle is a lot lighter right in here. So it's darkest where it has the little suckers on the side here. And then there's a little bit of darker texture in here as well. So let's start with this top edge and then we'll fill in here and here and leave that highlight pretty light. All right, so darkened up that edge. And then let's create some of those other textures. This is stripy, right? Start creating a texture down towards inner part here. Right? So that is a lot of the darker area, just adding a touch more texture. Highlight. And now let's move down to our smaller size, fill in. And then she'd pretty much this entire part over here. Keeping this pretty much a highlight, just adding little, little bits of texture here and there. Ryan, and then step back. And that is our first larger tentacle finished with the way that this octopus is posed. Instead of doing each tentacle, kinda cutting it off and then doing the body later. I'm just going to continue it all the way in to where it meets the head for each area. So this next area is a pretty large one. And again, I've sketched in the highlighted areas. That's it. Kinda have it like that. So again, we'll start where it's darker right along this edge. And then a lot of this area right here is kinda a little bit darker textured area to match this part on this tentacle. Let's get started. Right. And then similar to the last one, will go in and create some of the stripy texture. Still kinda going on as it gets closer here, but it's a little bit more subtle. So yeah, keeping a little lighter here, creating an edge for that highlight with some more texture. Right? And then allows go in with this little area As tedious as I can be sometimes I just love, just loves stippling. Know. Like it's the easiest thing for me to just get into that flow state and just relax. Even though it seems or rare that I get to sit down and fully do that sometimes. Rainy day like today, it just feels so perfect. Alright, so we've established some basic textures. Just add a little bit on here. Right? Let's shade it in. Shade part. Again. It feels like such a big areas to cover with a very tiny pen. Which again is why I tend to keep these illustrations a little bit more light and airy versus dark because I have to do less dots. This is my first-year as a stippling artists that sometimes my hand and my arm just cannot take it anymore. So unfortunately, I cannot just sit here and do this for our street with no breaks like I used to. Alright, let's add a little bit more texture over here to fill that in. Alright, another area of finished, pretty much just repeating this same process for the next one. We sketch in, let's solve the highlight areas. Right? Now let's get started. It's funny thinking back to some other classes in this course, I don't know if I would rather be working in larger areas of texture, kinda like this octopus. Or if I would rather shade something that's like a little bit smoother like the dolphin or the orca. Honestly, I don't know. Sometimes when you're just creating a gradient it gets really boring. But then it also can be really satisfying when you create such a nice smooth area. I guess the secret is just alternate, go back-and-forth. Always switch it up. Kinda continue up to this halfway point. And then we will leave that for the next two. Cool. Right? Switching pen sizes again. Once again, shading in without smaller 005 size or whatever size you have chosen. Going through and adding some texture in the highlight. I'm going to go through and add some texture over here. And then once I finished shading that area in, also going to go through and erase the pencil lines from the areas that we've aimed so far. Just to connect, clean it up a little bit. See how it's all looking. Alright, I'm going to pause, let that dry for a second and then I'll erase out some of the pencil. Alright. Perfect. Always like seeing it at the pencil marks gone and cleaned up. I feel like it just gives it a new life to it. So next we're going to work on this little bit of technical here and just match it up to I would say about there and then will include all this in one swoop. So there's not too much going on down here. Just have a little bit of texture to add in a little bit of a darker area. Just right at the bottom. There's definitely some pretty bold stripes. Right, So leave the texture at that time to shade it in part doesn't really have a pronounced highlight or deep shadow. I think that should pretty much be sufficient for the moment. So again, we're moving on to another technical. This one once again does have like a highlight here. Pull up a little bit more like that. So we will fill in this one we might stop about here, and then we'll just leave this last part for the final bit. For what feels like the millionth time. Once again, adding dark edge. Go straight in with texture. And then adding a little bit on this side, highlight. I had a little bit more stripe to this area. Right? So kind of another tentacle complete and we are on to the last one. Just like the previous ones. In the same process, I'm just going to work on finalizing the head here. Right. And then shade the lawsuit a bit. All righty. I think I will give once again, give that a second to dry so that I can erase the pencil marks and then we will decide if it is all finished. I think I'm liking how that looks. I am going to call that one all finished. So it is so exciting. We are almost finished. The flash sheet has come a long way. We just have our sea turtle to finish 7. Final Thoughts: Alright, thank you so much for following along with today's class. I hope you enjoy inking these two octopus and don't forget to snap a photo and upload it to the Class Project Gallery so we can check out what you've created. If you want to post a picture on Instagram, what you created, don't forget to tag me at EJW underscore, underscore Art that I can see that you've created and share it on my social media. Now that we've completed the octopus, we only have one animal left to add to our flash sheet, which is the sea turtle. I can't believe I am almost wrapping up this series and I'm so excited to see if anyone has followed along with the full project. Don't forget to leave feedback in a review for this course. Reviews are super important here on Skillshare to ensure that classes remain on the platform as classes that don't have reviews are subject to removal after a period of time. So definitely leave feedback. It's always helpful here what you guys think and I really appreciate it. Also, don't forget to follow me so that you know when the final class and this series, the sea turtle is released. So we can finish out this series together. Hope diseases