Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello. My name is Marianna Madriz. I'm an illustrator originally from Venezuela, currently based in London in the UK. My work features characters of all sorts, including humans, animals, real beings, imagined beings, and anything in between. I often get commissioned to do children's books and magazines, and clients always ask me to place different characters in different scenarios... whether that's a queue of people trying to get a burger, or that's a bunch of neurons having a dance at the disco. I've always loved drawing characters, but there was a time where I used to feel very frustrated trying to place them in any sort of background. I just didn't feel very confident doing them, and I even thought that I could get away with not having to do them. But eventually I realised that it's actually quite important to have a setting around your character. If you want to give an indication of who they are, what they like, what they don't like, or where they belong, then, you need to have that set around them. This class is for everybody who, like me, they like drawing characters, but they often place them in a blank background. If you want to learn how to compose an illustration and create a setting, and give a little clues of who your character is, then this class is for you. Through a series of simple steps, I will show you how you can create your own illustration based on your own photographs or inspirations. We will take diverse elements and mix them up in order to create our own sketch, and using procreate, you will trial and move the pieces around until you get a satisfying composition. By the end of this class, you will have your own illustrated snapshot with one or more characters and surrounding objects, giving clues about who your character is, or what your story is. I'm excited to see what we will create together. Let's get started with our project.
2. The Project: We are all unique characters and we're always curious about people around us. We may be at a party or sitting on a train or a bus and wonder who is that person sitting next to us. We may not know who they are, but we can have a look at them and try and guess. Take me for example, you don't know me, but you can have a look in my studio and have a look at older things that surround me, all my books, and try and guess what I like and what person I am. Illustration, just like film or photography or painting, a spatial storytelling. The aim is always to encapsulate a world or a story or a concept in one single shot and that's what I love about it. It's what I tried to do in my own work to convey a sense of environment and a sense of world-making. For this class, you will also create your own illustration and your own mini-world and you will achieve this by basing it on a familiar place, a place you know very well. This could be your bedroom, your living room, a cafe you frequent, or a corner you really like to spend time on. I am going to base my illustration on my own balcony, and I'm going to include three characters. The illustration can be as realistic or as fantastical as you're like, that's really up to you. But there will be two requirements. One is to include at least one character, and two, you will need to include at least two objects. In my own illustration, I am going to include three characters. I'm going to use different sources, different inspirations and I'm also going to include myself in this shot because, why not? That will be fun, wouldn't it? Create as you go along and share your project with the rest of the class. I would love to see what you come up with and if I can answer any questions, please send them my way. Are you ready? Then let's get started with our first lesson.
3. Inspiration from Others: Everyone is inspired by something or someone. We always respond to different things, whether that's a song, or a film, etc. In this lesson we're going to identify what are the different creators, characters, environments, that inspire us, and what is said about them that motivate us to create. We're going to list all of these sources of inspiration out, and later they will become the foundation for creating our own pieces. I sometimes like to ask myself, what makes a great scene? For me a great scene is one that makes me wonder what is happening. I, the viewer, I like to feel like a detective, gathering all these different clues to solve a mystery, or make sense of something. Growing up in Venezuela I read a lot of Latin American novels, and one of my favorite books of all time is this one, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. It's a book that I revisit every now and then. It's actually a very old copy, you can see that I have had it for years, pretty much since I was a teenager. This book follows a family for many generations. It's set in a very mundane setting. But it has all of this very magical and weird things happening throughout, for example, there's this character with green hair who is embroidering a tablecloth full of beasts. It sounds like something that could happen in real life, but it also sounds like something that would not. One of my favorite films of all time is the Suspiria, is a '70s Italian horror film, which is very fantastical looking, you can see the sets are very elaborate, and is very visually distinct. It follows this ballerina who finds herself in a very strange ballet academy. In this shot you can see that the background is almost resembling an S-curve drawing, with doors and stairs leading nowhere, and the main character is staring at it, as if there is something to unlock from it. Suspiria was also shot in technique color. The colors are very vivid and very saturated. If you see that last shot is very red, and without you knowing that it is a horror film, it's already giving you this very edgy feeling, you need to watch out, something is about to happen. I also get drawn to different photographs every now and then, like this one that I saw at an exhibition, La Palmera by Paz Errazuriz. I think I like it because it feels pretty mysterious. The character is looking down with her arms raised, and the mirror is reflecting this old man or woman whose face we can't see. It makes me ask a lot of questions, who are these characters? Do they know each other? Do they just stumble on each other? Why are they surprised? Did they see a mouse, or what has happened? Every now and then, whenever I see it, I just find something else that draws me more and more into it, like the patterns on the wall, or the fact that there's another room in the back, and also the fashion, and the cigarettes in her hand. I think it's a really amazing shot, and it really has a lot of stories that can be told about it. Setting scene photography or film can be very realistic. It's always refreshing to find other creators like painters, who may use the setting and distort it slightly, and stylize it, and make it very much their own. Pierre Bonnard is a great example of this. He often paint a corners of his own home, including his bathroom. You may think that these are painted from a photograph or from life, but they're actually painted from memory. He will do lots of studies and he would then add colors that were not there, or maybe objects that were not there to just make the composition and the painting better. It's certainly something that a lot of painters and illustrators do in their own work, they just take something that they see, and then they work it, and they make it into something very unique. Another visual artist that I really enjoy is Eyvind Earle. He is mostly famous for painting Sleeping Beauty backgrounds, the original Disney Sleeping Beauty film, that is. But aside from working in animation, he was also very much a painter, and some of my favorite paintings that he did were these ones, where he depicted forests. You can see they're just so wonderfully composed, and the colors are so vivid and so much detailed is built up from them. If you see closely, you can see that they're so geometrical. He combines squares and straight lines to build several layers and he repeated them in different sizes to [inaudible]. Now that I've told you about all these different creations that inspire me, I want to know what inspires you. Is it a film? Is it a book? Is it a painting? What is it about them that inspires you, and would you add anything to them? I want you to start putting a list together in a notebook, or a piece of paper. It will definitely help you visualize all your likes, and you might find that you like the same thing from different creators. Keep on this list as we develop it further, and in our next lesson, we will find out how we can get inspired by the world around us.
4. Inspiration from Yourself: In the previous lesson, we saw how we can take a lot of inspiration from different creators, whether that's filmmakers or painters or photographers. It's very important to keep an open mind about different people who can influence us, but it is also very important to keep an open eye about different things that may be around us, and which can also awaken our curiosity and inspire us. In this lesson, I want you to ask yourself, what makes an interesting character? The answer will always vary. But for me, an interesting character is one who is very visually distinct. They may have very distinct clothing, or they might have very distinct hairstyle or makeup. There are definitely those elements, but there is also obviously their personality. You speak to somebody and they have a very unique perspective, and very unique thoughts, and very unique tastes. Earlier this summer, I saw this Patagonian band live, Femina, who are a female trio of sisters. They mix rap with hip-hop, and Latin American folk, and they were amazing to see, not only because of the music, but also they had such an amazing energy between them. They are sisters and childhood friends, so they a have unique relationship, and they always dress really interestingly, and they have really long hair, which is mostly plaited. They were just such a joy to watch. Actually, one of them was heavily pregnant and she was mesmerizing. My eye was completely drawn to her. The band's lyrics are about femininity, and womanhood, and the power of the female form, and she was really an encapsulation of that whole concept that night. Try to think of interesting people you have seen, and also think of yourself as a character. What do you like? What are your habits? What are the unique need traits? What will you dress like? This may seem hard to gauge, but actually a really good way of knowing what character you are is by looking at your phone. I actually tend to document a lot of videos and photos when I'm out, and about different things that I find funny, or different performances, or things that actually, I find inspiring, and I store them in my phone. Later on, they might find their way into my sketchbooks whenever I want to draw something or create a new illustration. Aside from taking photos on my phone, I also take photos on disposable cameras, especially when I'm traveling. I actually really like all the unpredictable results that you may get, and that slide grainy texture. Finally, I also keep a sketchbook with me. I take it everywhere, and whenever I'm waiting for something or for someone, or have a momentum myself, then I fill out the pages with lots of different drawings and writings. You might also keep a sketch book or a folder of inspirations in your phone, or you might also take disposable photos yourself. Just list out all of these different inspirations, whether that's characters, buildings, patterns, textures, or so on. You could continue that list you started in the previous lesson, or you can keep this in a separate bit of paper. In our next lesson, we're going to use this list to finally start planning our illustration.
5. Mixing Things Up: Now that we know what we are inspired by, you might already have an idea in your head of what you would like to do for your illustration. In this lesson, we will start combining those ideas together and start planning our piece. I can't stress how important it is to plant what you're going to create. While it is tempting to just go in blind and make it up as you go along, it is actually much better to have a think about what it is that you want to do, and what you want to communicate before you sit down and do it. As illustrators, this is what we do most of the time. Clients will never request us to do an illustration and just trust us to do it. They will always want a thumbnail or a sketch, so we can give them an idea of what we're going to create before they give us the go ahead. Think about what story you want to tell. We have seen already how different creators have communicated different stories or concepts for their work, and now this is your chance to decide what it is that you want to do. What do you want the viewer to feel? How is it that you want them to feel? You need to have this questions present as you plan your P's and also while you are creating it. I think that's probably the most important thing to do. Don't forget about the requirements for this project. You need to base it on a familiar place that you know very well, include at least one character and at least two objects. For my illustration, I have decided to base it on my balcony because it's one of my favorite places in the flat. I go there a lot, especially in the summer just to take in the heat. I am going to include three characters and create a triangle of sorts, and make the viewer guess what is happening. I'm going to myself in the illustration. I think that's quite a fun concept, just fit in like I am part of this group and I may know something that you don't. I have gathered a few different images that I really like, and I'm going to mix this references up together to create my scene. I'm just going to show them to you very quickly. So this is actually a coffee mug that I saw at a recent trip in Sofia in Bulgaria. I don't know what it is that catches me about it, but I think is quite a bad-ass character with some dark corners around her hair. You can also see that she has this facial expression and this trench coat. I think she can be easily expanded into a protagonist, and that's what I'm aiming to do. Then our second character, I think it should be a boy, and this is a drawing that I did some time ago in Toronto. I really like this haircut and it's a very bad boy-ish haircut, very 90s. So I want him to be ambiguously malicious. As you know, I am the third character in the situation, but I'm also including this photograph because my room is quite an inspiring place in a sense. I put photos that really catch my attention and I want this tool to be reflective in the environment. In my own balcony, you will have spotted that there is a window, and I want that window to look into maybe the protagonist bedroom. You can find indications of her personality for all of the different things in her bedroom, just like you can see traces of my personality in my own bedroom, in a sense. Then there is the balcony which as you know, is going to be based on my own balcony. But I want this bars that I found at a Spanish balcony and all these draping plants just to add more personality. These are from a recent exhibition that I attended in London, and I want to use different elements. I think that they are soulful personality in print. For example, I love the bats in this print and all the different patterns and shapes. Maybe you can find them in different bits of the bedroom, like in postcards or in prints or different decorations. Same here, really contrasting colors and areas of darkness. This is actually on the way to the exhibition. There is this pattern on the floor and stars, rays, shapes, squares. They can be part of that bedroom environment as well as these birds and this devils. This is all to give an indication of that character's personality. Again, this ambiguous characters, what are they? Maybe I can have my own take and include them in my own illustration. Then there are these two tapestries that I saw in Macedonia recently in my trip. I love the colors and the patterns, the symbols really. The symbols are what make it for me. Again, I can have my own take and include some moons and flowers somewhere within the illustration. Same as this bolero that I saw in Macedonia, maybe the main character can wear this bolero or it could be part of that bedroom environment somehow. Last but not least, I am including a photo of the sunset that I took in the summer because that's what I aim to have for my color palette, for my final illustration. Look at the list you have already done in your previous lessons, and start mixing some of those inspirations up. Mix as much as you want, but I will probably suggest to try and restrict it to three to four things. Now that you've decided what you want to do, it is time to start sketching.
6. Thumbnailing: Visualising the Space: In this lesson, we're going to focus on thumbnailing our illustration. This is just a little bit different than proceeding to the sketch straight away. Thumbnails are actually the stage in which we put shapes and lines, to give an indication of the composition, and this will be our base for working our sketch in the next lesson. Thumbnailing is definitely not a tool, is almost like stick man drawings, and this is just a foundation for our piece. As I said, I'm going to be using the iPad Pro, and procreate for creating my illustration, but if you're joining us from a traditional background world, as pencil, or dry media, or crayons, that's absolutely fine. This will all still apply to you. If you also own an iPad Pro, and you have procreating hand, then we're good to go. I always focus on three different elements whenever I do my illustrations, and I also want them to be present in your own work. Characters, environment, and objects. Whenever you are doing your thumbnail, or whenever you're doing your sketch, or your final illustration, you always follow an order. You either focused on the character first, then the environment, then the object, or you do another order which may work best for you. In each lesson, I will show you which order I like to do. Without much further ado, here we go. So if let me use Procreate, we'll open the app right now, and tapping on the upper right corner on the plus sign, we can select from sizes that are already here, or you can create your own. I have already created my own A4 landscape size, which resembles an office piece of paper. So I'm going to select that, and open a new document. If you haven't used Procreate before, it very much acts like Photoshop. So you can add a new layer by tapping on the plus sign, you can swipe left with your finger, or your pencil to delete it, or you can also swipe to duplicate, if you want to copy something that you have already created. For the sake of thumbnailing, I am just going to stick with the one layer. I'm going to tap on the brush tool, and select the brush that I'm going to work with, which is the 6B pencil. For me, it's really the best one for working quickly, but you may select another one which you feel that you're more comfortable with. Here, on the upper left, I am going to select to have a drawing guide. A drawing guide is very useful for creating straight lines. It really helps me with drawing very straight buildings, or straight elements, and if you edit that, you will see that you can have this grid, and you can rotate it in different ways. If you slide on the grid size, you can see that you can create as many squares, so you can create as much detail as possible. I am going to slide up on the thickness, just so you're able to see better. I am going to make it blue here as well. So again, it's just visible. I'm going to lower the opacity to just so I can focus on my sketch, and not necessarily seeing the grid too much. We're good to go. So in this section, I'm going to start by basing my thumbnail in my balcony. I am going to start with the order of scene, followed by characters, and then objects. But for this lesson, we're only going to focus on the space. So using my 6B pencil, I'm not going to change anything about it. I am going to start by doing some straight lines on either side to assemble my balcony. First off, just some housekeeping. I like to rename my layers sometimes, so I know what I am working with. So I have balcony, and I'm going to start with a line on the left. So the good thing about Procreate is if you hold it with your pencil, it will make your lines straight, and I'm going to repeat this at the right side of the page. So I'm going repeat that same process, and draw a second straight line, and hold it. So it is completely straight. So these are what I ambition to be the brick sides of the building. So the brick on either side on my balcony, and then I'm going to add another layer. So I can create another line horizontally, which will become the balcony, and guiding myself on the grid. Just checking that it's going to be as straight as possible, and I'm going to actually select this line. So you can do that by clicking on the pointer, and I'm going to bring it down slightly. So the balcony isn't so high. The veranda. Yeah, I'm quite happy with the setup. It is very much resembling that same composition of my balcony. I'm going to merge both layers by pinching on both. So they're all in one. At this point, I am going to start thinking about the background, which is the window that will be visible. I envision behind the character. So I'm going to create another layer, and in here, I am going to create the big window behind the main character. So if you go back, you can simply draw a square loosely, to be continuously, then hold it, and it will immediately be a square. I'm going to make it into a rectangle just so it is more uniform, and I'm going to center it. So I want to make it a bit smaller, so I'm going to click here on the "Transform Tool", and with my stylus, I am going to bring it down a bit more. So just make it slightly smarter. Yeah, very pleased about that. So I think at this point, I am just looking at the whole composition. I am actually going to lower the opacity of this window, because obviously, is meant to be there in the background. At this point, I am going to look at either side of the balcony, and consider the bricks from the building. So still just using the 6B brush, I am going to go, and just do horizontal strokes on either side. So you can just go very loosely. We're not really thinking about detail at this stage, it's just laying all the shapes, and the foundation, and we're going to repeat on the left side of the document as well. We're going to repeat on the left side of the page. At this point, I'm just envisioning the whole thumbnail, and considering the composition, I think really, I'm going to select both layers. I'm going to use the Transform tool, and I'm going to make everything slightly bigger, because I want the characters to be the main focus, not the balcony. So I'm just going to make everything bigger, so when I include my characters later, they'll be in center stage. Then we're going to actually focus on the background a little bit. So I'm going to focus on the room behind balcony. I'm going call this a window layer, and create a new layer for what is going to be the room behind. I'm going to lower the opacity slightly, and just create what is going to be the door behind this room. I am fairly pleased with this initial composition of my scene, and now, in the next lesson, we're going to focus on adding our very very loose characters, and our very loose objects, before we proceed to sketch everything.
7. Thumbnailing: Visualising Characters & Surrounding Elements: In our previous lesson, we started thumbnailing the space for our final illustration, and now we're going to focus on thumbnailing our characters. We're going to include a fourth layer over here and I'm going to drag it down below the balcony. You'll see why eventually. Just like before, we're not really focusing on details, we're just focusing on creating quick strokes and just creating the base for our sketch. I'm using, once again the 6B brush, which for me it just works really well and I'm just going to create shapes for what is going to be my main character. Just outlining her neck and her shoulders, and I'm making it so she's going to be sitting behind the balcony just over here. Just like before, I'm just considering the overall composition and considering the size of her in relation to the space. I'm actually going to transform this and make her bigger just to see what she looks like, and positioning her. Actually thinking about it, she may be too big, so I'm going to make her a bit smaller again and just position her essentially as I can, but a bit to the side as well. Maybe a bit more to the right. No, actually, this works well for me. I think she is clearly in place and yeah. I'm going to create another layer and then focus on the second and third characters, and just repeat the same process with quick brush strokes and just laying out the outline for their whole bodies. Here are three the characters. What I'm really trying to create here is a zigzag effect. One of them is either looking at the other, the other one is looking at another character, she may be looking at you. I'm not entirely sure at this point, but this is the thinking behind that there is this triangle in place because it is a trio after all. At this point, I'm actually going to think about the space in the background, in my own flat dark room just continues into being the corridor of my house. I'm going to just create a few quick lines, just thinking about that space very quickly. Maybe there's like a door over here and paying a little bit with what that perspective might be. It's like that short corridor or like that central corridor that will lead into this room. Again, just playing with quick strokes and just trying things out until I'm satisfied. I think this is it. This is the moment where we can actually focus on the last element, which is the objects. The objects, in this case, in the context of this room, will be the objects that will be found in my own room, which are photographs, and plants, and things that I have on the wall. I'm going to add another layer and start laying down some of the many elements that are going to be inspiring the environment in this room. Just like before, and really thinking about the detail at this stage is just creating very simple shapes and lines going this way. Here we have it. Here is our thumbnail and this is going to be pretty much the foundation for us to create our sketch, which will be all coming in the next lesson.
8. Sketching The Characters: Our thumbnail is ready which means that now it's time to start on our sketch. This is a key step. I promise you that the more we work our sketch out, the easier it's going to be for us to do our line work later. Well, we are going to include more detail in it. It still doesn't need to be perfect. Again, this is just a base for us to do our final illustration later. So here's our complete thumbnail, which is the base for our sketch. At this point, I will suggest to do a bit of housekeeping. I actually want to have all of these elements into one layer, so I'm going to pinch them all and merge into one. You can do this with your fingers and then lower the opacity by clicking on the end bit. This is only so we can start on our sketch and not having to worry about the thumbnail, this coming in the background, and it won't be too much in our side. I want to create a new layer. At this point, I'm going to keep using the 6b pencil for my sketch, and we're going to work in black and white at this point as well. So we're going to focus on this first character, our main character, and we're going to just start by doing a lot of simple rough sketches and very loosely follow the trace overhead. Again, not having to add too much detail, just trying to outline the body and the position of the body, trying things out, maybe reference from photographs from either the internet or any photos that you may have, inspiration photos. So I ambition my main character sitting down by the balcony, maybe with her arm over the veranda, and I ambition her to be quite bad ass just like that coffee cup, and maybe she might be smoking a cigarette just outside. That's what I ambition and that's what I'm going to draw. I would recommend as much as possible not to trace over any images. I think an illustration is quite important to just do studies and life drawing, whether going outside and draw from other people or sometimes when in doubt, you can just research on the internet and find some good stock images too, based on positions from. Obviously do what is more comfortable for you, but I will recommend to use your eye as much as possible rather than to use a trace. Work quickly, use some quick strobes, and if needed, you can just use the backwards tool to go back and retry other things. Hands are usually a part in my illustrations which I struggle with quite a bit. I am not afraid to admit it. I think most of us we don't like having to draw hands, but I try as much as possible again to use my own hands as reference or using hands on the internet as reference for achieving certain poses. Really, sketching is the point where I can just try things out, have a bit of trial and error, go back and draw, and go back and draw until I feel more satisfied with what I have. A good tip that I could give is to use the transform tools. So there's a handy tool which is like a zig-zag at the top. You can select it and then just trace it around the hand. So you can just select that part, and then using the transform tool, you can just make it bigger or smaller if you need to because oftentimes I find that the hand is fine the way is drawn, but maybe I have drawn it too big or too small. So I will give that tip, just play with the transform tool and see what it looks like to the rest of the body, and play until you have what you need. I really find that selecting certain points and making them bigger or smaller helps me achieve better proportion in my characters. So you can try making the head a bit smaller or making the rest of the body a bit smaller, really, is up to you until you feel happy. At this stage, I am just doing what I need to do until I get a desired result. Once we're happy with our body, then we can focus on the face of our character. So we can start with the eyes and then with the nose. I normally start with the eyebrows because eyebrows just seem like a good starting point. They have so much expression. So if you decide that your character is happy or sad or angry, then you can really play with the eyebrows to get that desired expression that you want on your character. I ambition my character to be a bit of a bad ass. So I am going to make her a little bit malicious looking, even if she is not really malicious at all. When I add the pupils, I normally think about who is she looking at? Is she looking at the viewer, is she looking at another character on the side? Again, I'm playing with her expression and trying to think about who it is that she is directing her attention to. I am going to give her eyelashes and really compliment that femme fatale gaze a little bit. I think I may add makeup later on on her. I am not entirely sure at this point, but definitely eyelashes, and also I'm going to work on the contour of her face just making her a bit more profiled and with a bit more of a pointee jaw. I'm going to add her nose, which usually is just like a curve. In my case, it can make it a bit more realistic if you want, and then her lips, which I'm going to make black at this point, maybe just like a black lipstick, but later on you can add another color into it. If you're planning to have a female character, that's completely up to you. Then I am going to really mimic that same hairstyle on the coffee cup all over her face. So her hairstyle is very much going to be pretty much the same as that cup that I saw in Sofia. I'm also going to replicate that trench coat outline in the cup, make it a bit more detailed. I am using a reference on the internet at this point, really, and then I'm going to add a color as well, which is just basically triangle. I'll make sure to add details later on. But really it's just working her character until I am satisfied and also working her gaze. So I think I am going to have her looking to the side as if she is looking at one of the other characters. I am very much pleased with her. She has the side effect that I wanted of her, being a bit sneaky and a bit strong in terms of attitude. Now, it's time to focus on our second character, which is going to be our male character based on one of my sketches. I want him to be a bit, what's the word? I want him to be a bit up to no good, like a bad boy. So just like before, I'm going to start with very quick strokes around the face and just contouring the body before I focus on his hairstyle and his facial features. Here is our bad boy. So I very much drew him so he is looking at her directly and she's looking at him. So there is that bit of the zig-zag that I was talking about in the thumbnail lesson. Now, we're going to focus on the third character. I'm going to continue using the 6b pencil, and this character is going to be me. So here we have it, our three main characters, including myself. I'm going to show you, just like I explained before, there is this triangle thing happening. So he is the same high as me, but more forward, and he's actually looking at her, and she's also looking at him. I am looking at her as well. Yeah, there is this thing happening like this trio, this triangle. There is some shared history. Maybe I know something, maybe he doesn't know anything, maybe our main character know something as well. It is quite interesting and I really like this. So, yay. Now, we can move forward and focus on the environment and the objects.
9. Sketching The Space & Surrounding Objects: We started sketching our characters, and now it's time to really define them and create the space and all the surrounding objects. But again, we're going to be sketching. At this point we're going to add another layer, continues in the 6B pencil, or whichever brush you feel more confident with. We're just going to continue using quick strokes and going over our thumbnail. I'm going to focus on the brick wall. At this stage I'm not going to do straight lines really, I'm going to save that for the line works. I'm just going to do them loosely and just follow the grid. We're just going to build them from the ground up and complete our brick wall this way. A really cool thing that Procreate or any other digital tool has is that we can just duplicate this page, take it over to the other side of the page, flip it using that flip horizontal arrow below, and then you don't have to redraw that brick wall. You're making sure that it is as parallel as it can be. So there it is. After the brick walls are in place, we can then focus on the veranda of our balcony. Just draw a straight line and loosely follow the thumbnail and follow the grid, so it is straight. I'm also going to do some straight lines on either side, just on the left and very soon after, on right as well. I'm going to also replicate that line below another long straight line. Then for the individual bars, I'm not going to focus on making them too straight. I'm just going to draw them loosely and follow again the grid as much as I can. We have our space and now we can just add another layer. This layer will be entirely for all the surrounding objects and elements. Again, working from out to in. So starting with this bottle, we're going to just trace around loosely, not adding too much detail, but just expanding a little bit. Using again, our references to build up on this little world. Our main character, I think again, because she's a bit of a bad girl maybe, she is smoking. I ambition her as a smoker. The good thing about having things in different layers is that they are separate from the rest, so I'm going to create this slight smoke and then I can just go behind and just delete all of these different things that are around. Then when we're going to be doing our line work it's going to be easier to just go over the sketch and really separating all of these different bits out. I think I'm also going to include a another cloud of smoke just on the left, as if it is coming from her mouth because she is exhaling it. This will mainly be in the foreground. Again, I'm just adjusting this a bit and deciding on the size and deciding on where is exactly in the foreground it is going to be. Just zooming out so I can have a better look at it in relation to the space. From here, we can just continue to slightly trace in our outline and build up on all the remaining objects. So here we have our sketch, which is looking pretty nice. If you open up all the layers and hide the thumbnail, we are left with our sketch so far. Again, pretty pleased, although I just realized that I haven't given her legs. Should have thought about that sooner. I'm going to go to the character's layer over here, and I'm going to zoom in and just try and think about how it is that I want her to sit down. Again, quick strokes and just deciding roughly what it is that I want those legs to be doing. Here we have our final sketch with all characters, all objects, and the scenery. Next lesson, we will focus on line work.
10. Linework: Outlining the Environment: Here is the sketch that we recently completed. I don't know if you may notice this, but I have added a few things into my sketch. Realize that the proportions in the main character were just a little bit not there. I have just adjusted the head and the arm. I have also added this vine over here in the middle, which I think just fills in that space and makes the composition a bit better. I have also added some more details in the background. I have included this layer now, which as you can see, I have just added more details all around the objects. You may recognize some of these things. I have also included these titles of these books, which is one of my favorite hobbies. You will see all of these different inspirations in the Resources section, it's all in the folder. Now, we're going to start our line work, and we're going to continue working in black and white just like before, and we're going to really think about color later. This lesson is all about starting that simple line work and then thinking about details later really. We're just going to focus on really going over our sketch and slightly tracing and picking those strokes that are really going to work into the final illustration and really just go from there. We're going to focus on this space for now, and we're going to work from the outside to the inside. I'm also changing the brush here. Before have worked on the 6B brush and I'm switching into the dry ink, which I really love. It flows really well, and I think it's a great brush for line working. But you may choose another brush, whatever you feel comfortable with. It's just my recommendation. I'm going to merge this layers and I'm going to call it a sketch and lower the opacity. Just like the thumbnail before, I'm just lowering the opacity so I'm really going to focus on the line work. I'm also going to lower the opacity on the grid so it's not so much on my face. Create a new layer, and from here, we can start with the outside and start with the bricks on either side of the drawing. We're going to also name this layer and the environment layer. Using the brush, we're going to focus on this side of the page and I'm going to start line working my bricks. I'm going to use the drawing guide as literally a guide for doing the straight lines. But I'm not going to focus on doing these super straight. I'm going to go individually, literally brick by brick. Yeah, here we go. Now that my bricks are done, I'm just going to check and see how it looks without the sketch in the background. Yeah, I'm happy. They look a little bit imperfect, but they look straight and that's exactly what I needed. I'm going to rename these layer "Bricks" and I'm going to create a new layer, which I'm going to name "Balcony" because this is the point we're going to focus on the lower part of the illustration, the balcony side. I'm going to adjust the size of my brush. Really it's just following the grid just like in the sketch before. But this time we're going to pay close attention to it. It's just creating a straight line holding it so it is a straight as it can be. I'm going to use the guide to make it completely straight. I'm going to zoom in and just have a look. I think it is not exactly straight, so I can use the transform tool and just move it so I can raise it slightly so it is sitting on top of the sketch. Yeah, I feel that looks good and I'm just going to fill in this bit on the right side. Again, the really great thing is that I can duplicate this layer. I can go zoom in and just move that a bit more, so then I just have the same stroke here embodying that balcony. Just adjusting it slightly following the grid. Yeah, that looks good. Then I'm going to go and create another layer just sitting underneath. It's going to bring it up actually, and we're going to do the individual bars of the balcony. Following the sketch, but then really building them so they are a bit more detailed. One thing to mention here is that it's really good to just vary the sizes of your brush to keep the illustration more dynamic. Design wise, bars, they are a bit more fine in a sense. They're obviously close together, but they don't need to be as thick line wise as the bricks for example. I duplicated this bar so I don't need to keep drawing it over and over again. At this point, the really great thing is that I can just merge these two layers, layer sixes, and going to duplicate it and repeat really. We can just continue doing this step over and over again until we fill in that balcony space. Here it is. This is the outline. I have hidden the sketch so you can see. I know it looks super simple at the moment, but this is really the first stage. In our next lesson, I'll show you how we can build in more detail in our space and slowly throughout the rest of the illustration.
11. Linework: Soft Details: In our previous lesson, we started line working our final illustration by going over our art work, and this is really the stage where we're going to start adding some soft details, and I will show you shortly what that is. Is basically building up some more detail into our piece. At this stage, I am just going to go over to the bricks. Again, starting from the outside to the inside, and here in my brushes, I'm actually going to change brush. I'm going back to sketching with 6B pencil, and I'm going to show you why. With a 6B pencil, for me personally, is a really good brush for just adding some soft details, and I can bury the pressure of my Apple Pencil into the screen and just create some strokes. I'm going quickly just to add some texture into those bricks, making them a bit more rough, making them a bit more scruffy. So this is really what I am doing. This is what this lesson is going to be about, about adding those soft details, those self consideration textures, just a bit more volume into the line work. We're going to proceed to do that first with the bricks. Here we have the details so far of our balcony, and I am actually going to change brush. I'm going to the Bonobo chalk and I'm going to explain why. I find that this is a very good brush for adding graininess and adding a different kind of texture. I'm going to bring up my sketch and I'm going to show you how I use this brush. It's a very small brush, it's not actually super noticeable, but I'm going to add another layer here, and I'm going to increase the size here, and you can see how, with my pencil, I am not applying a lot of pressure and I'm just doing quick continuous stroke. If I go over the same path, then I'm adding a bit more density, so I am trying not to go over but still I have already done. You can see how this is adding a different texture to that wall and the balcony, and don't worry this is all in one layer, so after this is complete, I'll show you how we can edit and just delete certain bits for maximum impact. Here we have it. So if you again, hide the sketch you can see that texture coming through and it just adds something to the illustration. I'm lowering the opacity just so I can check and compare. Yeah, you can see that slide graininess, and I'm going to show you how here I am just removing certain bits. Obviously, I want this texture to be behind the bars. I want this bars to just be white and to stand out. So I am just going to be erasing here, and for the eraser, I am using the marker brush, but again, select whatever you feel most comfortable with if you like. We're just going to be editing at this point. Here is our edited version with that texture in the background. Again, I really like it. You can see that I have left some bits empty, for bits I'm going to add, it's going to increase the opacity to check. But actually I really like that salteness, I'm going to have it a bit more like that so it's not too harsh. We're just going to continue adding those soft details, and I'm going to focus now on the frame of the window. Texture balcony, just renaming this and going to create another layer on top of the window, and I'm going to switch back to the 6B pencil for adding some details on the frame of the window. In here I'm just really going to vary my brushes. I'm just going to do a mixture of straight lines and imperfect lines to just add a bit of craftiness and that wooden texture around that window. I'm just going to continue doing this all around, and I will also do that later on into the door inside the room. We just continue doing this and just adding bit by bit, a bit more detail. Here we have it, our space is basically finalized and I am very pleased. It has texture, it has body and we are going to bring up our sketch and continue with our characters in the next lesson.
12. Linework: Characters: In our previous lesson, we finish our line work for the environment. Now this is a moment where we can focus on our characters. Just like before, we're going to really go into stages. We're going to focus on our main character or protagonist, then our secondary character, and then the third character, which is me. It's just again working from the outside to the inside. At this point, I'd just like to do some housekeeping. I just like to keep my layers into place. I'm actually going to select all of them right now, as you can see here. I'm going to group them. I'm going to rename these line work environment. If I hide this group, then all of the line work for the environment is hidden and then you can only see the sketch. That way we can focus on our characters, which are going to start from this first layer. In this layer where greedy going to keep the outline of our main character or protagonist. I'm going to revert back to the dry ink brush, which is my prefer brush for line working. But obviously you can choose whichever brush you feel more comfortable with. When I line work my characters, I follow that same order as when I did with my sketch before. I focus first on the head or the hair of the character, and I then focus on the body. Already just want to top-down how it is that they're going to look finally before I proceed to outline the rest of the body. As you can see here, I am just following that template that the sketch is given me and adding details as I go along and trialing things out by what more decisiveness as I know now what the visual lists. I am working with it quickly and working with quick strokes and vary in my strokes a little bit. As I have said before, you can always increase or decrease the size of your brushes, and really the beauty of working digitally I said you can go back, as you can see here. You can just go back and try some things out and really just follow along until you're happy with the end result. We're just going to focus just with the environment before we're going to do the outline first and then we will add some details in black and white. Here's the outline of our character. Obviously it's all in one layer, so we can always delete the background later. But this is the point where I'm going to start adding detail. I am going to start fitting up some of the spaces, like adding some darker tones into her clothes and maybe some pattern and just really built up some more detail into her. This is really what the second stage is. Just I weigh the environment before we added texture and we added some more volume into what we have. This is what we're doing now with the character. You can say here that I'm just adding tone into her legs. Really the end and don't worry because of background will be erase and the beset are conflicted with the a line work of the character. But that will be done a bit later as some of the sections are complete. You can see that now that the legs are colored and I'm just going to start deleting some bits from here. They are interfering with the background. I want the bars obviously to be shown in the foreground while on the character. One slight tip here. If you want these dark lines that are in the bar to not conflict as well with the legs and the character, I will suggest to just like a white, a stroke, like a straight white stroke, just behind. Then that way you can see there's more of a separation between the character slacks and the bars in the balcony. This is quite handy if you want to make some bits stand out or to not make some bits conflict too much with each other. Later on you'll see how I will do this, sometimes with the objects or other details in the drawing so they're able to have a bit more separation from the rest. Our main protagonist is ready now and just like before, we have done the outlines and then we went for the soft details. This is the moment where we can focus on our two remaining characters using the same process. You will see how I will join older layers that I have done for her into one, so she is in one layer. Then I will create a new layer for the second character, which is our male character. Here we have them, our three characters. Our story is finally taking shape and now the only step left is adding the surrounding objects. Coming up in our next lesson.
13. Linework: Objects: So we have our characters. We have our environment. The linework is nearly ready, and now the only things left are the surrounding
objects and elements, such as the plants,
all the prints in the room, et cetera. So I know that I have quite
a few things dotted around, but I'll show you how it's going to be still
quite fun to linework. So I'm going to merge all of my characters
into one group. I'm going to rename them, obviously, line work characters. I always have quite a few issues typing with my
keyboard in my iPad. This is again, just
housekeeping just to keep all our layers clean. And as we have always seen
in our previous lessons, we're going to start from
the outside to the inside. So I'm going to start with the
balcony elements by adding a new layer and continuing
using the dry ink brush, which is my preferred brush. And I'm going to use the balcony that I took notice of in
Spain quite a few years ago. I'm going to follow
it quite loosely. So I include some
of the plants which are sort of draping
from the balcony, and I'm going to start
with that really, really bushy one almost
like a circle bush here. And just creating
very loose strokes and going around the
shape of my sketch. So here we have our bush. You'll see that I
have colored it black, just for contrast. Later, I will add some
color in our next lesson. But for now, I am going to
add this layer underneath. And I'm doing this because I
don't really want to delete the details in the background under the flowers
which are showing. I'm gonna pick a white very easily from here and
add it into my palette. And using my same brush, I'm just going to go
underneath and just color in so those flowers are
standing out a bit more. And I'm just doing this at
the stage so we see I get a grasp of I always want to know that
everything is final, and this is how everything
is going to look. And I'm going to go back into the layer of
my linework and go back to black and just
fill in some of the gaps. And I think I am going to yeah, just define some of the
flowers a bit better. I'm going to go back to white and I'm going to use the
dry ink brush still. Actually, I'm going to
erase a little bit. So you can use the eraser
still in the linework to just bulk out some detail. So I'm going to delete
some of the black so I can really define
those flowers a bit more. And I can even add a few more. So you can just continue adding some details and flowers
until you're satisfied. You can see how I
have redone this one. So I'm just adding some tiny little flowers
just for detail. At this stage, I'm
not super obviously, I'm taking reference from that photo in the
balcony in Spain, but I'm also adding
a little bit of my own touch and just being
a bit more imaginative. And adding some dots here to stimulate some pores
or some bulbs, maybe. And also some straight
lines in the edges, and doing this to just
flesh out that bushines, a bit more and adding a bit more roughness
and a bit more texture. So I'm getting a bit
more happy with this bh. And following from here, I am going to just continue
building details outside, go back to the Black brush and just build those
vines on either side. But yeah, this is a
really nice trick for adding some detail. Oh. The line work in our balcony is nearly done. We just have to focus
on three objects, which are the two bottles
and the cup of wine. So I am going to show you
how I use line working here. I'm going to add
one other layer. And this is going to be
basically the base for doing the rest of the objects
within the illustration. So, is you seeing
the brush, again, trying things out, seeing
what strokes you prefer? And I basically do it just like as I have done in the thumbnail and
sketchings and everything. I hold it so it
is straight and I follow the grid slightly. And I know there is a
symmetry tool in Procreate, but I don't really use it. I just kind of go by e. So
I just follow the sketch. I know that there is this
line in the background, the balcony line interfering. So I'm going to find that layer here in the
environment group, which is nicely labeled. A lower opacity, so I can
actually see my goblet. And that line underneath, I'm actually going to erase it. The great thing is
that you again, can just procreate
to just like you do when creating squares
or a straight line, you can just hold it and
then it creates this curve. If you click on edit shape, you can just tweak
it slightly so you can see whether you can
do it a bit more round. I'm going to redo it again just so I can create
a more round effect. And No, I think that's okay. Happy with that. I'm
going to actually use the transform tool so I
can elongate this lightly. I'm just going to pull it down and reposition that goblet. Again, the line work it doesn't all have to be final,
as in, obviously, you're following what
is in the sketch, but you can always change
it or add to it slightly. Adding some more curves
here, following the sketch. Later I will erase that bit at the top where my
legs are showing. And later I would also delete those lines
in the background, so that coblet is fully on show. Just check in the
shape of the coblet. I'm going to erase my
legs here in the hallway. Just need to find myself. Here I am. I'm going to
erase my legs slightly. And from here, I'm just going
to return to my goblet, my cup of wine, and I'm going to follow along to add
the drink within. So I'm sort of running
parallel to the outer lines and adding this curve
and just erasing this tiny little bit that
is just sticking out. And instead of having to
fill this all manually, the great thing is that
I can just sort of grab this circle and drop it
in, and it just fills it. So that's save some time.
And using the eraser, I'm just going to do this curve and complete that glass of wine. And yeah, this is basically that same process that we're going to follow
with the bottles, just following the
shape and doing those parallel lines to
simulate the container. At this point, I am just
going to erase the bits in the background from the window and also checking that
that wine is good. I'm also going to add
some details here. So I like to just simulate
that effect of the glass. So using a much smaller brush
just doing this little bits around just to have that shininess of the glass
and also here underneath. And just basically going to get a balcony opacity down and Eventually, you'll
see how delete bits from the background
just right here. Once the bits are deleted, our wine will be fully on show, and we can proceed to do
the rest of our bottles. And also the rest
of the objects. Once these are done,
we can move fully to the room and just use
those same techniques. Follow the thumbnail, using the transform tool if you
want to reshape something. And doing parallel lines, filling in some bits with black. And bit by bit, just fill
out the whole space. Our objects are complete. And this is the final line work. So this is what I mean about
working in black and white. If this is how you
work, then that means that your final
illustration is actually done if you
don't like to add color. Your illustration will just make sense if it was only
in black and white. But in my case, I am going
to proceed to add color, which is really kind
of my favorite stage. And this is what we're
doing in our next lesson.
14. Layering Colors: This is our final line work featuring one or more characters, two or more objects and a rich and busy environment. It's an illustration that works perfectly well in black and white, but I will want to add color. I want to quickly show you my layers as I have done a bit of housekeeping. You will see that characters are in one layer, objects are in another layer and the environment is in another layer as well. I have organized it, so characters are at the top, objects second and environment is last. It's reflecting on the fact that characters are mostly in the foreground and environment is mostly in the background. Obviously, this depends because there are elements that are both in foreground and background, but this just helps me keep everything in tabs in a sense. I like to know that I am utilizing my layers to the max and I don't like to keep everything disperse. This is really the part that I like the most, which is adding color. In my case, I am going to select my palette from a photo that I took in the summer, which is of a sunset that I watch on the way back from my studio. I love that combination of purples, and browns, and slide yellows, and pinks, so that's the mood that I want for my own illustration. The fact that is almost like a late afternoon or maybe like early morning, It quiet don't know, but it is just like a rich and burry moody, and mysterious, and magical environment. I am going to be selecting my colors from this photo. I'm going to show you how, if this is how you're doing it as well. If you go into plus at, insert a photo, my photo I have already arranged into my iPad, so I'm selecting it and bringing it up into the layer, and I'm going to submit, so you have a look. If you go into the middle left into the square, you can see that if you tap it, this circle appears, and you can drag it around. I'm going to position it at the top of the photo, It already distinguishes what purple it is and I'm going to add it here into my palette just by tapping into it, going to bring it down, so I can pick up on this slide orange yellow tone, and then I'm going to repeat the process to the middle of the photo for that very light purple. I also really like that purple, like that really dark brown here. I'm going to also select it, and added into my pallete, and I may use this as my black and you'll see. We have our four colors, but it doesn't mean that these are the only tones that we have to use. We can always use other shades of the same color. For example, if you tap on the purple, you can drag your pencil around and just include a lighter shade of blue and same if you tap on this orange yellow, you can pick up on this lighter tone, and then drag here so you can add a more rich pink, and then same here we can have a lighter brown. That way you can just expand on that four color palette out of this photo. Really, this is what I like to do when I pick up cutters from my own illustration. It doesn't have to be your case necessarily obviously. You can pick colors, for example in procreate, there are already palettes that you can use, and you can also use the color picker to select your colors. You may already have found a certain pallet somewhere else, but this is what I like to do. I'm going to just get rid of the photo, because we don't need it anymore. I'm then I show you how overlay colors, so I'm going to go into my layers, and I'm going to add another layer on top. I will go into my color palette and select that dark brown that I've really liked. I want to see how it looks over laid in my line work. The gray thing again about procreate is that, I don't need to color the whole thing, I can just drag this color and it will fill the whole space. That's always not what we want, what we want is to tap on the layer. You'll see that on the left we have this options and I'm going to select to have the clipping mask. What that means is that color will only be applied to the character layer. Now you'll see that my characters, they have this rich dark brown overlaid on them, while the rest of the line work is still in black and white, but I want to see how every front legs with that same process, I'm going to drag that brown again and clip musket to the object's, going to add another layer, drag the dark brown again, and overlay it on the environment. I actually really like this, has a much richer and moody tone. I think the black and white was very much colder and this is giving much more warmth, It is really changing the mood and atmosphere of the colors here. This is the process of overlaying on top of the line work, and now I'm going to show you what I mean by underlying. I'm going to create this layer just underneath environment layer, and I'm going to see how this pink looks just behind. I'm going to again drag these pink here, I'm going to drop it and that is good, but I think is quite dark, so I'm going to check again and select this purple and just drag it over. It's a little bit gloomy, I actually going to go back to the pink because I think there is something here, but what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to go to layer, and then I'm going to lower the opacity to 70 percent this is much better. I have that warmth coming across, I think this is really helping the illustration. Also here in the clip mass for the objects, I can actually tap here and I'm going to change it, so it is on the screen layer, on a screen mode. This is the layer where we had those flowers with the white background, so that way we won't lose that detail just by overlaying color. This is really what we have now. This is a overlaid color on top of the line work and another line color under the line work, so this is very much what I call a base. You can just visualize already what you need to do. I'm going to rename the layer base and from here onwards, we can just select what colors we can add to different areas to add contrast. That's coming up in our next lesson.
15. Coloring the Foreground & Background: We have our base, which we created in our previous lesson with overlaid and underlaid colors to create a template from where we can build our colors from. Now in this lesson we're going to focus on adding color in the foreground of our illustration, which in my case is going to be the balcony. I'm going to add one layer and I'm going to select this pink, and just like before, it's just working from the outside to the inside. I'm going to select to work with the marker brush, which I think is a really handy brush to work with when coloring. It just distributes the color pretty well digitally. We'll be going just like before, brick by brick, starting now. Now we're going focus on coloring our main character, who is very much in the foreground and is our main subject of interest. I want the viewer to be drawn into her. So I think I'm going to color her in pink as well. I ambition her like a femme fatale character. She is quirky, she is stylish. She's a bit devious in a sense. I want her to have dark skin and I want her to have a really fun hairdo as well. So we will just color her as we go along. Obviously always make sure that if you have a character with white eyes, that white is laid underneath as well. Otherwise, the base color will show through. Now that the underlying of the colors is done on the main character, I can focus on overlaying. So I am going to again go through the clipping mask layer in the characters layer, and then overlay white on top of the pattern of her coat. Then I'm going underlay again, so I'm going to underlay white behind the smoke and also overlay that white again on the linework because I want this to be all a blob and I don't want the language to be dark in this instance. I did this a lot with smoke in a sense. I really like it. The top is very white and then it is all replicating one color. So I know there's already quite a bit of detail in my own illustration, but one thing that I always like to add is just some detail on the plants. I'm going use the white to overlay color on top of the environment elements option into the plants, so I can add just a bit of those details on the leaves all around. This is again, a bit of a therapeutic process for me, and I'm sure that it might be a bit therapeutic for quite a bit of people, and this is just quite a lovely bit of detail to add. So if you're like me, have added a bit of white underneath your linework, and you need to color it, my best tip is to add another layer, set it so it is on multiply on top of your linework, and then you can just add some color over it. But be careful to not touch the linework because then it will merge those colors together in a sense. Here I'm just going to add a bit of purple over the flowers in the balcony so they can stand out. I'm also going to add this purple overlaid on the ring of my main character and also as part of her makeup. Sometimes you don't need to lay color on a huge section as well. You can just follow the linework. So in the case of the basket, I'm just adding some diagonal lines in the same direction as the linework, and it's just a nice thing to enhance already, the details that are there. Now we will focus on the background, which is where our secondary character and there's the hairy character resides, AKA me. I have shown you how I use a base in which I build up my colors, and we're going to do exactly the same here. So I'm going create another layer called base two. This base is going to be in the background where you can see the window is. For this, I am going to choose a color which contrasts the pink, and for me that is the blue color. I want to fill in the whole window with this color and for this to be an underlying color. At this point, I am going to select for the selection tool, and I'm going to have a free hand, and I am going to basically select everything within the window as closely as I can. Now that we have this area selected, I'm just going to drop that blue in, and it will color the whole background area. You will see how I'm just going to go into that layer again and select the eraser tool and just delete the bits that are conflicting with the main character, her eyes and her shirt, so they can just remain to be white. I quite like this contrast, but I'm just going lower the opacity slightly so that blue is not so much in your face. You will see how this is matching with that base below, the pink, and it is ultimately creating a purple, which is very similar to the one that we have in our palette. So that's pretty great. It is adhering to the mood that I want. From here, I'm just going to tidy up the corners where the blue didn't reach, and then add another base color in the background, which is where I, the third character reside. Here are best layers for the foreground, with the purple in the room and the yellow in the corridor. I had decided to put yellow because I'm visualizing that this is an area where light is coming through, while I feel that the room is a place where it's a little bit darker and a bit loomy because the lights are off. So I'm already visualizing what colors can be around in all of these bases. My main focus now is again, going back into base two, the blue layer. I'm going to start building the room colors, starting with our secondary character, our male character. This is a point where you can choose either another color from your palette to build up on the underlying colors, but the one thing I like to do as well, remember that we have this base one pink layer underneath, so that really light pink. Instead of having to select it, I'm actually going to go and choose the eraser tool, and I can just delete some of that base two layer, so then base one comes through, that same color that is on the wall as well. That way we have that perfect tone to have in the secondary character. This is something that you can do if you want sections to have a light pink, to have colors that are already there. We'll just continue going from there either erasing so that base color comes through or adding from our palette. Once we're happy with the way all the colors are looking together, this is really it, your illustration is now finished.
16. Conclusion: Here we have it, our final illustration. You've seen how I have taken influence from so many different sources, things that I have found, pieces of art that have influenced me, photographs that I have taken, and I have merged them all in my illustration. Even though it is really a mixture of all these different elements, in the end, it feels uniquely mine and it's mine entirely. I know that each and every one of us can achieve different things because we all like different things and therefore your illustration is going to feel completely different and it's going to be entirely yours. Throughout this class, we have seen what makes an interesting scene, what makes an interesting character, and how different creators have interpreted these concepts in many different ways, from film to photography, to painting to illustration. We have also seen how each and every one of us may be influenced by many different things. You have seen that I have very specific tasters and I am interested in all sorts of different elements and you are most probably the same. I really want you to look at your phone and always keep an eye out on what may inspire you. We have also learned the importance of planning your illustration and making sure that it is conveying all the things that you want, how it is that you want the viewer to feel, what it is that you want the viewer to notice, and really how can you compose it and make it as impactful as you wish. Having a thumb nail as a base mixer all that more is here so you can build up your final illustration. Having shapes and lines to start with, from there building up your sketch, and then from there building up your line work in black and white, and finally building up your colors. Working with three to four limited colors which you can expand if you want to, and ultimately just have a demonstration full of contrast and full of impact. My illustration looks like it could be a print or it could be a comic. But your illustration could look as part of a children's book, or it could look like an editorial piece based on story that you really like, it really all depends on you. But the point is that all of this tips can be applied to different areas of illustration. You can expand your portfolio in all sorts of different ways now that you know how to compose and create a city. I really hope that you have enjoyed this class as much as I have enjoyed creating it. Please do post any work in progress or the final illustration to your project below, I really want to see and if you have any questions, I am more than up for answering them. You can find me online up Maria Anna Madras on Instagram or Twitter. Yeah, it was such a pleasure teaching you until next time. Bye.
