Transcripts
1. Intro: Hi, my name is and I'm an
illustrator based in Vienna. I've been working
in illustration for over ten years and
I had the pleasure to work with
international publishers and a variety of companies. In this class, I'll
be teaching you how to reduce illustration in
the mid-century style. Using Procreate. Whether you're a beginner or
a more seasoned illustrate, I think you may take
away something. Throughout the course, I've
been teaching a variety of topics including
brainstorming, thumbnailing, sketching,
coloring, and adding textures. By the end of the course, you will have all the skills
and knowledge to create your own unique illustration
in this kind of style. So I invite you to join
me on this journey and try out maybe different
things hadn't tried before. And learn about maybe new ways
to think outside the box. So let's get started.
2. Project Overview: Welcome to the project
section of this class about mid-century
illustration in procreate. In this lesson, we'll be talking about the final project
you're going to do. The goal of this project
is to help you create your own unique artwork in terms of mid-century used style, you will create the
character tasty illustration that's maybe great to
share on social media. It will be in a square format, so it's ideal, e.g. for histogram to get started, we'll use our iPad
and Procreate. As we go through the process, I'll be demonstrating
the steps I take to create my own
character illustration. We'll start with some thumbnails
and some rough sketches. And to move on to refining the character's shapes and forms and different
elements of the artwork. Once we're happy with our
character and the composition, we'll start adding
color and texture to inherit and bring it to life. We'd be using a very limited
color palette, black, white, and yellow, which is one of the characteristics
of mid-century style. And finally, we'll add
some finishing touches and detail install Outlook to
make it really spelled out. By the end of the project, you'll have a
finished illustration you can really be proud of. So let's get started and bring our own ideas to
life in Procreate. And I can't wait to see
what you all will create.
3. Character Design & Inspiration: This part of the
class we're going to talk about character design, how I approach characters and some inspiration for
yourself, for your design. So the first thing I want to tell you is
storytelling is king. So don't just draw
on a character. I would say, try to tell a story and try to think
about the character. What he's going to do is see what X is
fast, does he have? In next part, I want to encourage you to
use a really flat design. So try to play
with the flatness, also how you construct your characters and how
you place your elements. What you can also use
this exaggeration. You can exaggerate e.g. in the body, like here
in the left example. I've exaggerated the
beard, the right one. You see that that is
a bit exaggerated. Ready, Curtis Craig,
because my mom said no. But you see it's because of the bump or a saw the pie isn't. Another approach is
to play with cliches. So e.g. in the left illustration you see the hike with usually
Smith things, but here's just
playing around and reading his magazine about the newest updates and smashing and trying
a cup of coffee. And the middle part, it's Jackie who is in
this cute packaging. And the right one you
see this pet fish who is a perennial and
apparent dip it dangerous. Here. You can also play
with the proportions, like when I made the legs here, very small and upper
body really huge. You can also think about
what the character's doing here is in his cellar,
programming some stuff. You can also plot a story. Think about different elements
about your character. He has like here this switch and place
it around your artwork. So he's in a mushrooms,
the cooking utensils, this guy, the cat, and much more about inspiration. Do it in language. I like to use for this
project some retro colors. Here are some examples. You've had a lot of them online. So I encourage you to choose a few colors and work with
the very recused Paulette. Another thing is to approach your illustration from
a shape perspective, like triangles,
rectangles, squares. These examples you see how the illustration is constructed with this just
very basic shapes. And one more thing is to incorporate typography
into the artwork. That's something you can
do to make it interesting. Like in the left example
where you will see how the whole composition is using the topography
as where you see the same thing on the right
side with these examples, I hope you took something
away from that. Research a bit online
research, what you like, research also some colors, and see you in the next part.
4. Brainstorming: The first part of our
illustration project is to do a little bit of brainstorming and
take ten to 15 min, sit down and try to write down different aspects
of your character. It should help you get
your ideas flowing to see different perspectives
on your illustration. But keep the goals in mind. The illustration you want to do. Don't be all over the place. Try to narrow it down
to your project. You can do the
brainstorming in list form. You can do mind maps, you can do collages,
whatever helps you. Just do that.
There's no pressure. And start exploring
your character. I like to ask myself
five questions in the brainstorming
process to help myself explore the different
dimensions of the character. So the first question I'd
like to ask myself is, who is the character?
What's his name? Was his child? What hobbies? What BCS. You see? The next question is, what
is the character doing? What does he like? What does it dislike? What I spheres? What's his motivation? The next question we
want to ask yourself is, where's the character
basic currently? Maybe recipe before? Where will it go eventually? Then think about when
is it happening? Isn't a dissenter in
the last century. Maybe it's in the future. Maybe it's in a certain
specialty year. Maybe it's special season like
autumn, summer, or winter. Maybe it's a special day like
a birthday or Christmas. To think about this aspect. The last question I'd
like to ask myself is, why is it happening? Why is this happening? Why are, why is it
doing something? Why is it not doing
something else? Why is it behaving
in a certain way? It's like very proud of fearful. Obviously they're
very happy character. So what's motivating him? So why is it doing stuff? Right, everything done. Then you have plenty of
ideas to choose from. When you go to the
thumbnailing, sketching phase.
5. Thumbnailing: Welcome to the next
part of the class. This time we'll be
covering thumbnailing. So we're going to talk
about white families. It's important and I'll
give you some thoughts and some tips for creating
effective families. I'm also going to do a
lifetime leading with you. And yeah. So what is thumb bleeding? They didn't just the
process of creating very small and quick
sketches to explore the different composition
options and also to explore different ideas you may have collected in the
brainstorming phase. These sketches very small, posted, very rough exploration. And they are used to test out different ideas
before you commit to something larger sketch or maybe you went into
the final composition. For the thumbnailing process, I'm going to open up, procreate and create
a new canvas. Click here on the
right corner on the plus sign and choose, I choose the square format. And now on this blank canvas, I'm choosing my
six B pencil from the sketching folder and
just make very rough. Whereas in here too, because our format will
also be in a square format. And now based on my
brainstorming fire, I'm going to create
different versions of a kind of promotion illustration
for my course here. So the first one is cannot be just me as a character trait. Concentrate on the
composition here. I'm just going to
fast-forward here a bit. And you can watch me filling
out all the six frames with different variations
of my character of illustration for the project. And I invite you to
just follow along and do six of these thumbnails. At best yourself. Hey, they can be yp, part of your creative process. And they using simple
shapes and really exploring the ideas from
the brainstorming stage. You can focus on the
big picture and create effective compositions
for the next phase. So in the next class we're
going to cover sketching. I hope to see you there.
6. Sketching: I've chosen this thumbnail from six thumbnail sketches
because I like the composition and I like that. It incorporates different
different sides of me painting, like my drawing tablet. It's Dr. coffee mug. And we're going to
do I made it big. And now we're going to share and export it and save
it on my iPad. And we're going to
hope my new artwork. I'm going to make
a square format. Now, we're going to go here to actions, canvas,
reference image. And we're going to import
the reference image, shows him aside and now I can do it to
me is to sketch. And I'm going to choose
the six pencils again. Going to buck sketch drawing. So I'm starting with my face
which is front and center. Put in the first like to start with Put him looks could kill my headphones. The top here. It's going to be here. Let's make it a bit bigger than a good plan. And think and add some bit
of sci-fi element here. So it is a futuristic phone. So this here, this here. Good to know us and
it's different. Karla was good. Extension here for the caresses. This, there's going to be big because here we want
to put in the font. Here's going to be my font problem to
solve problems in here. Let's also have the thing out of his head. My name is Craig of
center is Stein. Paper here? Maybe it bigger. Don't household products from a kid's secret is to put the hands and the arms
to the side of the body. Apparently big
painting kilogram. Some elements here. Also have Tana. Too big. I need some space
for the handle. Coffee in here. Star Trek signed penciling here. This times we want to remember to hand
the hand, maybe. This time let him keep them hand press down. Well-meaning man
gets straightened. Using your hands there. Leave it as a cable
coming out of the microphone and the
leading into my tablet. So that's good for that thing. Can add some elements
here in town. Center is just to
balance everything out. This tower here. Very sloppy stuff. Maybe at the store. Think that's nice. It's a good feathers. I think I make the
background color. That's as good as it
gets for thyrotropin. So see you in the next lecture.
7. Illustrating the Basic Shapes: Welcome back. We're going to start our final
illustration now, and we're going to do
it in three parts. So first part is
going to be about blocking out the shapes and the overall weight
of the illustration. In the second part, we're
going to add the details. And then the third part, we're going to add some texture and go about the overall look. So let's get into it. So I open up a new canvas. It's going to be in
the square format. And the first thing we're going to do is
import our sketch. So talking to our
Actions menu, Add, insert a photo and after
sketch on my iPad here. And it shows it padding. And then we're going to
organize our layers separate. So I'm adding a new
layer for my artwork. And the second one, so this one is going
to be the background. This already for
studying to draw. I'm moving my sketch. So it's on the top layer. And I'm going to lower
the opacity quite a bit until I can hardly
see the artwork anymore. I like to keep it
on the top one. I'm going to move to
the left and lock it. And I still have
it on the top so that they can always have it in view and I don't draw over
it in my illustration. So now we're going to our layer, which there were
just the first done. And we're going to choose yellow color
from the color palette. And the color palette I have just these
colors are yellow, gray, white, and this red is going to
be all the colors I use. And those are going to be the
kind of challenge we have to work with contrast
and different elements, but just using these few colors. I'm going to choose
my yellow and now move it over the canvas
and let it droplets. Now everything is yellow. As you can see. What we're also going to do
here is locket move it to the left nugget so that I don't accidentally draw
on the background layer. And then I go to my layer above. Now we are going to start
adding these shapes. So I will start plugging it in and you can just follow along and also try to pluck
out your artwork. The first thing I'll do here is choose my brush and I
have three brushes for you. I'm going to this one. Inking brush first. Ordering. Hence at that Procreate
creates this nice shape. Then I'm closing it up. And when it's closed
that can fit it. So it just love my color
with their airways. I'm trying to keep everything a bit separated
so that they can move elements around
and took it and I just adding another layer for tablet thing I did. So just this free
hand selection tool. And then it just
said for a sheet of paper has to be shared cilia
where to pay picture is on. And now I'm using my three
fingers to wet down. They get to spend you cut. Now, I have. Would it pay? Saved? Then use my three fingers again on the new layer and
just paste it in there. Just at the headphones. And further headphones have
to make a new layer beneath my face because we want to try and hit
here makes life easier. So choosing to add
another layer, take my leg, can just
trace these headphones. If you've seen that.
But I've closed the headphones and a need
to sedate that I can put the color in
there. Everything up. I'm going to try to make
the black and black. It looks a bit smaller. Now to just buy it and just
see if cricket changed color. So now our ships
have dropped out and we're going to continue to the next phase where we're going to add
the details to this.
8. Illustrating the Details: In this next session, we're going to add the details and bring a bit
of life to our illustration. I'm going to activate my
sketch again and start with the face and make a
new layer above the face. And that thing can
actually going to group these layers together
so that I have my face with the hair, etc, in one group. So what I'm doing is just
moving at today is to write. So it can Select menu. And then you didn't kiss
the headphones to have. And I think that's it. And then have this
button here on the top. It says group, you
just click it. Now everything is
in a new group. Also going to rename it. And it's good. And I
can proceed and abet. And on my new layer, I'm going to add the eyes now. Are the glasses first, I think. Let's do the glasses first. Brush a bit bigger again. Now we know it for the eyes. And better make the
brush a bit smaller. And now we're going to do
it in those separate layer. To choose the yellow nodes here. Something was those
property here. And then add my mouth and painted it on the
same day as the eyes. Yeah. I think I'm going to I'm going to add some
white in there. To choose my weight. I just want to paint on the antennas. So what I'm going to do is click on this layer
and we can lock. So now I can use
my white and I can just draw on this layer. So when I draw here, you don't see anything. Here, you see it. Just something here. This cross sections. I'm going to go to my cup here. And then Mia and I grouped
them together as well, just to the right to
rename it, to cut. And what I'm going to do now is just my yellow. And I'm going to draw. And then between
these two layers and add my coffee layer. And to have it not overlap, I can take this layer, click on it, and make
a clipping mask. And what it does is the same thing as the
effort of before. And now I can just draw on
this layer and not outside. But the good thing is that it's the diameter on a separate
layer so they can stay, put it away or is
it fatter things? So I mostly use clipping masks. I feel like it's not
that much, but sometimes he can, maybe I forgot to
paint in the element. Now we have most of the elements ready and see how it
looks without a sketch. I think it looks good. And now we can take it to the
last stage of the process, which is blending modes
and also textures. So see you in the next lesson.
9. Adding Textures & Blending: Welcome back. Now we're going to add some textures and do some blending. And what I wanted to do
is take glasses a bit. So let's go to our
head instantly with this things
for the classes. I'm going to press this
n here and then just go through these
different blending modes until I find something. That's good. Fetch, when
my son was this great, big bumps on my C, We spent something like
better. It's not too bad. I think I might just
blend this cheeks, mouth, this when it's light thing. It looks good. I think that's good. And what doesn't want to do now is add a bit of
texture with brushes. I'm going to go to
my watercolor brush, which on my hair, but you have to use
and New Layer Mask. It. Kind of brush is too much because it can
migrate to choose my wet brush to white top section. So now we're doing
two more things. So we're adding a brand.
I'm heading in there. I'm going to import a
texture for my site. I have it prepared here, has ever done that? It's this black one. I'm going to add that and now go to you will need to start. Now I can move it independently. Just want to center. It. Looks good here. And I will go to the
blending modes again. Chest. Kid, that's the one thing. And then another thing is over. And I just took off
all the layers and also going to add some thing. It's a photo, cardboard texture. See which one does
this one straight. And to make it big, bigger so that it's a bit noisy. And it gets this paper effect. The same thing. We're going
to put their blending modes. And what gives this linear band. So the texture is really
building everything and pass $1 and T and it's just
the right amount. So in my case, how much do they use that
the person that's it. Hope you followed
along and I can't wait to see what you have drawn. And I would be
happy if you put it into if you upload it
to sketch about to see. Thanks.
Amir Abou-Roumié, Illustrator
