Transcripts
1. Class Trailer: [MUSIC] Don't you just sometimes want to make something
quick and fun, let loose a little bit? Perhaps you want to practice illustrating in a
playful new style, or maybe you have a holiday or a birthday coming up that you want to create a
custom gift for. Could I perhaps suggest
a pet portrait? Hey, I'm Sarah Beth Morgan, and I'm a designer, illustrator,
and animation director. It's no secret that I
love drawing animals. If you pop up my website
or social media, you're bound to find a
drawing of cute foxes snuggle together or a school of fish
swimming the ocean depths. That's why I wanted to bring you this fun quick class today. Everyone is super obsessed with their own pets, I know I am. If they tell you they aren't,
they're definitely lying. What better subject to
draw than your own cat, or maybe your best
friend's beloved pepper? In this class,
we'll be working on a fun class project together, a quirky pet portrait. We'll start by selecting
an adorable photo of your pet and breaking it
down into geometric shapes. Then we'll create a distinct silhouette out of these shapes, creating a graphic
look and feel. We'll add in three
quirky details and then wrap up your portrait by
filling it in with color. When I created my illustration, it took me about 25
minutes exactly. So yours should be about the
same time, give or take. You can put more time
and effort into it, or you can make it even
more simplified than mine. It's totally up to you. For demonstration purposes, I'll be working in
Photoshop because that's my digital design
weapon of choice. However, I won't be going over the details of the program or any program-related
techniques because that's not what this
class is about. Most of the techniques
are concept-based and can be used
anywhere at any time. Feel free to use any
drawing application like Procreate Illustrator, or even a pencil and paper. Well, without further ado, let's get started with
our quirky pet portrait.
2. Select a Photo: [MUSIC] Since this is
truly a mini-class, we're going to dive right
into the class project today. First of all, you'll need a pet, whether that'd be
your own dog like I've got my dog, Bandit here. Or an animal you find
on the Internet, maybe adorable capybara, or a slimy toad if
you're into that. But basically, you'll just need an image reference
to draw off of. You can take your own photo, or find a free stock image
online that you're liking. I highly recommend selecting a photo that clearly
shows the side silhouette of your pet so we can get a distinct graphic
silhouette out of it. Using a forward-facing
photograph may result in something you have to
work in with perspective, which may feel a
lot less graphic. I personally look through
my Google Photos and selected a few images of Bandit that I thought
might work well. I also want to go with this one because I think he looks super sweet and I just liked how the shape of his
head looked here. I just love him so much, don't you just want
to squish his fist? Once you have your photo, open up your app of choice
and import the photo; or print it and grab some
tracing paper to work with. If you're working digitally, I recommend working in 72 DPI if you want
to keep a digital; or 300 DPI, if you
want to print it. I personally, I'm
just going to set up my Photoshop Canvas
to be a square, 2000 pixel by 2000
pixel at 72 DPI and RGB color because that's what I'm familiar with,
and I want to work with. Now, I want to drag my image
into Photoshop and I'll just crop the head out because that's what
I'll be working with. I really want to sketch
him anthropomorphically, making him have some
human characteristics. I think it'll be super
fun and charming. Finally, I'm going to boost
the contrast and turn down the opacity so it's easier
to draw over the shapes, which we'll do in
the next video. You're all set up
and ready to go.
3. Break It Down: [MUSIC] Now that we have our
photo reference laid out nice and ready for
you to draw over, I want to talk a bit
about breaking down your photo into
geometric shapes. This is a technique I
teach more thoroughly in my Playing with Shapes in Procreate class
here on Skillshare. Since this is a mini class, I won't go super far
into depth with it here, but essentially it's exactly
what it sounds like, using basic graphic
shapes like circles and rectangles to create an aesthetically
pleasing illustration. In my other classes, we took a photo of a still life together and reduced
the image into its most basic forms to create
something that felt more illustrative and imaginative
than the original photo. Using this technique,
let's break down our pet photo into
graphic shapes. I'd honestly recommend using the shape tool in whatever
app you're using. In Photoshop, there's a standard shape tool
which I'm using here, and in Procreate, there's
the quick shape tool. Or if you're working
on pencil and paper, you could trace household
objects like the bottom of a water glass or the edge of a square eraser to
achieve these shapes. For my pup, Mr. Bandit, I'm just quickly grabbing the circle tool, and not
thinking too hard about it. I'm making sure to only
include the big shapes, shapes that make up
the silhouette of his adorable,
cutie-patootie face. We'll add the interior
details later, so don't worry about
that just yet. This may not look like much, but in the next video, we'll be sure to bring
it all together in a smooth graphic silhouette
using curves and straits. Here, just try to grab shapes that feel closest
to what your pet looks like even if it's a stiff interpretation of
what your pet looks like. Don't think too hard about this. Stay loose and light. As you can see, the
final result for Bandit's
geometric-shaped face is one big circle for
the bulk of his face, two smaller ovals for his ears, and a rectangle for
his little boxy nose.
4. Draw the Silhouette: [MUSIC] We've got our basic
geometric shapes laid out. Let's start to connect them
by drawing a silhouette. This is just the sketch phase, so don't worry too
much about being precious or using a
specific brush here. I'm just using a basic
sketch brush in photoshop, but feel free to use whatever you feel most comfortable with. I like to use what I personally call curves and
straights loosely following the edges of my geometric shape cluster to achieve an
interesting silhouette. What I mean by
curves in straights is that I do my best to
connect straight lines to curve lines to create an even balance of
harsh and soft edges. This will give your work
and nice, appealing look. For example, on
Bandit's jaw line, I'm making sure to draw a
little curve on the nose, but then at the way
bottom of his chin, it just juts out and is defined by a simple
straight line. Then I'll connect
this to the neck, another series of
straight lines, and of course I
accidentally didn't include the neck and my original
geometric shape breakdown, so I'm adding it now. As you can see, I
oftentimes also turn off my photograph layer,
so that I can see the silhouette in a
strictly graphic manner. That also helps me not
get too confused by all the organic shapes and lines that are visible in
a real life photograph. It's really nice to
see the shapes living by themselves on the screen too, rather than over the
photo of Bandit. I can start to see the
illustration taking shape. I usually turn it off
about halfway through, so I can start
improvising my curves and straights to be more graphic
and pleasing to the eye. Remember how I told you I
wanted to make him a bit more anthropomorphic,
more human-like. I thought it might be fun to add some little shoulders
here to give him more of that traditional portrait
field you might see in a graphic illustration
of a human silhouette. From there, I'll
finish it off with a distinct graphic
straight line on the bottom to balance out all of the curves we see
around his shoulders. Well off, we have our basic silhouette, and now we're ready to fill
it in with some fun, quirky details in
the next video.
5. Sketch the Details: What we have here so far is basically a very simple
silhouette of your pet. I find the silhouette to be extremely important
to defining the shape and personality of
your pet so that's why I made sure to
sketch that first. However, the details are
where your pet portrait will really shine and bring that quirkiness through
that we're looking for. Because I want to keep this
quick and easy for you, let's just choose three
distinct features of your pet and list them out by typing them into your program or writing
them down on your paper. These can be any trait,
physical, personality, random little quirks
that your pet does like pee on bushes
or I don't know, chirps in the morning before
you're ready to wake up. For Bandit, I'm going
to go with a mix. First of all, he wouldn't
be himself without his distinct facial
markings so I want to be sure to include
those as best as I can, even if they're more of a
graphic interpretation of them. Second, I would be remiss to include that he is a
very tiny gentleman. Weighing only about 17 pounds. He is tiny and he is very
polite and knows his manners, so he is of course a gentleman. Then finally I'm choosing another physical trait that will help make him recognizable. He's furry and that's a fact. Whatever you choose to go with, make sure it's a defining
feature of your pet. If you go with something more conceptual like tiny
gentlemen or maybe your pet lizard is an
absolute rascal or your capybara is basically
a ballet dancer, this might help you
emphasize some of that quirkiness and give you
some room to play visually. I find that including
two physical traits and one personality trait is
a pretty good balance. If you want, you can turn your low-opacity
reference photograph back on to more easily see it and sketch out the
physical attributes. For Bandit specifically, he has these special
facial markings, so I want to make
sure I'm at least getting the placement accurate. However, for these markings, I'm implementing the curve to straight trick that we
discussed in the last video. Attempting to add an even
balance of straight lines connecting with curved lines to give everything a
more graphic feel. I think I'm also
going to go with a more graphic look for the
eyes and just straight up, make them circles
instead of that more and more realistic
almond shape he has. I think this will make
it feel a lot more playful and fun and graphic. I've mostly addressed
his facial markings now, but I'll keep working on
them a bit. Let's work on that second visual
detailed prompt. A tiny gentleman. Now, I'm sure anybody could define a gentleman in
many different ways. But for me, I think it
would be fun to make him a little old-timey
and distinguished. Let's try adding a hat, a collared shirt, a bow tie, and maybe even a pipe. For the shirt, I'm
making sure it follows the distinct silhouette
that I created and I'm just using straight lines to define the folds and perfect
circles for the button. I think adding the pipe and smoke really makes
it feel whole. Adding a little
extra element that makes Bandit feel more human. A little more than just
a portrait of his face, he's actually doing something. I could actually
see this coming to life really nicely in animation, and I know this class
isn't about that, but I can't help thinking
about it all the time. That being said, it would
be really neat to see your pet portrait animated
if you have the time. Finally, let's move on to the third visual detail
in our little list. Making Bandit a furry boy. Typically when I'm
drawing animals, I do this by adding on little triangular parts poking out from the silhouette itself. Then I add a few more
line work details in the interior of the silhouette
to emphasize the furnace. Triangles, circles, and
squares all around, so when in doubt, use geometric shapes to
create your artwork. You don't necessarily need to do this because it's just a sketch. But sometimes I will
also erase the parts of the silhouette that overlap
with the triangular hairs. However, in the next video, we will be redrawing this by
breaking it up into layers, making it easier to color. After adding a couple of other essentials like whiskers
and dots here and there, I'm done with my sketch. Honestly, sometimes
less is more, so don't get too caught
up in all of the details. That's why I only
had us list out three details for
you to implement. It might even be fun to set a timer and challenge yourself to go with
your creative gut. Drawing all of your
three chosen details in just like five minutes so make sure to choose
your three details wisely and then add them
to your pet portrait here. I'm very excited to see
what you come up with. Now, let's move on
to the next video to add color to
your adorable pet.
6. Color Your Pet!: This is where everything
really comes to life. I'm so excited to see how you color in your quirky
pet portrait. In the class resources
for this class, you'll find a PDF with
color pallet suggestions. For my graphic illustrations, no matter what medium I'm
using or what program I'm in, I always start with a
limited color palette, which I personally have defined
as five distinct colors. A neutral light, a neutral dark, a warm hue, a cool hue, and a color pop. A key thing to mention is that the color should contrast
greatly from one another so that they can
sit next to each other without vibrating or
hurting your eye. The palettes I've
added in here are just some fun
suggestions to use. But obviously, you are more than welcome to use any of
your own colors as well. For this project, I'm going to grab this
palette because I think it will complement bandits
warm four colors nicely. I'll also expand on this
palette a bit as I'm working and probably I'll
end up using more than these five base colors. But I always like
to start somewhere easy and then expand from there. As a rule, I almost always start by isolating
the biggest shape, usually the silhouette and outlining it in a clean manner. I fill in the shape and
then move on to layering all of the smaller shapes in
their own separate layers. This way, I can go
in and easily change colors to each specific part
or layer, if I need to. The problem with having
it all flattened together is that it
gets tough to change any individual part without affecting the other
parts or details. If you're working
in digital program like Photoshop or Procreate, I would suggest
keeping everything separate so we can
customize it later. In order to fill in the
details that makeup bandit silhouette like his
distinct facial markings, I'm using a clipping
mask to clip all the smaller shapes to
the larger silhouette. This means that they will remain inside of the large shape
without bleeding out. But I can still
edit them easily. I just continue this
process as I go. As you can see, I'm
adding in a couple of new colors as I go
trying to match bandit's real distinct
marking colors so that he's instantly
recognizable as himself. For the rest of the colors, I'm just trying to
pick and choose from the palette evenly so that the colors are
balanced throughout creating a harmonious
composition. No unnecessarily big chunks of yellow and purple to one side
of the Canvas or the other. I'm doing my best to sprinkle
them in here and there. In the end, I want his suit and hat to be matching, but at least the purple chunks
are separated by the color of bandit's fur like a
little bandit sandwich. Then I make sure to pop in hints of yellow and terracotta hues to add more varied
interests to the way the color leads the viewer's
eye around the frame. For your portrait, I'd suggest trying a
similar technique. As always, if you're struggling, you can let me know
in the project gallery or Discussions tab, and I will be here for a
quick feedback as needed. Can't wait to see how
you color your pet.
7. Finishing Touches: Now's the time to add
in any more detail you may not have included
in your original sketch. Perhaps this involves adding a little feather into
your character's cap, like I did here with Bandit. Or, a little pearl necklace for your
sophisticated duckling. Or, maybe your cat's
favorite felt mouse. You can also go in and change any colors that you
feel are unbalanced. Since we kept everything separate on different
layers here, it should be very easy to go in and grab whatever
layer you're wanting to change and refill it with another color
from your palette. If you're drawing on paper, like I said, you can
use any medium here, perhaps you could scan in your illustration and
edit things digitally, or you could go in and add little bits
of detailed linework. This is also the time to add any extra little linework
accents throughout your piece. I find that adding little
bits of thin line work to contrast with the
big blocky shapes is always a nice touch. This adds more finesse
and gives you more to look at and admire
when it's all done. Here's where my final
pet portrait ended up. There are so many things you can do when you're
done with it too. You can post it on social
media or your website. You could post a
processed video to Instagram Reels or TikTok. Or, you can even print it
out and give it to someone, which I think is especially adorable if you're drawing
the recipient's pet. I personally might give
mine to Bandit's grandma, aka my mom, for Christmas, because they love each other. They're obsessed and it's
the cutest thing ever. I think it's such
a cute gift idea. I printed mine out using
thicker card stock. The fact that I use 72
dpi RGB color didn't really end up being a huge deal because I just
printed it at home. Then I re-purposed an old
frame I had and [inaudible], I have a quick and
easy gift that actually took me under
an hour to make. Honestly, I can make
like 10 of these and it would be such
a fun little project. People love personalized
gifts like this and probably would cherish
it for a really long time. Whatever you choose
to do with it, I hope you're happy with
your little pet portrait.
8. You Did It!: You did it. You made it through this mini class and you're
hopefully leaving with a fun little quirky pet
portrait under your belt. But before you leave, I'd love to see what you made. It would be amazing if you
could share your work by posting it to the
project gallery right here on Skillshare. Share your process from whatever program or medium
you decided to use. This could be a sketch, a time-lapse video, or just the final product. Maybe you even include an adorable photo of your
pet alongside your portrait? I'd love to see all
of your babies. I'd also love to give you
feedback on your work too. Please let me know when
you post your project if there's anything
you'd like me to comment on or help you with. Finally, find me
on social media at wonderfall on Instagram
and tag me in your work. Sometimes I'll share
student projects on my Instagram and I'd
love to share yours. Be sure to leave a
review also right here on Skillshare because it
really helps me immensely. If you have time, share this
class with your friends. Thanks again for
taking my class. I'm super proud of
you. See you soon.
Sarah Beth Morgan, Director + Illustrator
