Painting a Sleeping Fox Cub in Procreate

1. Presentation: Have you ever been so captivated by a moment in nature that you wanted to create an illustration of it? I had such an experience in my own garden where over the season, I had the pleasure of watching a group of fox cuts grow up. Seeing these foxes boasting around, playing, and having a lot of fun while the mother was out hunting was a truly fascinating experience. Hello, everyone. My name is Maurice De Angelis, and I'm a professional illustrator living in London. I'm particularly happy to present this class because over the last few months, I worked on a significant project that involved illustrating 43 sleeping fox caps, which took me an eternity. Having created a print of this work, I thought it would be a great idea to show the process of making such an illustration using the Peppermin brush appropriate. So let's have a look at how this class is organized. We start by setting up the canvas and tweaking the brush slightly to get the stroke that we want. Then we create the undercoat by slowly building up the shades, adding details throughout, and defining the highlights. Next, we'll paint the ears, the nose, then the muzzle. After that, we'll increasingly refine the illustration, adding the whiskers, the paws, the tail, and finally sun color corrections. And here we have our Fox camp Peaceful living. Whether you are beginning just starting out with digital painting or an experienced artist looking to expand the skills. These classe is designed to be accessible and enjoyable for everyone. So let's bring this gentle beauty to life on our camps. 2. Setting Up the Canvas: Okay, let's have a look at what we've got. We have the paper. We have the drawing, and we have the color palette. We want to use the fur palette for the upper part of the face. The ears obviously for the ears as they are a different color to the main fur. Finally, the snout palette for the lower part of the face. Now we want to select the Peppermin brush, which is under the sketching library. We click on it to access the settings. The brush is doing something like this. First of all, we're going to click on drawing pad and do resette or brush settings. This we resette the brush to its default settings, so we show that we are starting from the same point. Then we go down to the Apple pencil tab and we want to turn off the tilt effect, and to do that, we have to set all these values to none, and then we click Done. I want to test the brush so I can choose a random color from the palette. I also want to reduce the brush size to 30% while keeping the opacity 100%, and now I can test the brush on a newly created layer. This is exactly the effect that I want. But before we move on and officially start our fox illustration, I just wanted to let you know that if you like these kinds of tone papers, you can download them for free from my website. If you connect to my website and go to classes, you can request the papers using this form here. These vintage and slightly distressed papers are excellent for a wide variety of work and I use them all the time. Last but not least, if you would like to buy the Sleeping Fox Cp print, you can connect to my shop where you can find all the print details, and for Skillshare students, I'm offering a free delivery discount. Yeah. Okay. In the next lesson, we'll fisher restart our Fox Illustration. 3. Fur - Colour no. 2: Now we're going to create a new layer and select color number two from the fur palette. With this color, we're going to make the initial base of the upper part of the fox phase. We want to create individual strokes that follow the pencil drawing. You can actually use the pencil drawing as a guide to see where the hair is flowing. And because the direction is very specific with some and some longer hair, we want to pay attention to the directional shift closer to the eyes, the nose, and towards the top of the head. We can say that this step is quite simple. Again, we want to create a base for the upper part of the face, not including the ears or the snout, as we would be using a separate palette for those parts. Now, we can move on to the eyes, and we want to pay particular attention to the fact that the direction of the hair is very specific, and also that the fa is shorter here compared to the other parts of the face. As you can see, the first round is not that complex, but maybe the tricky part is to follow the flow of the had. That is the aim of this lesson to follow the main flow to create an initial base from which we can confidently build all the other shades. So this step is now done. We have created the base with color number two, and we'll continue with color number three in the next lesson. 4. Fur - Colour no. 3: Now it's time for number three, which is the second color we're going to use on the Fox face on exactly the same layer as we don't want to create too many layers for this project. We want to start by adding the second color closer to the eyes, and as we do this, we want to focus on the cases and the corners. As you can see, it's a very light treatment, and we're going to apply this first code as I'm showing here. Because we established the flower of the hair in the previous lesson, we can now be more confident in following the main direction of the hair. Now closer to the eyes, as you can see, I'm being very gentle with this treatment. I'm not exaggerating or doing anything too noticeable. What I'm doing is a slow build up of tones. You can see that these brush strokes are nested closer to the eyes and towards the top of the head and closer to the ears. But the nose is untouched because that are is going to be lighter compared to the main fur. You can see that these strokes are going to the side of the nose. Now, I lead a bit around the ears. And this lesson is now complete. This is more than enough for the second color. In the next lesson, we'll use color number four. 5. Fur - Colour no. 4: In this lesson, I'm going to use color number four, which has a reddish tone to it. It's more intense than the colors that we used before. Just as I did before, I want to start nesting these hairs. I want them to mix with the existing colors, always following the flow. Again, our job is to slowly build up all the shades so that there are no parts that are more significant or less treated than others. We want to treat the area without exaggerating or doing anything too drastic. Now, closer to the eyes, you can see that I want to emphasize the cores of the eyes and slightly shade the upper part of the nose, which appears flatter as the bone gives the shade. Now we can close out to the ears again. Now the other ear. Closer to the cheek. Then closer to the eyes again. Just to reinforce those corners that you might expect to be darker. This is it. I think that's enough. In the next lesson, we use color number one. 6. Fur - Colour no. 1: In this lesson, we're going to use the lightest color that we have for the fur, which is color number one. We're going to start from the nose, which is the lighter area for the upper part of the face. We can see that this lighter color is blending in with the colors that we put down before. It's a very light treatment, as you can see, as we did in the previous three lessons. We are building up all the tones and shades, and in the end, it would be this multitude of strokes that would create the illustration. Can I continue in this way, highlighting the different parts of the Fox phase? Now, it's time for the eyes. Obviously, we don't see much of the pupils because the fox is sleeping, but we still want to perceive the volume of the eyeballs behind it. Now we're going to define the right side of the face, closer to the ears. And towards the shakes. Okay, this is now done. In the next lesson, we're going to paint the ears. Oh. 7. Painting the Ears: In this lesson, we're going to pay in the ears, and we're going to start with color number four. So we can see that the inside of the ear is quite dark while the outside is of a list tone, as you can see in the reference picture. I want to start by adding this dark color, and we can see the direction of the head going from the inside to the outside. I can do the same for the other ear. We want to start with this darker color because we're going to draw the lighter hairs on top. Now that we have the first color, we can choose the darkest color for the ears, which is number five. I just want to emphasize this darker area a little bit more as I want to add some darker strokes to the base of the first color. I can do the same for the other ear. And also, with this tone, I want to add some more color to the corners of the ears. Now I can choose color number two. And as I said, the sides of the ear have this light, so I want to add this color. You can actually see the difference between this lighter color and the one that we use for the fur. This is a bit more reddish and brownish compared to the warm color of the main coat. I'm basically adding this color towards the outer part of the ear and I'm continuing in this way. You can see the difference between the tones I did for the ear compared to the main coat. Then I can do the same for the other ear. Now I can choose color number five again because I want you to find the darker cavities inside the ear at better And also closer to the corners. Again selector number four. And again, I want to shade and blend these strokes. And I do the same for the other ear. Now it's time for color number one, which is the lightest color we have for the ears. With this color, I want to define the tips of the hair, which are basically against the darker part of the ear. I'm I going to do the same for the other ear. You can actually see the individual as against the black cavity. I want to make those hairs as well. Now, color number five, again, because the edge, the perimeter of the ears are, I'm going to use this color to define these edges. Also the tip of the ear has this area that makes the animal distinctive. So I'm going to do that for the other ear. You can actually see the difference it makes. Immediately, the treion is more present, more contrast, and that makes the illusion more appealing. I think that is enough for this session. In the next lesson, we're going to do the nose. Oh 8. Painting the Nose & Eyes: In this lesson, we're going to paint the nose. We're going to start with color number four from the snow palette. I want to apply this color sparingly as we did with the first coat of fur. Now we can choose color number five, which is a darker shade. Are we're going to start applying these shades slightly towards the lower part of the nose? And also towards the side of the nose as we want to give the impression of a cylindrical shape. We can now select color number three, because I want to start adding some highlights, some reflections around the nostrils. Now we color number six. Again, I want to increase the level of details, trying to give a cylindrical shape. Now I can select color number two, and I want to highlight the lighter part of the nose, create a sort of reflection because I also want to imagine that the nose is a little bit wet. So it's a different kind of texture to the fer. Now I can select color number five to better define this shape here. Now I select color number three, and again, I want to add this shade, blend the colors together. We color number five, I can define the mouth, the opening of the mouth, as it is connected to the nose. Now with color number six, which is the darkest color palette. I want to define the eyes, the opening of the eyes. Working out the corners. And I'm going to do the same for the other eye. I'm probably going to add this darker tone just around the eyes. I think that's enough for this process. In the next lesson, we're going to paint the muzzle. 9. Painting the Muzzle: In this new lesson, we're going to paint the muzzle. As you can see in the reference picture, the lower part of the fox face is white. To do that, we're going to choose color number three, because we want to create the base color as we did for the fur. On top of that, we're going to use a lighter color and then a darker color. It's always good to start with a mid tone color. I want to get closer to the nose, and Along this area, the hair is quite short. Then I also want to blend the longer hair with the existing brownish hair. Then I can do the same for the other side of the nose, and I can create this base color, and I can also immediately see the difference in color between the area of the lower part compared to the part that we painted. Now, the chin, which has some very short hairs, and it's also a quite small area. Now I can choose color number two, so I want to go lighter in tone. With this color, I want to basically define these area of the muzzle. And you can actually see that just by using two colors, we have made such a difference. Now approaching the nose. Now on the other side, I'm going to do this side of the face in a very similar way. I want to paint some longer hair towards the bottom of the cheekbone. Then as you get closer to the nose, the hair gets shorter. Now I can select color number four because I want to start adding some darker shades, painting the chin, around the mouth, and then I can continue. Same thing on the other side. Now it's time for color number two. I just want to add a few more strugs. Maybe I can hide the drawing at this point because I just want to concentrate on the actual illustration, I don't think I need the drawing anymore, so I can just hide it. Then I want to make the hair longer. It's just a matter of crossing these strokes so that they blend. A little bit at the top of the nose. Just to create a transition, too much, and this is it. In the next lesson, we're going to add some reddish tones. 10. Fur - Colour no. 5: In this lesson, we'll add a reddish toone to the fur so that we can select color number five. This reddish toone will be used sparingly, particularly around the corners of the eyes and in a few specific areas. Some foxes are very red with yellowish orange and brownish tones. So I think this color is quite fascinating, and I think it gives the illustration a very nice and warm feeling. Just a little closer to the ears. You can see the difference between the eye that we painted with a reddish stone and the other eye that has yet to be painted with this color. This color is more around the eyes or to the corners of the ears, and then some bits here and there. Towards the whitish fair. Also defining a little bit towards the nose, and coming back to the eye. Finally, an area that can connect the two years with some final strokes. I mean, this coloring makes a huge difference. This is it. In the next lesson, we're going to paint the highlights. 11. Adding the Highlights: In this lesson, we'll add the highlights. But first, I'd like to show you a trick for making your illustration stand out on paper. To do so, we can duplicate this layer, so I swipe left and select duplicate. Now when I togo the layers visibility on and off, you can see the difference. I think it makes a huge difference. I'd like to create a new layer for the highlight. I can choose color number one from the snout palette, which is the brightest color that we have, and with this color, I want to begin adding some highlights. And this will create a reflection or an area of sheen. I'm doing this on a new layer so I can control the level of the highlights. I might want to duplicate these layers as well or perhaps reduce the opacity. It's a good idea to do the highlights on a separate layer, so you have more control. I particularly want to focus on the on the ears because the fur is very bright and light in color. Well refine these illustrations in the next lesson, but for now, it's a good idea to begin adding these highlights. You can actually see that I'm painting single as against the dark area of the air. Now it's time to the few highlights around the nose and the nostrils. Now to the top of the head. And I think this is enough for this lesson. As I said earlier, in the following lesson, we'll refine the illustration. 12. Adding Details: This class is all about refining and adding details to the illustration. I can choose Cal number six because I feel like I want to better define the opening of the eyes as well as the corners and the surrounding areas. What I'm doing is quite subtle, that might not be as obvious on the screen, but I'm definitely adding details. Now I'm going to paint the overall head with the same color, and some hair on the top of the head. I'm going to choose color number five from the snout palette. This is because I want to better define these area here. And also the muzzle. As well as the chin. And also the other side. I want to add some shadows around the cornes of the ice. Then it's just a mass of moving back and forth between the elements that we already painted. It's more a gap feeling when you want to add some extra detail as this step is not really set in stone, it's more about personal choices. I can now clean up around the nose. Maybe I want to choose color number two from the snow palette because I want to make this area clearer and lighter. Then I'm going to pick number six from the snout palette. I also want to clean up the nostrils and the overall shape of the nose. Then they are the eyes, which are the most important part of a face. They're usually the most attractive part even when they closed. And then I'll define the parts of the ear. I just want to give it a sense of depth. And with this color, it makes such a difference. You know, we can perceive that it's getting der. And then I clean up the edge of the ears. Finally, back to the muzzle. Just to clean up here and there, a little bit more, but overall, I'm quite happy with this process. So in the next lesson, we're going to paint the whiskers. Oh. 13. Painting the Whiskers: For this lesson, we're going to paint the whisker so we can create a new layer. We can select color number six from the snow palette. We want to reduce the brush size to about 10%. This process can be a bit tricky, but you can undo as many times as you need. But generally, we want to a three or four short hairs simulating the fox eyebrows. I'm not entirely sure if there can be eyebrows. So as you can see, I'm not just doing one stroke. There's a series of strokes that create an individual hair. Again, it can be a bit tricky. You can undo it. You can delete the layer entirely and start again. It's quite normal. But you want the tip of the hair to be slightly shaded, slightly tapered. So the tips of the whiskers are less intense than the roots. Now we can do the actual whiskers. The come out of the snout, and here you can see that I have created three very light guides, and then I would with a more decisive stroke, better define the actual whiskers. And you can also make some a little bit longer and some a little bit shorter. So you want to create that sense of dynamism. And when are you happy with that? You can go to the other side. And then the last whisker. I think I want to modify these whiskers here and probably increase the number a little bit and just emphasize the root, making it a little bit darker. Quickly fixing the chin. It's just that I feel like I want to make this part a little bit clearer. Now, what we can do is to go to the adjustments, select liquefy, and at about 30 or 32% of the brush size, we can move the whiskers around a little bit. If you think they are too stiff or if you think they need some adjustment. Liquefy is a great tool for slightly moving the elements of your composition, and I think it works really well in my case. I'm quite happy with that. I think I can fix the ones on top of the eyes a little bit, but in general, this is fine. Here we go. So for the next lesson, we're going to paint the polls. 14. Painting the Paws: The first thing I want to do is to show the drawing because we need the drawing as a guide. I can put it at the bottom of the layer stack. I just want to tidy up the composition by renaming the layers so I can select this layer and rename it fur, rename the highlights layer to highlights. And finally rename the two. No apri. Now, everything is nice and clear. We can create a new layer. We can select color number two, and we're going to do basically what we did for the fur. I just want to make these base color with color number two. This is exactly what we did for the upper part of the face. We should follow the flow of the shape that we painting. I'm now painting vertically because the hair is flowing down and for the paw in the background, which is on horizontal plane, I would paint horizontally, if that makes sense. Now I can select number three, and I want to add this color. I can select color number four. I'm just going to start adding this color to simulate the shadow that would be cast by the chin and also by the paw in front. I also want to define the toes better in this way. Now I can sell number six, and I basically want to redo what I've just done, reinforce some areas. And also the toes, the shape of the toes, and also this more triangle area here. Now I can hide the drawing because maybe it's a bit distracting. Now it's time for color number one. I can add these additional color here. And you can see that the paws are taking shape. Now I'm going to select Cal number seven. And again, I want to define what's going on around these area here. And also the kind of perimeter of the pole. Now I'm going to do exactly the same thing for the other pole. As I did before, I want to duplicate this layer, but maybe this time I'm going to reduce the opacity to about 60%, and I'm going to merge them by pinching the two layers. Now I can create a new layer. I'm going to choose color number one from the snow palette. With this color, we're going to do the highlights. Finally, color number six, which is the darkest color in our palette. You just want to define a little bit the shadows that might be between the toes and under the chin and the pow in the background. Now I can the layer to highlights. And this layer to pause. And this is it. In the next and final painting lesson, we'll do the tail. 15. Painting the Tail: In this final lesson, we're going to be painting the tail. It's not going to be too different from what we did for the fur or the pause. We can create a new layer and we can just sketch a square because we want to frame the illustration within this pace. Then I can reduce the opacity because I don't want it to be too destructive, and I can just rename this layer to drawing. And I can probably put it at the bottom of the stack. Now I can create a new layer to go on top of the pause highlights. I can probably want to move the color palette, and I can select color number two. Once again, I'm going to make the base for this part. I'm going to select color number three, and I want to start adding these darker shades to be just below the face. So it's going to simulate a cast shadow coming from there. Then color number four, which is the reddish stone, again, starting from the darkest part, which could obviously be underneath the face. As you can see, I'm also changing and shifting the direction from time to time because I don't want something too uniform, but instead dynamic and. Fox tails are soft and fluffy, and we want to convey that feeling. Now I can try to duplicate this layer, and I think it's fine. This is going to save me some work. I can create a new layer. Select color number one from the palette. I want to add this brighter color to this side of the tail, painting slightly in a will shoot out. So you can see it's getting a bit fluffy and he's covering up a bit of pause. Now we can choose color number five, and with this color, I want to emphasize the reddish tone of the fox. Now color number one, because I think it was getting a bit too dark, and I want to bring back some of the light. Now en, which is really, actually the de col for, I also want to give a cylindrical shape to the tail. Now I want to add some highlights, so I'm going to pick color number one from the snout palette. And I can rename these layer to tell these into te highlights. And I can try again to duplicate the tail layer. But this time I want to move it, so I can switch to the move to, and I think it's fine here. The rest of the cell is hit them behind the face, but I just want this part to be visible. Now I can select col number six because I want to make these area. Then I'm going to duplicate detail and duplicate detail highlights. Then select them both and move them to the bottom of the layer stack. Then I'm going to select the move to, it flip horizontal. I'm simply trying to see what looks best. I can probably make it slightly bigger and move it here to create a square illustration. Now I can select color number one. Again, I want to add some highlights on this side because I'm visualizing the light coming from the left just a tiny bit. Now I want to select color number seven because I want to make it darker around here. Now, I think I can merge these two layers together as they don't need to be separate. I can reselect the highlight for the bain fur. Now I just want to extend these hair here with this very light color. And I also want to hide a little bit what's going on behind it. Same thing on the other side. I just want to make this longer. And overall, I think I'm happy with what I've done so far. I can call the illustration finished, but in the next lesson for the very last step is to do some color correction. 16. Colour Correction: In this last lesson, we're going to do some color correction and finish the illustration. The first thing we want to do is create a new layer, and with the usual brush, we can just make a line and then put a finger down to constrain it along the vertical axis. Then we can duplicate this layer to make it a bit more visible and merge them. Now I can duplicate it again and just move the line to the other side. I can duplicate this again and then rotate it 90 degrees and move it to the bottom of the image. And I'll do the same for the top of the image. At this point, we have a guide. Now, what you want to do is go back to the gallery, swipe left, and press duplicate, so you have a safe copy of the document. At this point, we want to merge the layers relates into the fox by pinching them together. I can also clean up the layer stuck, so I end up with the illustration of the Fox and the square guideline. At this point, I can play around with liquefy because I basically want to change the illustration to fit within the square space. I'm going to make quick changes as needed. Now I can hide the guides, and as all the layers are now flattened, I want to increase the saturation and brightness of the image. Here, I want to increase the saturation value a bit, not too much, maybe around 58%, and also the brightness, just a tiny bit to about 52%. Now, the very last thing that I want to do is to create a new layer, but we can simply sign our masterpiece. In my case, I just want to add my initials, which are MDA and move it or skelet if necessary. That's it. This is the final illustration. In the next video, there will be a recap and some final thoughts. 17. Recap: Here we are at the end of this class. We started by setting up the canvas and painting the first code using color number two as a base, then going darker, with color number three, then color number four, and going lser, with color number one. Then we painted the ears, the nose, the eyes, the. We apply a shade of reddish fur to the hole of our fox face, defining the highlights and adding more details throughout. Then we painted the whiskers, the paws, the tail, Finally, we made some color correction to finish our illustration. With this very traditional technique, you can paint anything you want, and you can also make prints of your work. Making prints is the perfect gift for family and friends, and you can also sell them online and ship them, like I do with my own prints. If you enjoy this class, you can also check my other classes where I cover everything from painting fruits and vegetables to animals and reproducing master paintings. I hope you enjoy this class and I look forward to seeing you in the next one. Thanks for watching. Good bye.