Painting a Whimsical Bird in Procreate

1. Introduction to the Class: Hello, fellow creative. Do you love birds? As much as I do. I love all things, fairy tale, and whimsical, and my birds are no exception. I could paint them all day long. And I invite you to join me today for this class to paint this cute whimsical bird with me. My name is Irina. I'm a digital and traditional artist and the designer behind the brand of Busy My studio for this class. You don't need any particular experience in academic drawing or painting. However, you might need to know some procreate basics. However, I'm going to talk you through every single step of our journey, so you may be just fine following along. In this class, you're going to learn how to easily sketch a bird stylize at your own unique way. I'll share my tips and tricks of creating color palettes for your artwork. And of course, I'll walk you through every single step of painting. Our whimsical girl, making it cute and special. Once you've created your illustration, you'll be able to use it in so many ways in greeting cards, interior objects, or even table linen to impress your dinner party guests. Sometimes I like to put my art in the frames like this and hang it around my house. And sometimes I give it as gifts to the friends and family. I provide all the resources from brushes and canvases to color palettes and guides, so you can just focus on your creative process. I really hope you join me in this class. 2. Tools Overview: For this class, I'll be using an ipad. In my case, it's an ipad Pro 12.9 inch. And it's the sixth generation. I'm going to be using Apple pencil. It's the second generation pencil procreate installed in the ipad Brushes we'll be using in this class are Sm free essential brushes, which you will be able to find in the resources section. Under this Dio, there is also a PTF guide how to install the brushes. However, you don't have to use this brush. These are mine. You can use your own anyone you prefer. In this class, I'll be using Autumn Morning Pot. It also comes in the resource section of this class together with the three other powers, Happy Fog, November Woods, and Midnight Globe. Also in the resources for this class, you'll find the PDF guide how to install color palettes on your ipad, and you procreate no canvases. For this class, I'm providing two canvases of my own. Again, you can use your own canvases, your own textures, but I'm going to be showing you how I use mine. Usually for my art, there will be two canvases provided. One is called paper bit canvas. And I'm going to show you the structure. This is my standard canvas structure for procreate. There is the very top layer on the stack which is called sketch here. There is textures layer, there is paint here layer. The textures layer is basically the unique feature that makes this texture the weight. In this case it's paper texture, it's locked. However, you can unlock it. You can delete some of the layers if you want, but that's the way I designed and created it. Paint here layer is underneath the textures layer, which means that the textures are going to be applied to this pain here layer, sketch here layer. I tend to put it on top of all the canvases because I don't need the texture applied. And my sketches don't tend to be part of the main artwork. I use them for guidelines and then I just switch them off once I don't need them in terms of the texture. I'm going to show you, this is the paper bit canvas and I'm going to show you, I'm just going to grab my essential filler, big brush, and see if I paint. You can see that there is this nice scratchy texture going on. So to create that, I use some coconut paper, some organic concreted paper. So you can see that if I switch it off, it's an digital flat, but switch it back on, it has this nice scratches. That paper canvas is the one we're going to be using for our bird today in this class. Same with linen canvas. Same structures. Catch here on top, linen texture and pin here. Again, I'm going to show you the actual texture of the paper. So you can see this is nice fibers going on, switch off, it's a digital and flat. When I switch it back on, it's like a proper linen canvas. It's up to you which canvas you would like to use in this class. I'll be using paper beds. Canvas? Yeah, let's move on to the next chapter. 3. Sketching: Right. In this part I'm going to show you how to create a simple sketch of a bird. For this, you don't really need an academic previous academic drawing classes, or you don't need to know a bird's anatomy. You just simply need to follow my very simple instructions. For that, I'm going to create a new canvas. I'm going to select the screen size. I wouldn't worry about any textures right now, which is going to literally use the canvas. What makes a bird bird? I would say the main feature of any bird is the beak under wing, Which means that any creature with a beak and the wing is percepted by our brain as a bird, no matter what shape or size they are. These creatures, a beak and the wing show us that it's a bird. Look at the specture, for example, on the left picture, we can see a creature with a beak and the wing, we can tell that it's a bird. On the right one, the creature doesn't have any of these features. No, no wing, which means it's not a bird. And we're going to be using this knowledge to create a very simple sketch. And these two things alone will be enough for us to create a sketch that even a child can tell that it's a bird. And yeah, I'm going to show you a couple of examples of my own bird illustration. So you can see that these are both birds. How do we know that there is a wing there for both birds and there is a beak? Despite the fact that these birds are totally different, they're still bird. Look at this one. This bird is entirely different. It's a heron, but it's still the same features. It's got the wing, and thus we can tell that it's a bird. That applies to literally any picture of a bird, any image. Even if you remove the feet from a bird, you might want to remove those feet, legs for various reasons. For example, if you create a flat illustration, a pattern, a folk type illustration, you don't use sometimes birds feeds legs. However, the bird has the wing on the beak and it's a bird. Hope that makes sense. Now we're going to create our own bird. Keeping this knowledge in mind, it's going to be very simple. First of all, I want to use reference for that. I highly recommend the website Unsplash.com where you can use royalty free photography of different very talented people. You don't need to credit those photographers unless you obviously want to, which would be a nice thing to do. But legally, you are not obliged to credit the photographer of an image you're going to use. It's up to you. You can see that there is a lot of images there. And we're going to search for a bird. And let's see what comes up. We see that there are a lot of birds coming up. There is a Kingfisher there, there is a para type of a bird, robin. And all kinds of birds with of different shapes and sizes all have got beaks and wings. And I think we're going to be using this cute robin because it's quite a generic shape. Robin, sparrows, Blutts, different mini types of garden birds have this shape. I'm going to copy this image and I'm going to go back to procreate to the canvas we've created for our sketch. And I'm going to swipe three fingers and I'm going to paste my image of my Robin. Allow paste to my canvas. What's important to say right now is that I'm not, I see. I'm going to reduce, I'm not going to trace this image because it's somebody else's photography. It's somebody else's piece and we don't want to create a realistic bird. We're going to create a whimsical bird. We're going to alter a shape and size. However, we're going to be using this bird for just simply mapping the guidelines for our sketch, which we're going to stylize going forward. No tracing, we're just going to be using simple shape mapping. I've reduced capacity of this photograph by 50 or even maybe make a 30% capacity. It's just still visible there, so I can use it as guidelines. I'm going to create a new layer on top of it. I'm going to take the essential sketch brush from the brush set provided with this class. And the color I'm going to use is, it doesn't really matter at this stage what color, but I'm going to try and use some darker color, so it's a visible sketch on the white background. So I'm just going to go to our color palette, which is autumn morning and I'm going to take this like dark mulberry burgundy color from my sketch. Yeah, that's fine. What I'm going to do now, you can see literally any object consists of shapes. Any object can be broken down into very simple shapes, including this cute Robin. I can see that there is a shape for the head which is like a circle or a squished circle a bit depending on the bird. This triangular, angular type of shape for the wing like oval, again elliptical shape for the body. Again, triangular shape for the beak, circle for the eye, rectangle for the tail, and little sticks for the legs. That's pretty much it. Our sketch is almost radio. Yeah, I'm going to delete this photograph so we don't need it anymore because we mapped the main shapes already. If you show this picture to a child, they will immediately say that it's a bird. If you don't believe me, just try and check it, because it's got a wing and a beak. Yeah, that's obviously not a finished sketch, it's more like a draft. I'm going to reduce the capacity of this layer to around 2020, 2% And what I'm going to do next, I'm going to create a new layer on top of it. I'm going to increase the size of this brush so it's thicker. And I'm going to join these lines together with smoother, smoother sketch lines. See? Yeah, Bird's head and body is usually one piece. I'm not going to separate them, but I'm just going to do this organic shape, this type time. I'm going to join these lines together. The beak is obviously going to stay a little bit angular because that's how we want it. The base of the wing, I'm just going to round the shape a little bit. Again, I'm not being too precious, don't worry, because we're going to alter the sketch yet again in the next part when we're going to stylize our bird. But on this stage, we just need to create some basic basis for our next work, the legs. I'll just keep them as sticks. I'm going to add this little feet. Cute little feet. As you can see, absolutely no anatomy added to this bird. And at this stage, by the way, you can leave your skitch as it is because it's pretty much a ready skitch for your next step. When we start painting and mapping with color, I usually stylize my birds. I like bringing them a farther away as from a realistic shape and features. I'm going to make the whimsical, more folk style, more fairytale birds. That's why in the next class I'm going to alter the shape of this bird and I'm going to show you how. See you in the next part. 4. Stylizing Part 1: In this part, we're going to stylize our sketch, and first of all, let's find out what stylized means. According to Oxford Dictionary, stylized means depicted or treated in a mannered and non realistic style. That's exactly what it is. Very often artists understand stylized as the opposite of realistic. I'm going to show you some examples of realistic bird illustrations. For example, this are tiny books, Scottish birds. You can see that there are a lot of little illustrations, bird illustrations there. They are realistic, yet they are still illustrations. Meaning they're not photographs, but every bird represented in a very detailed yes, You can see that the sandpiper and the sea gull, for example, every detail is observed, all the proportions are correctly anatomically observed. This is the realistic illustrations. Another example of realistic illustrations is the big encyclopedia of birds. I love it because it reaches all possible birds of the world. Here you can see that these illustrations, these drawings are super realistic. You can see very detailed feathers. You can see that the anatomy of every bird is very accurately observed. You can tell which bird is which, whether it's a duck or parrot or some other type of bird. This is the opposite. This is a book of Matul about English garden bird. This bird is stylized. You can tell because the head is huge, the body is quite small in comparison with the head. The eye is big, the legs are bandy. This can be further from realistic. Literally, every illustration in this book is a stylized bird with big kids. Another book of birds of the same author, again, hugely stylized bird with a beak in the wing and little legs. However, it's not a realistic, but you can't even see a single feather on these birds. The roof here, yeah, stylized, is also a signature thing of the artist's illustration, the way you stylize birds. Stylize your illustrations, sorry, not just birds, makes you recognizable. You see for example, these birds, there are no feathers there. However, there is the wing, there is the beak, and there is some pattern overlay. The stylization is amazing, and you can immediately tell that this is the illustrator. This is the signature style of this illustrator. For example, if you open another collage of birds, you can see those birds don't even have a wing yet. Somehow we can tell that these are birds. They are hugely stylized. Now we're going to try and stylize our own bird. Now let's move on to stylizing our sketch that we've done previously. As I said before, feel free to use it as it is because I think that quite suits the purpose. It's quite cute. But I suggest that we try different ways of stylizing. And the first one, the easiest one I'm going to suggest is simplifying our bird shape. Yeah, you would argue that it's already pretty simple. There is no like anatomy as we determined, there is a noval shape for the body and triangular shapes for the beak and the wing. However, I do feel that there is a way to simplify it even further. For that, I'm going to create a new layer on top of our sketch layer. And I'm going to reduce the capacity of the sketch by 20% Perhaps on the new layer, using the essential sketch brush and that same brownish burgundy mulberry color, I'm going to combine the bird's body and the tail in one piece because at the moment they are like separate. Not going to try too hard. Just join them together like even fish shape. That's it. That's pretty much all I can do to simplify it. I'm just going to simply outline the shape of the wing. Little triangle for the beak and little circle for the eye. Look, when I switch off the previous sketch layer, you can see you can also go ahead and erase the lines that you don't need. However, at this stage it's not important at all. And same little sticks for the legs. And that's it. That's your bird simplified again, if you like this type of sketch, go ahead and use it for coloring. And yeah, the simplify folk type bird simplifying is just one way of stylizing your character, your sketch. Other ways of stylizing is altering the size of different parts of the character. In our case, it's a bird. We can change the size of its wing, the head, the body. I'm going to grab. I'm going to show you. I'm going to grab the select to make sure that free hand is selected. I'm going to select the bird's head. Then I'm going to grab the move tool. I'm going to increase the size. I'm going to grab the distort, just to join the lines together. However, that's not the point right now. Like I'm not trying to create a perfect sketch. I'm just going to show you. You see the lines don't meet, but don't worry about that at this stage. I'm going to do the same thing with the, with the select tool and uniform function chosen. I'm going to increase. Here you go. So you see the head is bigger, the eye is bigger. And because babies have bigger heads, and yes, we automatically percept this character, cute like a baby bird. Let's try and make the head smaller. Another way of stylizing, because you can alter the size not only into bigger scale but also smaller. Yeah, that's another character looking absolutely different from our previous baby bird type thing. Stylized has its own character. I'm going to reduce the size of the wing as well, just to make a point. So you can see that the body is now oversized and the head the small, and the wing is tiny. Let's try and make the bird's head like really exaggerated As we know. The bigger the head and the eyes are the cutter, the character is because it looks like a baby. I'm going to increase the size of the wing as well. I'm just going to sketch the missing lines just to bring it all together a little bit. That's pretty much my characters. Like the stylization I use for my birds, I think it's something similar we're going to be using in this class. Also, you can experiment with different techniques. See how altering the size of the beak makes it even cutter. See, the bird is quite puffy, but the beak is so small. But if you increase the size of the beak, it immediately makes the bird look more exotic. Because for our brain, we percept Toucan, for example, and Flamingo as some exotic birds. Yeah, I quite like this type of beak for my bird. This is quite cute. So I'm just going to add a few lines to make it slightly more finished. And the eyes probably, I'm going to increase the size of the eye About the eye. I'll talk about it slightly later in one of the next parts, but have a look like our transition. We made different types of the birds with smaller head. With bigger head. You can still stick to our initial sketch if you want, but I also encourage you to try and sketch your own bird. Find the style that appeals to you. Find the style that you find really reflecting your own signature style as an illustrator. Now I'm just going to sit a bird. I know the look we're going to go for. I'm just going to quickly skitch bird shape. See how I start with simple shapes again, circle for the head. I'm just going to sketch the bird's body because I quite like this fish type shape. I also like to see the head is quite big, the body is quite small in comparison, because I want my bird to be extra cuted. I'm adding like triangular shape for the tail. Now I'm going to add the wing. See, I'm not worried. Too much way to place the wing because we don't observe any anatomy. I'm going to create quite a large beak. Not too large. Not too small, I would say. I'm going to put this little leg to my body. This tiny little feet on the eye. Usually I give my characters this like oval shape eyes, like cheeky looking eyes, almost human type eyes. All the birds and animals and people, they all have the same type of eyes in my art. Now I'm going to erase the lines that I do not need. But again, remember it's just a sketch. It's just guidelines. And it's not going to be part of our main illustration. Yeah, I'm just going to do some alternations using the select tool and the free hand. I'm just going to make a little adjustments. I want the head to be just slightly bit smaller and looking a little bit up. I think I'm going to shift the wing a little bit up as well, just so it's pointing down down probably better. And make it a little bit bigger? Yeah. Yeah. Quite happy with that. I'm going to change the position of the eye slightly just to make it extra cheeky. Yeah, That's my final sketch. This is the sketch I'm going to be using color for our illustration. This is P to color in, but we're also going to add a little bit more elements to make the illustration complete. 5. Stylizing Part 2: I think that to make the illustration complete, some decorative elements need to be added. Again, this step is completely optional. What can be added to our birds? I'd say we can add some flowers, one flower or another flower. Our bird is, I would say, more on a side as well as whimsical. The flowers I suggest that we use are also on more whimsical side. There is definitely nothing realistic going to be in the flowers in our picture or other botanicals. However, if you're struggling to come up with your own ideas, you can find a file in the resources section where I've combined the different flowers and botanicals that you can use in your art. For this bird, I think what we can do like, I suggest very simple shapes, like the simple shape for our character. Same simple shapes I suggest that we use for botanicals and flowers. For example, the flower I'm going to use, I'm going to create this oval. I think I'm going to use like blue bell type flowers for this illustration. I'm going to create this unfinished oval. I'm going to put some like the spiky type things on top. It's like a combination of blue bell, gooseberry thistle, that type of a bird, or maybe even some fruit. Second type, I'm going to leaves again. I'm going to keep it as simple as possible. You definitely don't want your botanicals to be more complex than your character because your character is the center of your illustration. Leaves are even simpler. It is like the basic shapes of the leaves I usually use. Again, feel free to use my file where I combine different types of leaves. You can use, Yeah, the leaves I'm going to use in our illustration are going to be like a little bit of on various angles. I'm going to create this vein first looking down slightly around this vein, I'm just going to make this squiggly line representing leaf. Looking down a little bit, maybe even a little bit faded leaf. I'm going to put those leaves around my bird just to complement it. Another type, again, I start with the vein in the middle. This leaf will be looking up. See, It's pointing up a little bit. I'm just literally drawing squiggly line around like see this. There is no observation of bird anatomy, neither there is observation of botanicals, anatomy, and structure. Here's the flowers I'm going to be using, Here are the leaves I'm going to be creating together with my bird. But you choose your own type of leaves. You can choose simpler type, no problem. I'm also going to use this little twigs just to complement the variation of different sizes and shapes. The more sizes and shapes you put in your illustration, the more interesting it might look. The third type of elements to add to your illustration is decorative element. That's the way I call them, it's all of botanicals and nature elements like twigs, leaves, blades of grass. You see literally feel free, free hand type thing. You just go like that. You create a stick, you create long, elongated leaves around it. Or you can draw like a folk type of the leaf. I don't even know what it is in real life, in nature. But that's what I tend to add to my illustrations a lot, especially when I use traditional media. I tend to add them in ink and sometimes even marker. Yeah, that's the three elements we're going to be combining in our bird. What I'm going to do, I'm going to switch on our bird cage, because we need it for arranging our composition. On the new layer, on the new empty layer underneath the bird. I'm going to create the first flower, this blue bell type flower. Don't worry about positioning of the flower because it's going to be on the new layer. We can reposition it the way we want going forward and even change its size and shape if you will. I'm just going to create this unfinished oval, add these little spikes on top of the feel like you see. I'm trying to play around with the size to see what's going to look best. If it's too big, You don't want it to overpower your main character, which is in the center of your illustration, which is the bird. I'm sticking to the medium size. Now I'm going to duplicate the flower layer. I'm going to create the identical flower. And I'm just going to position it in the bottom of the bird just to balance it. It looks like the bird is sitting and there is this flower behind it. Yeah, quite like that. Quite happy with that. Now, I'm going to add the sketches of the leaves. You add the middle part. This leaf is going to be looking up. I've added the middle vein and I'm just going to put like three hand squiggly line about around the vein. The leaf looks like it's looking up because it's on the new layer. I can reposition it, I can change the size of it. So I decided to make it slightly bigger. I'm going to create a new layer and create another leaf. It's not going to be identical, that's why I'm not duplicating it. I'm just creating a new one on the next layer to balance the composition nicely. Yeah, I'm just going make sure that everything is a nice balance. I'm going to create this type of the leaf, you see like simple shapes. I just felt like I want to complement that big leaf on top. So I'm going to create a smaller leaf looking up as well. I'm going to create a new layer and I'm going to draw another leaf. This time the leaf will be looking down. I've created the central vein of the leaf, and that was not the leaf, That's the twigs I've created. These are the guidelines. Just to make sure to map the composition, the sketch, I might add some leaves there. You see I'm going to add this looking down, leave there, or some other time, I may decide to leave them as sticks sticking up in different directions. You see in this case, I've created two leaves together. Yeah, I'm going to create two leaves here probably. So it's like leafy floral, botanical illustration, botanical elements around my bird. I've just created four leaves around. Just to make sure that it's nice and sitting in a nice position. I think I'm just going to try and reposition this flower a little bit. Yeah, you see one flower is bigger than the other, which is fine. The more different shapes and sizes you have in your illustration, the more interesting it looks, the more whimsical it looks. Once you're happy with your composition, I encourage you to just to make sure that it's position exactly in the way you want it to be around you, bird. Yeah, I think I'm just going to add a few more as we determine, like decorative elements, I'm going to put a little bit more like this. Fine looking sticks or twigs or whatever you prefer to call them. This one, I just think I'm going to make into this unidentified eucalyptus type thing because I think it's quite in keeping with this folk look of this bird. Maybe just a couple of very simple leaves here and there, small and simple, and this is just like dry type of twigs. I'm going to flatten the whole composition because I'm quite happy with the way it looks. I'm not flattening it together with the bird, I'm just leaving it behind. Not that it matters too much, but I'm just going to erase the lines that are behind the bird. I've not flattened it together with the bird. I don't accidentally erase anything from the birds cage. And the very last, final thing for our sketch. What I feel like I should do, I think I should set my bird, like give my bird some grounding to stand on. Because at the moment, again, it's up to you. It's fine if you wanted to leave it like that. It's pretty much finished sketch, but I just, I'm going to add this branch to make it look like this. Like my bird is standing or sitting on top of this tree branch. And all these botanicals are part of this tree. And I'm just going to make it a little bit more interesting, not just log but a proper branch with a twig coming on the side. I'm just going to switch the botanicals off to properly see if I'm happy with it. Yeah, I'm quite happy with it. And I'm just going to erase the lines that I don't need. Yeah, the sketch is pretty much ready, this leaf. I just need to decide whether it's going to be behind the branch or in front of the branch. Depending on which I'm going to take a decision to erase the lines. See, I decided that the leaf is going to come on the front of the branch, that's why I'm just deleting the lines. Deleting the unnecessary lines can be good so they don't confuse you when you do your color mapping. And I'm just going to use the move tool, just the positioning of the branch. And there we go, the sketch is ready. 6. Choosing Colours: So picking colors, guys, colors are very important. However, I'll not load you with the information of color wheels, complimentary colors, et cetera. Instead, I'm going to show you how to pick colors from literally anywhere. And you can see now that's the examples of my own artwork and the color palette. The main colors are used for them, which are mixed and diluted. And just to achieve this color palette, so very often I take photos of something that attracts my attention that could be in my own house or outside, or check anything with nice color combinations. I save it in my camera and then I just put it in my ipad. You can see that this is a picture I took in my living room, which I thought was lovely, peaceful color combinations one morning. And I opened the picture in my ipad, and I'm literally hand picking the colors from the image, creating this nice palette. I know already that it works, but now I look at it and just making sure it looks good together. What I do next, I'm going to create a new palette in the palette section and procreate again. I'm going to pick, hand pick the colors and I'm just going to add them to this slots, this little squares for the color swatches. I always can add some more colors to make sure that it looks good. I'm constantly collecting different pictures that I like, the color combinations or I use traditional media to explore different color combinations and shades and tones. I even use my own artwork. So you can see right now that these are my own patterns that I created some time ago. And very often I just go back to my own artwork to pick up some color for my future artworks. And I also recommend that you use cuttings from different magazines. Like, for example, I've got a subscription of different magazines and it's also handy when they're seasonal. Like for example, this is a nice autumn palette that I can get inspiration from. So depending on the time of the year, different magazines may contain different color combinations that you could be using for your art. Create a book and Save Your Cutting Savior inspirations and Ideas. I have my own inspiration. Books where I create collages, where I paint family photographs, pictures I take myself. And sometimes that's a drawing of one of my daughters, which I thought was really nice color combinations. I picked colors from it and created this illustration. In this class, I've supplied four, we using auto mooning color palette, but I've also supplied a three additional color palettes in case you prefer to use them. Midnight blow, November woods and Happy folk. These colors, you can easily attach them to your procreate. So now you can see like same artwork and different color combinations. The ones are provided with this class. Depending on your mood and your preference, you can use one of them. But I also strongly encourage you to explore colors around you trying different color combinations. And yeah, let's move to the next one. 7. Preparing Canvas: Our sketch is ready. We are ready to move it to the final textured canvas from this draft. If you remember, we created it on a screen size canvas which is quite small in format. But now we need to transfer it to our final texture canvas. We will be applying colors to our illustrations where it's going to be a pretty unrealistic paper looking. This is the paper beds canvas I'll be using. As I said before, you can see the layer structure here, sketch here, layer is on the very top of the stack. We'll be pasting our sketch there, or if you wish, you can hand sketch your own illustration there. Next group. It's the unique combination of textures that create a special paper effect. I tend to create myself all the textures from my artwork. If you open it, you can see that it's locked. You don't accidentally delete any of it. However, feel free to unlock it and maybe switch some of the effects of underpin here, layer is underneath because the texture will be applied on it. So I'm going to quickly show you what I mean. Again, I'm going to go to our auto morning palette. I'm going to set it as default because that's the one we'll be using for our illustration. I'm going to pick this nice soft orange color. I'm just going to create using the essential filler brush. I'm just go to create this blob of color. You can see the paper texture again. It's the paper bits canvas I'm using for our class. If I switch the texture off, you can see that it has no effect. It's flat, but when you switch it to, it brings some color on. You can see this little white scratches and specks. That's basically what will make your artwork authentic and unique and true to life looking. I'm going to try a different color, which is darker in tone and you can see that the white scratches and specs come up even better. That's without it. And I'm going to switch it back on to bring them all up. So you can see that this lovely texture is applied to a color. And that's the layer we'll be painting on. The layer will be sketching on. We do not need texture applied in it, It's going to be just draft lines that we'll be using as guides to color our bird. You can see like, I'm going to grab some dark, maybe a brownish color and I'm just going to scribble. You see the lines are so thin that it doesn't really matter what texture is there. And as I said, that it's not a part of the final artwork. That's why I'm definitely not going to put it underneath the texture stack. I can easily switch it off later on. And you can see that whatever remains underneath will be on paint here, layer. What I'm going to do next, I'm going to go back to our sketch file. What I'm going to do, I'm going to pinch these layers together because if you remember, we've got our burden botanicals and branch on different layers. I've pinched them, I'm checking that that's the right ones I flattened. I'm going to swipe with three fingers. I'm going to copy. I'm going to go back to my paper bits canvas making sure that I'm on skitch here layer. I'm going to swipe three fingers and paste our sketch in our canvas. You can see that the canvas is quite much larger than the sketch that we've created. It doesn't matter because we'll just take it and stretch it. We don't need to preserve the quality of our skitch, as it's only our guidelines. I'm just going to stretch it to fit our canvas. I often get asked why the canvas is so big, so you can print it without the loss of quality. It will look as nice on the print as it is on the screen. Now our sketch is finally pasted to our final canvas. I'm going to reduce the size of it so we can comfortably color our main shapes. I'm going to make sure that I'm paint here layer and let's start mapping the main shapes. 8. Colour Mapping 1: The Body: An our canvas is ready. Our bird cage is sitting comfortably on top of the layer stack. And we're ready to start coloring. However, before I start coloring, I'd like to change the color of my background just to tone it slightly. For that, I'm opening the autumn palette and I'm choosing the very first color in the middle row. And I'm just going to a make it white. The color is slightly off white. I'm going to show you, this is a printed card with the off white color on the background for comparison. This is plain white card. The back of this card you see is plain white. It's basically down to your personal preference. What background you want to put your illustration on? I just always prefer to tone my canvas slightly. I think the colors stand out nicely. Yeah, I've changed the background color to the nice of white one. And I'm going to start painting on the pain here layer, which is underneath the texture stack. I'm going to choose the essential filler, big brush. The color I'm going to use is that very first color on the middle row on the autumn morning palette. I'm going to just to choose the size of about 41% but the capacity should be 100% This is important because going forward you are laying the foundation for our illustration. You want the background, the foundation to be solid in case you want to cut it out to create or a sticker. It just will make your job easier to cut it out when the foundation layer solid on the pane here layer. I'm going to go ahead and rename it right away to body. Also, I highly recommend naming the parts of your illustration in accordance with the bird parts because we're going to be stacking, clipping masks on top of them and we don't get lost in the abundance of layers with the essential filler big brush. I'm just going to start coloring in my bird. There are different ways, of course, to fill shapes with color, but that's how I prefer it because it's like replicates a traditional media way. I'm going to change the size of the brush, alter the size of the brush for smaller areas, but capacity will still remain 100% That's basically, it's as simple as that. I filled my bird's body with this color and that's going to be the foundation for the next color things. But I like making the edges fluffy for my character because I think that will make our bird extracute for that. I'm going to use the essential texturizer brush. I'm going to reduce the size, but capacity is still 100% The size would be around maybe 20% And I'm just going to go ahead and paint the edge of the bird. See if I'm too close to the edge, it's going to be too fluffy. That's why I'm just staying maybe half an inch away from the edge and that gives us nice fibers fluff around the bird's boarding. I'm just going to go round and paint around the shape I created. Going to reduce the size of the brush for smaller areas. See like I went outside the lines there. And just remember that the sketch is only guidelines. It's not set in stone. You can alter it. Because if you feel like something needs change, just go ahead and change it. While painting, it happens to me all the time. You don't need to stick to the lines. Also, see for example, I would like to change the shape of my bird's body because I think it's a little bit too long. So I'm going to grab the transform tool and using the free transfer, I'm just going to squash it a little bit. I think that's much better. Yeah, I'm quite happy with the result. And let's move on to the next one. 9. Colour Mapping 2: The Rest: We filled the body of our bird with a color. And see. I've switched the sketch off to see how it looks and it looks great. Looks very simple. But that's exactly what we need. Nothing more complex here through the bodies radio. Now we need to color map, fill with color the rest of the bird. I suggest that you create a new layer and name it wing. Let's using the essential filler, big brush and that purple, heavy purple color which is in the bottom row, the one before the last one, you just start feeling the wing with the color exactly in the same manner, same way as we did with the body in the previous part. Just as simple as that. Yeah, it's done. However, I'm not going to make a fluffy edge around the wing because I find that the more variety you've got in your illustrations, like different edges, different textures, colors, mediums, the more interesting the illustration looks. So in this case, I'm just going to leave the wing a little bit sharper than the body just to create this texture contrast. Yeah, yeah. Now I'm going to create a new layer again. I'm going to grab the essential filler, small brush because feet and beak are quite much smaller, but I keep the capacity still to 100% I'm going to rename this layer to be feet because remember we'll be building up stacking layers on top of our mean color parts. The color I'm going to choose is the fourth one from the left, in the middle row with the essential filler, small brush. I'm just going to fill the tiny part with the color with this color, like this brownish ocher color. Just remember, don't be too precious. It's digital. You can always cancel it. You can always easily raise it. The worst thing that can happen is you're afraid to be creative. You are afraid to paint. Please, please, please feel free and feel no pressure. That's it. It's, it's just as simple as that. Now we are ready to move on to the next part. 10. The Body: So in this part, we're going to work on our bird's body. Despite the fact that we filled it with color and we've laid the foundation for it, there is still some things to be added. Let's just work on it right now. Yeah, the paper is textured. It obviously gives this natural effect for our artwork. However, I always look for different ways to replicate the traditional media and digital art I create like brushes. To fulfill this purpose, I would like to do some color transitions. Because different colors mix together, they create texture of their own. I'm just going to add it to make the bird look more whimsical, more interesting to our solid color foundation. Let's see for that. Now we're going to work on the body. I'm going to create a new layer on top of the body layer. Yeah, I'm not going to switch the wing off. If you want, you can do it, but I'm just going to keep the wing because it's in place and it's not going anywhere. I'm not going to move it because I'm quite happy with its position. I'm going to create a new layer on top of the body layer, underneath the wing layer. And I'm going to create a clipping mask to attach this layer to our color foundation layer using the essential shader brush. Also, I'm going to increase the size of the brush. However, I'm going to reduce the capacity. Unlike the foundation layer, I'm going to be reducing the capacity of additional layers brushes. The color I'm going to go for is probably the peachy pink color. I'm just going to try and see how it looks because the body color is already a little bit orange, peachy. With very gentle touches and moves of the pencil on the castionsc can increase the capacity and size a little bit to make it more visible but still touching very, very gently. I'm just going to add a little bit of color here and there. There's no particular order. I'm not trying to do lights and shades here because I don't tend to do lighting and shading in my art. However, I'm just trying to make the smooth color transition like sometimes granulated water color have this effect. Yeah, that's why randomly, here and there, I'm just going to place different splashes of color. Now I'm going to try this candy pink one and see how it's going to look. Just going to also randomly add different strokes of this gentle effect here and there on the bird's body and tail. Yeah, I quite like that, this color transition. So we've got like three colors going on there. I'm going to show you a little trick for digital artists. It's only available in digital. I tend to keep my colors on normal blending mode. However, you can always try and experiment with different blending modes. For example, see how when you start trying different ones, you can see that they're all different. Some of them can seem too much like this one. For example, I'm not going to use that one because it's just too bright. This one is, obviously. I'm not going to go for it either because it's too dark. It just doesn't make much sense there quite like color burn. But I might want to reduce the capacity a little bit to make this effect a little bit more gentle. Now, staying on the same layer with color burn blending mode, I'm just going to add a little bit more deeper color because I just felt like a little bit more contrast is needed. Yeah, I quite happy about that. Next thing I'm going to do, I'm going to create another blank layer above the body stack. I'm going to create a clipping mask to attach it and keeping it on normal blending mode. I'm going to add some light areas. If you look at my card, you can see that the bird's breast is lighter than the rest of the body. Again, it's just a mixture of different defects. The brush I'm going to use is the essential texturizer brush. You can use the shader as well. Just again, down to a personal preference. The color I'm going to use is the lightest color of the whole palette and the middle row, because that's the effect I'm after. I'm going to increase the capacity to 100% and increase the size to around 20% With gentle strokes, I'm just going to add this whitish lightish stain to this area, to the bird's belly and breast. What else I am I do. If you open the classic view of the palette and just shift the color a little bit towards the snow white, pure white color. And increase the brush size, it will add a little bit, even lighter areas. See, I'm not making it solid. It's like cloud like area and that's the way I want it to be sometimes just I recommend switching the sketch layer off to see how it all comes together. I think it's coming together really nicely. I can still see this orange base underneath the birds, the lighter area, that's that. Let's continue layering our textures on the bird. Again, if you look, I'm going to add a little bit more details. Despite the fact that there is textured paper and the brushes are quite textured as well, I'm going to add this little details, imitating feathers on the bird for that. As always a new layer on top of the stack clipping mask. The brush I'm going to use is the essential filler, small brush because it's quite fluffy and it will make nice feathers. Because it's the look I'm going for. The color I'm going to use is the slightest color. Again, in the middle of the palette. Just with gentle strokes, I'm just going to increase the capacity of the brush and show you properly the shape of the strokes. I'm going to go for something like this. No, perfection, please. I'm going to reduce capacity again with a little gentle brush moves. I'm just going to add those little strokes, imitating feathers here and there. I'm going to alternate between the weight of the strokes, the length of the lines. Some are going to look like scratches, some are going to look like little spots. The looks like spotted feathers. I'm just going to go around the bird's head, adding the strokes here and there, a little bit on the bell, a little bit on the tail. Now I'm going to take a slightly darker color and just add a little bit of feather, little stroke scratches on the lighter area of the bird. Yeah, quite like that. Just here and there in random order. No uniformity. Just don't try to make it perfect. I might actually use even darker color. I think the syringe is going to be quite nice. I'm just going to add a little bit of darker filers here and there. Again, like the color sizes of strokes you, the more interest it creates, the more whimsical look you get about your illustration. I'm going to add a little bit of orange strokes on the We lighter area. Also a trick, you can use a smudge if you use essential shader which is great for smudging, you can smudge some of the harsh lines if you're not happy with the intensity of it. I sometimes use like finger control to use the smudge tool, just like with a pencil on the paper. Which is quite nice. Yeah, keep alternating between the brush tool and the smudge tool. Yeah, keep going. Yeah, happy. Now, I'm going to move on to the tail. No complicated work I'm going to do on it. I'm going to just try and keep it as simple as I can. I'm just going to show you some examples of my artworks. For example, seeing this birds. In this illustration, the tail was quite sharp and detailed. In our illustration, it's going to be quite simple, but you see in this color way, I was happy to leave it as it is without adding any details, which is also the way to go if you feel like it. But I'm going to show you how to simply make the tail look a little bit more interesting. A little bit more whimsical. So after creating a new layer on the top of the stack and clipping mask and changing the blading mode to multiply, I'm going to select my essential filler, small fluffy brush. And the color I'm going to choose is this brownish orange color. With gentle strokes, I'm going to make this thick lines on the tail, imitating long feathers, because we know that the tail has longer feathers. I probably want to add a little bit more color. I'm going to try this candy pink. You see on the multiply mode, it looks at scarlet, which is quite intense. But yeah, I'm quite happy with the way it looks. It's nice contrast to the rest of the bird. It makes it look a little bit more exotic. I encourage you just to try different ways of using colors. Of using blending modes of trying different brushes. Yeah. Feel free to use different ways of painting feathers and tail, birds, tails. Now I'm going to do, you can see that I don't really use lights and shades in my art. And it's very important to emphasize because I'm trying to be far from academic drawing. However, I feel like adding a little bit of darker areas here and there just to create this lovely color transition from lighter shade to darker one. But again, not creating lights and shades, I don't want to create realistic bird or a three D bird. It's definitely not the look I'm going for. You're going to see what I mean right now. I'm just going to try and experiment and no strict rules apply to this. I'm going to make a new layer on top of the lighter layer. That's important. But underneath the feather textures, the feathers are still visible. We're creating a new clipping mask. We change the blending mode to multiply. However, we might change it later if we are not happy with the way it looks at the moment. I'm just going to keep it to multiply the brush I'm going to use as the essential shader brush. I'm going to reduce the capacity, reduce the size of it. The color I'm going to use is this heavy lilacy gray color, which is the one before the last one in the bottom row. With very gentle strokes, I'm going to just add a little bit of darker shades here and there. For example, on the bird's face, maybe a little bit around the wing on the bird's back. See like no strict rules apply, I'm just going with the flow. You see like I'm creating a little bit of a contrast on the bird's body in case, because the lighter part of the bird's body sometimes might blend with your canvas if it's very similar in color, here and there. And basically that's said, let's switch the sketch layer off and see. Yes, I'm quite happy with the result. I'm just going to add slightly darker, very carefully, with this dark mulberry color with quite low capacity. I'm just going to add a little bit of darker areas here and there. Again, remember, not for the sake of lighting and shading and the realistic look, but for the sake of the lovely color transition. Imagine if you dilute water color with water. Some areas will be darker, some areas will be lighter. Or when you use soft pastels, you smudge them with your finger or with the blender of certain type. That's basically the look we're going for here and there. See, this creates a really nice texture effect achieved by alternating color. Now I'm just going to try and make sure that the feather texture that stands out too much, I'm not going to use that. The feather texture is still visible after we've darkened some of the areas. Sometimes you can experiment with blending mode. Sometimes I duplicate layer and reduce the capacity. Just see the look that works best for you. So I just still want the subtlety of the feathers to remain. Switch the sketch off and yeah, essentially that's all what I'm going to do with a bird's body. Nothing else ready and done. 11. The Wing: Right, In this part we're going to work on the bird's wings. We finished the body of the bird and yeah, look, it's all nice and textured and the colors are transitioning nicely. Yeah, it's great, it's looking good. But the wing is flat and boring, which means that we need to do similar work on it to match the rest of the bird. And there are so many ways you could paint the wing if you can see like this as examples of my artwork. I have similarity in my pictures like how I create the wings. You can definitely see there is a certain way I do it a little bit like folksh way imitating the shorter feather and slightly longer ones. But let's start with the color. The color at the moment is flattish. I'm going to start with adding just some color transitions. Oh, by the way, I recommend that you combine all the body layers into one group. I would rename it to Body, just so we don't get confused and we don't get lost in our layers. And you can even lock it just in case you don't accidentally push something or draw on one of the layers. Let's work on the wing now, let's create a new layer on top of our main foundation layer. Let's create a clipping mask. I'm going to keep the blending mode normal. I'm just going to add a little bit of color, which in tone, just in depth going to match the wing just to create a slight gentle transition which might not be obvious immediately for the eye. However, which will create this nice color transition effect for that, we've created the new layer on top of the wing. And the brush I'm going to use is the essential texturizer. With the size increase to 70 something percent and the capacity is slightly reduced. Just slightly, just enough for the color to be visible. The color I'm going to go for is going to be similar to the color of the wing to the base color. I'm just going to take this beige one, I'm just going to gently apply. You can see like there are spots of color with this feathery brush. And I'm just going to try this hot pink color as well and see how it looks. But remember just to use it very softly, barely touching the cano. See? I'm switching it off. You can see now it's visible. It's not super obvious. However, you can definitely tell now that this transition has appeared there, creating the new layer and making it a clipping mask. I'm going to change the blending motilinar burn. I'm just going to try that might change it later. I'm just going to see how it looks with the same pinkish color, bright pink color. I'm going to make this area a little bit more intense color wise, even darker. See, I'm going to take this mulberry color and I'm just going to make the top of the wing really dark. At first, it seemed to me that it's a little bit too dark, but then I thought that it's just right. It, it creates this nice contrast between the bird's body and the wing. So, I'm just going to add a little bit, even like the almost burned therea. We're going to add some details, but I think it's looking really nice already. Nice and textured. I absolutely love this color transition. Just you see, it's like it goes from like really, really dark, almost black, this deep brown, moving to this burgundy mulberry color and then transiting to yellowish brown and then to beige. I think that's really nice. That's exactly what we're going for. Now let's create some details on the wing for that, Creating a new layer, making it a clipping mask. I'm going to take the essential filler, small brush. I'm going to reduce the size to around 20 and capacity to around 80% The color I'm going to choose is probably the very first color in the middle row because I need a lighter strokes to contrast with the rest of the wing. With again, gentle moves from left to right. Of course, depending on what hand you use for drawing, like whatever is comfortable for you. I'm just going to create this stripe type strokes, imitating the longer feathers of the bird's wing. As simple as that, just adding them, Drawing them like this, like a little bit like bended shape. Now I'm going to create another layer and this time setting the blending mode to multiply. I'm going to use this magen maroni color. I'm going to reduce capacity probably slightly more. I'm just going to repeat the same moves, the same lines right underneath the lighter stroke. Exactly the same but with a different color and multiply mode. Maybe just outlining the wing a little bit. You see how I usually emphasize that. No need to have the knowledge of the bird's anatomy. However, in this case, I've decided to adopt for my art this anatomical structure of the bird's wing, but only once, and I keep repeating it for all my birds. Basically, the rule is on top you've got shorter feathers, the underneath you've got slightly longer feathers and then the longest feathers moving to the point pointy part of the wing. I've learned it once and now I apply to all my birds. Again, if you don't do that, that's absolutely fine. You can put just a nice flower on your wing and it will still look nice because remember the beacon the wing makes the bird now with the same essential filler, small brush on the new layer. On the multiply mode, I'm just going to create this like second layer of middle length feathers. And I'm just going to color them in just exactly the same way. If you ever used coloring book and pencil just like that. I'm not going to color all the way because I want to keep this nice transition of colors. That's why I'm going to take the smudge tool and I'm just going to gently smudge the edge. I think the essential texturizer will work best here. Yeah, I've sued the this harsh transition between the newest layer and the top of the wing and that's essentially that second layer of feathers is ready. I'm just going to maybe make sure that of course you could have done it all the way around. You could have started with that and then move on to the longest feathers. It's up to you. That's just the way I do it. What I'm going to do next is I'm just going to add a little bit more texture to the wing. For that, I'm going back to this linear burn layer and I'm going to choose the essential texture brush. And I'm going to pick that orange, brown color and begin with gentle strokes. Remember? Just gentle strokes everywhere, nothing harsh. I'm add this nice grainy texture, my wing because it's just way too light, way too much contrast in my opinion, I must confess, I usually don't have a certain plan in place. I change things all the time. Sometimes I write things down and then change them. That's what I encourage you to do. You have a plan, but if you feel like something works better, there is just no need to keep the things set in stone. Just go for a change. Because visually, it can be different from what you imagine in your head. So now this area is way too dark. Obviously we need to do something with that too dark and too flat. That's why on the very top layer stack of our wing, I'm going to make a new layer and make it a clipping mask. The brush I'm going to use is the essential filler, big brush, because I think it best fits for the purpose. The color I'm going to choose is the very first color in the middle row because it's quite light, nice. Let's try that's a little bit too bright, so I'm going to just reduce the capacity, reduce the size, and see what I'm doing. I'm creating this imitation of the shortest feather on top of the wing, but I'm making them in the shape of water drops to fish type, tear drop thing, petal type shape. Yeah, I'm just arranging them in certain pattern. I'm not following any strict pattern, strict rules. I'm just looking where I can feel you see I'm applying different pressure to the brush. I'm making them different shapes and sizes. Shape is essentially the same, but the sizes might be just slightly different and some of them are a little bit longer than others, some are rounder and chubbier. And that again, creates this interesting combination of visual elements that make your art unique and special. Essentially filling the hole darker areas. With that, you can still see the color transition underneath, but it's already considerably lighter. Next thing I'm going to do, I'm going to take this essential sketch brush and on a new layer, again, selecting a very light color to create a nice contrast. I'm just going to add a little bit more hand drawn texture to the wing. For that I'm doing this. Gentle scratches along the shape of the longest feathers. Very nice and gentle. I'm not trying to make this obviously visible stripes, but like a little bit of scratches here and there, just making it a little bit more texturized. I also feel like I want to add a little bit of this feather type details to the lighter feathers. It's the pattern you find on the leaves as well. Essentially, it's a middle vein with the little veins going from the center. Yeah, you do it on the simple leaf or just on the feather. I think it's a structure similar. I'm going to add it to every single one. I'm not being too super precious, I'm not even trying to stay the lines. I'm just creating, um, a little bit of detailing now, I decided also to add this little dots on the edge of the medium feather. A little bit of dots on the longer feathers of the wing. Yeah, that's pretty much ready. I'm going to try and maybe experiment with blending mode of these details. I'm going to change it to add to bring them a little bit up. There are a little bit more obvious, quite like that. If you completely want to embellish your artwork, you can create another layer underneath the lighter details layer. You can change the plan de mode to multiply. You can choose, you can select the essential small brush. And this slightly darker yet bright pink color just reduce capacity a little bit. And gently color some parts of the shorter feathers here and there. You don't need to do all of them but a little bit of a longer feather, it just gives you a work a little bit better finish. Now I feel that the lighter details are too sharp, so that's why I reduce the capacity of them. I definitely don't want them to be too sharp and that's essentially. 12. The Eye: Now we are close to finalizing our illustration of our character, which is a bird. The body is ready. The wing is ready. We just need to move on to the eye. I'm going to group all the wing layers so we don't get lost amongst them. I'm going to rename the group wing and I'm going to lock it so we don't accidentally change anything to create the eye. We need, again, solid layer foundation of color which we're going to use to build other layers and textures on top of. We're going to do the following. I'm going to create a new layer and I'm going to choose the essential filler bake brush, because it's the most densest brush. I'm going to increase the capacity to 100% but I'm going to reduce the size to like under 10% here. Maybe maybe even smaller, maybe 7% I'm going to choose the lightest color in the palette because that's going to be the main foundation color layer for our eye. And I'm going to show you how the eyes I draw for my characters. And I'm also going to show you alternative way to drawing the eye. First of all, the first step is I create this oval shape, fish type shape of the eye. That's always the eye I give to all my characters on top of it, I'm going to create another layer. I'm going to create a clipping mask. And choosing the darkest color of, of the palette. Using the essential filler brush, I'm going to just create this dark circle for the iris. The other thing I just need a little bit of highlight. That's essentially, that's all the basics you need to create for the eye. I'm not even bothered about clipping mask at this stage because it's going to be like tiny little strokes or I can create a clipping mask depends on your preference. Using the essential filler, small brush, I'm going to reduce capacity and size. Again, I'm just going to choose the pure white color, just less opacity. And I'm just going to gently create this highlight. I use the smudge tool to just smudge a little bit of sharpness and bringing the opacity right up, I'm going to create this big mean highlight. That's pretty much it. That's essentially most of the eye is ready. Now I'm going to show you how to create another type of a little bit, if I may say that a little bit more realistic. I'm going to group all these layers in one and I'm going to switch this group off. Just to show you the alternative way of painting, the E, I'm going to create a new layer and the steps are essentially the same. Using the essential filler Bic brush, using the lightest color of the palette, I'm going to create a foundation layer, but instead of the oval shape, I'm just going to create a nice circle. Add another layer. I'm going to create the darkest color of the palette, and I'm just going to create another circle on top of it. No, I'm just going to create highlights using the essential filler, small brush, reducing the capacity going for the pure white color. I'm just going to create a little bit of a high light and the mean highlight in the corner, that's the eye. It's a little bit more realistic. It depends on what look of your bars you're going for. I'm going to switch this eye often, switch my type of eye back on. I'm just going to add a little bit of emphasis to the eye to bring it slightly up on the face just to make it a little bit more visible. Oh, see, I was going to create a new layer, but I've run out of layer space because the canvas is so big, I recommend that you do see how I'm absolutely sure that I'm not going to change anything about the bird's body. That's why I'm just going to unlock that group and I'm just going to flatten it. All these layers automatically become one. I've created more layer space for my bird. I'm going to create a new layer on top of the eye layer. I'm going to change the blending mode to multiply. I'm using the essential shade brush with quite small size and capacity, around 80, 80% I'm going to choose some darker color. I think this reddish brown is quite nice with very gentle strokes. I'm just going to work around the eye just to make a little bit more darker area. It's not really an upper lid, but it's like hints that there is an upper lid there. And it casts a little bit of shadow to the white of the eye and in the bottom as well. But it's basically essentially, it's an outlining of the eye with a darker color just to make it more homogeneous with the rest of the bird. That's pretty much it. Sometimes I like giving my characters a little bit of eyeshadow. In this case, I'm going to be using this dusty pink color, and I'm just going to apply a little bit more tones to the upper lid, just a little bit on the lower lid as well. When it comes to the other type of the eye, which we call it more realistic, the steps are exactly the same, creating a new layer on top of the eye. Changing the blending mode to multiply. I'm just going to take that reddish brown color and I'm just going to work around the eye, creating this darker outline to make it more visible on the bird's face. Just remember, touch the canvas very gently so you don't need like harsh lines. And say you can even add this nice pink color just to make it more whimsical. Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's done. I'm going to switch back on to the type of the eye I usually go for and it's pretty much ready. However I feel like the eye needs just a tiny bit more definition. I choose this nice berg in mulberry color, the essential filler, small brush. I'm going to reduce the size of it and capacity. Literally staying on the same multiply layer. I'm going to put a little bit more like this eyeliner definition to the top lid of the eye just to make it a little bit more expressive, a little bit more mysterious, a little bit more whimsical. That's all I'm going to do is just as simple as that, the eye is ready and I'm not going to overdo it. And I'm going to try and switch the sketch off, and I can see that our bird is coming together really, really nicely. See you in the next step. 13. Beak + Feet: Our bird is almost completely ready and the only thing that we've got to do is the beg and the feed. Because at the moment, obviously they're too flat and we want to make them in the same style with the rest of the bird character. What I'm going to do is honestly it's going to be super simple this time. No hard work at all. Probably the easiest part. I'm just going to get rid of all this layer, just group them beacon feet. This is our layer where we've got our color foundation. We're creating a new one on top of it and creating a clipping mask. The very first thing we're going to do is just to add a little bit of darker color to the. I'm not going to be adding a lot of different color transitions because these details are quite small. I'm going to take the essential shader brush. I'm probably some darker color like this, reddish brownish color. I'm going to reduce the capacity quite considerably the size with gentle strokes. Just going to add a little bit of darker tone underneath the beak. Maybe a little bit on top, maybe a little bit around just to make it not so flat, but because the details are so small, like I'm not going to spend a lot of time working on them. I'm just going to add a little bit of this mix in this dark color into the bird's feet as well. Just going to maybe try and change the blending mode to multiply A quite like that. This brings the darker color a little bit top with this darker mulberry color. I'm going to add a little bit of this burnt age, like if you remember what we did with the wing. I'm just going to add a little bit darker emphasis on the beak and the feet, creating a new layer on top of the stack clipping mask, Keeping it on the normal blending mode and with the essential filler, small brush, I'm just going to take the light beige color and even make it slightly lighter just to mix in some lighter color to create this nice transition On top of the beak, just like imagine adding water to the water color. That's like the effect I'm going for, added a little bit to the legs. And that's pretty much it. It's radio. What I'm going to do now, you see like the beak is a little bit too fluffy to my liking. This is down to a personal preference. If you prefer to keep it fluffy, that's fine. But I'm going to take this essential sketch brush because it's quite dense and sharp. I'm going to increase the size to 100% and the capacity is set to 100% With gentle moves, it looks like I'm on the wrong layer. Yes, I'm going to go back on the foundation layer with gentle strokes, barely touching the canvas. I'm just going to clean up the edges of the beak just to make it a little bit sharper. It creates a nice contrast between the bird's fluffy body. Yeah, I like making the of my birds just a little bit sharper all around. Not just the pointy part, but the part that's attached to the face. Just a little bit of cleaning up around the feet. No way trying to make it realistic looking, just keeping the same illustration stylized look, but just a slightly tidy way. You also see this leg is behind the body. I'm going to take the essential shader using the Erasor tool still. And I'm just going to raise the, oops, too big. Going to reduce the size, keeping the capacity to 100% I'm just going to raise that sticky parts of the legs and making it look like the legs are like tucked in this fluffy body of our bird. That's pretty much it. Almost done, yeah. Quite happy with that. The final step on the new layer, attach this clipper mask. I'm going to take the essential sketch brush, choosing this dark mulberry color, increasing the size a little bit, and reducing pacity. I'm just going to gently separate the two parts of the bird's beak. The top from the bottom. And just make a little bit darker edges to the, just to make it a little bit more prominent. Because it seemed to me that it's blended in with the bird's face a little bit just for fun let texture on the bird's legs and feet. And that's literally everything I'm going to do and who our bird is ready. Very well done and see you in the next step. 14. Finishing Touches: Talk to her. To guys. Well done for coming so far and our bird is almost ready. Almost 99.9% ready. But I feel like it needs just a little bit of finishing touches just to give this illustration whimsical look even more. I'm just going to group pecan feet, layers. I see like switching the sketch layer of the bird looks pretty good for me. Like without sketch it looks good. It means it's ready. Basically, I'm going to create a new layer, change the blend mode to multiply. I'm going to grab essential texturizer brush. And the color I'm going to use is this reddish brownish color. I'm going to reduce the capacity now. I'm going to reduce the size and increase the capacity. Let's see how it's going to work. I'm just going to add gently darker touches here and there. You see on the bird's face. I think it needed a little bit of darker areas just to give it a little bit more like this fluffy feather texture look. That's it, I'm not going to overdo it. Just maybe a little bit around the wing. You see the step is so subtle that you might just want to omit it altogether. But I just felt that it needed a little bit of definition of certain areas. You see, I'm adding a little bit of darker color to the wing and I'm just going to reduce the capacity. And the color I'm going to take is a slight bag color. And the reason I turn to the lighter color is because I'm just going to add a little bit of darker areas to the spale fluff of the bird's body, just so it's not too harsh. I don't need like harsh contrast with the essential fill of small brush staying on the same multiply layer. I'm going to select this lilaky, gray, heathery color. I'm going to reduce capacity slightly. I'm just going to put the strokes on the board's tail. It's like this little details here and there just for no reason really to give it a little bit more interest, A little bit more finished look. Yeah, quite like that. Yeah. Now I'm going to create another layer for lighter details. Oops, I've run out of layer space. It's time for the wing group to get flattened. I flattened the wing and I'm going to create a new layer on normal blending mode. I'm just going to add with essential texturizer touches. See what I'm going to do here. I'm going to increase the capacity to 100% and increase the size to almost 100% and I'm going to take the lightest color. I'm just going to poke touch with stamps on the bird's wing. See you can see this. Cross hatch elements added, giving it vintage scratch paper. Look, which I think is amazing. I love this brush is so versatile. You can do so much with it. I'm not cross hatching, I'm not painting with it though. I could, but I'm not doing that. I'm just making stamps though. It's not stamp brush. I'm just like literally touching my ipad surface with it. I could have painted. I could have done that. But I'm just doing this so you can see properly the defined scratches on our surface. I'm going to take this brighter orange color just to add a little bit of like unify all the elements together. You see I'm adding this orange touches here and there on the wing, on the body. Yeah, that's pretty much it, I think. No rules apply here. Apply those gentle stamp strokes here and there. Yeah, that's fine. Next thing I'm going to do a totally down to a personal preference with essential shade or because I just know for a fact that it's not to everyone's taste. I'm going to increase the capacity to 100% but the size is going to be really small. I'm going to select this candy pink color. I'm going to add the blushy cheek. I do it with almost all my characters I draw because I like this folk whimsical look it gives to, to my character. Literally everyone, birds, animals, people. I always put this pink plushy cheek, usually with a fluffy, with some fluffy brush. In our case, it's the essential shade brush. I'm going to just experiment with different blending modes. See linear burn, it's just maybe a little bit too. I'm just going to reduce capacity. However I do like the look of it. I'm just going to leave it to linear burn blending mode. Yeah, quite like that. Almost an gas, a promise. Almost ready this time with the essential filler. Small brush, increasing thepacityybe reduce a little bit. Just going to try and experiment with the lightest color. I'm going to add this strokes on some feathers. I'm going to emphasize the middle veins of the feathers. Again, it's not a must. It's just up to you whether you want to add those things or not. But I just felt that my bird did this. A little bit of a finishing touches. You see, I'm adding the lighter lines here and there, Not to every single feather, just to some. I just decided to follow along those lines. See I'm doing it at different areas. This brush, by the way, is pressure sensitive. The more you press down on the paper, the thicker the stroke becomes. Also, I'm just going to reduce the capacity right away. Right. I'm just going to add this little scratches around the bird's eye to give it even a chekier look. Yeah, I just see like with gentle scratchy motion. I'm just going to add this barely visible strokes here and there. I think it just gives it this fluffy, filthy look that said guys, that's pretty much the bird is ready to fly. In the next step, I'm going to show you how to add the botanicals and decorative elements around it. 15. Flowers: Right guys. Our bird is ready and as we agreed, we're going to add some decorative botanical elements around it to make our illustration completely finished and ready to use wherever you want to use it. In this step, I'm going to add a couple of flowers as we previously discussed. So first of all I'm going to do, I'm going to create a new layer. So let me grab the essential filler, big brush, because it's the most solid one. Let me group the layers first. They are all in one place. We don't get confused. What's important here is that you can flatten the bird. You can always create a backup file in case you feel like you want to come back and change something. I would duplicate the canvas on the duplicate, I would just flatten the whole bird. Our bird is in one layer so we don't get confused with the layers and everything. We can start focusing on the botanicals around it. So I'm going to create a new layer and the flowers are going to be tucked behind this board. But at the moment I'm not going to worry about that. I'm just going to switch the bird layer off. And then going forward, I will just arrange the elements the way I want them to be. As I said, the essential filler bag brush and the color I'm going to use is probably the peachy pink. Yeah. Because I'm just trying to keep it unified with our main character. I'm going to start laying down the, the color foundation with the densest brush. The principle, the algorithm of painting the flower is going to be pretty much the same as we've painted our bird. However, it's not going to be as elaborate as that. We don't want the essential filler, small brush. I'm going to make a little bit sharper, so the capacity is 100% I've reduced the size a little bit just to make it a little bit thinner so I can create the spikes. What I was saying is that I'm not going to make the botanical elements too detailed because I don't want the attention distracted from our bird. However, I don't want them to be super flat either. That's why I'm just going to make them a little bit more interesting. We've done our color layer now on the new layer created as a clipping mask. I'm going to change the blending mode to multiply. I'm just going to see how it works. I'm going to add darker areas here and there with the essential shade of brush. The color I'm going to use is this bright pink color. I'm going to slightly reduce capacity, increase the size, so I can see this little specks, speckles and grains. I do want them to be quite visible because it creates this nice texture. I'm maybe decide going forward what I'm going to keep, what I'm going to get rid of, I'm going to reduce the size of the brush. And I'm just going to add a bit. You see darker details, Not quite details but more like darker areas Maybe just defining the shape of the flower using this vertical lines coming from the spikes and a little bit of darker shading color transitioning in the bottom. Quite like that. I think what I'm going to do next is maybe I'll just add a little bit more like sharper details. I'm going to create a clipping mask on the new layer and I'm going to change the blending mode to multiply Again, I'm going to take the essential filler, small brush. This time the color I'm going to use is this, like Pinky Maagente color. I'm going to keep the size relatively small and I'm going to reduce the capacity of this brush. And I'm just going to add a little bit of a darker areas. Again, I want to see, I don't want harsh lines. I'm keeping my pencil slightly tilted in relation to the canvas. I'm just gently cross hatching some of the areas. There is no principle of what areas exactly to color to darken. Moreover, my botanicals are normally nonexistent. What I usually do, I combine different elements from different flowers and leaves and other wonders of nature in one just to create this whimsical, nonexistent fairytale flowers. This case is not an exception. I'm just adding these lines coming from the spikes because I just felt like I want to keep this feel and look of this blue bell shape. And with the lines, I'm defining the shape. Now with gentle scratches, I'm adding these darker lines along my flowers body. Don't press too hard, Imagine that, that you're holding a needle and you're making gentle scratches on the paper with this type of movement, you just add this darkish on the other hand. Don't be afraid to make them a little bit more intense because you can always remember it's digital. You're not wasting any expensive art materials. You can always reduce the capacity. You can always go a few steps back and redo the strokes or scratches or whatever. That's why make it a meditative act with the flaw and see how it works best for you. I'm quite happy with the way it's coming together. Right now, you see the anatomy of this flower doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And that's exactly the look I'm going for now. I'm going to add lighter details. I'm creating a new layer with normal blending mode and I'm using the essential scag brush. It's the finest sharpest brush in the set. Just undecided a little bit here. I think I'm going to go for the lighter color, reduce capacity a little bit with the same scratchy moves. I'm going to add the lighter strokes, creating this vintage paper effect on my flower se, going from the bottom and throwing it on top a little bit. Now I'm going from the top to the bottom. Moving from up to down. I suppose it's not a rule. It depends on whether you are right handed or left handed. Whatever is handier for you. Yeah. Again, I'm not too worried about making them too obvious because I can always change the capacity. See, I'm just going to reduce capacity a little bit. You can always experiment with blending modes. See for example, add blending mode makes it quite sharp which is not too bad. You see, I'm going to grab a smudge tool. I'm going to take the essential shader brush and I'm just going to smudge this little sharpest edges of the lighter details of the lines because I don't really want it to look so rough. Yeah, there we go, our flowers pretty much ready. Now, I'm going to create one more flower. I could have duplicated, but I want it to be unique. I'm just going to paint it using the same algorithm, same principle as I used with the first one. And I'm just going to speed it up for you a little bit. But feel free to make this video slower if you want to follow along step by step by. Yeah. But the process is exactly the same. That's it. That's both flowers are finished and I'm just going to drag the bird layer on top of them so the flowers are tucked behind it and yeah. Oh. 16. Leaves: Right now that our flowers are ready. And I was just going to pay your attention a little bit that I've sharpened the edges a little bit to make a better contrast between the bird's fluffy body. Just again, to go to for this variety of textures. And what I highly recommend that you do is tidy up the loads of layers of flower pieces. In my case, I'm flattening them because it's highly unlikely that I would like to go back to them and change something. However you see, now it's flat. You can move it around, you can make a final decision where to place it. But I'm happy with the position my flowers are right now. I can move on to drawing leaves, and there will be two types of leaves, green and pink. And I'm going to start with green ones. Having created a new layer. Again, like same principle, I'm going to layer with the essential filler, Big brush. I'm going to create a foundation of solid color. In this case, the color I'm going to choose is this gentle sage green color, which matches the orange quite nicely. I'm just going to fill the leaf shape with the color. Just paint the whole thing. You can keep changing the size of the brush to bigger size for larger areas and you can reduce the size for smaller areas too. Yeah, I'm not going to be too precious because it's not a mean element. It just like helping element. Now I'm going to take essential filler, small brush, increasing the capacity to 100% reducing the size. I'm just going to make the tip of the sleeve slightly sharper and maybe even the edge itself. You know, I like both fluffy and sharp. So just I suppose it's just whatever you prefer. In my case, I decided to go for a more sharper look again. Probably because the bird's body is fluffy and it's going to overlap. So, yeah, But I'm quite happy with that. Now I'm going to add a little bit of color here which is quite different from green. The color I'm going to add is this orange color, which I use overall in my illustration. Because I want all the elements to be unified, to be brought together using the essential texturizer brush, reducing the capacity. I'm just going to select some orange, muted orange color, which is the second swatch in the middle row. Gently, remember, no harsh strokes. Very gently. I'm just going to leave this fluffy marks here and there On the leaf you see like we got this sage green mixed nicely with orange. Which now creates a nice composition with the rest of the illustration creating a new layer. I'm going to clip to the main layer and changing the blending multi multiply, I'm going to select the essential shade brush with the darkest G til color. I'm randomly going to add some darker areas. Remember, I'm not trying to do light shade effect. I'm increasing the capacity of the brush because I want the grains to be more visible, because it creates a nice texture. And just randomly, I'm moving around the leaf surface adding a little bit of darker shades, colors. You see? I also decided to define the darker areas where the veins of the leaves going to be in the next substep in this part. Yeah, I'm quite happy with that. What I'm going to do now, I'm going to try and apply different blending modes. I quite like color burn because it brings this orange color up a little bit and makes it even more united with the flowers like they belong to the same treo plant. Now creating a new layer and creating the clipping mask. I'm going to use the essential filler, small brush because I'm going to create the veins now. Which should I go for? I'm going to go for the slightest sage color that I used for laying the foundation. Yeah. Probably increase the capacity a little bit. To make it more obvious, I'm just going to draw the central vane of the leaf. See, follow the sketch. Remember how we did the sketch? So it's like a curved line going from the base of the leaf to the tip. I'm going to reduce the size of the brush and see gently, just going to pull the color from the central vein, creating this nice, lovely little delicate veins. Also pay attention that I'm not using the same line weight for every single vein. I'm applying more pressure, making the line the line of the vein. When I ease the pressure off, it creates a more delicate touch, like barely visible. And it's again about using different techniques, using different looks for our elements. And that's what creates a nice finished, authentic look and illustration. You see I'm moving gently to the top of the leaf here. That's the skeleton of the leaf is done, not trying to make it perfect. Imperfection is the look I'm going for. I'm just going to emphasize a little bit of the lighter areas using the essential sketch brush. This time I'm using the lightest color in the palette which we have been using for lighter details so far. I'm just outlining, emphasizing some of the areas, not all of them, because I don't want it to look too uniform. I'm still trying to preserve this natural, various types of elements. For our illustration, I just literally touched up a couple of veins and I'm quite happy with the way the veins look. Let's see a check, That's good. Now I'm going to create a new layer underneath the skeleton layer, because I'm going to add a little bit more deeper shades of color with the essential shade of brush. And having changed the blending mode to linear burn, I'm going to try and experiment with different colors. I think I'm going to go for this golden, yellowish green. I think it's going to create a new additional effect to our leaf. Because the blending mode is changed to linear burn, it intensifies the depth of the darker shade of this color, darker tone. You see I'm just moving gently along the central vein of the leaf, on the other side of the leaf. I think I'm just going to go around the edge a little bit more. But again, see for yourself how you prefer it. I'm just basically repeating the veins pattern. And yes, I'm not going to do anything else about that. Quite happy. Let's switch our bird on and see how it all looks together. I think it looks great together. The colors work perfectly. Yeah, I'm going to now create the rest of the green leaves, but I'm going to speed the process up for you because the process is going to be exactly the same, step by step. Feel free to slow the video down if you want to follow along but see you in a moment when we start painting painklets. Here you go, guys. The green leaves are ready now. As you can see on our skate, we've got more leaves to color in here and there. And I didn't color them the same green just for the reason of mixing up different colors from the palette. I think this time I'm going to make them pink. I think there going to sit nicely in our composition. Let's just try and see how it's going to work. I would probably recommend flattening the leaves layers again, because personally I'm not going to change anything about them. I'm quite happy I'm going to create a new layer and I'm first color in this leaf. I'm going to take the essential filler, pick brush. As always, I'm going to layer the color foundation which is this bright pink. I think I'm going to go for, I think it will look nicely next to overlapping that green leaf next to it. Again, alternating the size of the brush. I'm just going to color in the surface of the leaf. That's where we're going to build up additional layers on top. That's, that's it's done creating a new layer and turning it into clipping mask. I'm just going to soften a bit of the color with the essential shade of brush and choosing the peachy pink red, increasing the capacity. I'm just going to add this little yellowish orange, soft texture to it again, for the same reason, with anything else, to unify it with the rest of the illustration. This time I'm going to create a new layer and create a clipping mask, repeating exactly the same process as before. I'm going to change the blending mode to multiply with the same brush, essential shade of brush. I'm going to choose this bright pink color can reduce capacity a little bit. Again, here and there. I'm going to gently paint darker areas of the leaf. With broad strokes, I'm mapping where the vein is going to be going forward, the lighter. In just what I decided on the spur of the moment, it doesn't need to be like that. It could be just darker areas here and there. I've created a new layer clipping mask as always. And selecting the central small brush, this time I'm going to choose the lightest color of the palette, again the one that we use for details. I'm going to create the central vein to brighter. I'm going to reduce capacity. I'm going to create the central vein of my pink leaf. I'm going to just pull the little side vines from the center. Again, with applying different pressure, I'm making the lines some lines thicker, some lines almost like scratches, barely visible. Because I want to create this effect of different mixture of styles. Now I'm just going to grab the essential Skagebrush. I'm going to emphasize not everything, but just some of the veins to make them a little bit lighter, brighter than the rest I, I'm even adding tiny ones a little bit more. The final step for the leaf is underneath the skeleton layer. I'm going to create a new layer and change the mode to linear burn with the essential shade brush color should I use. I think I'm going to go for this maybe brown brownish type of color. Muted brown. I'm just going to add a little bit of darkness to the leaf to make it slightly less flat around the edges. Just a little bit, I did exactly the same thing as with the green leaves. Just slightly different colors. That's not slightly but absolutely different colors. But the principle is the same, the process is the same. You can see that I've still got more pink leaves to color in. I'm going to speed up the process for you, and I'm just going to go ahead and color in the rest of the pink leaves. 17. Decorative Elements: So guys, here is our botanical elements ready. And what I'm going to do now, I'm going to group them individually, the pink leaves. And I'm going to go ahead and flatten them, because now I'm going to add the tiny little details here and there. You can see on our sketch that I've drawn like this decorative elements around. By the way, if you're struggling to come up with your own, go ahead and use my document provided for this class with the ideas of botanical elements. Feel free to use them this time. I'm not going to use any elaborate method of painting them. It's going to be super simple just to create even more contrast between the more complex elements. Let's start with the very first one, the one on top on a new layer underneath everything. And I'm not even going to switch off any of them because these elements are quite not super important. Choosing the essential filler, small brush, increasing the capacity to 100% and increasing the size to around 45% color. I'm going to go is something I'm going to go for, this olive green color. I think it's going to match the rest of the picture. I'm just going to paint, almost scrabble the leaves here. You see, I'm deliberately not feeling solid color into the, into these details because I want this hand drawn effect. You see there are a little gaps, the white gaps left on the leaves. That's deliberate. I've reduced the size of the brush so I can create harper tips of the leaves. And that's all I'm going to do. Just scribble, scribble, that's it. Nothing else with these leaves. Now, I'm moving on to the next one, and this time is this Eucalyptus type of the branch. I'm going to use this medium green teal green color. The technique I'm going to use is the same as I used for the top elements. Just like freehand central line, look for the stem and this oval shaped scribbles for the leaves. I'm just trying to preserve the scribble effect because I'm not striving for perfection. If you're familiar with my, you probably know that it's anything but perfection which is fine. That's the way I like it, that's the way I love it. You see like this oval shaped leaves a little bit smaller at the base, a little bit bigger in the middle. Going smaller again approaching the top of this branch. And that's it. I'm not going to apply any color textures or anything because it's textured enough. Very happy. See another trick for you for digital artists. Duplicate that branch layer and just drag it along and position it wherever you think it belongs best. I'm just going to try and play around the positioning of it. I think I might just flip it horizontally. Quite like that. I can reduce the size. They will be different though. Nobody's going to guess at their exactly same elements. You see that the very last element of God is this type of dry twigs. It's screaming in terms of color, is screaming to me. The brush I'm going to use is the essential filler, big brush, because I want it solid. The color I'm going to use is this dark mulberry color. Just for the contrast, because everything is quite orange and warm, I think this one is going to be darker than the rest. See what I was going to show you. Essential filler. Big brush is also pressure sensitive. It's taper brush. The lighter pressure the line is, the more pressure you apply, the thicker the line gets. That's exactly what we're going to go for in our twigs. You see started with thick pressure pressure. That's why the base is, that's too thick. I'm going to reduce the size, letting it go in the end. Almost like dropping it from the height. Light light drop drop. See that type of hand move, light light drop that creates this effect of almost invisible tips of the twigs. I think that's quite a magic effect, like a magic forest. I'm going to do the same as with the previous element. I'm going to duplicate it. I'm going to reposition it. Let's see where it belongs best. I like it there in between those leaves. Yeah, I'm quite happy with that. And our illustration is almost ready, and all we need to do is to add the branch underneath. And that's it. See you in the next step. 18. Branch: That said, friends, we are on the finishing line, to be honest. Looking at this illustration, I think that if you wish, you could keep it this way without adding anything more. However, since we've scribbled, sketched that branch at the beginning and we decided to give our bird a little bit more foundation. It's just not floating but sitting on something. I'm just going to paint this brush and I'm just going to keep it super simple. Nothing complicated for that. All the leaves, I'm going to create a new layer when I'm going to add the main color foundation. See it's underneath everything because our leaves are going to be on top of this branch, Overlapping it with the essential filler back brush. I'm going to choose the, the beige color is the fourth swatch in the middle row. I'm just going to fill our sketch, the branch with this beige flat color just to create a color foundation. Color blocking, color mapping, whatever you prefer to call it for the additional layering. See, I've switched the leaves off just so I can see properly the branch in case I want to shift it around. Move it around with the essential texturizer. I'm just going to add some color, transitioning it's not as flat. I'm just going to make some orange color just to bring it all together with the rest of the bud. See, no principle, no uniformity, no pattern, just little stains of orange here and there. Then I feel like adding maybe some other color. We've used olive green on the top decorative elements. I just feel like maybe adding a little bit on the branch just to make it slightly more interesting and at the same time unified with the rest of the illustration. Again, here in some places overlapping orange. Yeah, new layer clipping mask multiply, which means that we're going to be adding darker areas with the same brush, the essential texturizer. The color I'm going to use is this brown color. I'm going to add different dark patches just to create a nice texture color texture effect. Not observing, not trying to observe any light and shade rules, just randomly painting. But just remember to do it very gently. It's not too harsh, the contrast is not too sharp, everything should be nice and hazy. In this illustration, that's pretty much it. The very last probably thing I want to add is using the essential sketch brush. I'm just going to add the scratches using that light bache color just to like not trying too hard but imitating the texture of wood texture of a tree branch. Because when you look at the bark, you can see that there are lines there. I'm just, with free hand, I'm just scribbling, scratching those delicate lines. See now I'm hatching here, almost coloring in scribbles. You can do any way you prefer. You see here I'm showing you different techniques, how you can do it, even diagonally, little bit. It creates this nice vintage type texture in keeping with the rest of our illustration. Yeah, quite happy with that. Now I feel like adding a little bit darker element. I'm going to go back on my previous multiply layer, which is underneath the lighter layer. I'm going to take this orange, brown, darkish color with the exactly same pencil moves, I'm going to add darker strokes, darker scratches. It's the essential sketch brush we are using. For that, you see like sketching here and there, scrabbling, making some areas darker around the edges, around the bird's feet just to make them a little bit more visible on the branch. Like literally scribbling, scratching with gentle hand move. Some strokes are longer, some shorter. You see, the more variety you add, the more interesting your illustration is going to look. Now I feel like maybe, yeah, I've switched the leaves back. When you see just feeling like creating just slightly more since the leaves are overlapping, I feel like adding a bit. As for the contrast on the same multiply layer, I'm going to grab the essential text and this olive green color. And I'm just going to darken this piece of wood, the leaf around the place where the leaf overlaps a leaf. And that's it guys, it's ready. Very well done. 19. Final Thoughts: So guys, thank you so much for following me along in this class. You've made it so far and I'm really looking forward to seeing your birds here on scale. Share or feel free to uplad them on social media and tag me. I guess my final thoughts is going to be that don't be afraid to paint. Digital painting is amazing because that's definitely allowing you not to be afraid to make a mistake. You can always cancel some steps or you can start again. You are not wasting any expensive art materials, so don't be concerned about that. Feel free, don't be afraid to experiment with colors, with blending modes with different things, artistic textures and paint brushes, just go for it. Yeah. Looking forward to seeing your birds or maybe you come up with some other ideas. And also since it's my first class on skillshare, I'm really looking forward to hearing your opinion. I would greatly appreciate if you leave me some feedback. And if you also let me know if you want to see more of my skillshare classes and the topics, of course of things you would like to see. Thank you very much. Follow me on social media. I post regularly on Instagram and Youtube. I give away a lot of free tutorials and materials. So I hope to see you soon again. Bye.