Procreate Projects: Draw a Cute Stack of Books

1. Introduction : My name is Dee Smith, and I'm a professional illustrator and qualified teacher based in Scotland in the UK. In this class, I'll show you how to illustrate this cute stack of books using the digital drawing app Propriate. As a professional artist, I use Propriate for all of my work. I have illustrated everything from children's books to greetings cards that I have licensed worldwide. I do this solely using ppropriate. It is my digital art tool of choice because it is super intuitive, has so many amazing features and tools that produce professional level results and as long as I have my iPad, I can make art anywhere. In this class, I'll talk you through the steps needed to illustrate this adorable booksck. You will learn some useful techniques and tools that you can then apply to create your own unique art. Plus, you will have a beautiful piece of art that you can feel proud of. This class is suitable for a range of abilities from beginners through to advanced users. Beginners, I will talk you through each step of the illustration process so that you can easily follow along and get to grips with appropriate basics. More experienced users procreate. This class will help you build on your existing skills. If you're a seasoned pro, you can put your own spin on the class so that you have a commercially relevant piece of artwork that will bolster your portfolio. The class comes with some resources to get you started. I have provided a book stack sketch, and a suggested color palette, and I will explain how to import these into Procreate in the next lesson. As a thanks for taking this class, I am giving you a free star stamp brush that you can use in any future art you make. Let's grab an iPad and get started. 2. Materials and Equipment : For this class, you will need an iPad with the procreate app installed, an Apple pencil or stylus to draw with, and you will also need some additional project resources. To access these, go to the Projects and Resources tab and scroll down until you see download resources. There are three resources here, a booksck sketch, color palette, and star stamp brush to get you started. Click on the Books Stack sketch and when prompted, select Download. Go to the Download icon on the top right and click on this. You should see the Book Stack sketch here. Select this and hit Download and it will export straight into Procreate. Go back to the Skillshare class and click on Books Stacks watches this time. When prompted, select Download and then go to the Download icon and it should be here. When you select the Book stacks watches, because it is a zip file, it will go straight onto your iPad downloads. Simply click on the white part and it will export from here into Procreate. Now, if you open your colors, you can see the watches at the top. Okay, one more to go. Let's go back to Skill Share and select the link for D's star stamp brush. Again, you want to download. Click on this in the downloads and it will go to your iPad. Select the white part as before and it will go straight into Procreate. Now when you go into brushes, you will find the brush. Mine has gone right to the top. Now we are ready to draw. See you in the next lesson. 3. Colouring our Books: In this lesson, we will be coloring our books. You should already have the book sketch open, so we're going to go straight in with the color. Let me show you how to select a brush to color with. On the top try menu, we have a brush too. Tap to open the brush library, and you can see that the brushes are organized into different sets. Today we are using the inking set. Let's tap on this set. You can see that this set has lots of brushes, but let's choose the brush called studio pane. We can use the pen slider bar on the left to increase or decrease the size of our brush by sliding it up or down. Set your brush size to about 30%. Now, let's select our color. On the top right, we have a little circle of color. This is our color library. You can add color by selecting from the disk or our color palette. Today, we will be using the class color palette. We already imported our swatches file, so the booksck palette should be right at the top. You will see it is already set to default because it has a blue tick beside it. The palette is organized into two rows with a light and darker shade of some colors. Let's select our first color from the top row. Next, we're going to open our layers by tapping the layers icon, which looks like two small squares. You will see we have a background layer and our sketch layer. Think of layers like sheets of paper. Each time we color a new section over illustration, we will put on a new layer. This means we can easily go back and change the color of the design at any time. Let's add a new layer by selecting the plus sign. This layer needs to go below our book sketch. To do this, hold and drag below. We are now going to trace the front cover of the top book. If you make a mistake, don't panic. You can take two fingers and tap on your screen to delete the last action. You can also do a three finger tap to redo the last action. Okay. Let's keep going and finish off the outline of the first book cover, ensuring there are no gaps in our lines. This is important and I will explain why in a moment. We are going to use a function called color fill, which quickly allows us to color a shape, and in this case, the shape we will color is our book cover. To color fill, tap on the colored circle at the top right. Next, drag and drop the color into the shape. If all your lines are touching, the shape should now be filled with color. However, if the whole canvas is colored, that means there are gaps and you should go back and close these. We now have a front cover colored on the top book. Let's select the layers icon and choose that plus sign to add another layer. Hold and drag this layer under the book cover. This will be our book spine. Open the color library and choose the darker shades of your book color. This will be in the second row. To close that color library, simply tap the colored circle again at the top bite. Next, trace the outline of the book spine. To zoom in or move your canvas at any time, you can place two fingers on the screen and pinch. Use color drop like before to fill the spine shape, ensuring all lines are touching and there are no gaps. Well done. We have now colored our first book. We're going to color the next three books using the same steps. Tap layers and add a new layer. Hold and drag this layer below your first book spine. Select a different lighter color from the top row of the palette. Tap the circle to close the color library. Let's trace the next book's cover. Because this is a smaller area, I'm going to decrease my brush size, tap the brush size slider on the top left and drag to around 25%. Now fill this with color. Let's do the next book spine. Select layers again and add a new layer. Drag and drop this below the second book cover. Remember if you make a mistake or need to redo at any time, just use the two finger tap. Go to the colors and select a darker shade from the bottom row. Tap the circle to close the color library. Next, begin to trace the spine of the second book, ensuring again there are no gaps. Now fill this with color by dragging and dropping the color circle. Let's turn off our sketch layer to check our progress. Go to layers and tap on the sketch and then tap on the tick to hide the layer. Don't worry too much about messy edges as we will tidy it all up at the end. Let's turn back on our sketch layer and color book three. Tap layers and add another layer. Drag this below all the other books. Choose a new color for this one. Remember to keep it a light shade. Tap the circle to close the color library and trace the outline as before. Let's use color fill to color in this shape. Hopefully, you're feeling more confident with this now. Next, go to layers and add a new layer for our next book spine. Drag and drop below the third book cover. Choose a darker color from the palette and trace the outline of the spine. We have one more book to do, so let's keep going. Go to layers and add a new layer. Then select a lighter color from the palette. Trace the book outline and then use color fill to color this. Add a new layer for the final book spine and drag and drop this to the bottom underneath the last book cover. Choose a darker color from the palette and trace over the book spine. Then drag and drop in your color. Excellent job. We have colored all four books. Let's turn off that sketch later again to see how it's looking. So far so good. In the next lesson, we will be coloring our cup. See you soon. 4. Colouring our Cup: In this lesson, we will be coloring our cup. The process will be like coloring our books, so hopefully you're feeling a bit more confident with. Let's select layers and add a new layer for our cup. This layer will stay on top of all our book layers because we want the cup to be at the front. Open the color library and choose a color from the top row. Using the brush slider, we are going to decrease the brush size to about 20% and we're going to zoom in on our canvas by placing two fingers on the screen and making this motion. Next, trace the outside part of the cup only. Remember, if you need to undo, use the two fingertap at any time. Once your outline is complete, you can use color fill to color the cup. Go back to layers and add a new layer. This will be the base of our cup. We want to drag this layer below our cup layer. Choose a darker color for the base and trace around the outline, making sure there are no gaps. Once this is complete, you can color fill this shape. The next step is our cup handle. We're going to create a new layer for this. We don't have to change the position of the layer this time. Let's keep our color the same. But because it's a small area, we want to decrease the brush size by moving the slider bar down. Now we can trace around the outside of the handle. Again, use color drop to fill in this shape quickly. This now just leaves us to color the inside of the cup. For the inside of our cup, we will need to add a new layer, tap layers and the plus sign to create our new layer. Keep the layer where it is. It should be between the cup and handle. Keep the color the same and trace over the round shape. Go to the color circle and drag and drop to fill it with color. Let's turn off our sketch layer to see how it is looking. To do this, go to layers and find the sketch layer and uncheck this to hide it. I think that is looking super cute. I have a few messy edges, so let's learn how to tidy up our illustration in the next lesson. See you there. 5. Tidy Up our Illustration: In this lesson, you will learn how to use the eraser tool to tidy up your illustration, creating nice sharp edges, and giving your drawing a polished professional finish. Let's start with our top book. Go into layers and select this layer. Tap on the eraser tool and hold your pen down for a few seconds. You will see a message that says erase with current brush. This is the quickest way to ensure that you are erasing with the same brush you colored. Now that we have the eraser selected, we can run this along the edges of the top book. Sharpening up any lines or edges or erasing any messy bits. Now, it doesn't have to be poker straight or completely perfect because we do want it to retain its hand drawn quality, although we do want it to have some finesse. Remember, you can pinch with two fingers to zoom in or rotate until your canvas slightly if you need to. You can see I do this all the time. Once you're happy with the top book cover, you can move on to the spine. Let's select that first spine layer, which should be the layer directly underneath. Tap on the eraser tool and again, tidy up the edges and any parts you aren't happy with. Now, let's repeat the process for the second book spine by firstly selecting the layer and then erasing and sharpening the edges. Repeat these same steps for the other book covers and book spines and also for each part of the cup. Pause the video for a few minutes and join me when you're done. We have now tidied up illustration, and I think it's looking much more polished. In the next lesson, we are going to have lots of fun by adding details to our books and making them much more interesting and unique. See you in the next lesson. 6. Adding Details: In this lesson, we will learn how to use Procreate clipping mask to add fun details and textures to our illustration. This is where we can really put our own spin on the project. We will start with our top book spine. Let's select this layer. Add a new layer by tapping the plus sign. This layer will now be above our book spine. Now, tap on this same layer and in the menu on the left, select the option called clipping mask. You will now see this layer has a little arrow pointing down towards your book spine layer. Anything we add on the clipping layer will be clipped onto the book spine. Adding details on a clip layer means we can always go back and make changes easily. As a professional illustrator, this is so important for me as a client might request a small change. It's good practice to use clip layers, especially if you are thinking about making money from your art. Tap on the brush menu and scroll down until you find the set called textures. Tap to open this set and then select the grunge brush away at the bottom. Set the color of your brush by tapping on the color library and choosing a color from your palette. Think about choosing a color that will work with the color of the book. If it's too similar, you won't see it very clearly. Bear in mind, we need to keep the middle part of the spine free for text, so we want to keep details in the safe space at the edges. I'm going to keep it simple by drawing two thickish lines down each side. I am happy with that. If you need to undo, don't forget the two finger tap this is your best friend. Now we can repeat this process for book to spine. Select this in the layers and add a new layer above. Tap on this layer and then select clipping mask. You will see that arrow again. Now, change the color of your brush by going to color library and palette and then change the style of your brush by tapping on the brush icon. We are still in the texture set, but let's change our brush to rosette. We might need to decrease our brush size using the slider on the left. On the clipping mask layer, let's apply some details at either side of book to Spine. As you can see, these small details really add lots of fun to our books. Repeat this process by adding details to the remaining book spines. Be sure to leave space for text in the middle and be sure to add any detail on a clipping mask layer so we can easily change the details if we want to. Pause the video and spend a few minutes finalizing the details. Our book stack is looking so cute. Our cup, however, is looking very plain. Let's add some detail to the cup. Maybe a nice star pattern using the class resources free stamp brush I provided. Let's tap on the layers and select the main cup layer. Add a new layer above this and tap on this layer. Select clipping mask. Now go to Brush tool, and in the brush library, choose D's star stamp brush that you installed at the beginning. Go to the brush size slider on the left and decrease the size to about 10% by moving the slider down. Choose a brush color from the color palette and then start to stamp onto the cup. Don't worry about going over the edges. Because we are doing this on a clipping layer, the star will only clip to the cup. Change your brush color again and apply a few more star stamps. I'm going to change the color once more and add a final couple of stars to fill up any spaces. Our next detail is to add a drink to the inside of our cup. Let's find the layer with a round inside shape. Add a new layer above this one and then tap on the layer and select clipping mask. We will want to change the brush. Go to the inking set and select the brush called Ica. Change the color of your brush to one of the browns in the color palette. The final detail is to add some steam coming out of the cup to make her drink look like it's hot. Go to your star pattern layer and add a new layer above. Change your brush by selecting the brush icon and finding the charcoal set. Choose the brush six B compressed. Set the brush size to small, about 4% using the slider bar on the top left. You can change your brush color to pure white by tapping on a white in the color disc. Alternatively, you can select the off white from the color palette. Now paint on some wavy lines. Fo, you have created steam. Don't worry if you can't see all the steam. This will be more obvious when we change the background color in a later lesson. Our illustration has really come together, and it's so much more interesting with all these fun details. In the next lesson, we will learn to add some texture to our drawing. See you soon. 7. Adding Texture : Adding texture just gives an illustration much more depth and interest. It gives digital art a more handdrawn quality, which is the look I like. In this lesson, we will learn a quick way to add texture. For this, we will be working on the one layer. You guys should hopefully feel confident adding layers now, so let's jump right in by adding a layer at the top of all the other colored book layers. Notice the little M at the right of your layer. Let's tap on this and open the blend mode menu. Choosing a different blend mode will create different effects in your art. Today, we will be working with the overlay blend mode. Tap to select overlay. Tap back on the layer to close the menu. You can see the M has become an O. Now, go back to your brush library and scroll all the way down to the set called Industrial. Select the brush called rusted decay. Tap on the brush icon to close that brush menu and go to the color library. Go to the color disc and select a gray that is right in the middle. When using an overlay blend mode, we work in different shades of grey. To add a lighter effect, we would choose a lighter gray and to add a darker effect, we would choose a darker gray. If you choose a gray right in the middle, it won't work, so be careful of that. Let's choose a darker gray. Tap back on the color library to close this. Now we are gently going to paint some texture over our books. Be sure to keep your brush within the books. We don't want it going on the background if you feel your texture is too intense, then you can tap back on the texture layer and pull the slider to change the opacity. I'll set mine to about 80%. Tap the layers icon to close this. Let's now add some lighter texture by going to the colors library and selecting a lighter gray this time. Again, paint some texture over the books and cut too. You can reduce your brush size on the top left slider FE two. Although the texture is subtle, I think it really enhances our art and makes a big difference. Next, we will add some drop shadows to our books to make them look more three D. Let's go to layers and select the top book cover. We are going to be painting on a shadow that the cup would cast. We are going to do this on a separate layer, so let's add this. Tap on the new layer and select clipping mask. Tap on the N and then scroll down and set the blend mode to overlay like before. Go to our colors and in the color disc, we're going to choose a darker gray. Now, tap the brush icon and scroll down to the charcoal set. Select six B compressed. Tap back on the brush to close the brush library. Zoom into your top book using the two finger motion. Paint a round shape for the shadow. If it looks too intense, then go back to the layer and change the opacity to about 50%. We will do the second book the same. Select the second book cover in the layers and add a new layer above. Again, set the blend mode to overlay and change the opacity to about 50%. Now paint on the drop shadow. We are going to continue these steps for book cover three and four. Pause the video and give yourself a couple of minutes to complete the drop shadows. We have now added on some shadows, and I think these subtle changes make all the difference. Great job, everyone. In the next lesson, we will learn how to use the text tool to add some fun titles to our books. See you then. 8. Adding Text: In this lesson, you will learn how to use the text tool to enhance your art. Procreate comes with some pre installed fonts, or you can buy fonts online to import. Let's start by selecting the Actions menu. This is the wrench icon on the top left next to the gallery. Tap on the wrench icon to open the Actions menu. Tap on the icon that says ads. From this menu, let's select Add Text. A blue bounding box will appear containing the word text. Use the keyboard to type your new book title into the textbook. The textbox will extend to fit your changes. To change the font style, you can use one finger to double tap the text. This will open the text entry Companion. You can tap and drag the larger blue nodes around the text to highlight all the text. To further adjust the text font or style, tap the font name in the font entry companion. This will open the Edit Style panel. Now we can scroll through the fonts and select one we like. I'll select American typewriter. You can also change the color of the text, which is highlighted by going to colors and choosing one from the palette. Think about a color that will work well with your book. To move the text, let's drag the bounding box to where our book spine is. To resize the textbox, you can drag the blue nodes. Notice that it changes the size of the textbox, but the text size stays the same. To change the text size, move the size slider down until it fits your book. Once you are happy, click Done. We need to repeat this process for each new book title. Let's select to the Actions menu again. This is the wrench and select Add Text. Use the keyboard to type the name of the new book. Let's do a one finger double tap on the text to open the text entry companion. Tap and drag the blue nodes to highlight all text and then tap the font name and select a font from the list. Choose a color by tapping on the color library and selecting a color from the palette. We can adjust the size of the slider. And move the textbook to fit in our book spine. Let's select the Actions menu again. Remember, this is the Rnge icon. Select Add Text. Use the keyboard to type the name of the new book. Let's do a one finger double tap on the text to open the text entry companion. Tap and drag the blue nodes to highlight all text and then tap the font name and select a font from the list. Choose a color by tapping on the color library and selecting one from the palette. We can adjust the size on the slider and move the text box to fit into our book spin. If we need to rotate our text slightly, then we can select the transform tool, which is the arrow here, and we can move the green node to rotate. Once you are happy with this, you can tap the transform tool to deselect. Repeat these steps, pause the video and join back in a few minutes. A You can edit your text at any time by going to Layers, selecting the text and choosing edit text. Our book set is now complete with titles. The final step is to add a simple background. I will see you in the next lesson. 9. Adding a Simple Background: In this final lesson, we will change the background color and add a few more details to finish things off. Go to layers and scroll right down until you see the background color layer. Tap best to open the color library. From your palette, choose the off white or any other color you like. Add a layer and drag it above the background. Let's now add some star stamps to frame our booksck. You can change the color and size of these if you like. The very final step is to add a drop shadow underneath our booksack. I'm just going to keep this on our current layer with the stars. Select the color of your background by holding a finger down on the background. Now, go to the disc and choose a slightly darker version of this color. Now go to brushes and find the charcoal set. Select six B compressed and paint a shadow under your books. Our booksack is now complete. I am so excited to see your finished project. 10. Sharing our Project and Final Thoughts : Congratulations on completing your books that illustration. I hope you enjoyed the class and you now have a better understanding of Procreate and all its possibilities. I really hope you continue your Procreate journey and apply these new skills to create your own unique works of art. I can't wait to see your finished project. Please do post your projects. Posting your work is a great way for me to leave you some positive feedback and for you to interact with fellow students. Be sure to comment on their work too. I know it will make someone's day and the chances are they will leave you a comment right back. Head to the Projects and Resources tab within the class. From here, click Cate Project. Follow the prompts relevant for your project and then click published when finalized. If you enjoy my class, then please give me a follow to stay up to date on any future classes and announcements. Click the follow button next to my name on top of the video lesson player on your profile page. You can learn more about me on my website and Instagram too. You can share your work on Instagram if you like, but please tag me so that I can reshare and leave a comment. Finally, please leave a clash review. It really helps my class to gain traction and I would appreciate it so much. You can leave a review by going to the reviews tab beneath the video player in class on the right hand side. Thanks so much for drawing along with me today. See you soon.