Stylized Portrait Painting in Procreate: Create Expressive Digital Characters on iPad | Yasar VURDEM | Skillshare

Playback Speed


1.0x


  • 0.5x
  • 0.75x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 1.75x
  • 2x

Stylized Portrait Painting in Procreate: Create Expressive Digital Characters on iPad

teacher avatar Yasar VURDEM, Creative Art Director

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      1:16

    • 2.

      Painting Base Colors

      6:03

    • 3.

      Painting Eye Details

      2:45

    • 4.

      Detailing Face

      4:45

    • 5.

      Painting Hair

      4:36

    • 6.

      Complete Illustration

      7:54

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

2

Students

--

Projects

About This Class

Learn how to create beautiful stylized portrait illustrations in Procreate using simple shapes, expressive features, and professional digital painting techniques.

In this class, you'll discover how to transform a basic sketch into a polished stylized portrait while maintaining personality, likeness, and visual appeal. Whether you're interested in character design, illustration, social media artwork, or portfolio pieces, this class will help you build a strong portrait-painting workflow.

You'll learn how to:

  • Simplify facial features while keeping character and expression
  • Create appealing stylized proportions
  • Paint skin, hair, and facial details
  • Use color and lighting to add depth and mood
  • Develop clean rendering techniques in Procreate
  • Add finishing touches that make portraits stand out

This class is suitable for beginners and intermediate artists looking to improve their digital painting and character illustration skills.

By the end of the class, you'll have a finished stylized portrait and a repeatable process you can use for future character artwork.

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Yasar VURDEM

Creative Art Director

Teacher

Check my Etsy Shop

Welcome! I'm Yasar Vurdem a digital artist, illustrator, and passionate instructor.

I've spent years developing a vibrant, expressive portrait style that blends realism with bold, painterly energy. Over the years, my artwork has been featured in collaborations with global names such as Billie Eilish, Adobe, Prime Video (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time, Citadel), Wacom, Logitech, XPPen, and many more.

As a professional designer and illustrator, I work across digital painting, character art, concept design, and stylized portraiture. My goal as a teacher is simple: to share the exact techniques, workflows, and artistic mindset that I use in my professional projects in a clear, practical, and inspiring way.

Every ... See full profile

Level: All Levels

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. Welcome to this class on creating stylized portraits in Procreate. My name is Yasar and in this class, I will guide you step by step through designing a unique and expressive portrait illustration. We will start with basic sketch to build the face structure, then move on to simplifying features, choosing color palettes, and adding stylized details that give your portrait personality and character. Will also learn how to use lighting, shading and procreate brushes to create a clean and policied look while keeping your own artistic style. This class is perfect for beginners. But even if you already have some experience, you will discover new ways to develop your style and improve your digital painting skills. By the end of this class, you will have your own stylized portrait ready to share or include in your portfolio. All you need is procreate an iPad and your creativity. Let's get started. 2. Painting Base Colors: Welcome. In this class, we will paint stylized portrait with procreate. This is my sketch, and I will open another new layer under this sketch, and it will be some really human skin tone, but it will be also sweet tone because it is not realistic and it is stylized, so you need to put some reddish color near the cheeks and lip. Because it is a sweet painting, so we need sweet colors. And for hair, for example, I want to make hair really pink or discolors like maybe a bit much more pink, yeah. It will be pink hair, but it will be much more like this. And after you describe these colors, it is your base colors for the portrait. And for eye socket, use some yellowish saturated tone because for keep the portrait warm and I will be really dark from this side. I will put the shadows of the leshes just like this. And this part of the eye will be in the shadow. And eye color can be much more saturated, maybe with some extra color here, and Yeah, look like this. And the other parts will be like this, and I will put the shadows to the portrait just like this. And this part will be lighter. And eyebrows will be dark, but don't make it really black, pure black because if you make it soft, your painting with soft colors will look much more interesting. And for the lip, I will use some dark colors. Then I will open the tone of the lip with the lighter colors. And I will make this part much more lighter. So after it, select saturated dark colors and add some lights over the nose just like this and put much more lighter color over the nose and select darker colors over here and here. And for example, you can put much more shadows over nose. And for checks, I will also use some saturated dark color because we need to catch the volume just like this. Yeah, it's looking really great right now. And this part of the painting will be really, really dark, especially this part. And skin color, we can add much more lights. But be sure you adding some saturated lights because otherwise it will look so fake. For example, I will add lights over here and here, just like this and zoom in here. And this time, I will put lashes all over here. Just like this. And I will do other lushes again. And it is looking really nice so I will increase the light color here and here. Yeah, it is looking really great right now. And in the next step, we will deep dive into detailing much more specific parts such as texture of the face and detail of the dress and the other details. Maybe have some pattern like this. Yeah. And put the other thing here and here. Again, thank you and see you in the next video. 3. Painting Eye Details: Welcome. In this part, we will add the tail to the eyes. At first, start with creating the corners of the eye, just like this. And with the lighter color, apply over here for some extra lights and increase the light depending on your light source. So my highlight is here, and I need to put the light over here. Just like this. And let's zoom in, and I will select a much more smooth line, and I will make this part much more sharp. This is stylized portrait, so we will see less details such as we only see one line as the eyelashes. It is because it is stylized portrait. So we are not making really much detail to keep this style clean. And I will continue to put details over here. Yeah. I will make the corners much more defined like this. And I will put some highlights over the eye. You can add some lidal that stands out the detail level of the eye, and I will select some much more lighter color and will apply over here to give a texture and realistic look over the eye. And I will add the extra details over here like this and here as a detail. And in the next details, we will continue to render nose and 4. Detailing Face: Welcome. We will continue to rendering nose and lips. For nose, go to the brushes and select much more lighter brush and apply over here, and don't forget to put shadows of the nose just like this. And forelips use really darker color, but not black, just pure dark color over here and apply over here just like this. And for this part, I will use really dark color again. And I will use much more darker color also for the corners and use some light brush near this edge, but be sure you're using lip tone, just like this and put the highlight. And for nose, you can use really saturated color just like this. And for cheeks, we will use darker tones, a bit much more darker because I want to make it really smooth and realistic. And for the other part, I will use the same technique, just like this. And at the neck point, I will use darker tone, just like this. And we'll apply light over here a bit much more. And these parts of the eye can be darker also because they are in the dark. So we need to turn the object like the object and put some lights over here, and this part will be really dark. And let's zoom into the nose again and put some shadows over here and put lights over here, just like this. And another light will be over here. But be sure you're using really soft light, just like this. And yeah, it is looking really great right now. And shoulders will be much more darker at this point. And I will add much more light point over the shoulders. And this ear will be in the dark, just like this. And I will put really dark tones over here, just like this. And this part will be really dark, really dark. And touch shadows also important. So be sure you're adding some dark colors at the dark points of the porrd just like this. Yeah, it is looking really great right now, and I will keep adding details at this part. And zoom in the face and open another new layer and select color layer mode. Then use red color and apply over nose and cheeks, just like this. To make the portrait much more sweet. We put some sweet colors around these points. And after this, we will keep adding the tails over hair in the 5. Painting Hair: Welcome. In this part, we will add details over the hair. And with some textured brush, I will select darker color for portrait, and I will apply over here for create the base color because my previous color was really mid tone. We will need some dark base color, so we can add light over it, much more carefully and much more effectively. And this is our base colors. So I will put the base color on all areas of the portrait, just like this. By the way, I will share the base illustration with you like the lines so you can follow and create your own version using the lines. And after this, select much more lighter color and apply over here with a large strokes. Because it is painterly and some have style like the character design with steilization. So don't over detail it. Just try to see the edge and shadows and highlights and other details and put details over them. For example, these parts are darker, so I will put the dark points here just like this. And this part also will be really dark. And this is the nose part will be color it later. I will color it later. And this part also will be dark. You can put or imagine it the dark point of the ear. And let's put some darks here to pop up the details of the illustration like this. And it is looking really great right now. And we can use this same brush for crepe details for the dress, again, like this. Maybe comes like this. Yeah, it's something like this and maybe have some details over here, just like this. Yeah, and details for the dress will be like this and maybe some checker here, we can make the checker with some darker tones like maybe created like from the lace and put some textures here randomly and spontaneously to make it look detailed. And, yeah, it's looking really great. And for this part, I will use textured brush for make it detailed. And let's put to details like shadows at the ear. And here we have a light color here, just like this. And this part will be lighter. And in the next step, we will polish the render and finish the illustration. Hope you enjoy and thank you. 6. Complete Illustration: Welcome again. At this part, we will render much more. Go to the layers and collect all layers and go to the curves and play with this point and make the shadows much more even darker. But don't overdo it a bit much more to make the illustration much more interesting. Upgrade the saturation much more and maybe we can give a bit much more noise for it will add the texture over the portrait, so it will look much more interesting. And chromatic application will also increase the detail level of the illustration. So these parts are really important. So after it, go to the smooch tool. And with this smuch tool, you can so much to edge if you want. And let's continue to creating details over the portrait. For this detail, I will make it much more like the sale shape or some white heart shape here like this. And I will add much more dark colors over here. And you can also use the background color too for a a bit, much more saturation over this detail. And look like this. And the other parts will be here like this. The other detail, and nose detail will be much more polished. I will add much more shadows over the nose. And I will select the dark color and make it much more even darker. And this time with this dark color, I will define the dark edge much more deep. So our painting will have much more t d look like realistic look, but don't overuse it, just for the most darkest place and don't use pure black. I will add some shadows over here. And maybe this part is darker, too, just like this. And the corners will much more lighter just like this. And this light shows how the portrait is turning. So these details are really important. And I will put some anatomic details here that shows the bomb of the portrait, just like this and maybe have some necklace or something over here. And the other and of the portrait can be around somewhere here like this. And here will and much more maybe larger. I will make it like this. And yeah, it is looking really great, and I will add much more shadows over here for create the texture of the hair, even much more faster. I will add some edge here, like dark shadows. And maybe let's put some earring here. And yeah, it is looking really great. And I will put some dark parts over here maybe like this. And much more dark parts around here also. Like this. And this little detail near the portrait will give really good expression to the portrait. So I will add these two edge here. And it is looking really great. And I will add some highlights over the here with holding with my brush, I will add some shiny look like reflection over the portrait, and hope you enjoy this part, and I will continue to add much more over here with another reflection point, and other parts will be here just like this. And here. And I will put some freckles over the portrait with my brush. You can use any textured brush or stamp brush if you wish. And for the dress, I will make the dress much more, even darker to make the portrait much more strong because everything is red in the portrait, so I need to make the dress much more a bit black to keep balance like contrast because this area is really, really saturated. So we need also really dark places to keep balance. And it will be something like this and like this. And maybe these details have lace details over here. And these details also will be lace again here. And maybe some texture over here. And I will put some cute detail here, like heart shape here, and hope you enjoy this class. And if you like this class, please check my other classes too. I really try my best for create a and I can't wait for show you much more. And you also can check my brushes at my Skillshare and my other videos. And I appreciate your support