Today we're going to create a sweet, delicious, tasty donut illustration, with the help of
my new Grain Shader brushes, which you can download for free from Spoon Graphics.
These brushes help you bring your flat artwork to life with depth, shading and the sought-after
grainy textured appearance.
I'll show you my favourite technique for easily painting in highlights and shadows, then we'll
use some Photoshop tricks to finish off the donut illustration with colourful sprinkles
I'm using a canvas size of 3000x2000px.
Begin by choosing a nice background colour by clicking the foreground colour block.
I'm using a pale green of CAEBE2.
Use the ALT+Backspace shortcut to quickly fill the canvas.
Choose the Elliptical Marquee tool to draw a circle to represent the overall donut shape.
Hold the Shift key to keep it perfectly circular.
You can move the shape around by holding the Spacebar, before you release the mouse.
Add a new layer, then choose a doughy beigh colour, such as EFD49A.
Use the ALT+Backspace key again to fill this area on the new layer.
To create the donut hole, right click and choose Transform Selection.
Hold both the Shift and ALT keys while scaling down the circle selection.
Hit Enter to confirm the transformation, then the backspace key to make the hole.
Go to Select > Deselect the clear the selection.
Add a new layer to contain the icing, then choose a sweet pink as the new foreground
colour, I'm using F65FFF.
Grab the Brush tool and choose one of the hard round tips.
Open up the Brush Settings and reduce the Spacing to zero.
Check the Smoothing setting, then in the top toolbar, max out the Smoothing slider to 100%,
this will iron out the kinks of painting by hand to create a nice smooth outline.
Draw a wobbly outline around the donut, followed by an outline around the donut hole, then
fill in the centre area.
Reducing the Smoothing value back to 0% makes it easier to block in this area without the
brush lagging.
My favourite way to use the Grain Shader brushes is with clipping masks.
Add a new layer above the donut icing layer, then hold the ALT key while clicking between
them to turn the layer into a clipping mask.
If you haven't already, download and install my Free Grain Shader brushes, then choose
one of the grainy brush tips.
Reset the foreground and background colours to black and white, then alter the brush size
to suit the scaling of your artwork to apply nice large scatterings of grainy texture.
Begin lightly shading around the icing.
If you're a Wacom user, the brushes are compatible with the pen pressure sensitivity, so the
lighter you press, the lighter the shading.
Switch the foreground and background around to paint with white, then apply some highlights
within the centre of the donut.
You can also use the X key to quickly switch between painting with black and white to add
depth to the illustration.
Experiment with the blending modes to see what kind of vibrant effects you can create
from the shading.
Overlay or Hard Light are good choices.
Add a layer above the donut ring and turn it into a clipping mask.
Paint with the shading brushes to apply shadows and highlights to this portion of the illustration.
Keep in mind where your light source is to apply shadings in the right places.
Change the blending mode to boost the colours of the shading.
I'm using Overlay.
Create another layer above the Background, but don't turn this one into a clipping mask.
Paint around the donut to cast a shadow with grainy effects.
Use the Color Burn blending mode for this layer, then reduce the Fill amount to around
90% to boost the colour, followed by the opacity to around 60% to reduce its appearance.
Add a new layer right at the top of the layer stack and use a smaller brush size to paint
some highlights in white.
Change the blending mode to Color Dodge and reduce the fill to around 30% so they vibrantly
blend with the pinks.
To add some sprinkles to the donut, create a new layer and set up the brush tool with
a hard round tip.
Alter the size to the appropriate size of a sprinkle, then hold the Shift key while
clicking and dragging a short line.
Turn off the visibility of all the other layers, leaving just this single sprinkle on a transparent
background, then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.
Bring all the layers back, then select this newly created brush with the Brush tool.
Head over to the Brush Settings to change some options.
First, turn on Scattering and move the slider to around 180%.
Under Shape Dynamics, increase the Angle Jitter to max so the sprinkles appear in a random
orientation.
Then under the Brush Tip Shape settings, increase the Spacing so the sprinkles don't overlap.
Before continuing, use the CMD (or CTRL key on Windows) and A shortcut to Select All,
then delete that initial sprinkle shape.
Set up the foreground and background hues with two different sprinkle colours.
I'm using a bright yellow of #E9DC12 and #1261F3.
Clicking and dragging produces too many sprinkles of the same colour, so dab individual sprinkle
shapes around the donut.
Hit the X key to switch the colours around, so you can evenly space out all the sprinkles.
Double click the sprinkles layer to add some layer style effects.
Add a Bevel and Emboss effect and max out the Soften setting, then increase the Size
to around 30px.
In the Shading section, set the opacity of the Highlights to 30% and the Shadows to 10%.
Add a Drop Shadow next, set the Size to around 20px and take the opacity down to around 20%.
OK these effects to give the sprinkles more of a three dimensional appearance.
Add a new layer and paint some texturing to reduce the clean appearance of the sprinkles
so they match the rest of the artwork.
ALT+Click to clip the layer so it's only applied to the yellow and blue shapes.
You could call the illustration complete here, but you can make anything look cute with a
happy little kawaii face!
Activate the sprinkles layer and use the Lasso tool to select and move any individual shapes
that are in the way.
You can also press CMD+T to Transform and rotate them into a better layout.
Add a new layer, then use the Elliptical marquee tool to draw an eye.
Fill it with black, then draw a smaller circle to form a highlight.
Fill this with white.
Press CMD+D to Deselect, then with the Move tool activated, hold the ALT key while dragging
the eye to make a copy.
Right click on the layer in the Layers panel and choose Merge Down to keep them both contained
on one layer.
Draw a larger circle with the marquee tool to act as a mouth, then switch to the rectangular
marquee tool and hold the ALT key while dragging a shape over the top half to form a half-circle.
Fill this with black.
Before deselecting, set up the brush tool with a hard round tip with a red colour.
Make a single click to add a tongue within the mouth shape.
Add a new layer below this face layer, then reset the foreground and background colours
to black and white.
Set this layer to the Overlay blending mode.
Use a grain shader brush, but at a much smaller size to paint in some highlights and shadows
around the eyes and mouth to give the impression that they are inset within the donut icing.
The final result is a cute little donut illustration with vibrant colours and grainy shading that
brings the artwork to life with textured highlights and shadows.
Using these same techniques, you can produce fun illustrations of anything.
If you enjoyed this tutorial or learnt any new tricks, it would be great if you could
give the video a Like to help spread the word.
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As always thank you very much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one!