I just created a fun little illustration and I'm very excited to show you the process of it.
So grab your sketchbooks if you like to draw along and let's get started!
♪ music ♪
I decided to do a little bit of experimenting with today's
illustration and use a violet Prismacolor Col-erase pencil.
Now, I've used these a lot. They're one of my favorite colored pencils
I just like to sketch with them.
But I don't often put marker over top except I did do it when I did the scribble challenge,
and I thought it turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd give it another go.
I tend to use
rose or pink colored Col-erase pencils, I think it just really
pushes the skin tones better cuz like the pink dissolves and looks a little bit like blood vessels,
and I don't know it just brings life into your skin tones,
whereas if you were to use green, it wouldn't look as good and the character might look dead or rotten.
So I thought I'd experiment and try to use purple
but use a different color scheme and see what happens.
Faces are like my
favorite thing to draw so I don't know why I always draw the same facial expression.
I don't know I go through phases where I draw a super smiley characters and then I draw
like just flat faced characters for like a couple weeks, and I don't know this time I'm in the little pouty face phase right now.
Whenever I start a drawing I tend to have just the vaguest of an idea in my head.
Sometimes I know exactly what I want it to look like,
but if I'm drawing something,
I usually can like - I don't know - in a few split seconds come up with something vague and
the vague idea I had for this drawing was a girl standing there pretty
confidently - 'cause I just saw Captain Marvel - and her arms are going to be like in the pockets of like one of those
big oversized...
button-down shirts, but her arms aren't like right up against her body, they'd be outwards a bit,
so her hands are in the pockets and that's what's holding the shirt
outwards, and
I thought this idea what's really really fun
and I was - it just got me excited so then I started to draw; it's like the weirdest little things that get me excited like
I don't know sometimes I'm like, I just really want to draw shoes and then I draw entire character just to draw the shoes.
You never really know where you're going to find inspiration,
so just keep your eyes open!
Whenever it comes to the point in the illustration where I need to decide what the haircut of the character is going to be,
that's usually when I hit a bit of a brick wall because the extent of my hair
creativity kind of ends with long hair, short hair, bangs, or no bangs.
Haha
So I - I find myself going over to Pinterest a lot for information on uh...
different hairstyles and there are a gazillion
different hair styles and different
haircuts that you can put your character in,
but for some reason that is just where my brain ends; it just - it draws the line, haha.
It can't maintain more than two different hairstyles in my head at one point.
So yeah, in Pinterest I found this hairstyle and
what I - what it really inspired me was just the cut of it; I really liked the length;
I liked that it ended below the chin but above the
shoulders and then I found another hairstyle that was curly and I decided to mix those two together and
you'll notice that the hair doesn't look like a bunch of strands and for a long time
I only followed artists
- well I mean I still follow them -
but I followed artists who would draw very detailed and elegant and gorgeous hair and it was so
detailed and I always thought it was so inspiring and I'd try it out in my own style and it just never really fit.
Like I'm sure there are plenty of ways to make it fit but it just never
gelled with me so lately
I've been trying to simplify the hair and draw it in chunks and shapes and I don't know
I'm really excited about the direction this is taking my art. I'm very happy with it,
like it definitely needs some more experimentation, and I'm just excited to play around with it more and you know
see where it takes me.
Oh and the weird like floaty bangs, that was my idea. Haha.
I thought, "hm, what if the wind is blowing your bangs" because back when I had bangs,
the slightest breeze would just *plloof!* and then they'd
just wouldn't look good anymore I mean like they're just like
maybe three different locations your bangs can be where it flatters your face and then anything else it's like
"Oh hello look at my giant forehead!" So, I mean, that's how it works for me.
So I thought it'd be fun to play around with that idea on an illustration
and just make the banks kind of floaty and soft,
kind of like the rest of her hair because it's all very
bouncy and I thought that just suited the entire hairstyle overall
For the outfit I kept it all pretty simple again
I had that idea that I wanted'er to have that large button-down shirt
but then when it came down like her undershirt and her pants,
I kind of just kept it very simple tight skinny jeans and a tank top.
Haha
I don't know something I would wear so that's how I thought about that.
I didn't go on Pinterest so I didn't come up with anything
extra creative beyond the very small scope of my own knowledge, so-haha..
But I - but I'm still happy with it. I did...
mhhm!
- to make it look a little less like me aha,
I gave them ripped jeans.
I'm one of those people that wouldn't buy ripped jeans because jeans just get rips in them over time
and I'm not gonna pay to have the holes.
Like I know a lot of people think that way as well, so but they look good on her so...
Yeah, I just put them in random locations that I thought were interesting, but weren't too symmetrical.
Now even though I said earlier that my
inspiration for this drawing was mainly having a girl with her hands in like the pockets of her button-down shirt
and like pulling 'em apart a bit so that I don't know you get that interesting cape look.
Uhhm
I noticed,
not as quickly as maybe I could have, haha,
that this was a very very difficult pose to draw. Not just the
character, but the folds and knowing what part of the shirt is the inside of the shirt,
what part of the shirt is the outside of the shirt and like where those are overlapping.
And I got very very confused very quickly, and I kept thinking "no I can - I can figure this out"
I like looked at myself with my hand in my sweatshirt pocket and like kind of tried to do the same pose,
but I couldn't translate it into the drawing and maybe if I had taken a picture that would have been helpful,
yeah, I think I'll do that next time
but
Eventually, I started erasing the same drawing so many times that the paper was getting a little like irritated with
me, you know, it was like, "come on, make up your mind, woman!"
and I - I
decided to go a different route because
You can only like
You know try so many times on the same piece of paper in the same location
So I decided that learning how to draw this pose was something better for a sketchbook where you can like, you know
Draw one that don't look too good
But then just move over and draw another one that don't look too good and you don't have to really you know
You don't have to be perfect on the first try or you don't have to end up with something perfect in that one spot
So I decided to draw a little puffy coat - one of those like fluffy ones, you know, that's like really soft. I don't know
I'm seeing a ton of people wearing these they would not look good on me
I think I would just look like Winnie the Pooh or something
But they're like soft and fluffy and they come in all different colors
So instead of having a button-down t-shirt, which was the original plan. I went with the poofy fluffy coat
I feel like the pocket doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but I do like the hand
I think it's curved in a very natural way
Although when I added that fingernail it started looking like a little witch fingers
*laughs like a little witch*
But I figured this character probably has nail polish, so I decided to leave it
Here's when I finally began adding the poofiness of the poofy coat
I don't actually know what those are called because I think - like a puffer jacket is like one of those big
Shiny jackets with like pillows that go up and down your arm. So it's not one of those it's like fluffier and softer
It's kind of like a sweatshirt but a coat. I don't know
It's not a fur coat is it's made out of like cotton or something
But it's like made to look fluffy like a blanket
But you wear it as a coat basically like the upgraded Snuggie
and you can wear it out without being like stared at you know?
-- I would use some horizontal lines along the edge of the
coat to give it that softer fluffier look and I think that worked pretty well. I'm actually very happy with that
It wasn't my plan going in but sometimes plans change and I don't know it was definitely fun to draw
so I had a lot of fun with that - now even though I didn't go with the
Crazier pose with the hands in the pockets there still were some interesting layers of fabric. So to
really create contrast and
Make the further areas sit further back in the page and the further forward areas
feel more like they were closer to the viewer. I
shaded in
the furthest areas the darkest like then the next layer up a little bit lighter and then the stuff that's like in your face is
Just the paperwhite.
I went a little crazy with the texture (maybe not crazy, but just like, you know fun with the texture)
so I added like a bit of a gradient to the jeans and I really
Shaded an added texture to the entire drawing because I was experimenting in another way today
I thought it would be fun to see what would happen. If I didn't use a line art
Just let the sketch speak for itself and then use the Copic markers on top of that
So that is why I went with this specific look for the sketch and before I start adding in colors
I wanted to make sure that I was using the right colors
So I created a couple of thumbnails and tested out some different color combinations
I decided I really wanted it to be like a bright like red and turquoise color scheme because that was just speaking to me
some cyan and red kind of?
So I tried a couple different
variations of those same colors and
And then I went with the one that I liked the best which ended up being that bottom one
But then after I do the drawing I kind of like that second one
But yeah, I'm still happy with the colors that I chose
So moving on to the actual drawing I take those colors that I learned from
swatching and
Creating thumbnails and I begin applying them to the drawing
the first thing I colored in was the tank top which happened to be the only
Major turquoise element of the drawing and I just wanted to make sure I could get that to look good and I also made it ---
when I was drawing a tank top, I took special care not to just draw like a random tight fabric
I added some wrinkles to kind of make it look like she had tied it in the back into a knot
I don't know if you've ever done that but it creates these like
interesting flattering wrinkles and I tried to include some of those in her design
then I moved on to coloring the
skintone
I'm very happy with the texture of the sketch and the way the marker kind of
sits on top of it and absorbs some of the smaller lines but lets the thicker bolder lines
Really shine and I don't know it's a look that I really really like it
I mean, that's basically what I just said
But like I said earlier, this was an experimentation to try and use purple and see how well that would work
But I'm I think I'm definitely learning that it doesn't look too good with certain skin tones
and I think this skin tone was a little too pale and the purple kind of makes it look a little muddy and gray so
I might try and find like a lighter purple and try that but sometimes when you use pink
At least the Rose prismacolor col-erase pencils that I usually use for sketches with Copic markers. It's lighter. It's not as
Bold, so when you go over with Copic markers a lot of it blends into the Copic marker and just like disappears, the darker lines
obviously are still visible but you you often need to add a line art on top of it because
It's all very subtle
Which I really really like
Because then you can add your line art on top of that and you don't have to worry about your line art
Bleeding or blending with a marker which usually ends up with a cleaner look in my opinion
So I do like that it does that but I want to find a way to be able to create this
Texture and add colors without having to worry about anything looking muddy
So that is something I'm going to continue experimenting with in the future
but overall I'm very happy with the way this drawing turned out even if
Purple may not have been the best option. I suppose if I had chose different colors the purple would work just fine
But yeah, I'm learning something new every day
So then I moved on to coloring her hair and the entire time I was doing this. I kept craving a frosty
I'll let you infer what that means
*laughs so loud the audio clips*
At this point I didn't think there was enough contrast really
driving attention towards the eyes, I tried to avoid line art by
just go over that darker with the same Col-erase, pencil pushing really really hard
Like around where the eyelashes would be and then also trying to make the pupil pop
(obviously not like 'pop' gushing, but like, You know, 'pop' visually)
then I began adding in the red for her coat and something I didn't foresee
when it came to using the purple pencil was that I had three separate
Red colors and had like a light tone of mid-tone and a dark tone and in my thumbnails
It's pretty obvious and I did use the same purple pen
But it's much lighter lines and they're thinner and there's like no shading or texture in there at all
So then moving on to the finished drawing when I was adding in like these colors they were blending together and looking very very similar
especially where I had like added a lot of shading and this was causing a lot of loss of
like contrast between these colors and it kind of makes it look like there's just red and
turquoise like those are the only two colors that I used for the drawing when that really wasn't the
Intent because I had colors that I was going to use to shade each of those three separate reds
And now that they were all looking the same
It didn't really matter and I'm a little bummed about that but I'm still happy with the color scheme
like I like the cyan or turquoise, (I don't know are those the same color? cyan and turquoise,?) I
Don't know. I've been using them interchangeably
But like I like the turquoise and the red the way they look together
I think it's just a cute color scheme, and she ended up looking a little bit like a rock star
So yeah can't complain there
when this became really obvious was when I started coloring in the pants and I tried to add like a little bit of
shine to the pants
so they were lighter down the center of the leg and
Darker towards the outside of the leg to give that round effect and make him look really tight
but there wasn't enough contrast between the pants and the coat especially where the coat was in the
Background like the shading of the coat. So I did end up going over the entire pant section with like a flat
darkest red that I had
And I think that did help make them look separate from the coat
It did lose that light texture that I wanted, but I think it was for the best
Then I went in and added some random floatie circles to the background
*hesitant laugh
not crazy about this....
But I was also too lazy to draw a real
background and I also for a while was like what even would be in the background like
What do I draw like a backstage or someplace
Do it like and there's not even that much room to like you have to think of the background when you're creating the entire
Illustration you can't really add it in later or it's going to look silly
Like my little circles, even if it is like a fully detailed background it probably will have some issues
So if you're going to do a background, you need to know you need to know so from the beginning and yeah
That's something I'd like to do a little bit more of
I have been doing it a little bit more than lately......?
Wait....?
[corrects herself, clearly, slowly] I have been doing it a little bit more lately than I have in the past
But today I felt like cheating so I just drew a bunch of little circles
But then I thought the circles I'm like geez all there is circles... big circles and little circles
Why don't they add another shape? So I added a couple tiny little triangles?
That was literally the only thing that was going through my brain at that point
no real rhyme or reason
Then I went in with my Sakura Decorese pen. It's a white. Gel pen. I don't know
it's just what I've had on my desk lately and I started adding in some highlights here and there I also used it to
Redraw some of the lines that got lost in the pants because I used such a dark red color it definitely
Overwhelmed the purple sketch. So I used this pen first to just create like some fringe around where there were holes in the
denim, but then I thought I'll just use that to draw all of the lines like trace over the lines that i had earlier and it's
Actually kind of cool what I do with that later. once it's dry. You have to wait till it's completely dry
then I went over the white gel pen with like a lighter red and
It created like this pretty cool texture where it looked like I lined it with a light red and then colored it with a darker
Red, then I went back to the eyes and actually did use a micron and add in some eyeliner and but you know
Just darken those eyes because I like the eyes to be a main focal point. It's kind of why I draw them
So huge sometimes so this was no exception
The way I did that was by using the pen and it's some of the only black and the whole drawing
I did go over a few other
Sections that I thought needed it to like help separate some of the colors that ended up looking too similar like the Reds
but for the eyes I also did like
makeup to make those eyes look even bigger and bolder because I like eyes to just like when you see the drawing
You know exactly where the eyes are. You don't even have to think about it.
I'm making it very easy for the viewer
ah, i forgot i did this!
So I thought she reminded me of ketchup for some reason
so I drew a little ketchup bottle on her shirt like very vaguely cuz I'm like
Oh, I might be able to erase this later, but then it turned out you really couldn't really erase it
So I made it a little bit darker and yeah, just wrote 'ketchup' and there you have it 'ketchup girl'
She's got a ketchup bottle on her t-shirt....
So this is my finished illustration
with all the colors and the sketch and I think there's a lot of white space at the top
I kind of just messed up when I put the head on and I didn't really
Think about where I was placing the rest of the body
So if I had done it a little higher, I think it would have made a little bit more sense
But this is the finished illustration
I
Hope you enjoyed coming along with me on the process of creating it and I hope maybe if you had your sketchbooks out you created
Something that you're proud of as well. Thank you guys for watching
I'll see you guys all next week and I hope you have a delicious evening full of waffles!
Bui!!
♪