Shape and Texture.

Giving away all my ‘tricks’ for free!

In the last 3 emails I gave you 3 ways to start building up your illustrations.

1. Understanding 2 Drawing Modes

2. Use simple building blocks

3. Draw dynamic poses easily

We’ve been using different drawing modes and building up with building blocks and practicing poses, you have a strong foundation for coming up with your illustrations.

Today we’re going to build on that foundation use shape and texture.

Unlike the building block from day 2, today I’m talking about the final shapes used in an illustration. Normally this represents some portion of the final illustration. The way I like to think of it is, if I were to make a collage what might one piece of that collage be, It might be a hand or an arm for example.

I would crate that shape and give it a single colour as a starting point. Then using a mask I would add texture and detail to that shape.thats how I think about this process of shape and texture.

Here’s an example.

These are some building blocks from day 2, what I’m looking to do is to create a new shape based on those blocks in this case it could be the body, for example. Once I’ve carved out the shape of the body I would then try to apply texture in a painterly fashion.

These are my steps.

First I create clean flat isolated shapes, here I’m doing it for the body of the bear.

Then using a clipping mask, I start to paint inside the shapes. If you’re working traditionally this is like cutting out the shape and just painting the shape.

You get something like the body texture above, now I do the same with the limbs, more isolated shapes…

Painted with texture…

I do the same for the heads.

And finally, I draw some final details over the whole thing…

Here’s a quick time lapse video of the whole thing.

TEN MINUTES ARTIST PROMPT

Use shape and texture to build up your illustrations.

This is a simple technique that will and a uniqueness to how you illustrate because everyone manipulates shapes and textures differently. Once you have created the final combined shape, finishing up the details is a really fun step!

I n an upcoming Art Gym, I’ll be talking more about shapes, here’s a link if you want to RSVP for that.

PS: So far I’ve shared 4 of the most useful tips that helped me go from a love of drawing to illustrating 15 books in 4 years. One more tomorrow about why it’s so important to make art daily!