Hello! and welcome to this tutorial where I will be showing you the workflow I follow when making flat illustrations, and I will also be showing you 5 tips that will facilitate the entire process.

 

If you are not familiar with this type of illustration, they are those composed of simple shapes and colors; we could say it is a minimalist illustration that prioritizes the readability of the image over more complex details within an illustration.

 

This type of illustration is perfect for those who are starting in drawing.

 

Here is the video tutorial:

 

TIP 1. Appeal and simplification

Let's define what we want to illustrate. In this case, I want to illustrate the encounter between a child and an animal, all happening in a forest. The title of the work will be "meeting."

 

The key to this type of illustration is the simplification of the elements within the drawing. To do this, we are going to dissect the elements of the composition. In this case, we have: the child, the animal, and the forest -> the forest, in turn, has trees, bushes, flowers, and vegetation in general.

 

Beyond simplification, I like to apply what is a basic principle in animation: "appeal." This principle consists of creating characters that are visually attractive to the audience; it doesn't mean making them mega beautiful and detailed, but rather interesting to look at and easy to read.

 

To extrapolate this to our context, the key would be to identify the most striking characteristics of the elements and/or characters and enhance them, while simplifying what is not so important, and removing it if possible.

 

 

 

To simplify, we are going to reduce complex shapes into simple and basic shapes.

 

Once we know how to draw the elements within the drawing, we will make the sketch.

 

TIP 2. Lineart & Edges

Let's explore the main characteristics of this type of illustration (In my style).

 

◆The first thing we will keep in mind is: We don't use lineart.

This doesn't mean we won't have lines within the drawing; we can use them to distinguish elements that would otherwise be difficult to understand.

 

◆Edges / Borders.

We will have several types of edges within our illustration.

As a general rule, I make characters with hard edges, whereas for background elements, I like to add textured edges to a greater or lesser extent. You can take this as a reference, but apply edges as you prefer.

 

 

 

The brushes I use most often are the default ones in Clip Studio. I mainly use:

 

For hard edges: G-pen, playing with smoothing. (1)

 

For elements I want to add texture to, I use: the wax brush (2), gouache (3), dry gouache (4), and the bristle 03 (5).

 

 

Sometimes I use more exaggerated edges for elements that are more complex, such as leaves on trees and bushes.

 

For these, I use: the pencil brush and the charcoal brush.

 

I repeat the same modus operandi with elements that have a gaseous nature, such as clouds, mist, smoke, etc.

TIP 3. Use Harmonies to choose your colors.

Color harmony refers to the coordination of colors that coexist in a composition. Harmonies tend to have three types of colors:

 

1- Dominant: It is the most neutral and widespread. Its function is to highlight the other colors that make up our composition.

2- Tonic: Which is normally a complementary color to the dominant one, it is the most powerful in color and value.

3- Mediating: Which serves as a transition between the previous ones.

Don't get overwhelmed when choosing your colors because there are harmonic schemes that will help us choose colors more easily. There are many, but the ones I usually use are the following:

 

1- Complementary colors

These are colors that are directly opposite on the color wheel.

 

2- Analogous colors

Analogous colors are located next to each other on the color wheel.

 

3- Split-complementary colors

We take a base color (A) and look for its complementary color. We will use that color, or rather, the nearby ones.

 

4- Triadic colors

Three colors are chosen that are equidistant on the color wheel.

 

I opted for a complementary harmony: Red-Green.

TIP 4. Organize your layers

We will be working on different layers for each element of the drawing. For example: For the child, one layer for the skin, one layer for the hair, another for the shoes, etc. In turn, I organize these layers within a folder.

 

In this case, I have: A folder for the child, a folder for the deer, and a folder for the background.

 

When we are going to place light and shadow details, we can turn the folders into a "File Object." To do this, we stand on the folder, right-click > File Object > Convert layer to File Object.

 

What this function does is create a separate file with each of the layers within the folder, and in the file where we are working on the illustration, what was previously a folder becomes a layer. The cool thing about this is that if we modify the separately created file, it is reflected in the layer within the illustration file.

 

TIP 5. Shadows & Light. Final Details

In this type of illustration, they will be as simplified as possible.

 

We are going to cast shadows in a way that helps with the readability of the image. For example:

To distinguish the limbs, we can add small shadow details to characters:

To do this, we create a new layer above the layer we want to shade, set it to Multiply blend mode, and with the help of icon (a) to clip the new layer to the layer below.

 

The brush I use for these cases has a quite pronounced texture; I like to use the pencil brush.

 

For background elements, I like to add soft gradients with texture:

An extra tip you can do is add a layer with a light color over all the layers to further unify the drawing.

Finally, we are going to add the last details and that's it!

End & Acknowledgments.

Well, that's it for the tutorial. I hope it helps you when making this type of illustration. Don't forget to practice, and see you in another tutorial~