I don’t have sweet tooth, but I often can’t take my eyes off of beautiful sweets and desserts. Drawing sweets is my hobby and I’d love to share my knowledge with you.

 

In this post, I focus on how to draw each part of the sweets because there’s a lot to focus on. For the streamlined drawing process, check out the speedpainting video for the actual drawing process:

Preparation

Isometric Grid and Cheat Catalog

To make it less overwhelming, all sweets were drawn isometric perspective. Deciding the perspective is a quarter the battle, to me at least.

 

Download the grid and geometric shapes along with isometric plates, glasses and bowls here:

Color Palette

I tend to use warmer tones for food illustrations. Here are the color palette for every sweets in this tutorial.

 

(Note: The palettes were prepared before painting, there are some colors I ended up not using)

Brush and Textures

I use a modded Mapping Pen and modded Hard Eraser for every drawing. I paint mainly using my custom made Wet Gouache brush.

 

For bold strokes, press away! Download my three essentials here:

The Wet Gouache brush is excellent for mixing and painting (says the creator lol). Use low pressure for mixing, because the color is thinned. Use higher pressure to create bold strokes.

 

Also, it could be used to mix smooth gradient when used on the same layer with an existing color. In this tutorial, I often paint on one layer because of this feature.

I made these texture brushes for food drawings, mainly baked goods:

Sketch and Line Art

The process of sketching the five sweets are all the same. The first step is to drag and drop the isometric grid onto the canvas. It’s to ensure everything aligned properly, but not absolutely necessary.

Next, drag and drop the first shape. If you want to use a dish, drag and drop it first onto the canvas.

WARNING: If you’re using the isometric shapes I created, please only scale and flip the shapes. Do not rotate or free transform because it will mess with the perspective.

After, drag and drop the geometric shapes according to your desired arrangement. Sometimes I use the shape as the base, sometimes I use it like a grid/measurement tool.

Start sketching the details.

After the sketch is done, draw the line art. I prefer drawing it on vector layer.

 

If you watch the video, you’d see me switch from Simple Mode to Studio Mode because vector layer is currently unavailable in Simple Mode.

The line art is done. Time to paint!

Painting Tips

Cake and Bread

Bread and cake are textured, even the lightest part will have darker part because of the texture. When painting the texture, draw roughly, especially if you aim for a semi-realistic or realistic style. Smooth cake and bread look like plastic.

 

Paint the shadow roughly too. After that, you can use the cake texture brush to enhance the crumbs.

 

Cream

Cream and ice cream are both made from milk which is naturally white in color. When colors mixed with white, those colors become less saturated. So, choose colors that are less saturated compared to the rest of the illustration.

 

Cream and ice cream are also textured because of how it traps air bubbles within the fat. This also cause their colors, may it be shadow or highlight look duller.

Fruit

To indicate the freshness, choose colors saturated enough. Vibrant colors makes the fruit look juicy. Not only the outer part, the flesh of the fruit is best vibrant too.

Strong highlight is especially important. Fresh fruit has smooth skin and smooth surfaces are highly reflective. White or off white is usually the best for the job.

 

To increase contrast, add the darkest color of the fruit near the highlight.

Pudding and Jelly

Jelly, pudding and the like are also highly reflective. Highlight is important to indicate the moisture.

 

Pudding, which is opaque, is easy to paint. Pick colors vibrant enough, add soft highlight in the direction of the light and then add very bright highlight to protruding parts.

Jelly, because it’s transparent, requires a bit more planning to draw. Remember to draw the parts usually unseen when sketching. The “hidden” part of the jelly that touches a surface should be painted dark enough to make it look transparent.

As you can see, jelly has more highlight than pudding. It’s because light could pass through, thus parts that aren’t supposed to be lit when opaque, will reflect light. Of course, give more light in the direction of light.

I also added a little amount of fine textures on the surface of the pudding and jelly. Texture can happen because there was air trapped inside the liquid before it hardened. I added it just because I want finer details, though.

Liquid

Saturation in liquid indicates clarity/purity. For example, liquid that light can pass through easily has vibrant colors (honey) while liquid that light cannot pass through easily contains particles inside that disperses light, thus duller in color (milk).

 

Darker colors also tend to make the liquid seem thicker/syrupy.

Other than color, showing viscosity of a liquid can be done by making it visibly thick like I did for this honey. Thick liquid tend to be cohesive.

Wet surface is reflective and so highlight is very important to make liquid look wet. If the liquid is positioned at the top of something, drip effect can be added. Don’t forget to add highlight to the drips, too.

Glaze

Glaze could be glossy or matte. The glaze on this cake is matte, indicated by the dull highlight and the low contrast between the base color and the shadow.

You can create a glossy glaze look by making the highlight very bright and the shadow noticeably darker.

Adding Reflected Light to Reflective Surfaces

If the surface light in color, like the metal spoon below, the reflected light can be portrayed as bight as the original.

With the chocolate glaze, since it’s way darker than the plate, reflecting only a little of the plate’s color is already enough.

Cookies and Donuts

First, I painted the plate. On step 2 the shadow was too strong, so I used Soft eraser to lightened the shadow on the right.

4. Added the darker shadow.

5. Added the light, plate was done.

Painting the bread. First base, then rough texture with my Wet Gouache brush.

8. Added texture using Cake Texture Brush.

Painting the chocolate glaze. On the same layer, draw the shadow with a pen, then smoothen with Wet Gouache brush.

Repeat the same steps, but with a darker shade of brown.

Painting the cookies. Base color, texture, shadow. I painted the icing of the donut pink here, but I changed my mind on the next step.

17. Changed the pink icing to chocolate icing and draw shadow with a pen.

18. Smoothed the shadow with Wet Gouache brush.

19. Added strong highlight to the chocolate icing.

Painting cookies part 2. The steps are the same as before.

Cookies Part 3.

Painting the white chocolate. As before: base, texture, shadow.

The plate of cookies and donuts is done!

Cake

1. Color the base with Fill tool.

2. Draw the texture roughly with Wet Gouache brush.

3. Still using the brush, paint the shadow, roughly too.

4. Add texture.

5. Chocolate icing and cream filled with Fill tool.

6. Draw a dull light on the right of the cake.

7. Draw a weak shadow.

Drawing the matcha ice cream. Base color, rough texture, rough shadow, texture brush.

12. Fill the sliced strawberry with Fill tool, then use soft airbrush to add gradient.

13. Draw the details with Modded Mapping Pen.

Drawing the strawberry skin.

 

15. Add slight orange near on the top left. The part of strawberry closest to its leaves is usually lighter in color.

16. Add darker color for gradient.

17. Paint the seeds like 45 degrees angled polka dot.

18. Lock the seed layer. Using the soft airbrush, darken the color.

19-20. Add shadow and bright highlight for 3D effect.

21. Base color for honey.

22. Using Wet Gouache brush, paint the “texture”, leaving the right side lighter.

23. Paint a darker color for the shadow.

24. Adding highlight with Modded Mapping Pen.

25. Soften the highlight with Wet Gouache brush.

The cake is done!

Ice Cream Soda

1. Fill the ice cream’s base color.

2. Using Modded Mapping Pen, draw the first shadow.

3. Soften it with Wet Gouache brush.

4-5. Repeat step 2-3 with a darker color.

6. Fill the drink with Fill tool.

7. Using Modded Mapping Pen and Wet Gouache brush, paint the bottom part with dark blue.

8. Add the first shadow in lines.

9. Add second shadow.

10. Blur the line between the ice cream and the soda.

11. Add fizz with texture brush.

12. Erase the line between the ice cream, light blue soda and the dark blue bottom. Paint the glass.

13. Adding condensation by drawing the water droplets with white lines.

14. Create a new layer, set the blending mode to Multiply, then paint shadows for the droplets to make them pop.

15. Add glare to the glass.

Painting the nuts. Base color, shadow, light.

Painting the spoon.

 

20. When adding shadow, leave the part closest to the ice cream light.

21. Using a darker color, paint the metallic effect.

Ice cream soda is finished!

Pudding

Base color, shadow, light.

4. The caramel would look more natural if it goes out of the line, so erase the line.

5. Add a darker color.

6. Using Wet Gouache brush, with light pressure, pull the color down the pudding for dripping effect.

7. Add white highlight to the caramel.

8. Painting the cherry.

9. First shadow, leave a small part at the front near the cream lighter.

10. Paint a darker color to build contrast.

11. Add white highlight.

12. Paint the darkest color.

13. Painting the cream.

14. First darker shade. Add a tint of red to the part close to the cherry.

15. Second darker shade.

16. Highlight.

Pudding’s ready!

Jelly

Jelly is the easiest of all.

 

1. Base color.

2. Paint soft light at the top and bottom parts.

3. Draw a dark color from close to the bottom up. The color gets lighter the closer it is to the top. Add shadow to the corners.

4. Paint the “hidden” part with a darker color. Then, erase the “hidden” part’s line.

Add stronger light, and it’s done!