Mimi's Illustration Club April - Third Activity! (Patreon)

Hello Illustration Club family - Happy Easter weekend if that's something you celebrate! I mostly like the chocolate, Dan and I are going to have a mini easter egg hunt in the house tomorrow 😄

It’s time for activity number 3 for this month and this activity is all about creating a final illustration!

The prompt for this month as you know is ‘a magical forest’, and so far we’ve filled a sketchbook page with any ideas relating to the prompt that we could think of, then we explored some composition sketches from those ideas, and now we can take one of those sketches and create a final illustration from it.

You can of course create your final illustration in any medium you like, and you can spend as much or as little time on it as you like. The aim of this activity is to have fun and practise our art skills, and I think if you can achieve those two things then the activity is a success no matter how the final drawing turns out🥰

I hope that the last two activities have given you some confidence for your final illustration, and if you've skipped those activities and come straight to this one then that's ok too!

So I’ll show you what I created for this activity based on a sketch from activity 2!

This is my final illustration for 'a magical forest' and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out! I think it's quite sweet and sparkly, and I really like the character of my bunny. I wonder if I've drawn them too small in the composition - maybe I can do another illustration of them with them much bigger in frame?I didn't realise that I'd be sharing this bunny over the Easter weekend but I think the timing worked out quite nicely, because it does have a bit of an Easter feel about it with all the pastels!

Here is a little snapshot of the drawing process and also the colour palette which you're welcome to use if you'd like! If you're a Beautiful Bluebell then I'll be sharing a video soon with a walkthrough of my illustration process.

The basic process for the illustration went a little something like this:

First I drew a digital sketch based on the pencil sketch I did in activity 2

Then I made that sketch 20% opacity and multiply blend mode so that I could use it a guide while I drew my illustration underneath it

I coloured in each segment of my illustration in a block colour, with most elements on their own layer

Then I gave everything a broad pass of texture/shading

Then I gave everything a more refined pass of shading to darken the areas that needed it most

Then I added little details like to the trunks of the trees and on the bushes

Lastly I added some sparkles to the sky

And that's about it!

The full illustration took me about two hours to finish (but don't let that be an indication for how long yours should take).

Now it's your turn - take one of the composition sketches you drew in activity 2 and draw a more developed illustration from it. Or if you feel like it you can do a completely new idea!

These activities replicate my normal art process when I'm faced with a prompt - I brainstorm ideas, doodle a few sketches, and then illustrate my final piece.

If you do draw a final illustration with the prompt this month then feel free to share it with us over on Discord in the #final-illustrations channel. Everyone is welcome, and you can share what you've created for any of the activities at any time!

I’m really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with for this magical forest, and I’ll be posting this drawing to Instagram soon (feel free to share yours on social media as well).❤