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

Hello everyone!

I finished my final illustration for this month's illustration club this afternoon and I want to share it with you!

As you know, the prompt for this month is 'Reading A Book' and I decided to draw the little ladybug sitting on a pile of books 🐞

So far in the club this month we’ve filled a sketchbook page with ideas relating to the prompt, then we explored some composition sketches from those ideas, and now we can take one of those composition ideas and create a final illustration from it.

If you skipped the first activities and came straight to drawing a final illustration that's totally fine!

You can use any medium you like to create your final illustration. The aim of this activity (and the whole club) is to just explore the creative process and enjoy practising our art skills together, so if you can achieve those two things then whatever you create is a success!

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

This is my final illustration for 'Reading A Book' - I quite like the simplicity of it! I also like how silly it is that they're sitting on a pile of big books but the book that they're reading is tiny 😄 

Let me show you a quick breakdown of my illustration process and the basic palette that I used (which you can download below if you'd like to use it yourself):

My process went a little something like this:

First I drew a digital version of the composition I drew in my sketchbook. 

Then I made the sketch layer about 30% opacity and 'multiply' blend mode so that I would easily be able to see through it.

On new layers below, I coloured in all of the elements of my illustration. I'm using my 'Marker Pen' brush for drawing all of my shapes at the moment.

Then I added details like on the spines of the books and on the ladybug.

Then I drew lots of shading and texture layers, mostly using my 'Soft Crayon' brush. I focus the shading in areas that should be darkest, like where the books are stacked on top of each other or underneath the ladybug.

I finalise any extra details and that's about it!

Now it's your turn (yay!) - take one of the composition sketches that you drew in activity 2 and create a final illustration from it (if you haven't already). Or if you feel like it you can do a completely new idea!

These activities pretty much replicate my normal art process when I'm faced with a new prompt - I brainstorm ideas, doodle down a few sketches to explore some compositions, 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 how your illustrations turn out ❤