Mimi's Arty Advent Calendar - Dec 5th! (Patreon)

Hello lovelies, it's December 5th so I have another advent calendar gift for you!

Today I want to share a mini tutorial of how to easily make your existing illustrations more festive to give them new life in December (or you could draw a new character too).

I think it’s a lovely thing to be able to re-use what you’ve already drawn, and is especially helpful if you like to post your art on social media but don’t always want to start from scratch each time!

So if you have a simple character already drawn and want to make them extra festive this holiday season, here are a few tips and an example of my own.

1. Give them some festive clothes

An easy way to make it feel like the holiday season is to add some clothes that are appropriate to the season. This can apply to all sorts of different holidays that you might celebrate, and also works for those celebrating Christmas in the southern hemisphere where it isn’t winter.

You could give your character a scarf and a beanie, a santa hat, or any item of clothing with a Christmas pattern to help show what time of year it is. These are usually quite easy to add to an existing character - even if they’re an animal - because you can often just draw them on top of your existing layers.

2. Give them a festive prop

There are so many lovely activities to do for Christmas so try giving your character a prop to hold that tells a bit of a story about what they’re up to. They could be holding a gift, carrying a Christmas tree, baking some cookies, or holding a string of festive lights.

3. Change the environment

Another thing that’s really easy to make your character more festive is to change their environment. Add some snowflakes using the stamps that I shared a couple of days ago, draw some pine trees in the background or add some gift boxes around them.

It’s amazing how much story you can tell by making a few simple changes to the environment, and it certainly doesn’t have to be a complex background either!

So I drew a squirrel a few months ago and thought they’d be the perfect character to make more festive. I took the original illustration, gave them a scarf and jumper to wear and a gift box to hold, and then changed the colours of the background to feel more like winter.

Then I used our snowflake stamps to add some snow and drew a few flowers at the bottom just for a pop of colour, and now this little squirrel is transformed for the festive season!

Lastly, here are some simple ideas that you can easily add to your scene to make it feel a little more festive:

I hope that gives you some inspiration to give some of your existing characters a festive twist this December! 🎄🎁✨