Step by step – creating an Alice in Wonderland illustration

We all love to watch beautiful illustrations and be inspired by them. A fantastic place to watch incredible illustration is the Facebook group: the Character Design Challenge! This is a character design contest with a new theme every month. This time the theme was Alice in Wonderland. I joined the contest and in this article I will show you how I created my illustration step by step. 

This Illustration was created on my Ipad Pro with an Apple Pencil. I love working om my Ipad because I can work where ever I want. On the couch in front of the TV, In a cafe or in the train. Working with the Apple Pencil is very accurate and it really feels like working on paper but with an undo option. 

The best App to use, is without a question Procreate. It is a very intuitive program that is easy to use but has a lot of great options. One cool option you can do in Procreate is export a time lapse video of your work. Procreate will record all the brushstrokes you make and create this into a video. 

A good way to start illustrating is by making very quick thumbnail sketches of what you want to make. Keep them extremely rough and try a lot of different poses.

I picked this pose, and as you can see, I already made a rough sketch of the background composition. 

The next step is to create the line-art. I usually go over my line sketch a couple of times. Each time trying to improve the character. In the image below you can see my first attempt on the left, and on the right my final line sketch. 

While drawing try to mirror your image every now and then. If you mirror your image, you will see mistakes you couldn’t seen before. Our mind can play tricks on us and we can be blind for our own mistakes. But by mirroring, or turning it upside down, we can trick our mind to see the image in a new perspective. 

There is a book that explains this concept called ‘Drawing with the right side of your Brain.’ It is a great book to read when you are learning to draw. It is really fun to see the before and after drawings of the students who used the techniques in this book. This shows that any one who practices can improve their drawing skills!

If you are making a composition, eyedirection is very important. We want our audience to look where we want them to look. In this illustration I want the audience to look at Alice of course. I created the lines in the background in a way that your eyes are naturally directed at Alice. 

Values are the balance between light and dark in your illustration. You want to make sure that there is enough contrast in your illustration so that you can read the illustration, even when you squint. A lighter object on top of a darker object will pop and will be easier for the audience to read. 

But to see values when you are working with colors can be difficult. It takes time to train your eyes to see this. That is why it is best to design your values in black and white before moving on to colors. 

Now I try to pick the diffuse colors for my illustration. With diffuse colors I mean the base colors of the objects without any shadows or light. As you can see I painted color variation in the face. I made her nose and cheeks a bit more red. 

Combine the color layer and the values by putting the values layer on multiply. This will make the colors darker where the values are darker. The problem with this is that your colors will look a bit dirty. To fix this I made my value layer to be blue/white instead of black/white. This will make the shadows a bit more blue. After this I kept tweaking my colors. until I was happy

To finish the colors I created a new layer on top and put this in add modes. With a red/orange color I painted the light coming from below Alice. I used a red color to make the light feel warm. This works nice with the cold blue shadows. The shadows and light are always opposites in color temperature. If you use a cold light color than the shadows should have a warmer color.

And finally I placed highlights to accent the shapes. 

I would love to see the illustrations you make. You can join my closed Facebook group and share your work with me and the other artists. You can share your work in progress and ask for feedback. 

Are you working on a project and are you struggling or stuck and need a fresh pair of eyes to see what isn’t working? Then I can help you! You can request personal feedback by me. I will take half an hour to look at your work, make draw overs and give you tips and tricks to improve your work. You can either request a recorded video or a personal Skype call. I am certain that I can help you to improve your art!

Because you have read my entire blog post I want to give you a special coupon with 20 percent discount on a personal feedback video or skype call!

Just type: “Alice” in the coupon box when you check-out. But hurry because this coupon will expire in:

Click on the button below for more information, examples and testimonials.  I would love to help you improve your art. And I am certain that I can help you to become a better artist. If you are not satisfied with your feedback I will guarantee that you will get 100% of your money back.