Making a Scene: Illustrating Characters and Backgrounds in Procreate

Join illustrator Marianna Madriz as she shares her process and guides you in creating a scenic illustration showcasing characters, objects and a sense of environment.

From inspiration to composition, sketch and final result, you will convey a mini story in your very own illustrated ‘movie moment’. To achieve this, we will follow these steps:

• Taking inspiration in films and/or your own photographs to observe what makes a good scene. 
• Using your own reference images to build your illustration.
• Thumbnailing a composition through simple shapes and lines.
• Trialling character positions and object placements whilst sketching. 
• Using digital brushes to detail your final linework and adding texture. 
• Picking a limited colour palette.
• Sectionalising areas in your illustration to colour, considering foreground and background.

This class is aimed at anyone with a proficient level in drawing, wishing to expand their skills in visual narrative and composing a detailed scene. It’s applicable to all areas of illustration, including: comics, children’s books, editorial or prints.

Although the class will be taught using an IPad Pro and Procreate, these lessons are relevant to anyone working in analogue mediums or other digital softwares.

You can find Marianna online on her Website, Instagram and Twitter.

• Introduction
• The Project
• Inspiration from Others
• Inspiration from Yourself
• Mixing Things Up
• Thumbnailing: Visualising the Space
• Thumbnailing: Visualising Characters & Surrounding Elements
• Sketching The Characters
• Sketching The Space & Surrounding Objects
• Linework: Outlining the Environment
• Linework: Soft Details
• Linework: Characters
• Linework: Objects
• Layering Colors
• Coloring the Foreground & Background
• Conclusion