Illustrating a Stylized Character - 7 hour real-time walk through

From short IG tips and tricks to this long-form walkthrough

This is a real-time walk-through filled with actionable, in-context explanations of my thoughts and techniques when it came to creating this character from sketch to rendered painting.

Diving deeper and sharing more than I ever have online

Taking you behind the scenes into my thought process where I explain my techniques and more importantly 'why' I'm doing certain things that otherwise might have been a bit too tricky/lengthy to tackle through a social media post or short video.

Have you ever thought 💭...

• How do I exaggerate the shapes and make the character feel 'Stylized'?
• When/how do I shade things in certain ways to make them feel 'realistic' yet 'stylized'?
• What brushes should I use? (It's really not that important!)
• How do I steer away from the realistic photo reference and create my own character?
• How do I take a black and white painting and convert it to colour ('convert' isn't the right way of thinking about it btw)
• My drawings are feeling very 'flat' how do I give them 'life' and 'dimension'?
• What do 'layer modes' do and how do I use them?

In this 7+ hour walk-through, my goal is to show you my answer to these questions in the context of illustrating this character from scratch.

What you'll learn 🧠

By the end of this tutorial, you'll have an understanding of...

1. What I'm thinking about when I'm simplifying and stylizing from photo reference
2. The artists that were on my reference board for this illustration
3. My thoughts around 'thinking in 3D' (accompanied by some 3D models to study from)
4. How I think about line-work and some actionable tips to achieve 'dynamic' feeling line-work
5. My thought process around inventing the illusion of light (rendering)
6. How 'thinking clearly' leads to 'cleaner' work
7. 'finishing' the illustration and adding those fun things like 'rim lights' etc
8. Technical tips on layer modes & layer organisation (demonstrated in both Photoshop and Procreate but it applies to most painting software)
9. All the tools I used
10. I'll be sharing some of my recommended resources that personally helped me with topics like anatomy and rendering for you to dive deeper into

What's included 📚 (The Complete Package)

• 7+ hour walk-through video broken up into digestible chapters
• 40+ page Field Guide (PDF) that allows you to study away from the videos (something I personally like to do from time to time )
• The Walk-through PSD file
• Procreate techniques video that maps to the ones shown in the walk-through using Photoshop
• The full original recording video (no voice-over)
• Experimental bonus 3D modelled anatomy study images

So, If you've enjoyed my free stuff on Instagram like these kind people:

"I am so used to drawing traditionally so I always have a hard time understanding painting digitally but your tutorials make easier for me to understand some stuff. I hope, I'll get there someday. Thank you so much 💛" - @_elvisart

"Amazing as always!!! I learn so much from your posts" - @rafaarroio

"Hey, I just want to say that I love your tutorials 🥰 you give so many wonderful tricks that I always save them all! And your stylization is awesome! Thank you for your help! 🐻" - @candykiki_art

I think you'll get a lot out of this one.

Who am I?

Hey there, 👋

I'm Ben, an Aussie that loves to draw, paint, learn how to learn and share my findings and 'aha' moments online.

You might have seen some of my work/sketch notes and time-lapses on my Instagram, Twitter or TikTok.

Over the past year or so, I've built a bit of a following online where I share my illustrations, sketches, and more interesting to me (and apparently to a few others) the thought process and techniques on how I got to the end result.

A huge shout-out is in order for those of you who have been following me on my journey so far– without you, this tutorial probably wouldn't exist.

If by chance you do end up grabbing this –do me one favour, please...Squeeze as much actionable knowledge out of it as possible, and probably go create something awesome with it. There's no use in sitting around in your inbox doing nothing.

Oh and If you do, please tag me, I'd love to see it!.

As always, stay consistent, use reference, have fun with it and remember, it's only pixels baybee 🕺✍️

Cheers,
Ben ✌️

What this is not 🙅‍♀️

This isn't a lazer-focused course on any one particular topic like rendering, lighting, stylisation, perspective, likeness, photoshop etc. They'll be coming for sure... but this is not one of them.

What this is 🙌

A real-time walk-through from start to finish of a stylised character illustration touching on many topics and filled with my thoughts, tips and tricks as I'm needing to use them to accomplish this particular character design/illustration. Everything I talk about/demonstrate is in the context of this character/illustration.

FAQ 🤔

• What tools do I need to get the most out of this?
  • A computer, iPad/tablet that runs any standard digital painting software (like Procreate, Photoshop, Clip Studio, Krita etc)
• Do I need photoshop?
  • In short, no. You just need any digital art software that can handle layers, layer modes and masking (which most do). I've recorded the walkthrough in photoshop, but the content and ideas are pretty software agnostic. I've even added a Procreate tutorial outlining all the features I mention in Photoshop.
• I'm a beginner, will this make sense?
  • In my – completely biased opinion, this is something I would have loved to of had when I was starting out. And because this is a one-time purchase, you can always come back to certain parts later on as you grow. I often times do this with courses I buy were certain parts 'click' a lot more as I've gained more knowledge.
• Do you recommend following along?
  • It's completely up to you. Everyone learns differently. Personally, I like to jump around in courses to different sections that are applicable to what I want to learn at any given time. It's long though! So feel free to throw it on 1.5-2x speed if you get bored/tired of hearing me blab on 😅
• What if I don't understand something?
  • This is me on the daily! But seriously, it's bound to happen in any course. If something just isn't clicking, just give it a rest and come back to it later if you're having trouble. Worst case, reach out to me via DM's and I'd be happy to clarify anything that doesn't make sense.