English, Spanish, 3 more
French, Italian, German
English, Spanish,
3 more
French, Italian, German
Simone Grünewald, also known as “Schmoe”, is a Visual Development artist from Germany who worked in the gaming industry for over 10 years. She is known for drawing humorous characters and everyday themes.
English, Spanish , 3 more 
English, Spanish , 3 more
Walk-through of Simone’s illustration processHow to plan your illustration and find inspiration by combining referencesHow to create beautiful environments, including tips for drawing natural-looking plantsIntegrate your characters into a background Understand concepts like horizon line, perspective and various lighting effectsLearn semi-realistic anatomy and structure of a characterUse nifty digital tools such as perspective grids, clipping masks, and drawing assist Give a traditional look to your digital illustrationsMaster blend modes to add lighting, warmth and shadowsA blank page can be a scary thing! You feel like drawing, so you open your sketchbook. You doodle a bit… but then push it aside, feeling frustrated! WHYYY!??
Rest assured! You aren’t alone. Many artists experience the exact same thing. Simone will show you how to avoid this and get super inspired instead!
She will walk you through her entire process of painting a beautiful background from the ground up, explaining exactly what she is doing and why, and give you lots of helpful advice that you can apply immediately in your illustrations.
You’ll discover how colors and light work, how to integrate a character into a beautiful background, and also learn nifty shortcuts to create structures (like bridges & more) and natural-looking foliage.
Simone will also teach you concepts like horizon lines, lighting effects, perspective, fore, mid, and background planes, giving you a solid foundation to work with when creating your own environment scenes.
Having learned a ton of new skills and concepts in this fantastic course, you’ll be off to the races with a newfound confidence in tackling both characters & backgrounds!
5+ Hours of on-demand videos
6 Cheat sheets/guides
9 Reference images
List of recommended brushes
Bonus material
Layered Photoshop filesLayered Procreate files
Certificate of Completion
Welcome to the course! Get to know Simone and discover what is in store for you in her fascinating course.
In this lesson, you’ll discover the essential habits that professional artists use to set themselves up for success.
Simone will teach how to avoid artist block, the importance of doing studies, and tips for doing them on your own. You will also find out how to gather references, piece them together, adapt them, and use them in ways that avoid copyright infringements.
Learn how to get started by sketching and exploring ideas. Simone will explain what questions to ask yourself, how to draw rough thumbnails, why fore-, mid-, and backgrounds planes are essential, and other pro tips.
This stage will help you nail down a winning concept and establish a solid foundation for your illustration. By following this process, you avoid mistakes down the line, which can be a pain to fix!
Simone will give you an overview of the l tools she uses in Procreate when she creates a new illustration.
You’ll discover which brushes Simone uses and why! She also shows you how to use a perspective grid, import reference photos, adjust settings to make sketching feel natural, and transform and tweak your artwork.
Don’t worry if you don’t have Procreate. Photoshop or Clip Studio works fine too.
Let the fun begin! Get ready to put stylus to canvas in this lesson, starting out with constructing your background with the help of some awesome digital tools.
Grasp key composition principles that aid in good storytelling, such as the low, mid, and high horizon lines, when to use thick and thin line art, and how to give plants a natural, organic look.
Simone will also show you in detail how to draw straight, accurate lines and angles using the Perspective grid and ‘Assisted drawing’. Just these tools alone will make your life soooo much easier!
Having the background defined before adding the character makes it much easier to integrate them together nicely.
But, how do you fit a character into a background and ensure that it’s the correct size and angle? Simone will share her personal tricks to accomplish this and explain the basics of semi-realistic anatomy, including how she draws hands, heads and torsos. Sweet!!!
You’ll also learn the steps she goes through to take a rough character to the final line art stage, such as starting with the ‘body bean’ and why, using the Warp Tool to adjust size and angles, drawing joints to help with proportions, thinking about volume and more!
Moving on to the exciting part: adding color to your illustration! Simone shares industry techniques for coloring such as blocking in the base colors, using clipping masks to color different elements quickly, and adding variance in hue/ saturation.
Plus she also explains personal hacks she uses time and again to create a more natural, traditional feel, such as painting red as the base color, using Multiply for shadow, and manipulating watercolor brushes.
Explore the fascinating topic of painting light and shadows, giving your artwork a sense of depth and realism. You’ll learn about indirect, direct, bounced, and rim light, ambient occlusion, and more and understand how to add them to your digital painting.
Your instructor will also show you the tools to adjust your lighting and shading until it looks just right! She’ll continue working on her background scene, explaining exactly what she is doing so you can follow along!
Learn how to add finishing touches in this last session that really bring all the elements together for a cohesive final look, with the character fitting seamlessly into the background.
Simone will teach how to color the line art, intensify lighting and clean up messy edges, use blend modes such as soft light and screen, and more to achieve the desired effect.
Well done! You’ve made it to the end and acquired lots of new skills on the way! Bravo!!!
Course rating
(Based on 119 reviews)
1 course
Simone Grünewald, also known as “Schmoe”, is a Visual Development artist from Germany who worked in the gaming industry for over 10 years as an art director, character designer, and 2D animator.
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