How to Cartoonize People From Photo References | Procreate

hello everyone and welcome to this video today I'll be showing you my process for stylizing people's faces which is something really fun to do feel free to download my brushes and materials if you want to use them for practicing designing character spaces based on Photo reference is something that can bring you numerous benefits it helps you improve your skills in analyzing the shape and form of different faces and learning the process of simplification and exaggeration which we will discuss better here now the first question is how to choose a good reference obviously everyone has a

different taste and interest but in general I would recommend looking for unique features and try to avoid generic faces for the start here are a few examples we have a mail from profile view and you can see that all the proportions and forms are generic and average however in the image on the right you can observe a unique shape in the profile the nose forehead and Chin are distinctively different from the average providing more room to stylize and exaggerate them here is another example you can see that the image on the right has more interesting

features such as the shape of the hair necklace pose and expression providing you more elements to play with so once you choose the reference it's time to learn how to analyze simplify and exaggerate their features let's say we have this reference if you look at his head shape it would look something like this now as you can see there are so much details in his silhouette that are not really necessary on the back of the hair the line is so complicated it's not a friendly line so you can simplify it since it's not an important

feature of this person it could be a line like this or the whole head shape could be like this and here is a more simplified version of the head shape but it's not enough we want to make it more stylized and more interesting so let's push and exaggerate these lines let's get back to the reference we have these sections that Define the head now the exaggerated version could look like this each section has changed with curves becoming longer shorter more rounded or flattened and of course you can simplify try and exaggerate any element in this

way nose ears have glasses or whatever you see in the reference that's the way I think and analyze my references if you keep practicing it will all happen at the same time so you will simplify and exaggerate in your head and draw that final line in a fraction of a second of course you can always lay down the rough sketch and draw over it again to achieve cleaner lines and curves but remember create those sections and attempt to modify in the way you like experiment with this process and through repetition you will definitely improve and

you will do it all at the same time in your head I usually draw multiple versions to find the one that I like so don't worry if the first three version didn't work for you it's absolutely normal just enjoy the process and keep exploring different shapes and forms [Music] I think we are ready to move on to coloring now [Music] so for coloring I will be using blending mode which means we will paint colors shadows and Reflections on separate layers first I will create a layer to paint the shape or silhouette and I'll set the

line drawing to multiply mode let's name it shape I'll choose a random color to paint it doesn't really matter what color the shape is but since I like green let's go with green I usually use Hubble Crown brush to paint the shape and by the way you can download these brushes for free from hubok.comroad.com I love adding and updating these brushes and they keep improving as I go along [Music] [Music] I usually turn my line drawing to a dark red orange color since it's closer to the skin tone next I will create a new layer

to paint the local colors so local colors refer to the Natural or base color of an object and affected by lighting conditions these colors represent the object without any Shadows or reflection of course local colors can vary for example the cheeks nose and ears could be slightly more red because they have a higher concentration of blood vessels located closer to the skin surface these areas known as flash zones are more sensitive to changes in blood flow and are influenced by factors such as Emulsion temperature and blood circulation foreign with the less saturated color leaning toward

green for areas where beers or hair grow these subtle variation will make the skin color appear more interesting when it comes to hair I prefer to slightly increase the saturation compared to what I see in the reference so we not only exaggerate the forms and shapes but also the colors now it's time to add the Shadows I'll create a layer on top and click the clipping mask option then I set the layer to multiply keep in mind that the shadow color is always influenced by the ambient light and in this case since our character is

outdoor I will choose a blue color to represent the sky [Music] I'm trying to soften the edges of the Shadows by gently erasing them next I will add a reddish Hue to the border of the shadows as you can see in the reference these borders often lean toward orange red tones when light interacts with the skin surface it scatters slightly into the Shadows producing this beautiful effect [Music] [Music] [Music] let's darken the eyes a bit later I will combine these layers but for now I prefer to keep them separate I think I need to darken

some areas of the Shadows to create more depth you can think of this as ambient occlusion areas where the ambient light couldn't reach [Music] foreign [Music] let's create a layer for reflection and set it to color Dodge [Music] I'm gonna pick a warm grayish color and just add a little bit of reflection here and there [Music] so the whole process is a very quick approach to get a colorful version of your sketch so maybe in one hour you can color multiple characters and spend more time obviously on the one that you like the most I

think we are almost done and I hope you have enjoyed this short video and found it useful please let me know in the comments if you have any questions I always do my best to reply to all the comments and apologize if I have missed any so uh thank you so much guys for watching and I'll see you in the next video [Music]