This Step Will Improve Your Illustrations

I have an idea in mind. I want to do a circus scene with a carousel horse that's come to life being attacked by these circus monkeys. So I just want to have action and just chaos that's pretty. In this video, I will show you how I thumbnail and prep for a bigger illustration that needs some planning. So what I will do initially is very rough thumbnails with no reference, just to kind of have an idea in mind for layout, and then from there, I will start sketching based on that. So what I'll do here is have

these little frames just to quickly visualize. I have a rough idea that I have in my mind. So I'm thinking if I have this carousel horse here on his back legs. He just was made out of plastic and then turned to life. Just all made up, kind of fantasy scenario here, but it'll be based in reality, which I think it's important. And carousel horses usually attach to these poles that go up and down on a carousel. So I'm thinking the poles still be there, and all of a sudden, a bunch of monkeys here just kind of being mischievous. Almost like they were bothering the horse so much that it came to life. Now, an idea would be to have the horse in a little bit different angle, maybe kind of neighing in distress, and then having the front legs kicking forward. I already like this better because I think it's clear where the eye goes. Everything is directional towards the focal point, which will be the horse here, and maybe its little monkey rider on the back. I think this is more successful. So based on this, I will look for references that have a similar pose of the horse on his back legs and kind of the head tilted forward and up. This will evolve even more once I start gathering the references and getting more specific.

So what I will do from here, just to kind of have some fun and get in the groove of things, I wanted to pull up some carousel horses that are plastic and draw some of the faces, elements that make it playful and fun. I think that'll be nice later on to pepper in, especially when it comes to what's on the horse, how is it decorated, how does it look very elaborate and circusy. What I find really interesting about these carousel horses is that they have that element of realism, but also they're very stylized, and I really love that look, so I want to capture it. It's a nice blend between fantasy and real, and also it showcases draftsmanship. It has a nostalgic element, too, just like kind of old, old-timey era that's very appealing in my opinion. So the hair is bundled up in these curls, so I'll probably use that a lot, that element of stylizing the hair and the tail so it looks fake and almost stuck in place. Then the horse itself will be alive. And I am going for an old-timey look, so I think the more specific shapes and colors I have, the more that'll just seem part of the scene, and it's not going to stand out. But since there's no animals anymore in circuses, this is definitely an old-timey concept of having show horses and monkeys just doing tricks. I collect as much references as possible because the more I have, the better. But also, I want to start drawing as soon as possible as well. If the reference that I have is not enough, I'll gather more after the fact. But I also don't want to get lost in the research phase where all of a sudden I'm like, "I have way too much to begin. " So I have about, I want to say 20 references of carousels, monkeys, just in nature, and these competitive horses that the riders try to tame a horse, so it's like kicking, and I just wanted to get active shots since this is going to be a very active scene. So anything that fits the purpose of this illustration, I have it. Whether I'm going to use it or not, that's fine. In the first few drawings, I don't really think about the illustration so much. I'm just having fun a little bit to get in the groove of things. It's important for me to have something that I look at. I'm like, "Ooh, that's something here that I can use. " So right now, I'm just looking for these playful elements of a real horse with these decorative ornaments. I want the hair to almost feel like whipped cream, like it was piped in, so it looks very flowy and stylized. This lesson is from Eliza's style course. It's a boot camp on developing your own style. In this course, you'll improve your line confidence, learn how to simplify something complex into a more personal, stylized illustration, and build a process to execute large, awesome pieces. Check it out at proko. com/eliza. And this course is currently 20% off for our summer sale, along with other courses and tools on proko. com. Don't wait too long, because the deal ends on July 6th. There's an underskirt here, and then the saddle. And this saddle's pretty basic. I kind of want to get a fancier saddle, so for now, I'll just sketch something in, and then I will research a little bit more about the saddle part. I want the saddle to be very elaborate looking. But I do like this front part. And once you do this kind of a pass where you're observing and try to verbalize what you're seeing, you start really to get a feel for this era and what this was about. If this was a real horse with all these garments on top, the effect will be a very rich show that's clearly high budget. Like, the more ornate the outfits are, the more prestigious it lookedThat's kind of what I'm understanding. And I've seen there's some that even have this kind of a feather piece on top. Forget if it's like a pompom or a feather, but I'll just put something in there just so I don't forget. And I'm not sure how it's attached, but let's say it's part of the harness, maybe. I love doing little details and taking my time with ornaments and ornamental work, which is why I love this part of drawing. It makes me happy. I want to have the horse being very distraught, so kind of look wide-eyed maybe, like wall-eyed maybe. We'll see. And this is more elaborate. This is not a thumbnail. It's more just inspiration drawing. I do like doing these passes because I can take this and then either use it verbatim or twist it, change it any way, but this is already putting me in the scene more than if I just went and started putting the scene together. It's very immersive, I guess. I have one here that is very ornate. There's a lot of details in those pompoms that are on the head. So now I'm looking, and they're not part of the harness, they're part of the front. So this is helpful for sure. So this is all part of just studying and researching and just getting into the mood of the scene. I want the whole scene to look very rich and opulent and just over the top a little bit. So this definitely will help with that. There's all these buckles and all these little outfit elements that I think are going to help. I want the ears to be facing backwards. And then the buckle here goes behind the ears, kind of through the hair. So I think I'm going to do that fancy hair swoops, and I will block them in here. Got to figure out where the eye goes based on if I'm having this front piece here in front of the nose and eye, I guess. You can already tell, but I'm sure the eye is visible. And the rest here, the strap goes under the chin, just kind of grabbing everything, making sure things are not moving. And we have the powerful front of the horse and the neck, and then the swoops continue. I like this. I like the flow of this one, so I think I'll probably use this a lot to kind of capture this. And I really, really like the belt in the front, which I guess it's holding the skirt and maybe it's holding part of the saddle. I'm not sure. I don't really know the purpose. It's very decorative and pretty and over the top, which is what we want. I also feel like when I do this kind of a pass, I'm just familiarizing myself with the world of whatever's going on at the time. This is very much a period-specific aesthetic, and I don't know much about it, and I do want to capture it. And I really like these. It's kind of hard to see, but there's these tassels here. So I want to capture some of those. So they'll be moving in air and all of that. Cool. I do like this. I think this outfit will work well. I turn it red, it'll pop nicely. Something like this I would use to study the outfit and make sure that it looks correct to understand, like this buckle was there for a reason, it's not just decorative. Everything serves a purpose, and I want to understand that if I can, just so it doesn't look amateur and made up because I just saw something that looked cool. I'm trying to figure out the utility behind this decorative outfit because it's very elaborate, I think, for a reason. They're trying to control this horse but also make things pretty so it doesn't look too, I guess, simple. And then I guess every drawing will be a different purpose. So I was really trying to figure out the outfit, which is why I keep referencing actual carousel horses because I think their outfits are cool and elaborate. And then I would do another pass on the actual pose of the horse. So it's like everything serves a purpose. I think between this and this, I kind of have a better idea, understanding, like this looks silly now, the way it's sticking from the head, because here there's actually an attachment process. You can already tell if I just did this, it won't be as effective if I did this. These parts you just don't understand, but you kind of have a rough idea of what this would look like. I would actually research and figure out what is the real purpose of this and how it looks in real life that is believable and go from there. I think the hardest thing to do will be a vehicle. If you're not familiar with vehicles, they can look silly, even if you're trying to do something complicated, if you don't know what goes into the mechanics of whatever you're drawing. But I do like the hair. ensemble here of the attachments and everything else. I do like this kind of scared expression on this horse, which I couldn't quite find with actual pictures of horses. So I might use this face on a pose of a horse going on his back legs because I think it's a cool thing to it. And even the way the hair goes on top. I'll probably do this kind of element at the front, but just for the sake of expression, I will sketch it the way it's in this picture. The nostrils are more flared up. And then the mouth is open at a slight angle. The teeth are sticking out. I do like this eye. I think I really like kind of the weird colors of it. There's no white around it. It's just this odd-looking eye. I'm starting to understand more how this whole contraption is created. So this part, it goes in the front, and it all connects in the middle here. There's part in the back, and then-Under the chin. I guess this part can be buckled up the way it's buckled up here. I do like this expression. I think there's something kind of crazy and distraught about it. Maybe even the way the big tongue is in the mouth. Something here, but maybe I'll just add tongue. So based on this, I think I have a pretty good understanding of what I'm dealing with. I'm already seeing some stuff I'm missing. This part here, maybe I'll make it more prominent. I do like that kind of black, one eye with a ring of iris. I like maybe the flared-up nostrils. So as you can see, things start to evolve just by trying and drawing and redrawing. It really starts to make sense now. Perfect.

So I'll do some horses here. These will be rougher. I just want to try some poses, and I know I'm not going to use this pose, but I just need to just warm up because horses, they can be tricky to draw, and sometimes I've done horses and I thought it was good, and then I look back like, "Ooh, could've improved this. " This is a very odd angle, but I do like the front part. legs and the way this horse is kind of being yanked back, but I do want to practice those front legs. I like the angle a lot. Something I do very often is I will combine references. So I'll combine a little bit of this reference paired with that and collage it to the point where everything is just a mixture of multiple things. Unless the reference is just so specific and works perfectly. Unless I took it, I think it'll be-- usually, there's elements that are missing. I do like this pose on this leg, and the tail is cool. I like the tail, too. I do like how he's grouped here. Okay, so I think the part that I was drawing that was decorative, now I'm starting to see here that it's actually part of keeping the saddle in place. I think this part attaches to the saddle, not just under. So it has a very specific purpose. So this is good to know. So I'll make sure there's a buckle in the front. And then if I'm going to do the monkey on back, I will turn this rider into a miniature version. And then maybe I like this hat on him. Let's see if I'm going to keep it, but for now, let's sketch it in. So I'm thinking the monkey, they're kind of hunched over, so I'm thinking it'll be like that. It'll be holding things in place like this, and the legs will be on the actual saddle. I like this, actually. I think there's something about this angle that's better looking than just a profile. I do like the flow here. I like the legs and how they're positioned. I do like the front. I'm not sure about the head yet, but we can work on that. I love this pose because it's so pushed. It's so odd looking and like the derpy face on the horse. Derpy. I like that. Derpy. There's something cool about that, and I want to capture it, even though I know my pose is not going to be that, but maybe. I'm thinking about the whole pose. I might change it where the horse is looking down because I do like this angle a lot. I feel like the horse does have that kind of expression I'm going for, which is open mouth, tongue out, teeth out, panting, and just being in distress. I do like that the ears are pulled back because that'll help with those elements. I just want to add like a p**f and how the harness is holding this horse. This harness, it doesn't go through the mouth. It's probably made up of owls go through the mouth, and then it attaches to this part, from the front and back and under. And I really like the tension between the horse pulling forward and then the monkey yanking back on the reins here. And then I will add those swoopy swoop shapes on the hair. I do really like this pose. I got to say, this is growing on me. I might just go with this one in the end. So as you can see, things evolve, and I'm starting to change the initial concept based on the references because they're more effective in my opinion. I do like the grouping that we did, and in this case, I'm going to use it here versus the reference. It's a little more parallel. And here, we've got this curvature on the back. It's very directional, very cool. So actually, we have the belly, and then we have the saddle will be here. I think this will be a cool angle, even if it's like a partial. I don't draw an entire horse in the scene. And I do like that swoopy tail here, so I'm going to use that. I don't like those back legs, though. I wonder if I could somehow draw them and maybe that'll work better. I'll say we'll see. Let me just finish this here. Very directional. I really like that. I like that, and I like that I can have the monkey really struggling to stay on, even kind of flying out. Like just like, "Whoa, all right. You're going crazy, horse. " Just want a fun, wacky piece. So maybe even the monkey can be holding his hat, just flying out. And then I'll have enough room to really showcase all of those pretty details that I wanted to add in the skirt. The underskirt under the saddle can be kind of flying off. This horse is definitely not liking the person on its back. It's trying to launch this person away. I like this a lot. I think this might be it. I think it'd be fun to even have more monkeys just like, "Whee! " And just flying out, where you're attacking it or you're being launched off of it. I don't know. But definitely we want chaos. This is speaking chaos to me. I might just end it here because I really like this. I think this is a good one where I'm feeling it. So this is serving the purpose that I want, and now it's all about making this prettier and bigger and more interesting looking. Because you can see, this has all the elements. It has the grouping that I liked in this one, tail stylized hair I had from this one. So you can see how everything starts to serve that initial purpose. Each drawing has a place in that final one.

So this will be it for researching for the horse and the circus concept. As you can see, we went through several iterations of the scene. I was going for something dynamic, so this didn't serve that purpose, just because it's very static looking. This had the fearful look I was going for. Even though we changed the initial layout, I think this final one captures that frantic scene that I was going for, and I like that it's very directional. It's simple. It's clear. That's all I care about. What I wanted to tackle with this course is talk about style and how to dissect it and how to come up with your style. You develop a style just the way you would speak. It's your voice. It's like a visual voice. There's a method to developing your shorthand and your visual language. Explore, experiment, and try new techniques that either speed up your process or make things more fun and more interesting. Pick and choose what you like, and eventually, your style will just shine through your work. If you're interested in the course and finding out more about it, you can find it at proko. com/aliza.