How To Start Your Digital Art - in 5 Easy Steps

Are you interested in illustration, but don’t know where to start? Are you looking for some beginner tips to get started with digital art? Or maybe you’re looking to break into digital art. Look no further.

The Futur’s local illustrator, Greg Gunn, shares his 5 step process to go from idea to finished illustration. He will cover the basics of how to find an idea, sketch a thumbnail and color it using Procreate, Photoshop or Illustrator. And he makes look easy.

0:28 Step 1 - Prompts
The first thing we need to do is come up with prompts to work from. These are words or phrases that will help guide what we make. It helps if they're visual words, but they don't always have to be.

0:55 Step 2 - Thumbnails
Okay, so this is drawing 101 right here. You always start with a thumbnail sketch. I know, you want to get to the fun part right away and just render the *#$% out everything. But don't. Because it will suck. You'll want to change it. And you will have wasted your time.

1:32 Step 3 - Clean up
At this stage, we have a visual concept, but it needs refinement. I might adjust the composition a bit, change scale, add or even remove some things. The objective here is to take this collection of chicken scratches and turn it into this—a better collection of chicken scratches.

2:28 Step 4 - Color
Without getting too into the weeds about color theory, our primary goal here is to block out the color for each shape in the drawing. I'm doing this in Procreate, cuz that's my jam, but do this in whatever program tickles your fancy. While I do this, I'm thinking about where I want to place visual focus and make those shapes the brightest or give them the most contrast.

3:07 Step 5 - Detail
So we have our color blocked in and you'll see that I moved some things around. We're going to place some type in here later and I want to make sure there's ample room for it.
Overall, I like where we're at, but it's kinda boring. So let's make it unboring.
We can do that by adding some light and shadow. Keep in mind, this is intended to be a thumbnail, so it's gotta read when it's very small. That's the reason I decided to leave out the trees from the sketch.
For a prominent illustration, I'd probably add more detail, maybe some line work. But for this, a little bit goes a long way.

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[jakeroosenbloom]

Yes we would love to see a course on Illustration Design

[anonimous]

Yes! Yes! Yes! A course on Digital Illustration!

[justmeism]

Please do an illustration course. It'll be awesome, Greg.

Also, loved the editing style of this vid. Thanks for it all.

[ChezIllustrissimo]

Yep ! I'm in too for the class. How to get to a super rough to a super illustration without losing the punchy, the spirit of the rough !

[AM-relq]

Did anyone else find it satisfying how he said ‘step five’ so perfectly with the music? Listen from 3:00

[r.j.slagter]

I love the corkiness of this video!!!!

[lebcedars]

Well, as someone who studied science, but likes digital art, i would definitely like a course that’s non-profesional artist special! Looking forward !

[debadritamukhopadhyay]

Yes! Ofcourse yes! It's very very important to know what goes entirely into the process of digital illustration in the professional world!

[FilipChurchill]

Great short video! Would love to see more on both how to DIY | how to hire | how to art direct illustrators.

[patsat]

Love the rhetoric. He knows we want it :3 PLEASE DO IT.

[gordacapivara]

Yes! An illustration course would be awesome!

[anastashaagudo]

Yes to a digital illustration course!!! 😍

[AndreaPetrosillo]

Nice video!
Sure, I would appreciate a digital illustration course.

[adamfarnsworth]

YES! YES! YES! I’ve been looking desperately for a course to better my graphic design illustrations.

[hey_itskristen]

Another vote for a Futur illustration course, especially if there are some tips and tricks for the business side of illustration. As someone who works as an editorial illustrator and went to school for illustration, it definitely wasn't touched on enough in school, especially when and how to use your own contracts, what's realistic to charge, and what prices to expect from clients.

[xuanmingzhou]

Yes Please! Make a digital illustration course!!

[verahere]

Yes, please make a course! You have no idea how helpful this will be for people like me who struggle with but want to learn illustration design 💛 It will be amazing, on photoshop, illustrator or procreate doesn't matter 🙃

[maroof_ola]

Really cool. Nice watching a different and fun futur video for a change. Thumbs up, I'm in

[ed-ss]

It would be great to have a digital illustration course. Cant wait!

[JardesonRocha]

Illustration course with Greg Gunn?!?! Yes please!