This one is based on John Kelly Green’s Bee-u-tiful piece and it’s a really fun mix of bold and soft.
The bug itself has those thick black shapes and heavy outlines that make John’s work so good, but then the wings are much lighter and more transparent. That contrast is what makes this one work.
The big lesson in this tutorial is learning how to balance chunky black structure with lighter colour details. It’s also a good one for seeing how far you can push a simple character just by changing line weight, adding texture and keeping your palette tight.
Materials
- Ohuhu square marker pad
- Pencil
- Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen 0.5
- Alcohol markers:
- Cool grey
- Yellow
- Pink
- Black
- Optional: white Posca pen or white gel pen
I used:
- Y747 Lemon
- R937 Coral
- CG4 Cool Grey 4
- Black alcohol marker
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Take It Further
Once you’ve finished the main bug, don’t just leave it as the clean version. Push it a bit.
Try one of these:
- Do a whole swarm
Draw the same bug three or four more times around the page in different sizes. Keep the same style, but change the wings, eyes and pose slightly so it feels like a proper weird little gang. - Make the wings do something stranger
Instead of keeping them neat and symmetrical, try bent wings, tiny wings, giant wings, or loads of overlapping wing shapes. Sometimes the awkward version has more life in it. - Push the contrast harder
Keep the body really bold and then go even softer with the background. Fainter colours, lighter marks, less black. That usually makes the main character hit harder.
This is the part where you stop just drawing the bug and start deciding what kind of drawing you want it to become.
Responses