Work Update and Progress Sharing

Character design is my favorite part of picture books! And I would like to share with you not only the newest member of my illustrated family, but also my progress over the years in octopus drawing.

I’m self-taught, no fancy schools, no art classes. Just me, my determination and love for drawing. And I not only see progress in my drawing, details, shadows and lights, but I also feel more confident, relaxed and easy, less stiffness and hesitation while drawing.

My most important tips:

• Drawing every day is extremely important. It’s not about how long you draw a day, it’s about how often. It’s better to grab a pencil for just a few minutes every day than to draw for 4 hours once a month.

• Dive deep into the shadows and highlights. That gives life to your drawing. Observe, understand and master these skills (I’m still learning). Look here to see the differences.

  

• Start easy, baby steps. If you start something super difficult and want to skip more levels at once, you might feel overwhelmed and give up too soon.

• Give it time, like any skill, drawing takes patience and commitment.

• Try drawing the same objects or following the same tutorial multiple times, and watch your progress.

I hope you can gather some useful tips, tricks, and skills from my video voice-over tutorials (over 40 already here on Patreon), or even from my process videos (sneak peeks of my real work for my clients and projects, including all my brushstrokes, tools, layers, approach and secrets…)

If you want to see how this octopus (she will appear in the upcoming picture book) came to life, here is a quick time-lapse :)

Let’s chat!

Is there anything you struggle with the most? Or need advice on something specific? Let me know in the comments!

Copyright notice: © Zuzana Svobodová. All rights reserved.

While I’m here to inspire you to create, please respect copyright laws. Direct copies of my work for commercial use are not allowed.