Sorcière Fantasy : du mannequin à l'illustration finale

Who has never dreamed of drawing his own fantasy villain, more malicious than Loki, more terrifying than Sauron, and especially more evil than Maleficent? Hi! Today, what I want to draw is my own evil witch for my Celtic fantasy universe. As an inspiration, it will be the character of Maleficent, you know, it's Disney's evil witch. The problem is that Disney is Disney, it's a little too childish, a little too Nyan Nyan, princess. So the idea is to adapt this character, but I think the big challenge of this character is to be able to integrate it into my Celtic universe, much darker, with blood and, to be original, zombies. I don't know if I'll make it, but the idea is to show you how I go from a blank page to the final illustration, with the character, in color, with a very specific colored atmosphere to my universe. So, to invent my own evil witch, terrifying, horrible, but above all charismatic, beautiful, and who uses her beauty to control men. So, in this video, what I'm going to show you is how I manage to draw a complete character. Because I know there are a lot of people who give up along the way because they think they lack ideas, and also they think they lack techniques. So that's not the case at all, that's what I'm going to prove to you in this video. So, let's go! To start, you'll see, I say right away, I'm not someone who's smart, so that's a shame, of course. But you'll see that because I don't feel smart, I do one thing at a time, and that greatly facilitates the task. And you see, here, I don't draw several things at the same time, I just draw the human body. I just draw the body, I decide, here, does she have a big head, does she have broad shoulders, does she have big hips, does she have big thighs, does she have long legs? You see, you ask yourself this kind of question. Obviously, if it's a man, does he have big muscles, does he have broad shoulders, what are the height of his feet, what are his abs? You see, you ask yourself this kind of question, one thing at a time, and you really define the body. And here, what I decided to do too, is the height of the character. Obviously, on a drawing, you can't say, here, it's 1.70m, it's 1.80m. Here, it's based on the head, that is to say, the smaller the head, the bigger the character seems. But also on women, what is interesting is the length of the legs. The length of the legs gives a lot more dynamism, and that's what I like about men. And why I do it well, it's just that you cheat, you put a woman with much longer legs, and it works, it makes her much more seductive. You see, and it works really well. Here, I drew a character on her head. So here, you see, she's super big, she has broad hips to support her size. I draw in a very, very, very simple way. Obviously, I use references. Next to it, I have very specific references to me, of this character. You know, I draw on my own, to be clear. And obviously, here, with hindsight, I see my proportions mistakes. The arm is too long, the arm is too big. Here, in fact, the hand, it goes down to here. Normally, the hand is a little shorter. Even here, you know, if you make the length of this hand, it goes down to here, it goes down to the knee. I fixed it later, but you see that the mistakes, you'll see in the video, that the mistakes, it's not very serious, it's fixed. So here, that's the first idea. So here, I like to draw always in silhouette, with the silhouette method, with a lot of simplicity. You see, I'm just trying to adapt my character to the body, you see. That's my basic idea. The idea here is to draw a witch who controls crows. So here, it's a witch with feathers, a lot of skulls, birds, you see, I'm not very sure. Here, you see, I just draw the body. Then I start to draw in a way a little disgusting, very, very, very disgusting. You see, I'm not trying to be clean. Because when you want to be clean, you limit yourself, let's say, to be too rational in a way. So you lose all your creative side. So here, the idea, you see, it's like an anatomical basis. It's much easier to release my creativity, to draw over it. In a way, it's like I was drawing with a calculator, or I do mental calculations with a calculator. So I draw, I draw, without asking questions and everything. You see, I'm starting to draw the face of my character. But here, you see, I draw quickly. There, I tell myself what makeup she has. So there, I have a lot of inspiration. I found it on Pinterest, full of ideas on it. So it's super cool. It works really well. Here, then, I also found on Pinterest that there are a lot of people who have this kind of costume. You know, with feathers on the head. It works really well, I think, on a witch. And of course, here, it would be feathers too. But I'm not sure yet. Because here, you see, the problem here is that it makes things a little too complex. You see, here, it's a little too messy. I'm not sure. I'm certainly going to remove that. I'm not sure, but I'm going to leave it like that. I tell myself that here, it's just about throwing ideas a little bit left and right, without asking me questions. Here, what I also like is to put a little bit of life, you see, a story in a way. You see, when you have several characters, even if they're birds, crows, for once, we create life, we create movement. From there, when my character is good, the problem, you see here, my character, at the beginning, she's very big. She has nine heads. But here, the problem is that when you put the clothes on top of it, we immediately have the impression that the silhouette is a little too flat. And here, we don't have the impression that she's big. That's also the problem with drawing. So you'd have to see her body a little bit more. You have to exaggerate the dynamism a little bit more. I don't know if you see the beginning and the end. With this curve, this red curve, you really have to accentuate the movement. It's because when a character is too straight, for example, if I had drawn a straight line like that, if I arrive, a straight line like that, we would have the impression that it would be too static. So it would be too in the middle. So here, I decide to cut a little bit, to pivot and to exaggerate a little more this foot forward, even if anatomically, perspective, it's not very fair, but it's okay, we don't care. The idea here is to give more dynamism. So we break a little bit the right side of the drawing. Once I've drawn the character with a dynamic pose, I'm wondering how I'm going to make this silhouette dynamic. That's what's interesting, you see, because at first, if you noticed, the silhouette was more over there. So it gave a little too flat impression. So I decided to use the drapery to make the thing even more dynamic, to have this arc that makes the drawing much more aesthetic to the eye. So here, I continue, I'm looking for one of the big lines of force, very dynamic here. We have the impression that there is also the wind that pushes her dress a little bit and it makes the scene a little more epic, in a way. It's like she was on a cliff, launching a great magic power in a battlefield, I don't know, you see. And here, what I also like with this, the scepter that I drew, I don't know if it's called like that, the stick. So here, it's using the legs of the crow as a symbol for this character. But there's also the triquetra here, which is the symbol of the witch. So here we have several symbols that tell a story about the character. That's what's interesting. It's when you look at that, it makes you think of the charm right away. So you say right away that, oh yes, it's a witch. And then you see right away that, yeah, she controls crows. I don't know, she must have crow powers. It doesn't look like feathers. It's more like leaf stems, I don't know. But for now, yes, it's just putting a little bit of the masses, the big shapes of details without making it too complicated. So here, you see, I decide that she has much longer nails. So I say to myself, hey, it could make her a little more feminine, a little wilder, with long nails, and very aggressive as a character. So here, what you see, it was my drawing on iPad. So what I like to draw on the iPad, because it allows you to be much freer, to have a much more detached gesture. Then what I like to do is clarify my character. So here I go to Photoshop. And here we're going to try to clarify, specify and detail the elements. So here, what I decide to do is to attack your face directly. So here, I'm mostly thinking about makeup. I'm inspired by vagrines. But you'll see, it's not at all similar, because the makeup will break this resemblance. So obviously, I don't expect the resemblance of my witch. So here, I'm just drawing a few feathers to get a global idea. You see, I'm not drawing the final version here yet. And that's it, it allows me to move forward and test the shapes. It's mostly to see if the design of my character works or not. A little trick that can help you is to really imagine that. It's as if it were a plan. You know, it really allows me to decide. You know, it really simplifies the vision of the feathers. I know that drawing in perspective is complicated. But you just imagine that it's a ribbon. A ribbon that turns like that. So you see, we have a ribbon that goes there. And then, you know, this line starts on the other side. And that's why we have a shape like that in 3D. And so, what's simple afterwards is that you just have to draw the feather over it. You see, the shape, it goes back there, and so on. That's what I do on all the feathers. And you'll see, it's a long job, but it's very simple as a way of drawing. And I really recommend you to think in plan when you draw this kind of thing, which are very complicated. And there, as you can see, the mass here is a little too flat. You see, it's a kind of ball like that. It looks like a giant bean. Hop, there you go. Here, the idea is mostly to give it a little more dynamic. So you'll see, to make it a lot more dynamic. You see, I'm really trying to sculpt the shape. So here, what do we have? We have a kind of shape that is a little more pointed. You see, it's a lot more dynamic. It's a lot less boring as a shape. So here, we have more of a kind of croissant. So here, avoid beans, draw croissants. And then you'll see that I'm going to redraw on top of it again. There are several layers in this drawing. But you just have to put these ideas correctly, step by step. You'll see, it's very long to do that. But the way of drawing is so fluid that you don't see the time go by. Because you don't really encounter any difficulties. It's you draw, you draw, you draw, you draw. Very slowly, but in a very fluid way. And that makes you progress very easily. Here, I'm starting to clarify the character a little bit more. So here, why am I drawing a kind of fossil? In a way, as it's a Celtic witch. In fact, it's the druids. The druids use a kind of fossil to cut plants. So she too, she was an ancient druid. She couldn't become a druid because there were only men who were druids. That's why she's called the witch, in a way. So here, it allows you to clarify, to give a historical element to this character. And it also allows you to detail. Here, I add some magic vials too. I like to add that a lot. Here, I'm starting to place the shadows. It's just to see the masses a little bit. To see if I really composed the character well. That the composition works. Because you have to understand that drawing is not just fairness. But there is also a graphic side. It's if you put a shape here, what does it make in the composition? In the overall drawing? And that really allows me to see if the character works or not. So it gives that. Here, we really have a composition with big black masses. So here, we have a mass that really points here. What I like. You see, here we have some kind of triangles. The interesting thing is that this triangle is like an arrow, in a way. It points your gaze towards your head. You see, it points here. We also have some kind of feathers here. We have a kind of arch shape like that. And that makes you point your gaze here. We also have a kind of triangle here. It points the gaze here. Here, it points the gaze here. In majority, we also have this shape there. This shape there, in fact. It's true that we have a kind of triangle with a peak that goes in that direction. But what's interesting is that this big shape there. In fact, it brings the gaze to the face. Which gives life to the whole of the character there. With his pose of attitude, of course. Here, I decide to draw the face of my witch. At first, it was just a basic face. Now, what I decide to do is really draw the final face. So now, I really draw on my own. So I went to get inspired by Eva Green. I'm not going to try to be too similar. What I like about Eva Green is especially, you know, her cheeks. In fact, they are very, very thin. And it gives her a pretty severe look anyway. You see, I really imagine her bald. It's really interesting to do that. You just say to yourself, I imagine her bald. And that way, I draw the hair over it. It's a lot easier. Because often, when you draw, you often forget the volume behind the head. The fact that you draw a skull that is flat. Here, the idea is to decide one thing at a time. I draw the head, I think about the anatomy of the head. Where are his ears? Even if we don't see his ears, I still draw his ears. It allows me to really understand where the shapes are positioned. I don't bother to move the elements, to restructure things. I really use the full potential of Photoshop to be able to cheat. And so on. Obviously, in traditional, you can't do that. But in traditional, you pay more attention to your drawings. So you make less mistakes in traditional. In Photoshop, in digital, we can touch up almost unlimitedly. That way, I don't have this fear of screwing up. I don't have this fear of having the perfect line. Or saying to myself, shit, I have to start over. So, just there, on Photoshop, it allows you to correct very easily, very quickly. You know, especially the placement of the eyes. At the beginning, you have the impression of looking out a little bit. And just that, you solve the problems. You see, it's very simple. You do things in a very, very simple way. One thing at a time. You think about one thing at a time. In fact, it's a kind of combination of the ego. You do simple things. You combine with another simple thing. And by force, it makes a complete character. There, I asked myself a question. Is it that the Celts, at that time, knew how to make glass? And in fact, I understood that no, not at all. They didn't know how to make... In fact, they knew how to make glass jewels. But they didn't know how to blow in the glass. Which means they couldn't have a glass to drink. In fact, they couldn't have glass bottles, in a way. So, what I did is completely false. So, that's why I later removed the vials from my drawing. And so, I made him a kind of bag. You know, a little stocking like that. So, I made him two of them. Then, I'm looking for fauci. You see, I like to go on Etsy. It's super interesting on Etsy. Because you really have people who are... Who love to do artisanship like that. And in fact, they make their own fauci. And they sell them on the Internet. So, you see, it's super interesting to see people like that. But then you have to be careful. On Etsy, the problem is that it's made by amateurs. It's a little too fantasy. Sometimes, you're very far from reality. Which means it's a little kitsch design. You really have to be careful with things. And here, what I'm going to add is the mushrooms. I don't know if you know my story. It's that this witch stole powers from another wizard. From another druid. Who uses mushrooms as magical powers. So, she uses mushrooms to turn people into zombies. So, there, she holds a mushroom. Here, too, I copied the design of this mushroom. On one of my trainees. He sculpted this kind of mushroom for a video game. I copied this mushroom shape. Because I didn't want to design a small mushroom shape. But what I find interesting in this shape. We have some kind of spikes here. So, it makes the mushroom a little bit... A little bit evil. You know, a little bit aggressive as a shape. You can tell right away that it's not something nice. And I add a few more buttons. I don't know. In fact, that's what turns people into zombies. So, here, you see. It's her magical power. The symbolism is here. It's that her magical power comes from her scepter. So, we have mushrooms here. So, here. In fact, it's as if the mushrooms were part of her power. It allows you to really create a certain coherence. In the story of this character. So, there are mushrooms all over her scepter. And that's where I decided to remove the kind of thread here. You know, with the bones. Because it was too much detail. And the mushrooms here, what I like. It allows you to give more silhouettes. And it makes the thing a little bit more interesting to the eye, I think. I don't know what you think. Don't hesitate to comment in the comments. What you think of my ideas. Of my design choices. If you think it's a good idea, a bad idea. Don't hesitate to talk about it. Like that. So, here. All the ideas are put in place. The attack with the feathers. You see, it's a lot of work. It took me several hours to do this. But it's still a mess. Because there are too many details. And then, I re-clarify behind. I draw it on my own. So, that's the result of a day of work. But the problem is. That's the big problem. That's where it pissed me off. There are too many details. Like I told you just now. When there are too many details. It's more noise than detail. So here, we don't understand anything anymore. Even if it's well drawn. The feathers are well positioned. It's rich in detail. It's pretty to the eye. The problem is that there are too many details here. It doesn't look like anything anymore. So, I decided to start over. Start over. It sucks to start over. But I also removed the kind of feathers here. So here, what I decided to do. It's something less detailed. You see, we have a lot more structure here. You see, it's a lot simpler. It's a lot lighter. I started over three times. That's the third drawing I did. So, really. Don't be afraid to start over. Because your character. If it's yours. Don't be afraid to start over the details. Anyway, that's just what I started over. That way, it also allows your viewer to understand the shapes well. You see, with beautiful curves and everything. You see, I really took time. It took me two days to make the feathers. Just for this little detail there. So, you have to be patient. Here, I'm starting to draw the final version of my character. With a lot more thickness on the line. You see, it allows you to give shape to all of this. And it allows you to give depth too. You know, with masses. Big black masses here. I'll explain the comic style to you later. Here, I like my favorite style. It's the comic style. Why? It's just the simplest style. The most effective. The funniest style for me to draw. It's not because I think it's beautiful or whatever. Yes, it's beautiful when it's well used. I'll make a video about that. On the comic style. With examples and everything. Don't worry. So, here I'm starting with his shoes. It's an element that I was afraid of. Really, really. Because, as I told you. The sales weren't very good in shoes. So, here I tried to draw something pretty. That matches well. But the problem is that I wanted to draw a shoe. Inspired by the real thing. And add some kind of bird claws here. I'm struggling a little bit. I don't find the shapes I like. I think it's a little bit kitsch, in the end. And so, I decided to remove this idea. That's what's hard. You have a good starting idea. But you have to remove it. Because it doesn't match anymore. It doesn't really work. So, I decided to make him sandals. I hope you like to see my feet. Here too, I draw very simple. I try to simplify the feet. And I'm also careful not to make him man's feet. Often, we tend to draw too much. And what makes him man's feet. So, in drawing, it's different from reality. You don't have to draw everything. And what's important to know is that. What is not drawn. What is not drawn is as important as what is drawn. If you draw too much. It's going to be very ugly. Very ugly. So, you have to try to erase rather than draw. That's what's great about drawing. And that's also what's hard. You don't have to draw everything. To make something understandable in a drawing. So, here I test many different shapes. I draw them. At first, I was inspired by scales. Some kind of chicken leg scales. So, many different shapes. But it doesn't work very well. I'm not a fan. It's too much of a weird armor. I went looking for something simpler. And I think it works pretty well. We stay simple. Even if it doesn't fit. The Celts didn't wear that kind of shoes. It's okay. You have to know how to make concessions. So, here I also start to detail the mushrooms. This is the final shape of my mushrooms. With the pistils. It's done on purpose to make it look ugly. To make it look scary. When you see that, you don't want to eat it. It's not the same mushroom from Paris. So, I came back to an idea I had at first. If you remember well, I wanted to draw feathers everywhere. What I decided to do was to draw in a more aesthetic way. A bit more refined. I found this idea in a concept art by Riven. In a video game. From another artist. I stole the idea from him. And I appropriated his idea to draw on my output. With the graphic codes of my universe. So, I drew something a lot more... It makes the thing a lot more aesthetic. A lot more pretty. I don't know what you think. I'm really happy to have found the idea. Now, I start to finish the inking of my characters. With big black masks and everything. Now, we move on to coloring. Here, I started by shading the character. In gray values. Just like that. It allows me to work... As I told you before, I don't consider myself as a smart person. I do one thing at a time. Here, I separate the shadow and the color. Here, I make a really dramatic light. It's a sharp light. Here, it's important to know the anatomy. It's important to know the volumes. To draw it well. Here, we have a light coming from behind. And a light coming from the front. Which allows to light the character well. In an environment. Here, at the beginning, I thought it would be interesting to start with dark colors. It gives the evil side. Here, we have a purple color. And a blue color. And I hesitate to put a third color. Which is black. Here. With some golden elements. In fact, the gold here. It allows to highlight the contrast a little bit. A little bit like when you put... You know, parsley on your dish. Well, it's the same. Parsley is actually gold here. It allows to give a little green side. Golden here. A little green side for your dish. And it brings out the character. Here, I decide to draw the skin. And I'm going to inspire myself. I'm going to give a diaphanous look to this character. Why? It's because the really white side of his skin. It gives him a detached look. I wouldn't say dehumanized. But it really contrasts with this character. The red eyes. Here, it's like she's dead. It looks like she's cold. That's what I wanted to create. She's cold. Like she's dead. She has no soul. But I always leave a little bit of warmth. A little bit of orange paint in her skin. I tested several lights. But I stayed on the dark pink. I think it gives a dramatic look. I like it a lot. A little bit of fog like that. It gives a really dark side. Mysterious. Aggressive. Dangerous especially. Here, I really like this step. Coloring the feathers. Here, I placed several different colors. To really make these feathers shiny. Which attracts the eye. Here, I made the mushrooms. Obviously, for us to feel that the mushroom is poisonous. We make it red. It's the collective unconscious that decided the color of the mushrooms. The shiny side of the feathers. It's like if you press on the mushroom, there's pus coming out. You have to be careful. You can't eat them. Obviously, in the zombies, they will have pus everywhere. Very disgusting. And it explodes in your face if you touch them. Here, on this, I didn't put too much value. Normally, I could put more value. Put a little more red light here. So that we can really see the head and the body. But as I told you, the most important thing is that we can see the face first. Here, we really have a contrast. Here, white. Dark. And here, medium. Which means that when you look at this, you immediately look at the face. And you discover the rest later. It's always the first look that's the most important. As you can see, I'm going to redo his legs. Because I think the problem is that it's too empty here. We have a space that is too empty. Here. And here. And in addition, we have a space here that is rather empty. It's true that I thought, it would be interesting to detail the legs by adding tattoos. So here, I'm doing a few different tattoos. Don't put too many, otherwise it's too kitsch. So you have to find the right middle. Try several different shapes. You know, I went back on Pinterest, looking for symbols to make the tattoos. We don't sell symbols like that. So here, I went to see Celtic symbols. To integrate this character. Don't put too many either. Otherwise, it would break the whole design of the character. You have to find good stuff. Do a lot of tests. Test, test, test. And test to find what suits you best. So there, I found two shapes. What I like here, as usual, some kind of triangle here. It gives an aggressive look. And here, it's a Celtic symbol. Which means, I believe, the night. So we can say that it corresponds to the character. Perfect. Here, I'm going to add a little more red. I like the red with the purple. In fact, it gives a much darker look. You know, it goes well with the red mushrooms. So here, it matches pretty well. Here, what I like the most, is to record the final PNG. The final output image that I will publish. It's super cool when you reach this result. When it's finished. So I can also make a presentation. What I like to do, it's a final presentation of my character. Here is the finished character. I don't know what you think. Feel free to give me your opinion in the comments. I hope I succeeded. You know, this side, a little seductive woman, charismatic, who uses her beauty to really control men. And who is ready for anything to get to her ends. Who has a powerful power. I hope I succeed. The sexy side, but without daring too much either. In any case, I really enjoyed drawing this character. I really appreciated it. Especially at the level of the feathers. Even if I had a hard time. I still succeeded. And the result is pretty cool. I really like it a lot. I don't know what you think. I self-praise myself. Feel free to give me your opinion. If you want to know more about character drawing. You see, I showed you how I draw a character from start to finish. But I didn't really explain things in depth. So if you want to know more, I do short emails that I send. There are 12 that I send in your email box. So to sign up for these emails. You just have to click on the link below this video. You will find a page where you just have to enter your email. And to receive these courses. You will learn a lot about character design. There are really things that are very important. You just have to understand that drawing is not enough to draw good characters. You also have to learn other things. In particular, composition and language of forms. To really have the complete tools to draw a good fantasy character. If you're interested in going further. I'll see you right away in my private emails. And with that, I'll see you in the next video. Bye.