Add Shapes and Color

Today, Hank’s working on a signature meal by Travis Scott combining it with the world of McDonald's. Let’s begin by drawing an outline and adding shapes by following along the outline. Add in colors and separate all layers. 

Start by choosing the Kickoff Brush Set and select the Chalky Pastel, because it's easy, medium, and slow to apply, which gives a lot of room to add more depth and texture on top of different layers. Add a layer on top of it. Start with the simple shapes first and select another layer on top of it. This isolates that layer, so you can see where the outline is not working or not going across.

With the selected brush, grab the purple color and slowly work back and forth. Slowly, you’ll see how the texture builds up and it gets darker. A rule of thumb to remember is to try and stay away from using pure black or pure white on just shading and highlighting, unless very subtle, because those tend to be very harsh and unforgiving. Gradually build up those values as you put color in. 

Understand Light Source

The light source is coming from where the arrow is made. This is important to understand in order to make certain decisions on the shadows. So just go through, add shadows and slowly build it up. Make sure you don't add two colors on one layer. This is because it doesn't mix really well and it becomes difficult to get the right texture in the right color field that you may want. 

Keep the light sources in mind. The right side is going to be a little bit brighter than the other side and the left will have more shadows.

Add Depth to the Mouth

Stack colors on top of each other and avoid doing a lot of mixing. Keep the opacity low and build up values by putting more control into the pressure of your pencil. Give shine to the donut lip. For the inside of the mouth, find where the light source is. Make sure to not use a pure white. Get a darker color instead and build up on it. 

Add Depth to the Eyebrows and Eyelids

Get a darker color for the eyebrows. Slowly build up on the color and add value. Add shadows under the eyebrows and then add highlights because you don't want them to look flat. Pick a mid tone orange for the highlight and add that by building it up. This will show how light bounces off the edge. Add more depth to the eyebrows and eyelids by stacking on and gradually building the color, to give the piece more range.

If you're familiar with shadows, they tend to get darker as it's closer to the actual subject and then they get faint as it moves further away. So to do the same add a navy blue color, right on top but not all the way to the edge. You want to be right under that eyebrow.

Pro Tip: If you have a brush that applies the color very strongly, then go on a lower end on its size. There’s no specific number and it just depends on the kind of style you’re going for and what effect you are trying to pull.

Add Effects to the Earrings

While working on the little earrings, apply the same effect. Add orange and slowly build that up. Give it a shadow. 

Pro Tip: If you ever are using just two colors a lot, you can just hold down the color palette and they'll give you the previously used color. So, just simply press the color palette and it goes back to your previous color. 

Everything so far created is by using the Chalky Pastel Brush. It keeps things very singular and fresh. 

Add Depth to Fries

The fries represent the hair. Make sure to separate all layers as it makes the animation process much smoother. The opacity is going to change because it's a bright color right on the top. Keep the light source in mind and pick the orange color to slowly build up. Add value and create an edge on the fries.

Use light, warm colors and build up value by keeping in mind the shadows from the light source. Repeat this throughout all of the fries. 

Pro Tip: The best thing about this progression is that it's perfectly imperfect. It doesn't give a strict boundary but it gives you the details for it to make sense. It's enough freedom to have fun with. 

To keep things organized, continue to add layers, and have that value slowly build up. You’ll gradually see how each strand of the fries stands separated and one looks taller than the other. 

Final Touches

Add darker hues towards the ends to give it more depth. Add a little bit of bounce light. Add shadow under the whole piece using that same color palette to make it look more 3D. Start with just like a circle to slowly build it up. Since our light source is to the right, our shadow is going to bleed over to the left. So this is going to slowly build that up. 

Pro Tip: To find the right colors - Keep things as bright and vibrant as possible. If you have to go to a dark side, there's a vibrant aspect or accent to it. 70% of the time, it's manipulating the colors that you already have. So, in this case Hank took this palette and probably found a different hue of the same type of values.

Make sure all the shadows and lighting are in place, even at the fry bends. These small and subtle details make a huge difference.

The finished design: Started just with a simple sketched outline, added simple shapes and selected those layers, added on top of those layers and just slowly built up value only using the Chalky Pastel from the Kickoff Brush Set. That's it!  We’re done with our in-depth masterpiece.