TUTORIAL CHEAT SHEET //
ROADMAP FOR ARTISTIC IMPROVEMENT TUTORIALS REFERENCED
01 // COMFORT ZONE
KEY LESSONS ➤ My workflow in Procreate
➤ Sculpting with color
● The importance of skills, decision making, and 02 // LEARNING TO OBSERVE
mental health for artistic growth
➤ Exercises for improving your skills
● Debunking the myths that artistic growth is ➤ Drawing environments in Procreate
linear, and that your art will be bad if you don’t
build up skills in the right order 03 // BUILDING SKILLS
● How artistic growth happens over time, and Construction
how it is linked to having gradually more
headspace and room to think ➤ Constructing a pose
➤ Constructing faces & expressions
● How to troubleshoot your own art so that you ➤ Creating light & flowy sketches
can figure out what to focus on right now
Finalizing & presentation
➤ Choosing colors
TIPS ➤ Simple tricks for lighting & mood
➤ Making your sketch presentable
FEEDBACK IS ESSENTIAL ➤ Elevating your sketch by adding color
We need feedback to figure out what areas of our art
need work, but we need to make sure to filter it so we Elevating
use the feedback that is actually helpful to us.
➤ Finalizing without over-rendering
GOALPOSTS SHIFT ➤ Making your digital portraits more interesting
As your skills improve, your standards will shift, so
make sure you don’t get caught in a cycle of thinking 04 // MAXIMIZING EFFICIENCY
your art is never good enough as you improve.
➤ Environment essentials
COMFORT ZONES GROW
As your skills improve, certain things will get easier, but 05 // CULTIVATING YOUR VOICE
also more boring. Seek it out when
you need to recover, and leave it when you need ➤ Creating interesting & flowy shapes
excitement. ➤ Using your creative spark for ideas
➤ Stylizing trees & plants
ROADMAP // STAGES
01 // THE COMFORT ZONE | TIMECODE: 15:47
● Prioritize when: Your process consists mostly of just fighting with the tools.
● Focus on: Playing around, experimenting, finding a workflow that you can do semi-automatically.
● Helpful exercises: Testing out different workflows & brushes
● Move to the next phase when: You are not focusing purely on the tools anymore.
02 // LEARNING TO OBSERVE | TIMECODE: 19:02
● Prioritize when: You don’t know where to go with your work and haven’t set clear creative goals
● Focus on: Analyzing and studying art and the world around you to find out what excites you
● Helpful exercises: Master studies, studies from photo reference, observing & analyzing art
● Move to the next phase when: You have a clearer idea of your artistic goals
03 // BUILDING SKILLS | TIMECODE: 23:24
● Prioritize when: Your art is not giving you the results that you have in mind when startng out.
● Focus on: Building your skills from the ground up.
● Move to the next phase when: Your skills bring you closer to the end result you had in mind.
A // CONSTRUCTION | TIMECODE: 24:15
● Focus on: Improving basic shapes and proportions, capturing depth and movement
● Helpful exercises: Speed sketching, gesture sketching, drawing cylinders, squares & circles
B // FINALIZING & PRESENTATION | TIMECODE: 26:58
● Focus on: Creating unified color schemes, adding decorative elements
● Helpful exercises: Add color to sketches, finalizing rough ideas, creating quick studies and sketches
in color
C // ELEVATING | TIMECODE: 30:48
● Focus on: Pushing the detail in your art, rendering & detailing
● Helpful exercises: Studies where you push the detail, creating detailed finished works
04 // MAXIMIZING EFFICIENCY | TIMECODE: 35:00
● Prioritize when: Your skills are improving but your workflow is laborious
● Focus on: Working faster, finding shortcuts and helpful tricks, spending less time for better results
● Helpful exercises: Speedpaints, cutting steps out of your workflow
● Move to the next phase when: You are feeling confident about your ability to draw quickly
05 // CULTIVATING YOUR VOICE | TIMECODE: 37:52
● Prioritize when: You have well developed skills but your work feels derivative or boring.
● Focus on: Pushing the stylization and themes in your work to be more unique to you
● Helpful exercises: Making stylized studies, drawing from the imagination, trying new tools
● Move to the first phase when: You are ready to take on a new challenge and start from the beginning!
SECTION TIMECODE DESCRIPTION
INTRO 02:57 My own artistic growth over time
05:54 Debunking common myths about artistic growth
12:18 Roadmap - the overview
ROADMAP
15:47 Phase 01 // the comfort zone
19:02 Phase 02 // learning to observe
23:24 Phase 03 // building your skills - general
24:15 Phase 03 // building your skills - construction
26:58 Phase 03 // building your skills - finalizing & presentation
30:48 Phase 03 // building your skills - elevating
35:00 Phase 04 // maximizing efficiency
37:52 Phase 05 // Cultivating your voice
40:59 Troubleshooting your area of focus
CONCLUSION
43:29 Tips
