Learn to Draw on iPad

Adding Highlights and Shadows

Although your drawing looks really sharp at this point, some highlights and shadows will give it a great deal of depth and make your 2D image pop off the page. These small details are what takes your drawing from the amateur level to something more professional.

Strong contrast between light and dark tones is known as chiaroscuro in the art world — and that’s just what you’ll add to your alien.

Add a new layer between the outline layer and the color layer, like you see below.

If you’re using Sketchbook Express, you’ll notice that you cannot add another layer – you are maxed out at three. But this is no problem – you can delete your original sketch layer since you don’t need it anymore. Add a new layer as usual after deleting your original sketch.

The paintbrush tool is far too opaque to add gentle highlights and shadows to your drawing — the airbrush tool gives you the control you need to get the stroke opacity just right. Select the airbrush tool in the tools pane on the left (Express users tap the brush icon at the top to bring up the tools). If it isn’t already in the pane, tap and hold a drawing tool and select the airbrush tool in the top row, second from the left, as shown below:

First, add the highlights to your alien. Select a shade of green from the color palette that’s lighter than the alien’s main body color. Using the Brush Properties window, adjust your brush size to about 8 pixels. Drag down from the center of the window to lower the opacity of your stroke to about 50%, as shown below:

Now use the airbrush to add some highlights to your alien; don’t worry about staying inside of the lines for now. Brush just inside the dark outline of your alien on the right-hand side of your alien’s major features, as shown below:

Note: Confused about where the right spots are to add light? Check out Vicki’s handy shading and lighting guide.

Now select a darker shade of green than what you used on the alien’s body for the shadows. Again, no need to stay in the lines, just worry about adding the shading where it’s needed. Airbrush along the inside of the dark outlines on your alien, as shown below:

Now, you can’t really add a white highlight to white, so you’ll approach the eyeballs a little differently than the rest of the body. Pick a light grey from the color palette and add a shadow on the left side of the eyeballs, as shown:

To add some shadows and highlights to your alien’s mouth, you’ll need to create two custom colors based on the reds you used to color the mouth and tongue. To create a custom color, tap and hold on the top color in the color palette. When the popup appears, select a darker shade of red by dragging the color selector down towards the bottom of the diamond. Sketchbook Express users will already have been creating their colors this way, since they don’t have a palette.

Shade your alien’s tongue around the edges with your new dark red color. Using the same technique as above, create a lighter red custom color by dragging the color selector up towards the top of the diamond. Use this color to add some highlights to your alien’s tongue and mouth as shown below:

Your alien’s teeth need same shading treatment that you applied to the eyeballs. Choose the same light shade grey that you used to shade your alien’s eyes and add shadows to each tooth, as follows:

Your drawing is just about complete; at this point you don’t need the rough sketch layer anymore. Hide the rough sketch layer by opening the layers panel and tapping on the eye next to the rough draft layer, as shown below:

This hides the rough layer from view, and shows only the finished parts of your drawing.

Adding Background Noise

Your alien looks a little lost against that plain white background. Time to add a nice, organic-looking background to your image.

Add a new layer underneath all of your drawing layers except for the rough draft layer, which is now hidden.

If you are an Express user, you are again out of layers to add. However, you also don’t have access to the crosshatching tool we’re about to use, so just skip ahead to the next section, “Cleaning Up Your Drawing”. Or read along and see the cool things you can do if you get Sketchbook Pro!

To move your new layer, use the handles on the side of the layer box to put it in the proper order. Your layer stack should look like the image below (if you are using Pro):

The cross-hatching tool will give you a nice textured background for your image. Tap and hold a drawing tool in the tools panel and scroll over to the third pane of tools; each pane is represented by a dot on the bottom of the window. Select the cross-hatching tool, which is second from the left in the top row, as shown below:

Increase the brush size as large as it will go in the Brush Properties window and select a dark grey color from the color palette. Fill in the background of your image by making big, diagonal swipes on your image from the top-left corner to the bottom-right corner. Your image should look similar to the screenshot below:

That makes the image look a little more finished.

Cleaning Up Your Drawing

Almost done — all that’s left to do is clean up your drawing. Open the layers panel and select your shadow/highlight layer. Next, select the hard eraser tool; if it’s not visible, tap and hold a tool from the tools pane, and select the eraser in the middle row on the far right as shown below:

Pinch and zoom as necessary to better see the outline of your alien, and erase all of the shading or highlighting that bleeds beyond the lines, as shown in the example below:

Adjust the size of the eraser in the Brush Properties window to make it easier to get into those little nooks and crannies. Take your time with this step; the effort you put into polishing your drawing will really show in the finished product.