EYE-CATCHING CHARACTER ART

See how Pernille Ørum creates this energetic illustration using flat shapes, simple painting techniques and a lot of bright colours!

I love drawing happy, engaging characters that capture the audience’s attention. It’s the character’s attitude that should convey their personality, rather than their clothes or the things they’re doing. I want to paint a scene with movement, and avoid creating a static image.

For ImagineFX’s cover, I want to portray a fun, eye-catching character. The colours, together with the character, are the driving force and deciding how to put them together is a crucial step when you’re being bold in your art. I know the background is going to be bright yellow and so I apply basic colour theory and take things from there. I focus on pinkish and purplish colours to create the tension of complementary colours and gradually build up the piece. Similar to the process I use to build up an image, choosing the right colours can be made easier if you step back and think of the big shapes first, and add the details later.

Here I’ll share my colouring process for this piece and show you how easily it can be done. The majority of the art is done with one brush, which shows that it’s not about having fancy tools. Rather, it’s understanding how to apply interesting shapes and colours.

I’ll take you through my ideas process and how to choose the colours early on. I’ll also show you how I build up an image using flat local colours, before bringing it all together at the end.