My Whimsical Illustration Process: How I Create Digital Art
This post takes you through my whimsical illustration process, step by step, from rough sketches and color exploration to final digital artwork in Procreate.It’s an inside look at my creative workflow as an illustrator, showing how each piece evolves from concept to completed art. Someone asked me recently: “Where do your illustrations begin?” It’s such a simple question, but it made me pause. Because the truth is, my illustrations don’t start on my iPad or even in my sketchbook. They start in the quiet spaces between other things: washing dishes, walking to the market, those drowsy moments right before sleep when the mind wanders freely. That’s where the ideas live. In daydreams and “what ifs” and images that appear unbidden. The Beginning: Catching Ideas Before They Disappear Ideas are slippery things. They arrive suddenly, a flash of a character’s expression, a color combination, a scene that feels complete in your mind for just a moment before it starts to fade. I’ve learned to catch them quickly. I keep a running note on my phone where I jot down anything interesting: “sleepy cat in oversized sweater,” “girl reading to stuffed animals,” “rainy window with tea and books.” Some are single words, some are terrible sketches done with my finger on the screen, some are just feelings I want to capture. Not every idea becomes an illustration. Most don’t, actually. But writing them down does something important – it tells my creative brain that these moments matter, that I’m paying attention. And somehow, that makes more ideas come. Why I Don’t Start With References Here’s something that might seem backwards: I deliberately avoid looking at references when I’m in the idea phase. It’s not that references are bad – they’re incredibly useful, and I’ll explain when I use them later. But at the very beginning, I want the idea to come from somewhere internal and unfiltered. I want to discover what my imagination offers first, without being influenced by what already exists. There’s this particular joy in the process of image-building that happens purely in your mind. You’re playing with possibilities, combining elements in ways that might be unusual or imperfect but are authentically yours. A character starts to develop personality. A scene begins to tell a story. I love that process, the way an illustration slowly reveals itself in your thoughts, like a photograph developing in a darkroom. When I jump straight to references, I lose that exploratory phase. I start solving problems with other people’s solutions instead of discovering my own. And while that’s faster, it’s less… mine, somehow. So I sit with ideas. I let them marinate. I imagine them from different angles, try different compositions in my head, play with color palettes mentally before I ever put pencil to paper. Moving to Paper: The First Physical Sketches Once an idea feels solid enough, when I can see it clearly enough to explain it to someone else, that’s when I reach for my sketchbooks. I keep several small notebooks scattered around my apartment: one by my bed for late-night ideas, one on the table in the living room, and one that always lives in my bag for when inspiration strikes on the go. They’re nothing fancy, just simple sketchbooks that fit comfortably in my hand. This is where the illustration truly begins to take shape. The Magic of Rough Sketches These first sketches are always rough. Messy, even. Lines that overlap, proportions that are definitely wrong, elements that I’ll completely change later. But there’s something about putting pencil to paper that makes an idea real in a way that mental imaging never quite achieves. On paper, I’m solving the basic problems: I’m not worried about details here. Just the bones of the illustration – the foundation that everything else will build upon. Sometimes I’ll sketch the same idea three or four different ways, trying variations. Maybe the character faces left instead of right. Maybe the scene is closer or further away. Maybe there’s an element I hadn’t originally considered that suddenly feels essential. This exploration phase in my sketchbook is forgiving. Mistakes cost nothing but a few minutes and a bit of paper. Ideas can be wild and experimental because the stakes are wonderfully low. Why Traditional Sketching Still Matters I could sketch directly on my iPad – Procreate has excellent sketching tools. But starting on paper feels different to my creative brain. Paper doesn’t have an undo button. Every line is a commitment, which paradoxically makes me more free. I’m not fussing over perfection because perfection isn’t possible here. I’m just thinking through the illustration with my hands. There’s also something about the physical act – the scratch of pencil on paper, the ability to rotate the sketchbook, the way I can see multiple attempts on the same page – that helps me think more clearly about what I’m creating. Plus, if I’m being completely honest, it gives my eyes a break from screens. When you work digitally as much as I do, these analog moments feel like breathing. Transition to Digital: Where the Illustration Comes Alive Once I have a sketch I’m happy with, or at least one that feels like the right direction, I photograph it with my iPad and import it into Procreate. This is the moment when the illustration shifts from concept to creation. Setting Up in Procreate I bring the sketch photo into Procreate and immediately drop its opacity way down, usually to around 20-30%. It becomes a ghost image, just visible enough to guide me but not so prominent that I feel locked into every decision I made on paper. Then I create a new layer above it and start the actual line work. This is where my illustration process becomes more deliberate and refined. I’m making choices about: This is what I love about digital illustration, nothing is permanent until you decide it is. I can try something, hate it, and undo it without consequence. I can duplicate the whole illustration and try a wild variation without
