I love drawing my characters in a scene. Putting them in an environment where they belong makes the illustration much more interesting to look at and makes it come to life.

Tips on how to draw a character in a scene

Start with deciding the feel and mood of the drawing. What time of day will it be? What season? Indoors or nature? What kind of nature? What emotion do you want to express? This will help you decide how to draw your character, what colors to use, and how the light and shadow will play out in the illustration.
Visualize the scene you want do draw. If you find it difficult to visualize your ideas, draw quick, rough concept sketches of them. This makes it a lot easier deciding what concept that will work the best.
Roughly sketch the basic shapes of the character and other elements that you want to include in your illustration. When you're happy with the general placement of the elements, start working on the details of the illustration.
Foreground and background elements will give the illustration more depth, and make it more interesting to look at. It doesn't have to be something complicated, if it's a forest scene, some leaves in the front, and some trees in the background will add much to your illustration.
Start with establishing and coloring your light source. This will make it easier to see were to place the light and shadows in your illustration.

My sketching process

I roughly sketched out the basic shape of my character. Since this was going to be an underwater scene, I started drawing the character without sketching the other elements first.

When I was happy with the basic shape, I thickened the outlines and drew the fins and face of the character.

I wasn't happy with how the head was shaped, so I fixed it up a bit, and added the eyes.

It was time to start working on the elements that were going to be in the foreground - crystals. I lightly drew the shapes of the crystals before adding the details.

I wanted the whole bottom to be covered in crystals, and I tried to illustrate depth by making the crystals appear smaller in the background. I also added the waterline.

The finished sketch

Making the lineart

For transferring drawings I use a cheap lightbox that I bought on Ebay. I highly recommend using a lightbox for anyone who is a messy sketcher, like myself.

The supplies I used were Copic Multiliners in the colors Warm Gray and Sakura. I also used a light blue Copic Marker to mark down the waterline, since I didn't want that part to be lined.

But... It doesn't look good, you say... No, that's because I haven't put down any lineweight yet.

Lineweight describes the relative weight, strength, heaviness and/or darkness of the line. I tend to make my lines thicker where the shadows will fall, and I generally also make them thicker around the entire object. There are several ways of lining, this is just the way I tend to do it.

This one illustrates the difference between non-lineweight and lineweight. Unfortunately, the picture is blurry, but you get the point.

The finished lineart

The coloring process

The illustration is colored with Copic markers. I started coloring the crystals, by darkening the parts of the crystals that weren't hit by direct lighting. Then I went on to coloring the other parts of the crystals, leaving the sides that were hit by direct lighting almost white.

Then I colored the water, making sure not to color the light beams that were penetrating the surface.

White highlights made the background pop! I used white gel pen and white colored pencil for this.

Since I made a wavy waterline, I needed to make a light pattern on my character's body that reflected the light that was penetrating the water.

The finished illustration

Some detalis were added using white gel pen.

Size: A6
Paper: Strathmore 300 Series Smooth Bristol
Tools: Copic Sketch markers, Copic multiliners, Prismacolor Premier white color pencil, Sakura white gel pen

Timelapse

My support crew

Why I always draw at night...

I just love watching the sun come up. Just look at this. Even with a shitty mobile phone picture, it still looks amazing.

Postface

If you want to know more about me, check out my:

Dratini – From sketch to finished illustration, and tips on how to draw a character in a scene.