By now you know how much I LOVE doing digital papercut artwork in Procreate! For spooky season I wanted to create a design around a potion bottle. Once I found this color palette, it turned into a Love potion... Today I'm going to walk you through step-by-step how to create your own "Love Potion Number 9" artwork on your iPad.
You can watch the video tutorial HERE.
The basic info to create these effects is listed below, but for a step-by-step walkthrough, I recommend watching the video tutorial. 😉
You can download the color palette HERE.
You can learn more about my Digital Papercut courses HERE.
You can get your Free 30-day trial of Skillshare HERE.
Potion layout:
Sketch out your design on a separate layer (OPTIONAL) & reduce opacity
Add layers underneath sketch
Draw a circle with Quickshape for the bottom of the bottle, then add the neck - fill in with color drop.
On a new layer, draw the top/rim of the bottle. (and the Cork on it's own layer)
Add new layers and draw the Tag and String.
Add Potion layer by roughly drawing the edge, then using inverted selection of the bottle to cut it out perfectly (see video tutorial).
Add clipping masks to each layer to add textures and/or gradients (OPTIONAL).
Add a new layer with the Sparkles/Stars, etc.
Papercut frame layout:
Draw first papercut layer (purple) with a thick monoline brush
Adjust if needed using Transform tool.
Add/draw other layers with progressively lighter colors (pinks, blues, etc.)
Select all frame layers and drag them underneath the artwork
3D process:
Duplicate each layer twice and group/name them (stay organized!)
Bottom layer of each group - Adjustments > HSB and turn brightness down to None (we're turning these black) - you could also alpha-lock the layer and fill with black, then turn off alpha-lock
Middle layer of each group - Adjustments > HSB and increase brightness to 65-85% (lighter colors don't need to increase as much)
Use transform tool to move highlights & shadows as a group using multi-select
Shadow layers get Gaussian blur (adjustments) and opacity adjustment individually
Paper texture:
Option 1 - overall texture
Add new layer at very top
Import file (paper texture available here - or make sure it’s grayscale with high contrast)
Make sure it covers the whole canvas
Blend mode to overlay
Option 2 - different textures for each group/element
Same process as above, but add texture to each group and make the layer a Clipping mask
Takes more time and layers, but more realistic and varied effects are possible