How to Gather Reference Material to Enhance Your Digital Art

Learn some tips for researching and collecting images for your digital art projects

Samuel Rodríguez (@samrodriguezart) started his career as a self-taught graffiti artist in the Bay Area art scene. Since graduating from California College of the Arts, he has been working full-time as a self-employed artist, exhibiting in galleries such as Thinkspace, and working for major brands such as Puma, Samsung, Hero, and more.

“As artists, we are constantly absorbing. I just pay attention to random things I see on the daily and store the good ones in the memory bank,” claims Samuel in his bio.

In his Domestika course, Creative Portrait Illustration with Procreate, Samuel explains the importance of gathering reference material and organizing research as part of the artistic process. When completing his striking portraits, he puts as many ideas as possible into play.

Full visual sampling

Samuel emphasizes that gathering references is very important to guide you through your process. “You can choose to follow the guides closely or veer off from them if that is where the feeling takes you. Think of these as samples in the way that musicians use them when creating new beats.”

Portraits and faces

When approaching creative portrait illustration, part of the build-up is searching for useful elements in existing work that you can apply to your project. If the photo you are starting with is not perfect (for instance, if the lighting is not ideal), look for other samples that have good contrast, temperature, value, shadows, and highlights. All these aspects will help you improve your portrait. Although the face is the primary element of your illustration, a significant role is played by background elements too.

You may like to observe and gather pictures of objects and accessories that you may want to include in your composition. How a beanie sits well on a model may be how you want to add a hat to your portrait illustration.

Letters and typography

Gather as many images that have letters in them, including signs, logos, and brand names. Samuel encourages his students to gather all types of images that attract them and not to be overwhelmed by this process. You may end up using only 10% of what you’ve collected, but the process is essential.

An ornament used in typesetting, like a dingbat, an accent, or grapheme of a different language, are some of Samuel’s favorite finds: they are very expressive, and he uses them often in his creative portraits both on the faces or as abstract elements.

Abstract shapes

You search different shapes on the internet or find them in magazines. An abstract shape can be a Pac-Man, for example, or the Olympic sign. You may find a logo that is nostalgic and inspires you. You may discover expressive shapes in part of someone’s lettering or the letters of a foreign language with a different script.

Color references

You may collect a shape or a picture because it grabs your attention, and you may simply use its color scheme. As Samuel puts it: “someone spent a lot of time finding that color scheme. You do not need to reinvent the wheel.” You can also use your own images to refer to the colors you used.

Sign up for Samuel Rodríguez’s course if you want to learn to create impressive portrait illustrations with Procreate.

You may be interested in:

- Illustration Tutorial: How to Draw a Manga Face.
- 5 Illustrators That Influenced Jorsh Peña.
- 5 Procreate Timelapses to Inspire Your Illustration and Lettering Projects.