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  • Photoshop Tutorial: Rendering Hair and Eyes
    Teacher Design

    Photoshop Tutorial: Rendering Hair and Eyes

    Learn from Bearbrickjia how to use rendering techniques for hair and eyes in Photoshop Though there are many elements to consider when creating an illustration, a portrait truly comes to life in its details. By adding personality and depth, these seemingly small aspects can transform a basic illustration into a larger work of art. For many artists, drawing hair is one of the biggest challenges they face. From how it flows to the texture of the wisps, it’s a detail that can be difficult to capture if you’re starting from scratch. Similarly, eyes, the windows to the soul, are a powerful detail in conveying the humanity and internal depth of a character. In this tutorial Karmen Loh, also known as Bearbrickjia (@bearbrickjia), demonstrates how you can use brushes in Photoshop to render eyes and hair, and how to use the liquify tool to refine your final image. Find out more below:

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  • How to Improve Your Creative Portfolio
    Design

    How to Improve Your Creative Portfolio

    Your portfolio should convey your essence and your creative identity. That's why it's so important to know what to include and how to show your work Almost two decades of experience have made Colombian graphic designer Arutza Rico Onzaga (@arutzarico) a specialist in putting together a visual portfolio. Throughout their career, they have built and deconstructed the way they show their work in order to take their professional career to ever higher levels and overcome new challenges. In a recent lecture (which you can see in full at the end of this article), Arutza spoke about the "psychology of the portfolio" and gave some key tips to shape our creative CV based on examples from their own portfolio and their professional and personal projects.

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  • Challenge: Make a Digital Illustration Look Handmade in 10 Minutes
    Teacher Illustration

    Challenge: Make a Digital Illustration Look Handmade in 10 Minutes

    Alex de Marcos, illustrator and expert in digital painting techniques, faces the Domestika Challenge Alex de Marcos' career is broad and varied: he has worked in everything from editorial illustration to advertising, and regularly collaborates with major international brands such as Nike, Oysho, Movistar, Levi's and Ron Barceló. In this Challenge Domestika, the illustrator puts all his skills and experience to the test: he has just 10 minutes to make a digital illustration look like it was made using traditional methods by hand. Will he succeed? Find out in the following video:

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  • Simple Exercises for Drawing Perspective
    Illustration

    Simple Exercises for Drawing Perspective

    Puño shares three useful exercises that will help beginners to get better at drawing perspective When it comes to drawing, there are some universal rules based on how human beings perceive things and their cultural norms. Whether you choose to respect these rules, break them, or experiment with them, there’s no doubt that they are essential for every illustrator. One of these rules is perspective, a technique in figurative art to show the volume, location, and position of an object or person depicted in a drawing. It allows the viewer to see the subject in three dimensions and understand its shape.

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  • Early Concept Sketches by 5 of the World’s Most Famous Architects
    Design

    Early Concept Sketches by 5 of the World’s Most Famous Architects

    5 of the world’s most famous architects’ sketchbooks and napkin sketches, from Frank Gehry to Zaha Hadid The first time most people see an architect’s work, it’s in glass and steel, brick and mortar, or digitally rendered. There is nothing quite like seeing the hand-drawn rough sketches that capture the raw imagination and inspiration of great minds before the arrival of practical adjustments and new opinions. Different architects will use their sketches differently: to define the details of their designs; situate themselves in the location; identify key elements; and capture their moods and inspirations; and logging cultural and emotional references. These drawings and notes can take many forms too, spanning from specific structural designs and elemental analyses to abstract illustration and more conventional visual art. Here is a collection of the raw concept drawings, from wild sketches that capture the energy and shape of the artist’s thoughts to annotated scribbles that mark the different considerations they had in mind. Renzo Piano Napkin sketches are notorious in the world of architecture, one architecture school even funded scholarships through the sale of those of famous architects. Perhaps one of the most legendary pieces is that of Renzo Piano, the designer of London’s tallest building, the Shard, who apparently came up with the original sketch of the building on the back of a napkin while eating out with the property developer Irvine Sellar. "He saw the beauty of the river and the railways and the way their energy blended and began to sketch in green felt pen on a napkin what he saw as a giant sail or an iceberg," recalls Sellar who keeps the drawing in his offices.

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  • How to Learn the Chiaroscuro Technique in 7 min (TUTORIAL)
    Teacher Illustration

    How to Learn the Chiaroscuro Technique in 7 min (TUTORIAL)

    Learn from Marco Mazzoni how to create perfect highlights and shadows on portraits In art, chiaroscuro is the use of strong contrasts between light and shadow, creating depth and drama. Adding a sense of volume, it not only fleshes out the artwork’s subject but also draws the viewer’s eye to it. Artists well-known for their use of this technique include Goya, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio, and it is still very much in use, not only in paintings but also in cinema and photography. In this tutorial, artist and illustrator Marco Mazzoni (@marcomazzoniart) demonstrates how you can transform a simple drawing of a face using the chiaroscuro technique to add shadows and depth. Using just a pencil and piece of paper, the result can either be an artwork in itself or serve as the base layer for a more detailed and colorful composition.

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  • Tips for Creating a Botanical Nook in Your Home
    Design

    Tips for Creating a Botanical Nook in Your Home

    Discover how to create incredible DIY botanical spaces and make the most of them Interior design is not only about color, shapes, accessories, and spaces, plants can play a leading role: having green spaces in our daily lives is of the utmost importance. Meena and Ceci from Compañía Botánica (@ciabotanica)–a brand dedicated to the design of gardens, balconies, and green walls–are experts in combining plants and design. Together they create botanical pieces such as living paintings of cactus and succulents, which can be adapted to any environment. Here, they sharesome tips for incorporating plants into the design and decoration of spaces. Why is it important to have natural spaces inside the house? Creating living pictures and spaces is a way of having nature present in our homes or offices. They have a great impact, dazzle with their colors and shapes, and attract a lot of attention. That's why, if you don't have enough space in your house for big flowerpots, you can use bright pictures on the walls and small flowerpots that complement the small spaces: having plants on vertical surfaces can really catch the eye.

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  • Botanical Illustration Tutorial: How To Draw A Tree
    Teacher Illustration

    Botanical Illustration Tutorial: How To Draw A Tree

    Learn step by step how to draw a tree from references and combine different techniques and processes with Paulina Maciel Botanical illustration, whether realistic or fantastical, is one of the most beautiful styles a creative can practice, thanks to the abundance of colors, the ability to enhance our powers of observation, and the multiplicity of applications, from editorial design to story illustration, packaging design and other graphic needs. In this tutorial, Paulina Maciel (@pau_maciel), the designer and illustrator behind Canela Estudio, explains how to draw and paint a tree from scratch, with a very simple method, using materials available to everyone. Discover it in the video below:

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  • Movies Reimagined as Vintage Books
    Design

    Movies Reimagined as Vintage Books

    Designer Matt Stevens works on a personal project about love of cinema and reading Matt Stevens is an American designer and illustrator who is primarily engaged in brand identity and editorial publishing. Matt prefers to move away from very formal processes and work with intuitive approaches. One of his personal projects is titled Good Movies as Old Books. In this series, with the simple criteria of choosing movies that he is passionate about, Matt redesigns movie posters as if they were vintage books.

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  • 10 Music Playlists to Spark Your Creativity
    Music & Audio

    10 Music Playlists to Spark Your Creativity

    These playlists, curated by Domestika teachers, will inspire you Music and creativity are inseparable for many; some artists even say hitting that Play button is the first thing they do when they get to their studio or sit at the computer to work. With that in mind, we asked some of the creative professionals who teach courses at Domestika to share the music that inspires them most at work. Painting with music by Alex Hillkurtz If you had to choose a song that makes the paint flow and brushes dance, what would it be? For Alex Hillkurtz (@alexhillkurtzart), who teaches Architectural Sketching with Watercolor and Ink at Domestika, it is impossible to choose just one, so he has compiled the most inspiring titles in this playlist.

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  • 3 Drawing Challenges That Will Unlock Your Creativity
    Illustration

    3 Drawing Challenges That Will Unlock Your Creativity

    Adolfo Serra shares exercises that will encourage you to imagine, play, and experiment, and unlock your creativity Chance, mistakes, games, limits, and freedom: all can serve to help you unleash your imagination, create a language, and find your voice. In this video, illustrator Adolfo Serra (@adolfoserra) shares three drawing challenges that will push you to experiment with manual techniques and unlock your creativity. Gather up all the art materials you have at home; it’s time to put your creativity to the test.

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  • Free Download: Color Tips for Drawing with Pencils
    Illustration

    Free Download: Color Tips for Drawing with Pencils

    Learn tricks to improve your coloring process with Marco Mazzoni Marco Mazzoni (@marcomazzoniart) is and artist and illustrator. Experimenting with the boundaries of fine art using pencils has been a passion of Marco’s since he was a student. He tells a compelling story through his pencil portraits, drawing inspiration from Sardinian mysticism and the plants that he began sketching as a boy.

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  • 5 Instagram Stories Hacks You Probably Don't Know
    Marketing

    5 Instagram Stories Hacks You Probably Don't Know

    Use these tricks to make your Instagram stories more attractive The only thing you need to share your creativity on Instagram stories is your phone. These five tricks will help you get the most out of the social network and engage your followers.

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  • Photography Tutorial: How to Create Droplets With Glycerin
    Teacher Photography

    Photography Tutorial: How to Create Droplets With Glycerin

    Learn how to create droplets with glycerin and place them in your sets when shooting macro photography with Sergi Gomez When we use macro photography to take pictures, it is useful to have an element in the foreground that allows us to create a blur effect. If we are working in the studio, sometimes it is necessary to artificially manufacture that first element to achieve more complex compositions and explore different visual options with our camera. Sergi Gómez García (@sergi2g), photographer and retoucher, teaches us in this tutorial how to create round drops with glycerin to place them in our studio photo sessions to achieve different and interesting effects in our compositions All you will need is water, glycerin and a syringe with a very fine needle. You can watch the video here:

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  • What Is Night Photography?
    Photography

    What Is Night Photography?

    Photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg teaches the basic principles of long exposure photography Alejandro Chaskielberg (@alechaski) is a photography director with advanced studies in classical music and animation. This multidisciplinary artist specializes in night photography, a technique that allows him to show an altered version of reality —or, as he defines it, "time frozen between day and night." His work blends fiction with reality, creating fantastic scenes with real characters. For him, light (or rather, the absence of it) is a powerful creative tool. Today, he'll give you some essential tips that will help you create images like his.

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  • How to Capture a City's Personality
    Illustration

    How to Capture a City's Personality

    Architect and artist Carlos Stanga teaches how to find the soul of a city for your illustrations Architectural illustration can provide a unique connection to urban space. It's a way to capture a moment or a building in time and to express creatively how a place makes you feel. Artist and architect Carlo Stanga (@carlo_stanga) has done precisely that with the streets of Milan, London, or New York, to name a few, and has some tips you can follow to capture the soul of cityscapes in your illustrations.

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  • How to Create Memorable Characters
    3D & Animation

    How to Create Memorable Characters

    Five tips for designing unique protagonists for your stories Sociedad Fantasma (@sociedadfantasma) is an animation and illustration studio, comprising Carlos Rupit, Gabriel Pichardo and Lizeth Rodríguez. They create wonderful stories through illustration and animation and have worked with clients such as Netflix, Gatorade, Google, and Nike. Their characters are one of the main pillars in each of their stories; they bring great substance to the plots and make the worlds they create all the more magical. While they’ve designed so many different characters, they all share characteristics that make them stand out. Here, Sociedad Fantasma shares their secret to creating memorable characters.

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  • Enjoy Over a Thousand Works by Georgia O’Keeffe
    Art

    Enjoy Over a Thousand Works by Georgia O’Keeffe

    Get to know the work of the modernist painter online Considered one of the most influential representatives of American modernism, Georgia O'Keeffe is also one of the most recognized painters in art history. One of her paintings sold for more than $ 44 million, the highest record for a female artist. Although critics claim that O'Keeffe's work is primarily about sexual themes, she claimed that she was only interested in the shape and beauty of nature. Throughout her life she fought against prejudice against her gender.

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  • 6 Tips For Designing Packaging For The Perfect Unboxing Experience
    Design

    6 Tips For Designing Packaging For The Perfect Unboxing Experience

    Discover everything you should keep in mind when designing packaging for your product and the unboxing experience One of the greatest visual and tactile experiences when buying something, especially when it’s an online purchase, is the moment of unboxing. That’s why packaging has become an important pillar of the branding of many businesses: you’ve got to know where to source the materials and how to balance functionality and aesthetics to create exciting packaging that suitable protects what’s inside. Tatabi Studio (@tatabi) takes care of every detail of the packaging and unboxing experience and has developed this six-point guide that will help you plan your own product’s perfect design.

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  • What is Concept Art?
    Film & Video

    What is Concept Art?

    We spoke with concept artist and artistic director Jean Fraisse to learn more about concept art Experienced illustrator, graphic designer and concept artist, recognized for creating worlds in various audiovisual projects and video games such as Elixir, Jean Fraisse (@jbfraisse) is an art director at HuevoCartoon and teaches several courses at Domestika on stage design, character design for animation and video games, and art direction for concept art. He focuses on learning the theoretical method to define a visual style and tell a story, find memorable characters, and create incredible worlds. That's why we decided to talk to him and clear up any doubts about concept art: what it is, what is the first known example of it in the industry, and the differences that exist with respect to illustration.

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  • Combat Writer’s Block with This Technique to Beat the Blank Page
    Illustration

    Combat Writer’s Block with This Technique to Beat the Blank Page

    Learn to write stories in a fun and simple way with Natalia Méndez’s creative dice Overcoming the fear of the blank page has never been easy: thinkers, artists, and writers have been faced with creative block throughout history. Fear of failure, a lack of ideas, or the feeling that nobody will be interested in what you have to say, are among the many sentiments that leave us feeling lost and unable to continue our work. Editor and teacher of children's literature Natalia Méndez (@natumendez) explains how to combat creative block by creating dice with ideas and concepts inscribed on their faces to inspire new stories. We explain it step by step below.

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  • Learn how to create a page of a pop-up book with Silvia Hijano Coullaut
    PLUS Teacher Craft

    Learn how to create a page of a pop-up book with Silvia Hijano Coullaut

    Silvia Hijano Coullaut teaches you how to create and configure the main pop-up elements of a pop-up book Pop-up books refer to those that, when opened, have elements that jump in front of our eyes creating incredible effects. Silvia Hijano Coullaut (@silvia_libracos), the founder of the Libracos studio, is a true expert in paper engineering. In this video, she shares with Domestika, in the form of a small creative tidbit, part of her process for creating a pop-up book. Silvia Hijano shows you the combined technique of a basic "V" mechanism with tabs, combining a folded paper—a kind of simple origami—that will fill the whole scene horizontally once the page of the book is opened. Learn how to create pop-up elements of a pop-up book:

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  • Editorial Illustration Tutorial: How to Adapt to Different Layouts
    Teacher Design

    Editorial Illustration Tutorial: How to Adapt to Different Layouts

    Learn how to approach a magazine layout and how to adapt your illustration concept from Emma Hanquist From the pages of magazines to the headers of online articles, editorial illustration is everywhere, using striking imagery to create engaging interpretations of body text. Beyond the creative challenge of creating images that compliment written pieces, editorial illustrators also deal with a unique set of constraints depending on each project, as formatting and page layout can vary greatly even within the same print publication. Knowing how to look at a mockup is crucial to creating impactful editorial and cover illustrations, and requires more than just scaling a drawing down to size. In this tutorial, editorial illustrator Emma Hanquist (@emmahan) explains how to adapt your illustration concepts to different types of page layouts and cover mockups, and warns against common mistakes.

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