Do you ever just want to turn your brain off and draw a bunch of weird little freaks? Same.
Most of our tutorials are packed with lessons. This one isn't. Matt Tower kicks back and fills a whole page with creepy drawings, flash-style spot illustrations and generally strange dudes, with plenty of relaxing sketching, inking and halftones along the way.
No big lesson. No artistic boot camp. But he couldn't help sneaking in a few tips, so we pulled them out for you below.
Matt draws in Procreate, but every tip here works in Photoshop, or with a pen and a sketchbook.
In this tutorial:
Sketching faster with symmetry, and when to turn it off
Why naming your layers will save your sanity
T-points: the tiny inking trick that makes digital lines feel hand-inked
Picking three brush sizes for consistent line weight
Using halftones to add value without adding color
A spot illustration is a small drawing that stands on its own, with no full background. Think the little doodles in a magazine margin, a sticker, or one design on a tattoo flash sheet.
They're quick. They're low pressure. And if one comes out ugly, who cares? Draw another one next to it. Fill a page and you've got yourself a flash sheet.
Symmetry mode is great for sketching anything front-facing: skulls, masks, bugs, little monsters. Draw one side and you get the other side for free.
In Procreate, go to Actions > Canvas, turn on Drawing Guide, then tap Edit Drawing Guide and choose Symmetry. Make sure Assisted Drawing is on for the layer you're sketching on.
It won't work for everything. Anything drawn at a three-quarter angle isn't symmetrical, so just draw those normally.
And don't abuse it. Matt sketches with symmetry but inks without it. Perfectly mirrored linework looks stiff. Inking by hand keeps the little irregularities that make a drawing feel hand-drawn.
Not flashy. Very boring. Do it anyway.
When you're filling a page with a dozen little drawings, your layer stack gets out of hand fast. Digging through "Layer 47" to find the one skull you wanted to fix is a nightmare. Name them as you go and you'll thank yourself later.
T-points are little wedges of extra ink where two lines meet. On paper, ink naturally pools and bleeds together at those corners. Adding them on purpose gives digital linework the same analog feel.
Drop them in anywhere lines connect: corners, spots where one shape tucks behind another, places where an interior line hits an outline.
Use them a lot. Just not so much that the drawing starts looking blobby. You'll know.
Consistent line weight is what makes a page of drawings feel like a set instead of a pile.
Before he starts inking, Matt picks three sizes:
A big one for outlines
A medium one for details
A small one for thin interior lines
In Procreate, he marks his go-to sizes so he can jump right back to them. In Photoshop, just write the numbers down. You're smart. You'll figure it out.
Halftones are perfect for this kind of cartoony style. Think of them as an extra color without actually going into color.
Use them to push contrast, separate your values and add a little visual interest to a black-and-white piece. A patch of dots in the shadows goes a long way.
That's it. The rest of the video is Matt filling the page, plus a time lapse of the whole thing coming together. Put it on, grab your stylus and draw along.
If you want more of this chill, draw-along style of video, let us know in the YouTube comments.
Stuck on what to draw? These all make great little spot illustrations: skulls, eyeballs, bats, ghosts, bugs with too many legs, melting candles, snakes, hands, grinning moons, weird old mascots, and anything with too many teeth.
Want a new prompt every day? Our Fright-Fall drawing challenge runs all October. Sign up and we'll send you the daily prompts.
What is a spot illustration? A small, standalone illustration without a full background. Spot illustrations are used in magazines, books, packaging, stickers and websites to add personality without taking over the page.
What are T-points in inking? T-points are small wedges of extra ink added where two lines meet. They mimic the way real ink pools at a junction, which makes linework feel more hand-inked and less digital.
How do you use symmetry in Procreate? Open Actions > Canvas, turn on Drawing Guide, tap Edit Drawing Guide and choose Symmetry. Then turn on Assisted Drawing for the layer you want to mirror.
What is a halftone? A halftone is a pattern of dots that reads as a shade of gray. Bigger or tighter dots read darker. It comes from old-school printing, and it's a great way to add value to black-and-white drawings.
How do I keep my line weight consistent? Pick a few set brush sizes before you ink, like one for outlines, one for details and one for thin interior lines. Then stick to them across the whole piece.
Want the tools from the video? Start with Studio Pencils, our pack of 60 pencil brushes built from real graphite scans.
Want more? Check out our Procreate brushes for everything you need to make your digital art look beautifully analog.
Video and art by Matt Tower for RetroSupply Co.
