How To Draw Like Ken Sugimori

Back in the days of Cerise, Blue and Yellowish, the official art was made traditionally using watercolours. It's even so a well-honey style today, and now you tin can even imitate information technology digitally. Technology is incredible!

This tutorial is intended for Paint Tool SAI. It's definitely possible to achieve this style in other programs similar Photoshop, merely you lot will have to adjust things accordingly.

Earlier you start you'll desire to grab refs for whatever it is you want to describe. This may include modern Sugimori art (if y'all're cartoon a modern Pokémon), and I definitely recommend selecting old Sugimori art references based on the colours, shapes, pose and trunk manner of what you lot want to draw. Bulbagarden Archives has a category filled with Sugimori'south old Red/Green fine art likewise as ane for Carmine/Blueish artwork, so browse and pick things that are right for your drawing.

The subject of this tutorial is my Nosepass grapheme from sometimesnosepass, who I can draw from retentivity. Please use references for your own drawing if you demand them!

For the linework and colouring, I prefer to use the post-obit brush settings, respectively (tap to view the full details on mobile):

[Pictured: Two sets of brush settings for SAI1 and SAI2, named OldSugi and OldWater.]

You volition demand the textures Crust, Acrylic, Bark2 and Acuarelle in their respective folders (right click these links and Salvage link as... to download them). For SAI1 y'all may demand to edit config files to install them - google how to do this. I will also have a page detailing how to do this somewhen, amongst other SAI tips.

The tutorial itself begins!

Footstep 1: Sketching your drawing

As with any other art you make, it'due south a very good idea to make a sketch showtime.

[Pictured: A sketch of Nosepass, with various reference images of Sugimori's watercolour art.]

When sketching, practice continue in heed the stylizations that Gen 1 art has. For example, instead of using my character's normal eyes (which are blackness ovals) I opted for Clefairy's fashion of eyes here.

[Pictured: A Fennekin I drew in oldie style, alongside the oldie style Eevee and modern Fennekin images I used for reference.]

For something similar my Fennekin, I also kept in mind how the fur is styled in old gens. Things are a chip smoother nowadays in Pokémon, but in older art it wasn't afraid to get fluffy and pointy at times. Animalistic Pokemon are also less sleek and take on rounder shapes - Pikachu is a very famous example. Use those references!

Step 2 - The linework

Every bit all the Gen ane artwork was drawn by hand they are full of small imperfections, but that's what gives the art character and makes u.s.a. all love information technology in my stance. Equally such, take it easy and don't be afraid to be a little wobbly. In SAI, you lot tin can even decline your brush stabiliser if you lot feel comfortable enough to do that.

[Pictured: Nosepass' linework, along with the same ref images again.]

Pay attention to your reference images and emulate the thickness of their lines. Don't be agape of your lines having a slightly textured experience, either. That's what we want the brush to practice to brand information technology have that drawn-on-newspaper look.

Pace Three - Basic base colouring

You may have noticed that I'one thousand drawing with a grey background rather than a white one. I do things this manner to ease my optics, but it also comes in handy for this next step.

[Pictured: Nosepass' linework with a selection marquee running along the edges.]

Very loosely select the outside of your linework, and invert it (by clicking Option and Invert Selection). The loose selection serves a stylistic purpose which I'll talk about in a 2nd, simply for now, fill a layer underneath with white.

[Pictured: Nosepass' linework filled with white colouring.]

Every bit y'all can see, the grayness background helps usa see the white colouring a lot easier.

[Pictured: Nosepass with a black background, zoomed in and showing white edges.]

Since Sugimori's erstwhile art is drawn traditionally, many of his images don't have a perfect edge when y'all view them on a black background. I choose to emulate this for my old-style drawings for fun and for accuracy, only if you lot want to do otherwise that'south completely up to y'all. And yes, this was the purpose of having the selection be loose and unperfect.

Step Four - Shading

Either lock your white layer OR duplicate it and set information technology to clipping group. This is so you can blend the colouring without it extending by the boundaries of the white base. And… start colouring!

[Pictured: Nosepass with some blue shading.]

For real watercolours, the most effective way of using them is to put down light colours first and and so layer them with darker colours. The brush settings I use will indeed brand things darker every bit you lot layer them, whilst letting you lot alloy light parts every bit you pigment.

Pay close attention to how your references use colours and highlights - it can be tempting to colour in the whole motion picture, simply Sugimori lets himself accept these white highlights and even a bulk of white on lighter-coloured Pokémon. The colouring also tends to expect quite muted and pale due to the scanning procedure, so utilise pale and muted colours in return. Darker parts can have more defined and sharper edges, so layer them to make them more than concentrated.

[Pictured: Nosepass with more blue shading, and some colour leaks.]

Sugimori didn't let differently-coloured parts overlap, but as you lot know traditional watercolours are still prone to small mistakes and on some of his art pieces you can see it. Thus, be conscientious, but don't worry too much about things like the blue on Nosepass' olfactory organ. Take your time.

[Pictured: Nosepass with some reddish colouring on its nose.]

Similarly, shade differently-coloured parts of your picture as needed. Don't be afraid!

Step V - Detailing

Whilst my colouring is looking good, it likewise looks very soft around the edges and quite blended. I decided to fix this by setting my rough/linework brush to a slightly lower opacity but a bigger size, and simply going around some of the edges and doing a bit of fine-tuning.

[Pictured: A zoomed-in portion of Nosepass' colouring, with some editing in progress. Some of the edges are being made slightly more feathered.]

Every bit I've mentioned, there are definitely places in the colouring where they have a harder or more feathery edge. Emulate it as best as yous can, and practise what feels right to you.

Step Six - Texturing

[Pictured: Nosepass with feathered edges and hard colouring where needed, looking fully coloured.]

At this point I could easily count this Nosepass as finished, but there are some further tweaks that can go far just a piddling meliorate.

[Pictured: Some layer settings are displayed, with the colouring set to a paper texture.]

For whatever scanned artwork, there'south ever some residual papery texture. Use the layer settings on your colouring to set information technology to a paper texture of your choice, and arrange the intensity and calibration until information technology looks right to y'all. Past default, all versions of SAI have newspaper textures.

Step Seven - The authenticity of low quality

You lot may have noticed already, but on many of Sugimori's watercolour pieces the lines are a scrap fuzzy, perhaps due to the scanning or the watercolours making the lines drain always so slightly. As such, we're going to replicate that experience.

[Pictured: Nosepass' with bold, slightly blurry lines.]

Duplicate your linework layer and mistiness it. SAI2 does have a Gaussian Blur filter, but for SAI1 you volition have to exercise the blurring by hand with a blur brush. Don't fret, however - this tin can actually requite it a better expect than the filter can.

[Pictured: Nosepass with fuzzy lines, yet not as bold.]

Set the opacity of the blurred linework to around 40% (or whatever you prefer) and Clipping Group information technology to the colouring layer. In this instance I chose to preserve the sharpness of the edges past using clipping, merely y'all can likewise leave it unclipped if you lot prefer the overall soft blur.

[Pictured: My layers at this point, with an off-black colour clipped to the linework.]

Another optional thing I did hither is to colour the main linework off-black to give it a scrap of a faded, washed-out look. It's down to personal preference whether you choose to practise this, also.

With that, you should have a finished piece! Become y'all!

[Pictured: The final, finished Nosepass piece.]

Information technology can have some practice to become the hang of this manner, only past paying close attention to your reference pictures you volition slowly gain the power to practise some startingly uncanny imitations. Keep doing your all-time, and good luck!

Page final updated on 14th Nov 2022 at seven:12 GMT.