Apply colour flats to the artwork

Silhouette block-in

Although this step sometimes feels to me like a passing stage, the importance of blocking in a nice silhouette is paramount to have a successful illustration. I make sure all the primary and secondary shapes are reading clearly, and that there’s a sufficient amount of interesting shapes and rhythms to keep the eye moving around the character.

Blocking in the major elements with flat colours helps me establish my main colour strategy and their hierarchy in the image before detailing everything. I’m trying out a very warm colour palette with a lot of oranges and sand tones, therefore my coolest colour here (the blue shorts) stays very desaturated to harmonise with the other colours.