Love Potion Papercut Scene in Procreate

By now you know how much I LOVE doing digital papercut artwork in Procreate! For spooky season I wanted to create a design around a potion bottle. Once I found this color palette, it turned into a Love potion... Today I'm going to walk you through step-by-step how to create your own Love Potion #9 artwork on your iPad.

You can watch the video tutorial HERE.

The basic info to create these effects is listed below, but for a step-by-step walkthrough, I recommend watching the video tutorial. 😉

You can download the color palette HERE.

You can learn more about my Digital Papercut courses HERE.

You can get your Free 30-day trial of Skillshare HERE.

Potion layout:

• Sketch out your design on a separate layer (OPTIONAL) & reduce opacity

• Add layers underneath sketch

• Draw a circle with Quickshape for the bottom of the bottle, then add the neck - fill in with color drop.

• On a new layer, draw the top/rim of the bottle. (and the Cork on it's own layer)

• Add new layers and draw the Tag and String.

• Add Potion layer by roughly drawing the edge, then using inverted selection of the bottle to cut it out perfectly (see video tutorial).

• Add clipping masks to each layer to add textures and/or gradients (OPTIONAL).

• Add a new layer with the Sparkles/Stars, etc.

Papercut frame layout:

• Draw first papercut layer (purple) with a thick monoline brush

• Adjust if needed using Transform tool.

• Add/draw other layers with progressively lighter colors (pinks, blues, etc.)

• Select all frame layers and drag them underneath the artwork

3D process:

• Duplicate each layer twice and group/name them (stay organized!)

• Bottom layer of each group - Adjustments > HSB and turn brightness down to None (we're turning these black) - you could also alpha-lock the layer and fill with black, then turn off alpha-lock

• Middle layer of each group - Adjustments > HSB and increase brightness to 65-85% (lighter colors don't need to increase as much)

• Use transform tool to move highlights & shadows as a group using multi-select

• Shadow layers get Gaussian blur (adjustments) and opacity adjustment individually

Paper texture:

• Option 1 - overall texture

  • Add new layer at very top

  • Import file (paper texture available here - or make sure it’s grayscale with high contrast)

  • Make sure it covers the whole canvas

  • Blend mode to overlay

• Option 2 - different textures for each group/element

  • Same process as above, but add texture to each group and make the layer a Clipping mask

  • Takes more time and layers, but more realistic and varied effects are possible