|
|
|
|
Whilst waiting in Gatwick Airport during an extended flight delay, my brain had suddenly decided that it was time to engage my creativity, lest I succumb to boredom. With an empty notepad and a pen, I decided to make the only logical next step: doodle something.
Lacking inspiration for this particular art piece, I decided if I could transform my boredom into some sort of excellent content for Tofu Cute, so I opted to draw something from within the realm of Tofu Cute’s wide universe of plush, snacks and cute characters. I opened the front page, and saw that the small plush version of AMUSE’s Penguin Island Guest series had recently been added to our fine selection of products. Inspiration finally struck.
As a change of pace from our usual blogging endeavours where we would review a product a take a deep dive on a specific topic in kawaii culture, today’s edition of the blog contains the first ever Tofu Cute Art Tutorial - I’m going to show you how I drew an AMUSE Penguin! Just keep in mind that I am not an expert, and your penguin will almost certainly turn out better than mine. With that in mind, here's what you need to do:
|
 |
I know what you’re thinking, but don’t panic - this isn’t going to be one of those tutorials where I tell you to draw a circle and then ‘draw the rest of the owl’. There are definitely other steps, and I promise it’s pretty easy. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m using Adobe Photoshop to draw this particular penguin, but the techniques are theoretically transferable to good old fashioned pen and paper. I know this, because that’s how I did it first.
This first circle will form the foundations of our Penguin’s whole body, but to be specific, this circle is basically its head. I would do this around three-quarters of the way up a blank A4 page, or - if you decide to draw digitally - wherever you please, because you can always move it later.
I probably don’t need to tell you how to draw a circle, but I will give this pointer - these penguins actually have a slightly ‘oval’ shape to their heads, so it doesn’t need to be a perfect circle. I recommend making it wider than it is tall, but not by much. If you’re drawing by hand, it might take a few times to get it correct, so make sure you’re sketching in pencil so that you can erase mistakes and try again. Once you have your circle, you're ready to move onto the ‘mind-blowing’ next step. |
 |
Okay, listen: creating a sketch out of shapes is a really important step if you’re just starting out drawing anything. I know it seems lame to start off drawing circles, but I promise it’s going somewhere.
This time, you want to create a larger, more ovular circle than the first, with the top of it beginning slightly below the centre point of the first circle you drew. This will give a nice foundation for the body of the penguin!
|
 |
The next step is to determine where you want the wings to go on the penguin. You can have them raised over their heads if you want your penguin to look like they’re overly excited, or keep them to the sides if you want them to look more chilled out. I keep these a long rounded shape and the exact same size, as that’s what it looks like on the plush, however, feel free to get experimental with this step if you want to create more dynamically posed wings - they could look even cuter with shorter wings, or longer wings.
|
 |
Yes, it’s circle time once again, unfortunately. Draw a longer over at the base of the ‘body’ circle - this will be used as the bottom of the penguin’s torso, so try and visualise that when drawing this circle. This circle needs to overlap the bottom of the other circle, and protrude out from each side. In a moment, we’ll be drawing lines out from either side to connect with the top ‘torso circle’ and make a rounded rectangle of a body.
|
 |
From the point where we have all our circles, we’re now going to start creating some lines that connect them together at the sides. The AMUSE Penguin Island plush has an almost ‘rounded rectangle’ shape to its body which adds to its cuteness. You can do curved lines on this step if you want them to be even rounder!
We're about halfway now! Just a few more steps to go and you'll also be the proud owner of a very mediocre penguin drawing.
|
 |
The next step is to erase a bunch of the lines in the middle of what we’ve already made, so that only the complete Penguin shape is left. If you’re using pencil and paper, this means using an eraser. Look at the example image and figure out which lines you need to erase, but basically you’re trying to make it look less like a collection of intersecting shapes and more like, well, a penguin!
Once that's done, you can draw on two stubby little feet at the bottom of the sketch. |
 |
There are only a few more lines left to draw before you could start colouring it, and now that the shape of the penguin is more or less there, we can add lines to denote the different ‘sections’ of the penguin that have different colours.
We’ll be using the grey AMUSE Island Guests Penguin as the basis for our penguin, but feel free to use other penguins or penguin plush as inspiration, which might create some variation in this step. I’ve added lines to denote where the black and white sections of the penguins begin and end, as well as a line to show where their head is, separate from their grey coloured body.
With the beak, I’ve gone for the ‘open beak’ style of the grey AMUSE penguin, which has a triangular teardrop shape when viewed from the front. Add one of these as close to the exact centre of the head as you can, and then a smaller triangle teardrop shape within that triangle in order to give the impression of the beak being open. You can then add some additional colour or lines in the middle of that triangle to create a sense of shadow to help sell the idea that beak is open. This is rather difficult to explain, but you can see what I mean in the example image here.
|
 |
If you’re using traditional tools, this is where you’ll have to bust out the coloured pencils or crayons. You could also use paint, I guess!
Sticking to the basic colour scheme outlined by the AMUSE design, I added 1 basic shade of colour to each section of the penguin using the paint bucket tool of my digital application of choice. Nice!
For the beak, this is where you can add some colour to make the penguin's mouth appear open.
|
 |
Now we get to add some essential details. You can actually do this particular step much earlier, if you want to, but I think it helps to wait until after some of the main colours have been applied to get a sense of where precisely you're going to place the eyes.
The eyes of the AMUSE Penguin are pretty small and very rounded. For the sake of the illustration, I’ll say that they look like small seeds, and that’s the sort of shape you should try and go for. Completely circular eyes look a bit strange for front facing images like this, but feel free to get creative with the eye shape and colour.
|
 |
In order to add to the sense of fluffiness, I added some ‘texture’ to the body in the form of splattering some dark grey brush strokes across the body. You could do this in a few different ways though: perhaps by adding some zigzag lines to indicate the feathers. You could even add some fun patterns or an outfit, or something.
In addition, I decided to ‘clean up’ some of the lines and other boring stuff like that. I added more white over the dividing line between head and body to make it look a bit more soft and natural. Finally, I went over the main lines with black to make them stand out a little bit more. With that, our basic penguin is just about complete. Where you take it from there is up to you.
|
 |
If you followed all my steps, you should have something on paper or a digital file at least vaguely resembling an AMUSE penguin! That’s pretty cool.
Of course, this is just one incredibly simple way of doing it. With more time, I might be able to create an even more detailed penguin, but perhaps we’ll save that for another blog. If you managed to create something using this tutorial, be sure to show us by tagging us on our social media channels. If you enjoyed this tutorial, let us know, and I’ll make more things in this style! Until next time, enjoy your cute new penguin creation.
|
|
|
|
Whilst waiting in Gatwick Airport during an extended flight delay, my brain had suddenly decided that it was time to engage my creativity, lest I succumb to boredom. With an empty notepad and a pen, I decided to make the only logical next step: doodle something.
Lacking inspiration for this particular art piece, I decided if I could transform my boredom into some sort of excellent content for Tofu Cute, so I opted to draw something from within the realm of Tofu Cute’s wide universe of plush, snacks and cute characters. I opened the front page, and saw that the small plush version of AMUSE’s Penguin Island Guest series had recently been added to our fine selection of products. Inspiration finally struck.
As a change of pace from our usual blogging endeavours where we would review a product a take a deep dive on a specific topic in kawaii culture, today’s edition of the blog contains the first ever Tofu Cute Art Tutorial - I’m going to show you how I drew an AMUSE Penguin! Just keep in mind that I am not an expert, and your penguin will almost certainly turn out better than mine. With that in mind, here's what you need to do:
|
|
|
I know what you’re thinking, but don’t panic - this isn’t going to be one of those tutorials where I tell you to draw a circle and then ‘draw the rest of the owl’. There are definitely other steps, and I promise it’s pretty easy. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m using Adobe Photoshop to draw this particular penguin, but the techniques are theoretically transferable to good old fashioned pen and paper. I know this, because that’s how I did it first.
This first circle will form the foundations of our Penguin’s whole body, but to be specific, this circle is basically its head. I would do this around three-quarters of the way up a blank A4 page, or - if you decide to draw digitally - wherever you please, because you can always move it later.
I probably don’t need to tell you how to draw a circle, but I will give this pointer - these penguins actually have a slightly ‘oval’ shape to their heads, so it doesn’t need to be a perfect circle. I recommend making it wider than it is tall, but not by much. If you’re drawing by hand, it might take a few times to get it correct, so make sure you’re sketching in pencil so that you can erase mistakes and try again. Once you have your circle, you're ready to move onto the ‘mind-blowing’ next step. |
Okay, listen: creating a sketch out of shapes is a really important step if you’re just starting out drawing anything. I know it seems lame to start off drawing circles, but I promise it’s going somewhere.
This time, you want to create a larger, more ovular circle than the first, with the top of it beginning slightly below the centre point of the first circle you drew. This will give a nice foundation for the body of the penguin!
|
|
|
The next step is to determine where you want the wings to go on the penguin. You can have them raised over their heads if you want your penguin to look like they’re overly excited, or keep them to the sides if you want them to look more chilled out. I keep these a long rounded shape and the exact same size, as that’s what it looks like on the plush, however, feel free to get experimental with this step if you want to create more dynamically posed wings - they could look even cuter with shorter wings, or longer wings.
|
Yes, it’s circle time once again, unfortunately. Draw a longer over at the base of the ‘body’ circle - this will be used as the bottom of the penguin’s torso, so try and visualise that when drawing this circle. This circle needs to overlap the bottom of the other circle, and protrude out from each side. In a moment, we’ll be drawing lines out from either side to connect with the top ‘torso circle’ and make a rounded rectangle of a body.
|
|
| |
From the point where we have all our circles, we’re now going to start creating some lines that connect them together at the sides. The AMUSE Penguin Island plush has an almost ‘rounded rectangle’ shape to its body which adds to its cuteness. You can do curved lines on this step if you want them to be even rounder!
We're about halfway now! Just a few more steps to go and you'll also be the proud owner of a very mediocre penguin drawing.
|
The next step is to erase a bunch of the lines in the middle of what we’ve already made, so that only the complete Penguin shape is left. If you’re using pencil and paper, this means using an eraser. Look at the example image and figure out which lines you need to erase, but basically you’re trying to make it look less like a collection of intersecting shapes and more like, well, a penguin!
Once that's done, you can draw on two stubby little feet at the bottom of the sketch. |
|
| |
There are only a few more lines left to draw before you could start colouring it, and now that the shape of the penguin is more or less there, we can add lines to denote the different ‘sections’ of the penguin that have different colours.
We’ll be using the grey AMUSE Island Guests Penguin as the basis for our penguin, but feel free to use other penguins or penguin plush as inspiration, which might create some variation in this step. I’ve added lines to denote where the black and white sections of the penguins begin and end, as well as a line to show where their head is, separate from their grey coloured body.
With the beak, I’ve gone for the ‘open beak’ style of the grey AMUSE penguin, which has a triangular teardrop shape when viewed from the front. Add one of these as close to the exact centre of the head as you can, and then a smaller triangle teardrop shape within that triangle in order to give the impression of the beak being open. You can then add some additional colour or lines in the middle of that triangle to create a sense of shadow to help sell the idea that beak is open. This is rather difficult to explain, but you can see what I mean in the example image here.
|
If you’re using traditional tools, this is where you’ll have to bust out the coloured pencils or crayons. You could also use paint, I guess!
Sticking to the basic colour scheme outlined by the AMUSE design, I added 1 basic shade of colour to each section of the penguin using the paint bucket tool of my digital application of choice. Nice!
For the beak, this is where you can add some colour to make the penguin's mouth appear open.
|
|
| |
Now we get to add some essential details. You can actually do this particular step much earlier, if you want to, but I think it helps to wait until after some of the main colours have been applied to get a sense of where precisely you're going to place the eyes.
The eyes of the AMUSE Penguin are pretty small and very rounded. For the sake of the illustration, I’ll say that they look like small seeds, and that’s the sort of shape you should try and go for. Completely circular eyes look a bit strange for front facing images like this, but feel free to get creative with the eye shape and colour.
|
In order to add to the sense of fluffiness, I added some ‘texture’ to the body in the form of splattering some dark grey brush strokes across the body. You could do this in a few different ways though: perhaps by adding some zigzag lines to indicate the feathers. You could even add some fun patterns or an outfit, or something.
In addition, I decided to ‘clean up’ some of the lines and other boring stuff like that. I added more white over the dividing line between head and body to make it look a bit more soft and natural. Finally, I went over the main lines with black to make them stand out a little bit more. With that, our basic penguin is just about complete. Where you take it from there is up to you.
|
|
| |
If you followed all my steps, you should have something on paper or a digital file at least vaguely resembling an AMUSE penguin! That’s pretty cool.
Of course, this is just one incredibly simple way of doing it. With more time, I might be able to create an even more detailed penguin, but perhaps we’ll save that for another blog. If you managed to create something using this tutorial, be sure to show us by tagging us on our social media channels. If you enjoyed this tutorial, let us know, and I’ll make more things in this style! Until next time, enjoy your cute new penguin creation.
|
|
|
|
|
