This walkthrough is intended for those interested in knowing how I create my art. It is quite detailed as it contains almost everything ( not quite ) I go through while creating this piece of artwork and similarly with previous artworks. Before I start I'd like to point out to those who constantly bug me about my art and say that I spend too much time and that they can create it in just a few days, well .. GOOD FOR YOU. If you think so then you are forgetting that art involves more than the art itself, it is a process. It involves creativity, constant thinking, patience, hard work and many other things. Because I spend too much time on my work, I never intend to take my art and make it commercial, I simply create art for the sake of it, I never intend to create such art for clients as it consumes so much time.

Now that I have got that of my mind, lets start of with the basics:

I use an Apple's mouse, Photoshop CS3, the Pen Tool on photoshop, imagination and lots of free time. I use Photoshop because I'm used to it and I dislike Illustrator. I know I can stretch an artwork as big as I want but seriously I never plan to hang my art on a skyscraper. There isn't more to illustrator that will make my process any easier.

Over the past years I kept finding new ways to improve my style and so far these steps below follow my recent improvement on the style:
As can see, every object has a closed outline (meaning point A goes in different directions then connects back to point A again) and all outlines are created in a solid black color. This outline is then filled with a solid color (I do not use gradients) then I shade it and that step takes pretty much a long time. A basic shape takes 3 main shades in order to give it that vector feel. Similarly, the lighting is pretty much the same thing, but goes for lighter colors. Finally for some objects I use textures, and those are made by creating little black shapes and they are then placed over the a given object. I don't use images or anything outside Photoshop, its just the pen tool . Therefore, as an example, even a little drop of water that you can barely see on my artwork, has an outline, base color, shades, lights and probably texture.

Now that this done with lets start with the artwork :)


1) This artwork started with pointless scribbling as I was browsing the internet. I usually have a pile of papers next to me just in case an idea pops. However, with this artwork I was just scribbling and not knowing what the heck I was doing. After a little while, I was like "why not make a guy made out of paper?" and so I had this idea that his face would be made of lined yellow paper, and so this artwork was born.

2) When I finally made my mind, I started with rough outlines on photoshop, and I was extremely hopeless, it was not going well, this guy looks like a failure, but I kinda forced myself, because I'm sick of using celebrity references and I decided to go with this 100% reference-free artwork.


3) I have never taken any art classes and because I lack knowledge of a human's anatomy I struggled very much creating this paper guy. I kept looking at my arms and how much different they are from the thickness and length of my legs, it was an ongoing process that I had to stop working on it because it made me go nuts. The big gray lines and circles were created as a plan and indication of length and position of arms and legs.

4) Initially I was thinking of having the neck as a straw but later decided to make it into a pencil instead. In this step I was experimenting with the arms and folds. I tried as much as possible to make this paper guy a possible figure, as in he is not built as this position but rather built standing and later he sat, which means he isn't a sculpture but he can move. Of course that wasn't easy and I did not entirely succeed.


5) Bold was not very cool and it was time from some hair. It had to be simple since he has a gigantic cubic head, spiky is the way to go.

6) As an asset that goes along with a this sort of character, are large headphones. I had many ideas for it but decided to make it out of paper as well, It was a challenge as I had to make those headphones look like paper and not be too detailed.


7) Human hands would have looked not right, so I went with simple ones matching the cubic look of the character. Four fingers seemed fine, again since I don't know anything about the human anatomy making hands was hard!

8) For the legs I had to go with folded pants because having them all the way to the bottom might make the knees look a bit not flexible, plus I needed to show some more yellow paper skin to create a balance.