Creatures Crafting: Eye-Popping Candy Creations

Hello friends!

I got the itch to doodle something spooky and so I decided to dust off a toned sketchbook that I hadn’t touched in about a year! Poor thing! It’s one of three sketchbooks I have going at the same time, but honestly, two would be more manageable.

It is time to bring out the holiday weirdos! For those not in the know, ‘weirdos’ are my favorite little eyeball creatures that pop up in all sorts of shapes and hide in the strangest places.

Since Halloween is all about candy (that’s a fact), I figured this is the perfect time to look for weirdos in all my favorite treats. I haven’t drawn them in a while, and so I’m excited at what I might find!

The first step is sketching. At this stage, I like to keep my lines loose and fluid. Nothing precise. Just get enough down so that I’ve got a solid base to ink later.

I broke out my awesome fountain pen and some new ink! The ink is technically green, but it’s so dark you can barely tell. This pen creates a consistent line with no variation in thickness.  For the look I wanted, I had to go back and thicken a few spots.

The fun part about toned paper is that it starts you at the midtones. This makes adding highlights and shadows for contrast super easy. For this piece, I used a white charcoal pencil to bring out the highlights and brighten up a few areas.

Next, I grabbed a 6B pencil (aka a super dark pencil) and started shading. This is one of my favorite parts! I like to scribble in the darkest of shadows and then use a smudging tool to spread them out. It is such a fun way to shade with pencil!

I went ahead and shaded the whole piece, but something still felt off. I had the lights, the shadows, and the spooky eyeball candy. All check marks. Perhaps something a little extra. For flair, I added some orange around the candy. Orange made the piece pop! Now it screams Halloween!

I'm so glad I added the orange because it looks so cool! I usually never add much color within my toned sketchbook. It gives kinda of a glowy feel. 

I hope you enjoy this piece! I know I do! 

Until next time, happy spooks!

Arielle + Ryan

P.S. I’ve been getting back into posting on Instagram! Click here to follow me and check out a timelapse of the vampire dragon I drew last week. Thanks!