Combining Lettering and Illustration

Liz Kohler Brown's course is built around a single repeatable workflow, applied three times at increasing complexity: sketch, add guides, thicken, ink, then color and decorate. The class opens with a letter-style menu, a personal reference sheet of several lettering styles boxed off and inked side by side. This exercise doubles as a warm-up for the harder skill the rest of the course actually teaches, fitting words into constrained, irregular spaces rather than a straight line.

From menu to illustration

Once the menu is done, the course moves to combining an illustrated envelope and letter with a hand-lettered quote, then finishes with a more ambitious matchbox illustration that stacks two or three letter styles into one scene. Each project follows the same procedure: block in a rough sketch, lay down colored guide lines on their own layer, ink over a thickened sketch, then add color and decoration last. The repetition is the point. Watching the same five-step loop applied to a letter, an envelope, and a matchbox makes the underlying logic clear in a way a single project would not.

The Procreate-specific mechanics are covered in real detail: duplicating guide layers to keep angles consistent, alpha-locking layers to flat-fill letterforms, using clipping masks to color a shape's shadow side, and building a lit match or perspective panel through duplicated, shifted layers rather than freehand redrawing. Anyone already fluent in Procreate's layer panel will pick up several efficiency tricks here, particularly around reusing perspective lines and building depth with just two or three duplicated shapes.

Where it earns its rating, and where it thins out

Color is handled through a strict four-color palette used across every project, which is a genuinely useful constraint for anyone who tends to overload a composition with color choices instead of design choices. The decoration passes, thin lines, dotted textures, small perspective offsets, are shown as concrete, repeatable moves rather than vague encouragement to "add interest."

The course is less generous with the conceptual side of lettering. Letterform construction itself, how to actually draw a consistent script or a balanced serif, is assumed knowledge rather than taught from scratch. Viewers get guidance on placement, spacing, and layering, but not on stroke construction or anatomy, which matters if a learner's foundational lettering is still shaky. The quote-writing method, journaling around a concept until a short phrase surfaces, is a nice touch but gets only a few minutes of attention.

The overall arc rewards patience: three projects, each demonstrated at real working speed with visible trial and error, including redone sketches and resized text. That transparency about process is valuable for anyone who assumes professional letterers get it right on the first try. It also means the course leans instructional-demo rather than tightly edited tutorial, so the pacing occasionally lingers on repeated steps once the pattern is already clear. For an intermediate artist with Procreate basics down, that tradeoff is worth it for the workflow discipline gained.

What you will learn

• ·Building a personal letter-style menu with guides, thickening, and layered sketches
• ·Fitting hand lettering into irregular shapes and slanted guide grids in Procreate
• ·Layering perspective, dotted decoration, and duplicated elements for depth
• ·Working within a limited four-color palette across an entire composition
• ·Sketching a product illustration (matchbox) as a canvas for combined letter styles
• ·Organizing Procreate layers, alpha locks, and clipping masks for efficient editing