The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron

I took an online course on illustrating with Posca pens taught by James Chapman. He has posted lots of his sketchbook pages to his Instagram.

I had a couple Posca pens for a few years, but I hadn’t done much with them. I saw this course and thought it would be a great way to practice with Posca pens.

The course covers how to create a pencil sketch to get the composition down. Then it explores various color schemes to determine how to color the illustration. I especially like the challenge of limiting the number of colors used.

I like the process I learned in this course. It takes me several hours to finish an illustration, but I really enjoy the time I’m spending learning and practicing. I’ll share my illustrations here as I finish them.

The course encourages choosing a theme that will motivate you to keep working on sketches. I chose places in movies, TV shows, and books. First up is The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron.

Here’s the pencil sketch:

A pencil sketch of The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron. The Candy Bar is positioned to the right of the page's center. Behind the Candy Bar are buildings on the right and left.

I chose to go with realistic colors, so I used Posca pen colors that are close to what this location looks like in the show.

Here’s a progress photo, with the larger areas of color done:

Progress on the illustration of The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron. The sky, buildings, and street are colored in. What needs to be done includes window panes on the buildings, details on The Candy Bar building, and details in the street (like lane lines and shadows).

And here’s the finished illustration:

An illustration of The Candy Bar from Jimmy Neutron. The Candy Bar is positioned to the right of the center of the page. Behind The Candy Bar are buildings on the left and right sides.

I really enjoyed making this as my first attempt at a Posca pen illustration!