Sonny Ross’ illustrations are undeniably cool. Working digitally, using the iPad drawing app ProCreate, his creations have a textured, handmade feel to them that adds a more personal touch. Bright colors, chunky textures, and a lot of red brick, can be found throughout his work.
“I never used to work digitally, basically doing everything in posca pen, because I don’t like the super clean-cut look of digital work, but when I started making my own brushes that looked natural I never looked back,” explained Ross in an interview with Inky Goodness. “The difficult part for me is making something look natural, personally I feel it can lessen a piece.”
Each of his pieces begins with a sketch. These help him view the piece as a whole, and shape the composition, which can “make or break a piece”, according to Ross. “When I’m happy with the basic imagery I do a larger sketch, take a picture of it, import that into an iPad drawing app called ProCreate, which is great for coloring and adding textures,” he explains. “I then choose between 2 and 6 colors usually to keep the whole piece solid and get to work. I export the finished piece to photoshop for any final tweaks then it’s done.”
Based in the UK, his illustrations have taken the world by storm, with features in esteemed publications like The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian. “I honestly just love drawing for money,” he half-jokes.
Follow his original creations on Instagram:
