Charcoal is one of the most expressive media an artist can use. It’s messy, tactile, unpredictable, and beautifully bold. It asks artists to work with large shapes, rich dark values, sweeping marks, and textured surfaces. In this study, Daniel Ibanez aims for that same feeling while using digital charcoal in Rebelle.

Watch on YouTube: youtu.be/3ptFRYwRNXc

Unlike a graphite pencil, which often encourages precision and control, charcoal invites a more painterly mindset. The charcoal brushes in Rebelle feel chunky and organic, blending behaves in convincing ways, and even water interactions mimic the unpredictability of real-world materials. Instead of creating perfectly smooth digital renderings, the software encourages artwork that still feels handmade.

But before jumping into polished charcoal portraits or elaborate renderings, it’s important to begin with something much simpler: Notan studies.

Why Notan Studies Matter

Notan is a Japanese concept centered around the relationship between light and dark shapes. At its core, the drawing simplifies an image into two major values, black and white, allowing artists to focus purely on composition and design.

This process is incredibly important because good paintings are rarely built on detail alone. Details cannot rescue a weak composition. Strong artwork almost always begins with clear and interesting value relationships, and Notan studies reveal those relationships immediately.

When you reduce an image to only light and dark masses, distractions disappear. You stop thinking about texture, tiny edges, or surface details and instead begin seeing the image as a collection of abstract shapes. This shift in thinking is one of the most valuable skills an artist can develop.

Working this way also helps train your eye to identify what actually makes an image visually compelling. A successful composition isn’t necessarily complicated. Often, it’s simply a strong arrangement of value shapes.

Setting Up a Simple Workflow

A useful exercise is to gather a wide range of photographic references and work through them quickly. Instead of carefully searching for the "perfect" reference, it can be surprisingly effective to load many images at once and choose randomly from them. Landscapes, harbor scenes, still life, and portraits all work well, especially if they feature strong natural sunlight.

Lighting matters enormously in these studies. Images with clear directional light naturally create stronger shadow patterns, making them easier to simplify into graphic value structures. Flat lighting or overly processed HDR photography tends to muddy those relationships and makes the exercise less effective.
One of the most valuable habits during this process is changing the composition instead of copying the photograph exactly. Cropping aggressively, shifting focal points, or reframing the image forces you to make compositional decisions yourself rather than relying entirely on the photographer’s choices. Even simple changes can completely alter the emotional impact of an image.

Eventually, taking your own reference photos becomes an even better exercise because photography itself teaches compositional awareness. But using online references is still an excellent way to practice seeing.

Thinking in Shapes Instead of Lines

Perhaps the biggest shift when working with charcoal is learning to think in shapes rather than outlines.
Many artists are taught to draw by tracing edges. They look for the contour of the face, the edge of the boat, or the outline of a tree. Charcoal encourages a different approach. Instead of drawing the object itself, you begin drawing the shape of the shadow, the shape of the reflected light, or the large dark mass created by overlapping forms. This way of seeing transforms drawing into painting.

Rather than constructing a "coloring book" of enclosed outlines, the image emerges through layered marks and shifting value relationships. Edges become softer, more dynamic, and more organic. Some disappear entirely, while others sharpen naturally where contrast increases.
The result feels alive because it resembles how we actually perceive light rather than how we intellectually categorize objects.

The Importance of Big Strokes

One of charcoal’s greatest strengths is speed. Large strokes allow you to establish major forms quickly and decisively. In portrait drawing, for example, a single broad mark can define the shadow beneath the brow ridge or the underside of the cheekbone. Instead of slowly building tiny details, you begin by organizing the largest shapes first.

This process is not only efficient but also psychologically important. Big strokes force confidence. They prevent hesitation and encourage simplification.
Many artists struggle because they attempt to control every edge too early. Charcoal rewards the opposite mindset. It asks you to commit to bold marks, accept imperfections, and trust the process.

Even digitally, it can be useful to avoid relying too heavily on Undo. Sometimes mistakes introduce unexpected textures or compositions that ultimately improve the piece.

Building Complexity Gradually

Once a strong two-tone Notan study exists, additional complexity can be introduced carefully. A simple midtone often becomes the next step, transforming a flat graphic image into something more dimensional.
This three-value structure (light, midtone, and dark) creates a bridge between pure design and full rendering. Suddenly, subtle planes of the face begin to emerge. Cheeks gain softness, shadows become atmospheric, and forms feel more sculptural.

What’s important is that the image remains grounded in simplicity. The Notan structure underneath continues supporting the composition even as details and tonal nuance are added on top.
This layered approach mirrors the way many traditional painters work. Strong paintings often begin with extremely simple value foundations before gradually developing into richer, more complex surfaces.

Portraits and the Language of Light

Portrait drawing naturally fits this process because the human face is fundamentally a landscape of planes responding to light.

When simplifying a portrait, squinting becomes incredibly useful. As the eyes narrow, smaller details disappear, and shadow masses merge together. The eye sockets, hair, cheek shadows, and underside of the jaw connect into unified dark shapes.

This simplification is powerful because it helps organize the portrait clearly. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by eyelashes, pores, or tiny anatomical details, the artist focuses on the larger structure of light itself. That simplicity often produces stronger and more convincing portraits than over-rendering ever could.

Preserving the Human Touch

One reason charcoal feels so compelling today is that it retains visible evidence of the artist’s hand. In an era where much digital artwork becomes overly polished and sterile, textured brushwork and imperfect edges feel increasingly valuable.

Rebelle excels in this area because its brushes behave more like physical tools than digital stamps. Charcoal dust scatters naturally, water creates believable distortions, and blending feels tactile rather than artificial.
This physicality matters. It creates artwork that feels interpreted rather than mechanically generated. The goal is not perfection. In fact, overworking is often the fastest way to destroy the life of a drawing. The challenge is learning how to refine an image while preserving its freshness.

Finishing Without Killing the Drawing

The last phase of a charcoal piece is often subtle and slow. Highlights are adjusted carefully along the brow ridge, the nose, or the lips. Edges are softened or sharpened selectively. Small transitions are blended while preserving enough texture to keep the drawing alive. This stage requires restraint.

A drawing can become "finished" surprisingly quickly, but making it feel complete without becoming overworked is far more difficult. Often, the final ten percent of refinement takes half the total working time.

One helpful habit during this stage is staying zoomed out. Many digital artists spend too much time magnifying tiny details. Traditional painters constantly step away from the canvas to judge the entire image from a distance, and digital artists benefit from doing the same.

A successful artwork must function as a whole before its details matter.

Final Thoughts

Digital charcoal drawing is powerful because it combines the expressive energy of traditional media with the flexibility of digital tools. Through Notan studies, bold value organization, textured mark-making, and careful simplification, artists can create work that feels deeply human and visually compelling.

The real lesson behind charcoal drawing isn’t simply about mastering a medium. It’s about learning to see differently, to think in shapes instead of outlines, in light instead of objects, and in design instead of detail.

Once that shift happens, everything about drawing begins to change.

Happy Drawing,
Escape Motions Team

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Reference images for this tutorial: download here

Daniel Ibanez is a fine artist and illustrator who works out of beautiful Colorado. He grew up plein air painting mountain landscapes and western imagery. He has a love of painting the human figure, portraits, and landscapes. Daniel has worked on films, comics, video games, and tabletop games. While his range of subjects is diverse, all of his work is rooted in his traditional art background. He has been an oil painter since he was 13 years old. His work covers a wide spectrum of subjects, from sci-fi illustrations to alla prima landscapes. He has a digital portrait painting class with Domestika and a growing YouTube channel for tutorials and demonstrations. Find him on Instagram and say hello!

We are thrilled to announce that Rebelle is partnering with the Rookie Awards as a gold sponsor! This annual global competition celebrates emerging talent in creative industries, including games, animation, visual effects, immersive media, motion graphics, 3D visualisation, and more. It is a perfect opportunity for aspiring artists who are eager to take their first steps into the professional world. 

At Escape Motions, we believe everyone can be an artist when given the right opportunity. Therefore, we are joining the list of prominent sponsors from the industry, including Adobe, Wacom, Huion, Lenovo, ImagineFX, Maxon, and more. Entering The Rookies with your portfolio can line up great career opportunities.

Submit Entry by June 22, 2026

There are 12 industry-focused categories under Rookie of the Year, Film of the Year, and Game of the Year. As part of your entry, you can apply for real career opportunities: paid internships, mentorships, and professional development programs offered directly by sponsor studios. This is what sets the Rookie Awards apart. 

Whether you’re a current student, recent graduate, self-taught artist, or hobbyist, if you’ve developed industry-relevant skills and have built your first portfolio, this competition is for you! By joining, you’ll:

Gain Professional Recognition: Get noticed by recruiters and top studios.

Build an Impressive Portfolio: Present your work to a global audience.

Network with Industry Professionals: Connect with peers, mentors, and judges.

Win Exclusive Prizes: Compete for prizes, badges, certificates, and career opportunities.

Best of luck when entering,
Escape Motions Team

We’re thrilled to introduce 21 artists from around the world as the newest members of our growing Rebelle Featured Artist community. From illustration and fine art to graphic design, concept art, and game art, each artist brings their own distinctive style and creative approach.

Explore portfolios and learn about the artistic backgrounds of these talented artists. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be spotlighting each artist on our social media, so keep an eye out for more!

Anton Tareev

Anton is a self-taught artist based in the Netherlands, originally from Ukraine. In 2009, he left university to study digital painting through platforms like Gnomon and YouTube. Since 2012, Anton has been working remotely on game projects, creating artwork for publishers, and working as a senior artist.

Arya Silvart

Arya is a Polish self-taught digital & traditional artist based in Scotland. Her curiosity for digital art began when she was only 12 years old. She's been using Rebelle as her primary painting software since 2022. Her work usually focuses on themes surrounding animals, humans, and botanical motifs. Despite being predominantly a digital artist, her work expands beyond the screen, as she enjoys working with watercolors, oils, acrylics, and even sculpture.

Dhabitah Kamarudin

Dhabitah is a Singaporean graphic designer by day. But her true passion lies in digital portrait painting. Her style features loose impasto brushstrokes that build dynamic flow and movement. She is particularly known for her unconventional use of color, layering iridescent pinks and cyans to render skin tones. For her, painting is not only about capturing an accurate likeness of the subject, but also about revealing the raw and vibrant energy that lives beneath the surface.

Eric Prout

Eric is a concept artist based in Los Angeles, specializing in visual development, keyframe illustration, and production-ready design. His work blends narrative thinking with strong craftsmanship to create compelling characters, worlds, and moments that feel both intentional and alive. With a holistic approach to design, he focuses on storytelling, craft, and the details that bring ideas to life. 

Felix Bohl

Felix is a German artist living in the small city of Rostock. He started his art journey in his twenties. After a few years of exclusively traditional drawing, he enrolled at a local design school at the age of 25. He has now finished a three-year program and is still in the process of finding his artistic voice. If you ever want to meet his best self, you would find it in a forest, together with his dog and a sketchbook.

Jacek Irzykowski

Jacek has been a professional in the computer graphics industry since 2001. In 2010, he transitioned into the visual effects sector. With a degree in architecture, Jacek began his career as an architectural visual artist, contributing to the production of imagery for various companies in Australia and China. His expertise extends to environment concept design, digital painting, and visual development. 

Jacinto September

Jacinto is a South African self-taught artist devoted to portraiture and figure painting. Influenced by the old masters, inspired by their use of warm, muted earth tones and a powerful sense of drama achieved even in the simplest portrait. His experience has been shaped by hands-on work with traditional paints, embracing the tactile process. This strong traditional foundation made the transition to digital painting seamless, particularly when working with Rebelle.

Jakob Hansson

Jakob is a Danish artist and designer with a broad creative background in digital media, game design, marketing, and e-learning. He has worked for many years with interactive and learning-oriented projects, visual storytelling, training materials, and communication design. In Rebelle, Jakob primarily works with digital oil painting on a Wacom Cintiq. His approach is shaped by practical experience with traditional media, including oil, acrylics, gouache, and classical drawing. He uses digital tools in a physical, painterly way, building texture, atmosphere, and depth.

Jeremy S Thompson

Born in Scotland but raised on the east coast of Canada, Jeremy grew up drawing and consuming all things pop culture. Eventually, somehow, he stumbled into the advertising industry, which took him to Toronto, where he provided storyboards, photography, cinematography, and motion design for a variety of clients. This ultimately led to a career as a freelance commercial illustrator and director. 

Jerry Groschke

Jerry is a 3D designer, animator, and modeler who has built his professional career in the digital realm while nurturing a deep connection to art in his personal time. In his animal portraits, he aims not only to depict physical likeness but to convey the inner character and presence of each creature. Through his paintings, he explores organic forms and quiet moments from nature, offering a contrast to the precision and structure of his digital work. 

Lionel Prats

Lionel (Wilouz) is a French digital and traditional artist whose work moves between cinema, cyberpunk, dark fantasy, and soft cartoon aesthetics. As a freelance artist and streamer, he spent years in the video game industry as a lead character and FX artist, then became an illustrator in 2009 in the tabletop RPG world, specializing in dark‑fantasy horror bestiaries and book covers. Today, he creates his illustrations live on Twitch.

Lost Pombo

Lost Pombo is a UK-based artist with a background in 2D animation and artworking. His work explores dark fantasy through mood-driven compositions that emphasise scale, isolation, and atmosphere. Using Rebelle, he builds depth through stark contrast, textured surfaces, and controlled use of light, often reducing subjects to silhouettes within vast, abstract environments. His pieces prioritise presence over detail, creating a sense of tension and quiet narrative.

Luciano Komorizono

Luciano is an illustrator and concept artist who specializes in character and creature design. He has contributed to various entertainment projects, including video games, RPGs, books, card games, and board games, all while creating detailed and immersive visual development. In addition to his freelance work, he teaches digital painting, helping other artists enhance their skills and build strong portfolios. 

Miurgen

Miurgen is a self-taught Indigenous artist based in Alberta, Canada. Their art often centres on fantasy themes and beloved characters. Miurgen has been greatly inspired by traditional impressionist painters and often makes use of expressive brush strokes and heavy textures. In their free time, they enjoy a quiet day sharing a heated blanket and a book with their two cats.

Pluvium Grandis

Pluvium is a digital artist who likes to paint semi-realistic portraits and incorporate traditional techniques in his digital work.

Reg Ressing

Reg's favourite subjects in school were mathematics and art. Though she pursued higher education and a career in STEM, she rediscovered her love for drawing and decided to freelance as a digital illustrator. Today, she is a multi-award-winning artist recognised by the Society of Illustrators and National Arts Program. She specialises in drawing characters in a semi-realistic art style, crafting portraits for indie storytellers across books and games.

Romain Huray

Romain is a French illustrator and concept artist in his 20's. He has always been interested in design. Valkyrie Profile 2 was the turning point, and his interest has grown ever since. Romain has experience in video games and TCGs, but still enjoys working on any project, especially when design is a prerogative. If he is not painting, he is probably at the gym.

Ryanne Levin

Ryanne is an illustrator and graphic designer based in the western United States. Some of her professional projects have included commercial brand illustration, 2D game art, and commissioned portraiture. Ryanne's favorite painting mediums include acrylics, inks, and watercolors. Her lifelong love of nature inspires much of her work, which often features flora and fauna from different regions and biomes. She enjoys illustrating folklore stories and teaching others about plants and animals through her pieces.

Valentin Kopetzki

Valentin lives in Germany and has worked successfully as an illustrator and comic artist for the past 30 years. After many years in the field of humorous comics and cartoons, he discovered the possibilities of digital art in 2013. Since then, he has increasingly focused on painting fantasy and science fiction pieces, as he has always been an avid reader of these genres. His artistic interests have also expanded to include classical landscape painting and portraits. 

Wallace Cheong

Wallace is a Malaysian freelance illustrator specializing in comic art, portraiture, posters, and editorial illustration. Rooted in traditional techniques, his work is driven by a deep appreciation for texture, brushwork, and the tactile qualities of physical media. By combining classical sketching methods with Rebelle’s expressive watercolor, airbrushes, and oil engines, he produces digital paintings that closely echo the look and feel of traditional art.

Yumereves

Yumereves aimed to be a professional illustrator from a very young age. He loves drawing scenes from everyday life, capturing the emotions they evoke, and prompting reactions and reflection. He also enjoys drawing his favorite childhood heroes. Yumereves works on book illustrations and comics, but is also quite versatile. His style is poetic, dreamlike, humorous, dynamic, and vibrantly colorful.

Dive into the new profiles on the Featured Artists page, follow artists' social media, and get inspired by their stunning work in Rebelle.

A big thank-you goes out to everyone who applied to the Rebelle Featured Artists program! If you weren’t selected this time, we encourage you to keep your portfolio updated in our Community Gallery. Don't forget to tag @escapemotions and use #madewithrebelle when posting your art on social media. We love seeing your creations and may feature them on our channels throughout the year.

If you enjoy sharing our creative tools with others, consider joining our affiliate partner program and earn attractive commissions year-round.

Stay Creative, 
Escape Motions Team