I watched her tutorials, downloaded the specific brushes she uses, downloaded textures from the site she recommended (lostandtaken.com), and tried my best to emulate her style using all of that!

First, I found some references that I wanted to use. I looked into the cottagecore aesthetic because I think it fits well into her style, but it's also a bit lighter than her usual style, which would fit my aesthetic a tiny bit better. 

I also decided to use my friend for reference because I think she's really pretty :)

Here are the references:

It all begins with a sketch! She said she works on 11 by 17 scale most times, so I did the same. Here's the sketching process:

Then I inked it! I used the brush she uses, I kept the lines bold and black, and I paid special attention to the style of the eyes and hair in order to keep her style. The plants she's holding are also in Danica's style; you can see them in the first piece I showed of hers.

The main deviation I purposefully take from Danica's style is the color scheme. She usually works with very dark and bold colors all the way around, occasionally working with softer colors. I chose to work with softer colors on the girl, even if it's not the norm for Danica's style.

When working with shadows, she utilizes cell shading - where there isn't any blending of the edges, and they're kept as a harsh line instead. She said she picks a dark, saturated blue or purple color, sets the blend mode to multiply or color burn (depending on what the piece calls for), and goes to town. 

Here are my colors and shadows:

Another thing that I observe in Danica's style is blushing. She blushes the cheeks, eyes, shoulders, hands, and other places of the body as well. Something to note is that the edges of the lips are usually quite soft in her style, so I emulated that as well. Also peep the freckles I added at this stage.

Her highlights (at least in her digital work) are also cell shaded, so they're again quite harsh. I added highlights all over!

I should also mention here that I kept changing the background color throughout the project, but I had a feeling that it should be a dark green. I thought that bringing in an element of darkness in the background would circle this back around to Danica's style. I eventually settled on the shade, and added the texture I picked out from the website she recommended.

Finally, I used her textured lighting brush to liven up the background with a variance in green hue and in texture. This makes the background quite similar to some of those found in her watercolor paintings.

aaaaaaand... voila! My Danica Sills inspired project is all finished!