Step 9 - Now we need to make an atmospheric background. I want to make a tundra landscape with a sense of real depth, and soft lighting. Draw a rectangle the full size of your canvas, and place it on a new layer behind all the other layers. Fill this background shape with a gradient with the brighter colour at the top.
Draw hills using the Pen tool and fill them with gradients, making the nearer hills darker than the distant ones to add depth. Draw fog using the Pen tool, fill it with a light colour and make it transparent, placing it in front of the tree shape.
Step 10 - To make furry creatures first we need to create a custom brush. Draw the shape of the brush with the Pen tool and drag it into the Brush panel (F5), choosing Art Brush. In Options, choose the direction and don’t forget to tick Proportional to get each brush strand a unique size.
Step 11 - Make the body of the creature and, using our custom brush, draw strands around it. When all the fur is ready, select all the strands and expand them (Object > Expand Appearance). Then, using the Pathfinder tool, unite all the fur with the body shape. Apply a gradient and add details like eyes, ears, nose and so on. Make several different characters with the same technique and arrange them in your composition.