How do you draw a glitch effect?

Drawing glitch effects by hand requires understanding the visual language of digital corruption and translating it to traditional or digital illustration techniques.

Start with your base drawing, then add characteristic glitch elements: horizontal slice shifts where portions of the image offset left or right, RGB color separation by drawing the same element three times in cyan, magenta, and yellow with slight offsets, and scan lines using thin horizontal stripes.

For digital drawing, work in layers. Create your subject on one layer, duplicate it, and offset the copies. Apply different blend modes to simulate color channel effects. Add noise textures and horizontal line patterns on overlay layers.

Traditional media techniques include using colored pencils or markers for the RGB separation effect, masking tape for clean slice edges, and fine-tip pens for scan line details. The key is embracing imperfection -real glitches are chaotic, so avoid making your drawn effects too precise or symmetrical. See our glitch drawing tutorial for step-by-step examples.