Bank Holiday Weekenders

This personal commission was a real challenge, with the reference taken from a low quality phone camera.

The reference image was taken from a combination of shots, but each had a different light source which made this project extra difficult.

As usual this image started as a line drawing using the easy grid method.

I started with the hair as usual in order to void leaning my hand on the drawing. KT's hair was dark in this reference and was darker than the body reference and so I started of with a lighter tone to make it darker later on.

As usual I then completed KT's hair to frame the outline of her face.

To avoid loosing the outline of the facial features I added tone to KT's features before the main tones of her face.

Adding the skin tones really helped to add some depth to KT's face here as the dark features were looking a bit flat.

Moving onto the body I needed to try and blend the skin tones of the two reference images together. Also I needed to add extra shade tones where KT's hair and upper body would interact.

I then moved onto the lower tummy area as this was in shade and provided some much needed turning plains.

The rendering of the upper arm was very light and due to the light which made adding depth here quite difficult. I added some darker tones to this area later once tone was added to Bill's arm.

Will's arm added another opportunity for some more turning plains. The darker tone also helped to add some shape to KT's body. Bill's body was difficult to balance as the reference image had a dark skin tone.

Adding Bill's skin tones was rewarding as it helped to define the outline of KT's body and added some more depth to his body. Again balancing the dark skin tone to look caucasian was difficult.

Bill's face was probably the most difficult single part of this project as the light in the reference image was opposite to the rest of the references. This also make it difficult to define his lower jaw against the shaded skin tones.

Bill's hair helped to frame his face and add contrast to the reverse lighter tones. It was quite hard to show his thinner hair in profile too here.

To help consolidate the references I then added darker tones to balance the image before sending it to the happy couple.

Dribble

This was a fun project. Again using Faber-Castell 9000 on 250 gsm Bristol board, and the reference for this image was a still taken from a low resolution video clip.

With this project I wanted to try drawing from a low quality reference to see how much impact it had on the final image, and to try and use an image where the light had not been adjusted specifically for a front lit portrait shot. The reason for using a low quality image was that if successful would widen the range of reference images I could use, and also by using a low-res image I was pushed to imagine more of the details while maintaining reference proportions. As I result I found the reference challenging to use but really enjoyable as I felt free from the focus of making it 'right'.

So as before I started out with the easy grid method.

The line for this was much rougher than with my other projects as the reference was not as clear. The HB pencil didn't scan too well here.

I started with the hair in the top left again to avoid smudging. Here I started with the hard pencils and worked towards the softer cores.

I then took the hair on the left side down to help frame the face. At this stage the hair was left with a lighter tone, in order to balance the tones later with reference to the rest of the image.

The hair the came in front of the leather strap was particularly difficult to see in the reference image and so I put that in place first to preserve the edge of some of the lighter tones that may have got lost with the surrounding  darker shades.

I then added the to leather strap. Here again it has a light tone, as with the hair the darker tones will be added later in order to keep them balanced.

To frame the face I completed the hair on the right. In this scan the image looks really light.

There was a bit of a jump here as I needed to reboot the host to update my virtual kernel drivers to get the scanner back on line. The hair took a while to draw, but the face was much quicker. I first added the lower leather straps and more dark tone to the top strap. Then I added the eyes and upper face skin tones.  The tone round the nose took a while and a lot of adjustment as the models nose was being pulled up, the shade was not falling as close to the nose as usual. This pull of the straps also had a big effect on the skin round the left eye, which I adjusted again later.

The details of the ball straps were fun and required strong contrast to help define them. The tone of the lips was very close to that of the skin on the face, so I made it a bit darker than the reference to help define it a little more. The models lips were being pulled out of shape a bit by the ball, and had a tone very similar to that of the ball so I needed again to add more definition here.

Again to help distinguish the ball from the lips I made the ball darker than the reference. The darker tones used on the ball also helped with the contrasting saliva highlights on the top. The lower lip was also difficult to see as it was partly obscured by the ball and lightened by the light reflected on the pooling saliva. I also made the left eye larger as the pulled skin round the eye was unclear.

To frame the face I then added the lower hair bunches and the shaded skin under the chin area. I added the hair on the left first, then the lower neck strap, the skin and then the hair on the right. This area of the reference was very unclear and I drew on other parts of the video as a guide.

Then I added the skin tones to the shoulder area and a little to the models back that was just in shot. I wasn't sure about adding the back, but in the end I felt it looked better.

The finally I darkened the tone of the skin and made the final scan. 

I am pleased with the results of this and hope to use some more video references in the future.

Off the shoulder

Well I started this project to test the Derwent Graphic pencils again, with some blending, but it didn't turn out as expected. The Derwent pencils turned out to be really rubbish, and blending with them didn't help. The pencils were still too gritty and cut up the paper too much making building up layers very rough.

So as I liked the reference image here I tried again using my Faber-Castell 9000 pencils, which I needed to supplement with a few new pencils to fill the gaps in the range. These pencils were much better, but still the drawing was difficult.

As before I started with a line drawing using my easy grid method.

Here I have completed the line work and started to add some of the hair to frame the face.

I then added more of the hair and the edge of the ear. This was difficult as the reference image had a lot of mid tones that together made it difficult to pick out what was going on in the picture. I found zooming out of the reference image a lot here helped.

To help frame the face more I then added tone to the neck. I think this may have been a bad move and was the start of my problems. I also during this project, I think I started too many of the dark areas with too light a tone before building up. I think these early light layers overworked the paper and resulted in some darker spots in the final image.

I then moved focus to the eyes. In retrospect I think I should have started this drawing with the eyes as they have the most detail and also represented the darkest and lightest tones in the image. This would have given me a good reference for the tones of the face the the next area that I had already done. 

Continuing with the eyes I added more dark tones. I really like the way the eyes turned out and I think they are probably the best part of the drawing, but after completing them I could then see that the tone of the eye required the rest of the image to be much darker than I had planned.

To continue with the main facial features I added the tones for the side of the nose. Again I really liked the way this turned out, but in the end I needed to make this darker which was a shame.

Adding the mouth completed the main features. Again I was really please with how the mouth turned out, but it too had to go darker to balance the tone of the drawing.

The large shadow on the face was next, and proved to be the most difficult part of the drawing. It was practically difficult to lay down such a large dark area of tone and also to blend it in. At this point I realise I needed to balance the tones, and in particular darken the mid tones of the hair, ear and neck.

To finish I added tone to the shoulder and darkened the neck. The tone of this is smoother than seems to have come out on the scanner. I am guessing that this may be due to some glare or graphite reflection of the scanner.

Overall this image was much more difficult than I had expected and I will practice shading dark tones on large areas before my next project.

Wet Weekend

This project started so that I could try out my new set of Derwent Graphic pencils. Reference image from LuisdeBurg z pasadiso9. 

As before I started with the grid method to lay down the basic line work with the HB.

Then I started shading with the hair and top hand. The hair in there reference image is really dark and I used the 6B for this, and the H for the basic skin tone.

At this stage it didn't take long to realise that the Derwent pencils are quite dark, though the 6B was really soft and broke a lot (unlink the previous 6B Faber-Castell).  In then end I used more than half of the 6B to finish this image. I also had to work in the skin tones before going over them again with the hair.

Moving on I then added tone across the face. I built this up in layers starting with the H to the 2B. I added the eyes with the 6B to keep them dark.

Adding the lips stopped the face looking so strange. At this stage the face was pretty light and didn't have enough depth, but I came back to address this in the end.

I then added as much of the rest of the hair as I could to give shape to the face. The ends of the hair had to wait still though until the skin tones on the shoulders had been added.

At this point I was realising that the Derwent pencils seemed to have quite a lot of grit in the hard pencils and the soft cores were leaving lots of dark spots on the paper, that I needed to remove with the kneaded eraser. The gritty hard pencils started making me a bit nervous about tearing the paper or leaving unexpected dark lines. Sometimes the 4H seemed darker than the 2H?

I added the right arm next to frame the other side of the face, I probably should have added this earlier to avoid having to lean on the work completed so far.

I stared then to focus on the shoulder as it has some darker tones that differed from the rest of the torso. Also this started to fill in the skin area that would be covered by hair.

Following the darker tones I added the under-arm and the edge of the breast.

Then I decided to add the rest of the skin tones in order to add the water with the electric eraser. I filled in most of the skin with a 2H then added darker tones with the H, B and 2B where needed. I also went back to balance the tone on the arm with the rest of the body. 

Finally I added the water with the electric eraser and darkened round the droplets with the 2H and H pencils. The nipples were build up with a B, 2B and 4B, erasing the small light areas with each additional layer.

I then also went back and added more tone to the face and lips where they are in shade.

Overall I mostly enjoyed drawing this image. I was initially unhappy with the Derwent pencils, though I think after working with them for a while one could benefit from familiarity. I did however find I was often going back to remove dark spots left by the soft pencils and I lost confidence in the hard pencils to the point I was starting to test them in on scrap paper before applying them to the drawing. They did give good dark tones though, and may provide a better outcome if blended, which I may try next on a smaller drawing.

Shades of grey

I started this project to work more closely with graphite shading. I bought a set of Faber-Castell pencils specifically for this drawing. (4h, h, hb, b, 2b & 6b).

As my aim was shading more than line drawing I decided to use the easy grid method. I used A3 paper and 10mm grid cells. I am fortunate enough to have access to a large format printer so I was able to print the grid on a single sheet of paper. The line drawing took a few days as I was trying to be patient from the start and the reference had a lot of details with a varied hair style. The line work was done lightly using the HB pencil but did not scan well enough to be seen.

With the highlights on the hair and skin I decided to start with a background for contrast. I am not sure about this beginning and maybe next time I will try without a background and just rely on the light shades to suggest the edge of the figure.

After the background the hair too a long time in stages. The hair took about as long to draw as the rest of the image did in total.

Here I drew just enough of the hair as was required before starting on the face. The shading of the hair was build up in layers, starting with the 4H to provide some highlights, which indented the paper and helped to give structure to the darker tones. The tones were built up to the 6B. I also went over the 6B with the lighter 4H and H to blend them in.

For the skin I used a mixture of cross hatching and circular shading, and built up the layers from 4H to 2B. The light base layer helped with blending the darker tones and kept the tones light. I didn't use a blending stump this time but I may try one again in a future drawing. Before staring on the face I also placed a few hair lines with the 4H to keep them light as I planned to add the hairs covering the eye once the face shading had been completed. Overall the use of the 4H for keeping light lines and blending the darker tones seemed to work really well.

After staring the skin tones on the face I felt that I needed the darker features such as the eyes and brows adding so that the lines didn't get lost in the light tones and to provide a contrast for the shading.

To complete the face I then blended to the light round the side of the head and jaw, then added the edge of the hair to frame the face.

I then continued and finished the rest of the hair, providing the main area of dark tones for the drawing.

With the hair completed I worked left to right, or dark to light rendering the skin. I worked in sections of upper arm then lower arm, to avoid loosing the light line work and building up the tone grades.

For the front arm I started with the 4H again and worked up slowly with lighter tones as I wanted to keep the edge of the arm light, with a bit more contrast than was in the reference.

Finally I kept the tones on the other arm light and used the 4H and H to softly finish the cloth. I also went back to add some darker tones to her right arm to increase the contrast with the background and to match the tone of the face better.

Overall this project took just under two weeks and I have learnt a lot about graphite shading. I have really enjoyed seeing this come together and I am looking forward to my next project after stopping of to practice with some blending.