Tutorial: Fan Art, Frozen, Anna

With this tutorial I want to focus on creating the shading using coloured pencils. Here you can clearly see how the shading is created as all the different lines are noticeable. Firstly figure out where you are going to leave the white spaces to help define the lighting, as you cannot erase coloured pencils very well. Now Anna, the character that is drawn above is known for her large blue eyes and braided hair, so focus on recreating those if you are drawing Anna. To create a rough outline just use any lead pencil but preferably a light one, then only create a very soft outline since if you apply to much pressure it can be visible through the colour.

Once you have created the outline, you want to start using the lightest shade of the colour as a base for the obejct that you're drawing. Basically you always want to start light first, then go dark after. For example if you're colouring the skin you want to start by using a light pink-ish white. Then when you want to define the shading you get a darker shade of the same colour, and then you start layering on top of the light base colour you did earlier. You can also add other colours apart from a darker shade of the same colour, as shown by the red cheeks, the artist layered in red as well as brown to create them. I suggest never using black unless you have to, since it is a very strong colour and may ruin your drawing if not added correctly.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Kaylamarrie
Picture retrieved from: I know everyone draws Frozen characters but I'd like to think I did decent....

Tutorial: Human Form, Back of the Head

This tutorial will be focused on understanding the proportions and shading from a different angle. As you can see the ear lines up with the eyes and the eyes are roughly aligned with the hole of the ear. Now everyones facial features can be slightly different so don't feel restricted by these alignments, but they only provide a rough guide to proportioning and positioning. The shading here is perfect and it clearly shows the light direction combined with the correct proportioning, this is why such a simple perspective drawing has such a realistic feel towards it.

Although the soft shading created here is done with charcoal smudging, you can still create the same effect using pencils, erasers, and smudging. To create this shading using a pencil try to use a light pencil such as a 2H or 3H, then you want to start by creating soft gradients on where you want the shading to be. Firstly you need to understand the curves of the face to be able to recognise where to shade, this only comes with practice and observation. Anyway this will then leave soft remnants of the lines, so then to get the overall soft shading as shown above, you then use either your eraser, smudge stick or even your finger to try and smudge the lines so that they aren't so noticeable anymore.

Make sure you shade in the direction of the object as shown by the hair, all the lines are curved towards the bun of the hair creating a realistic look. Now to create the shading of the hair you want to create the same sort of gradient effect as the skin. Then to create the white highlights in the hair you want to either avoid drawing in those spots, or an easier way is to use your eraser to erase some of the shading to help show how the light hits the hair. The hair also has very thin strands that stick out on the outer edges of the hair, just use a sharp pencil to draw them to add another layer of detail and realism. Don't be disappointed if you can't create the amount of detail as shown above, since the drawing above is very advanced and can only be created through practice.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comments section below, have fun!

Artist: Tkamp11
Picture retrieved from: Trying something new graphite,charcoal, and sharpie on paper.

Tutorial: Fan Art, Samurai Champloo, Mugen

With this tutorial I wanted to highlight a different style of Anime styled drawing. Mugen as a character is recognized by his hair and blank expression on his face. Understanding the elements that make up the character is the first step of creating a successful fan art. Now Samurai Champloo which is the Anime that the character above, Mugen, comes from has a more of a unique style. The art style of this Anime leans towards more of a realistically proportioned face, but they still keep a similar facial feature style. Keeping the art style in mind while creating any fan art is important.

Anyway the drawing itself here is relatively simple. There are minimal amounts of lines, but this will put more emphasis on the accuracy of the lines. When starting drawing with this style you want to start drawing lightly as the room for error with the precise lines that define this style. The shading is also kept simple using only solid colours without creating any sort of gradients. The hair however is shaded with a more of a realistic texture by shading in layers.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Pro-PAIN
Picture retrieved from: I drew Mugen from Samurai Champloo

Tutorial: Humans, Eyes

Since eyes are such a important piece in terms of recognizing people in drawings, I wanted to create a tutorial just focused on eyes. Now the eye here is drawn from a lower angle and the pupil is looking upwards, although this is a more rare angle to draw an eye from, it helps you understand the lines of the eye. What separates the good eyes from the bad, is how the small rim of the eye is shaded. As you can see the rim of the eye is the small gap between the eyelashes and the eyeball and runs on along the lower edge of the eyeball. Since it's such a small area of the eye it is hard to apply correct shading to it, but when it is done correctly as shown above with the tiny specks of white, it creates another layer of depth to the eye.

Another thing that is important when drawing an eye is understanding the shading of the pupil and the eye ball itself. The pupil of the eye will always have some specks of light hitting it, so it's important to keep those areas of the pupil white, you can do this by making a light outline of where the light hits the pupil then never drawing within that outline. The eyeball itself must be shaded so it looks like a ball, as shown above by the direction of the lines used while shading it. Drawing the eyelid groove is another small thing that can help create a more realistic eye.

Now the eyelashes here are slightly exaggerated at the upper eye, but they still carry the same drawing technique. When you draw eyelashes you want to draw them quickly and with some curve to them, almost like you're drawing the curves of a circle. You draw the eyelashes quickly to help make them look natural otherwise they would look rigid if too much time is spent on them. You also draw the eyebrows with speed to help them look natural too, except the curve of the line is less angled compared to the eyelashes.

Anyway feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: 0ptimistprime
Picture retrieved from: Quick late night eye study

Tutorial: Fan Art, League of Legends, Darius Sketch

Now this is a sketch done by one of the artists that created several artworks for the game League of Legends, so he has a pretty good idea of the art style. The art style of League of Legends is a mixture of a comic style combined with realistic shading. What I wanted to highlight was the sketching style of a more experienced artist. You see how he only briefly defines the shading with some quick line work but with the outline, more precise lines are used as well as darkening the outline where it would be darker from the shading. With this style of shading, you can focus more on perfecting the outline since it is the most important part of sketching is defining the drawing without spending too much time.

Anyway this drawing style leans towards more of a Anime style than a realistic style which you can tell by how the face is drawn. So as I've said before, with an Anime-ish style, the outline of the drawing must be  accurate since that is what helps to create that style. What's difficult about this drawing is the perspective created, since the arm is close to viewer which throws off the proportioning of a normal drawing which makes the head look small. Understanding this angle of drawing is important when you want to recreate this drawing.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: IronStylus
Picture retrieved from: Dario Chop Man

Tutorial: Human Face, Scarlett Johansson

I wanted to show a different shading style that could be easier to use when drawing human portraits or anything really. Basically the shading style is similar to cross hatching except you only choose one direction of line, then when you want to darken the shading you add more lines while sticking to the same line direction. With this style of shading you don't have to worry about shading in the direction of the shape, this helps you focus on the how dark the shading should be and where the shading should be. Also with this shading style it creates a interesting textured look to your drawings.

Anyway the actual drawing of Scarlett is done very well as the angle of the portrait is a rather difficult to recreate. Only with repetition can bring up your drawing skills up to the level as shown above. As you can see, despite the different angle, you can still recognize that the drawing is of Scarlett. I suggest to start practicing by drawing eyes since they are the main element that makes someone recognizable. Also eyes can be deceptively difficult as only the tiny details in the eye can have a large impact on how recognizable that person is.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: FLY_MOLO
Picture retrieved from: Attempt at a Scarlett Johansson portrait [pencil on moleskine]

Tutorial: Fan Art, Sasuke Sketch

Here is a sketch of a popular character from the anime Naruto, the character's name is Sasuke. Now with Sasuke, his main attributes are his unique hair and eyes, those two things are what make him recognizable. Here the artist has sketched a good representation of Sasuke's ruffled hair combined with his unique eyes. The art style of the anime Naruto keeps the hair and the nose fairly flat in terms of shading. Whereas the eyes become more detailed depending on the expressions that are made. Now drawing this style requires a good amount of accuracy with your lines, as this style keeps shading to a minimum and only uses precise lines to determine shapes and how they are positioned as well as depth.

To create accurate fan art on the character Sasuke, you're going to need to understand how his hair and eyes looks at different angles. This depends on whether you're copying an image or creating your own drawing from scratch. If you are copying an image make sure you start copying it from a point that can be used to help judge proportions from. An example of this is starting from any facial feature, if you're drawing the lips then you can understand how large those lips are compared to the eyes and the same goes for other elements of the face. I don't suggest starting from the hood of the drawing above unless you are experience at drawing this particular anime style, as the hood is difficult to recreate perfectly as you don't have anything to judge the proportions of it when you're starting from nothing.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Dam-El
Picture retrieved from: Sasuke sketch!

Tutorial: Human Face

I wanted to emphasis the importance of adding your own personal touches to drawing with this tutorial. Here the artist has added feathers that fit into the hairs movement. Also they have added two tattoos to add another element to the drawing. Once you are more experienced with drawing human faces, you can always bring it up to another level. Try experimenting with a variety of shading styles, an example of this is the hair above has two shaded strips that run through the fringe creating a interesting effect, as well as showing how the light hits the hair. Since this drawing is done with a coloured pencil, you can try choosing only one coloured pencil to create your own drawing and only stick to that one pencil.

Now the actual drawing is drawn in a mix of an Anime and a realistic style, this is shown by how the nose is shaded as well as the hair. The eyes are drawn perfectly matching up to each other which is difficult to do, so don't worry if you aren't able to recreate this. The lips and nose are drawn simplistically, but with simple lines you need to be more precise on creating those lines. Very minimal shading is used throughout the drawing, but I want to highlight the shading of the nose since her head is leaning upwards, it creates a interesting angle of shading but the artist has had no issues working with this angle. Now the angle of the portrait is another element that you can implement into your drawings, as you can see by how the head is arched back it creates a more unique perspective adding another level of creativity.

I suggest starting small when adding personal touches to drawings, as it may take a while to discover your own style. Although you need to learn how to draw basic human faces to the correct proportions before you begin.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Unknown
Picture retrieved from: Night life

Tutorial: Human Face, Kurt Cobain

Although this drawing does not look finished, the beginnings of the rough sketch style is starting to form. If you look at it closely, the dark lines create a sense of movement and it reminds me of the static on a radio if you haven't found a channel. All the dark lines have small white gaps in between which creates a comic book feel to it as well. The drawing of the human face is done to correct proportions with perfect shading to compliment it. The eye looks realistic enough that it catches your attention, which is the power of perfecting eyes.

Anyway to create this static movement effect, it is similar to cross hatching except you don't overlap lines unless you want to create some very dark shading. You shade using only direction of line, for this instance the lines are mostly going left diagonally downwards. The idea is you try and shade quickly which adds to the sense of movement in the drawing, try not to curve your lines while you shade as all the lines here are kept fairly sharp. A good way to start adding this shading effect is to draw a light outline of what you're drawing then determine where you need to shade. Although the above drawing is done in pen, you can still use a pencil to create this effect. If you're using a pencil try to keep it sharp while doing this type of shading to keep the lines consistently thin.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Jonalexher
Picture retrieved from: Kurt Cobain Ink Drawing

Tutorial: Fan Art, League of Legends, Ezreal Portrait

For this tutorial I wanted to focus on creating this particular Anime style drawing. The first thing you notice is the large eyes, which are the main element that distinguishes this drawing style from the rest. The nose is also fairly different as it is much more simplified, only the nostrils are kept removing the wider parts of the nose making it look pointed.  The lips are still similar to a realistic drawing, but the lips are drawn with less detail by not showing the tiny grooves that lips have. The lines of the hair are much more defined by a light black outline for every different movement as well.

Anyway a Anime styled drawing is easier than drawing realistically but it can be also tricky to get used to. The difficult thing about drawing in this style is creating the right sized eyes as they are much larger, although since they are larger it is easier to add detailing into them. The size of the pupil is considerably large so keep that in mind. All the other facial features apart from the hair are all simplified versions of a realistic drawing. The nose is just a triangle with nostrils since there is no detailing added to show how the curves of the nose realistically. The lips are simple as they are only three lines with some shading.  Also ears have less detailing on the inside of the ear. Now with all this simplifying it leaves a small amount of lines that need to be drawn to create this style, but with less lines, this means that the lines you draw much be sharp and precise. Majority of the drawing is outlined in a small dark line, and the shading is similar to a realistic drawing.

To create the hair, you're going to need to try and determine different parts of the hair that can be turned into individual strands. Then you outline all the individual parts of the hair in a thin dark outline. Keep in mind that the shading of the hair is separated by the thin dark outline as well.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comments section below, have fun!

Artist: Dashae
Picture retrieved from: Copics Try
Arist's comments: Well, I'm a bit obsessed with Ez...

Tutorial: Human Face, 30 Minute Sketching

Although this drawing was done within 30 minutes, the artist was able to capture the person they were drawing onto paper fairly well. All the lines are kept light and only the lines that were necessary were added, this is shown by the hair as it has a lot of white space to represent the lighting. Now the proportions of the face are done perfectly as well as the shading, which is why this simple drawing looks so nice so keep those in mind while drawing. I don't expect this kind of detail when doing a relatively quick 30 minute sketch, but with practice you can build your drawing skills up to this level. A good way to practice is to start by sketching simple objects such as a sphere or a cube, then continue to move up to human portraits or features etc.

What makes this drawing stand out is the shading of the hair and tiny touches of white in the eye, glasses and lips. The shading of the hair is relatively difficult to create, but try to figure out what are the most important lines that make up the hair. As you can see above where the hair sprouts from her head is the darkest part, and the hair near the bottom is shaded as well, their is only a light line to distinguish the curves of hair. All those lines are the most important parts that make up her hair. Natural hair can look deceptively easy to draw, but trying to figure out the shading then putting it to paper is difficult, so don't worry if you can't create the hair shown above.

The tiny touches of white added on the eyes, glasses and lips are easy to create, but you need to know where the light hits the face and what points are the brightest. You can create the tiny white highlights by drawing a very soft outline of where you want the white spot to be, then never drawing in that outline. Another way is to use a white pencil as the artist has done above, or just use your eraser if you have drawn over where you want the white spot to be. The problem with the eraser is that once you draw over the spot, the paper below will still be slightly dark from your previous lines so your white highlights won't be as bright.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comments section below, have fun!

Artist: sultryhotwife
Picture retrieved from: Charcoal portrait 30mins

Tutorial: Fan Art, Deadpool

Although this picture is only of Deadpool's head, it highlights the comic book style of shading. I didn't want to overwhelm you with a high detailed picture of Deadpool and decided to use this picture to base my tutorial around. The shading is very solid and distinct, combined with some bold lines to create the curves of the face. Also outlines of the edge of the face are kept fairly thin. Now to create this style you want to start by drawing a thin outline of whatever you're drawing. Then you're going to need to figure out what parts need shading, but the thing is you have to have a solid shape of what the shading will look like. When you colour the shapes that make up your shading they must be kept a solid colour as seen above. Also keep note of how sharp and precise all the lines are while replicating this style. This drawing style may take a while to perfect since you have to  clean and accurate lines which is fairly time consuming.

Anyway in order to draw Deadpool, you're going to need to practice drawing the two iconic white eyes in the large ovals perfectly, since those are the elements that help to distinguish Deadpool as a character. For the paint splatter effect, I find it fairly difficult to draw which keeping it looking realistic and natural. Since you need to understand the randomness of how paint splatters. If you're drawing from scratch, your paint splatter effect might look rigid and awkward, so I suggest looking at paint splatter images on Google to help get an idea on what a natural paint splatter looks like.

Feel Free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Unknown
Picture retrieved from: You guys want some Deadpool wallpapers?

Tutorial: Rough Human Face, Hugh Laurie

This portrait is more rough then all the other ones I have showcased, but with this roughness it adds a rugged effect as well as a sense of movement. The person the artist was representing has slight differences to the drawing and can be a bit difficult to recognize, the only way to create recognizable drawings is to keep practicing drawing. Then each time you start trying to draw a celebrity for example, try set yourself small goals such as perfecting the eyes. Anyway this drawing looks to be a fairly quick sketch. To create this you want to just draw without worrying how perfect your lines are, then at the end you can edit them as well as add some more shading. You have to try and free up your hand and try to sketch quickly as you constantly switch back and forth from what you're drawing to your paper. Don't worry about the messiness since that adds to the rugged effect, and creates that sense of movement I was talking about.

You could also try setting a time limit for how long you have to draw any image. For example, try to only take 3 minutes to get all the basic outlines for the drawing above and see how you go. This way it forces you to rush, which distracts your mind from caring about the accuracy of your lines. Now if you're still a beginner at rough sketches don't expect your sketches to be very accurate, it may take a couple of tries to get used to how fast or how messy your lines should be to create a nice rugged drawing.

Feel free to post your outcome in the comment section below, have fun!

Artist: Shadowfangs99
Picture retrieved from: My sketch of Hugh Laurie as House M.D