When it comes to pencils for drawing I use almost any type, from the Derwent range to the Mars Lumograph pencils and even sometimes the cheap pencils for 10p each, but lately I've been using mechanical pencils, because of their ease to use and you never have to sharpen them, although you do have to re-fill with new lead every now and then, but I find that mechanical pencils really are the best when it comes to sketching as they have a fine point that is ideal for drawing.
There is no specific make that I use, because I use any, even the cheap ones, I have occasionaly bought the bic range of mechanical pencils, but when I can buy a box of 15 for £1 then I will do that to save some money, I do find though that cheap pencils sometimes can leave cheap looking pencil marks when you start ti draw and by cheap pencil marks I mean those annoying ones where you try to draw and they end up almost crumbling and leaving varied tone on your paper and that is not on.
I find the paper mate lead refills great for most mechanical pencils and particularly as they are 0.5mm which is usually the standard for mech pencils, though what you've got to be carefulabout is dropping your mech pencils as the lead breaks very easily, so if you have some kids who thinks it's funny to throw around pencils like my kids, then hide them and give them cheap ass pencils to play with, that's what I do.
Whatever pencils you choose to use, just make sure they deliver great results, out of interest, what pencils do you use?
Saturday, 6 March 2010
New Drawings: Sketchbook Notes
Today I thought I'd go through some of my latest drawings in my sketchbook and just tell you about them, the thoughts and ideas behind them, because that's what could be important and you may find something of use within my notes.
Very often I draw just for the sake of drawing and so sometimes my results for the day end up rather samey and so it is quite a challenge at times to try and draw stuff that is outside of my own comfort zone, but here we are with this first drawing of a viking head, it's a quick and rather sketchy drawing that obviously isn't finished yet but I like where it's headed and it looks alive almost, although there are certain things about it that I certainly would change, like the face needs a bit of shading, but that is the challenge of sketching, sometimes things don't turn out right the first time around.
The viking drawing turned out not so bad as I sketched it with a fine line ink pen and I had fun drawing the serious face and the viking helmet is a classic too with the horns.
I hope to do some more viking drawing practice to get a bit better at them, what is it they say? the more drawing you do the better you get at it!
The next drawing is back to old school for me, because I could do these types of drawings in my sleep and in pitch black darkenss and they'd still turn out alright, such is my confidence in drawing them it is totally arrogant, because I love drawing them and that's a skull, this is in my natural style whch is rather comic book in style and that's the way my art has evolved over the years and I'm glad of that, it would be nice to maybe draw some skulls in the manga style sometime as I like that style of art.
This skull was originally going to be just a skull that would be surrounded in fire, but I couldn't be bothered as it looked just fine without all that flame and most times I would ink the skull but not on this occasion as it looked kind of finished in pencil, all that mattered at the time was for the skull to look angry and evil in some way and I achieved that.
Another thing that I seem to always keep drawing in my sketchbooks, mainly because I am working on several graphic novels which do take up my time frequently and that is a demon sketch, I try to make them evil and always scary looking all the time, so when I first drew up this piece I thought about it either as a stand alone piece or as a tattoo, but quickly realized that there is just too much detail for it to be a tattoo, so I just filed it away for use another day.
I liked the way that it appears like it's looking directly at you, so maybe I could further it's depth by scanning it into my computer and colouring it that way through Gimp or even Paintshop Pro.
A sea creature drawing which was only a quick draft sketch for a larger more finished drawing that I didn't even complete, but it still gives me the raw idea to finish it some day, I liked the idea of the creature trying to coil over the small boat and some water splashing around the boat or at least a few waves being created because of the sea creature attacking, this is definately one to finish as I have fond memories of this 6 year old sketch and it must be a six year old sketch because I don't sign my drawings like that anymore.
Very often I draw just for the sake of drawing and so sometimes my results for the day end up rather samey and so it is quite a challenge at times to try and draw stuff that is outside of my own comfort zone, but here we are with this first drawing of a viking head, it's a quick and rather sketchy drawing that obviously isn't finished yet but I like where it's headed and it looks alive almost, although there are certain things about it that I certainly would change, like the face needs a bit of shading, but that is the challenge of sketching, sometimes things don't turn out right the first time around.
The viking drawing turned out not so bad as I sketched it with a fine line ink pen and I had fun drawing the serious face and the viking helmet is a classic too with the horns.
I hope to do some more viking drawing practice to get a bit better at them, what is it they say? the more drawing you do the better you get at it!
The next drawing is back to old school for me, because I could do these types of drawings in my sleep and in pitch black darkenss and they'd still turn out alright, such is my confidence in drawing them it is totally arrogant, because I love drawing them and that's a skull, this is in my natural style whch is rather comic book in style and that's the way my art has evolved over the years and I'm glad of that, it would be nice to maybe draw some skulls in the manga style sometime as I like that style of art.
This skull was originally going to be just a skull that would be surrounded in fire, but I couldn't be bothered as it looked just fine without all that flame and most times I would ink the skull but not on this occasion as it looked kind of finished in pencil, all that mattered at the time was for the skull to look angry and evil in some way and I achieved that.
Another thing that I seem to always keep drawing in my sketchbooks, mainly because I am working on several graphic novels which do take up my time frequently and that is a demon sketch, I try to make them evil and always scary looking all the time, so when I first drew up this piece I thought about it either as a stand alone piece or as a tattoo, but quickly realized that there is just too much detail for it to be a tattoo, so I just filed it away for use another day.
I liked the way that it appears like it's looking directly at you, so maybe I could further it's depth by scanning it into my computer and colouring it that way through Gimp or even Paintshop Pro.
A sea creature drawing which was only a quick draft sketch for a larger more finished drawing that I didn't even complete, but it still gives me the raw idea to finish it some day, I liked the idea of the creature trying to coil over the small boat and some water splashing around the boat or at least a few waves being created because of the sea creature attacking, this is definately one to finish as I have fond memories of this 6 year old sketch and it must be a six year old sketch because I don't sign my drawings like that anymore.
I'd like to do more sketchbook showcasing here as I think it provides a useful outlet for showing inspirational sketches and if I talk more about them than I did in this post then you may find it more useful, What do you think?
Friday, 5 March 2010
What To Do When You Can't Draw Or Think Of New Ideas
Take a break is my usual plan of action, either take a walk, watch a movie, walk the dog, go to the pub or write a plan of ideas that you may be interested in in the future, this is what I like to do and it works every time.
Sometimes taking a break from what you've been thinking about too much helps you come back to it refreshed and ready to go again, there's been times when I've been trying to draw something and it just screws up every time and so I walk away and do something else like have a coffee, although I've just given up coffee and I only drink tea or hot chocolate, the five or ten minutes you take to rest your mind and your eyes away from your drawing is the best thing that you can do for your creativity.
I'm a great believer in planning for these so called non motivating days that seem to hide and wait for you to fail and by planning I mean so that you always win over them negative thoughts that do cry out and whinge that you can't draw or think of anything to draw, I'm always writing lists of ideas and sheets of notes to guide me on my way, call it my wonder sheet where I wonder what I'll draw next, well that's what I do and I take it anywhere, even on days when I'm not at my desk because that's when ideas strike.
When you're watching the telly or reading a book, ideas infiltrate your brain like planted thought suggestions, I tend to think of visual and audio helpful in bringing excellent creative ideas to the forefront of your mind and while were at it, sleep is one of the best idea generators that we can have, especially if you can remember your dreams, even if they seem vague, but interesting enough to write down moments after waking up, it's all about inspiring yourself in ways that you like and by doing the things that you like to bring about those thoughts and feelings of exhilaration.
For me, there's nothing like working solid on drawing for a whole day and creating some great drawings and pieces of art that you are proud of, so try taking a break, have a sleep if necessary or do something else that will help your creative side to shine!
Sometimes taking a break from what you've been thinking about too much helps you come back to it refreshed and ready to go again, there's been times when I've been trying to draw something and it just screws up every time and so I walk away and do something else like have a coffee, although I've just given up coffee and I only drink tea or hot chocolate, the five or ten minutes you take to rest your mind and your eyes away from your drawing is the best thing that you can do for your creativity.
I'm a great believer in planning for these so called non motivating days that seem to hide and wait for you to fail and by planning I mean so that you always win over them negative thoughts that do cry out and whinge that you can't draw or think of anything to draw, I'm always writing lists of ideas and sheets of notes to guide me on my way, call it my wonder sheet where I wonder what I'll draw next, well that's what I do and I take it anywhere, even on days when I'm not at my desk because that's when ideas strike.
When you're watching the telly or reading a book, ideas infiltrate your brain like planted thought suggestions, I tend to think of visual and audio helpful in bringing excellent creative ideas to the forefront of your mind and while were at it, sleep is one of the best idea generators that we can have, especially if you can remember your dreams, even if they seem vague, but interesting enough to write down moments after waking up, it's all about inspiring yourself in ways that you like and by doing the things that you like to bring about those thoughts and feelings of exhilaration.
For me, there's nothing like working solid on drawing for a whole day and creating some great drawings and pieces of art that you are proud of, so try taking a break, have a sleep if necessary or do something else that will help your creative side to shine!
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Draw A Vampire
Been busy on youtube for awhile creating some new videos and a couple of them in how to draw a vampires head and so in the first video I draw up a storm rather quickly with a short video on going through the process of drawing a vampires head.
Drawing quite quickly you can sketch some good vampire heads, so if you want to do that before you start the actual vampire drawing, just to get an idea for a particular way that the head of the vampire will face, I did a fornt facing vampire head which is a good one to do because you can show all the face and features.
Here's the first drawing video...
In the second drawing video I wanted to see a progression of the original drawing so that it looked like it was evolving and gaining some depth on the face, this is achieved through a combination of shading and darkening the pencil lines so that the lighter lines will fade out and eventually be erased later on as they become irrelevant.
Watch this video as you see the vampire becoming more vampire like with it's fangs and the blood dripping from it's chin...
Drawing quite quickly you can sketch some good vampire heads, so if you want to do that before you start the actual vampire drawing, just to get an idea for a particular way that the head of the vampire will face, I did a fornt facing vampire head which is a good one to do because you can show all the face and features.
Here's the first drawing video...
In the second drawing video I wanted to see a progression of the original drawing so that it looked like it was evolving and gaining some depth on the face, this is achieved through a combination of shading and darkening the pencil lines so that the lighter lines will fade out and eventually be erased later on as they become irrelevant.
Watch this video as you see the vampire becoming more vampire like with it's fangs and the blood dripping from it's chin...
Monday, 1 March 2010
Drawing Tutorial: Let's Draw A Mermaid
Drawing Mermaids!!!! I've never ever drawn a Mermaid before, so there's a first time for everything, I'm more used to drawing monsters and demons, but that's the reason why I want to diversify and show more drawing tutorials and how to blog posts on other stuff, because I'm still a learning artist like you, the thing about drawing is you've got to constantly challenge yourself and draw things you wouldn't draw in a million years, and so Mermaids are the order of the day!
Getting the balance right of a half fish half woman can be difficult, as there is a tendency to over weight the woman half of the Mermaid and leave the fish tail half looking ridiculous, the thing that I've realized when practicing drawing a mermaid is that you can draw the fish tail end as large as you want and the woman half still looks ok.
Right, lets get on with it shall we? - First of all, what I do in my tutorials is to draw the drawing complete and then I backtrack through each step using my lightbox to trace each step as I would have drawn it from scratch, so throughout, you will see a changed pencil line on some of the drawing, this is because I traced at each step to show again how each part of the mermaid is drawn.
First I like to draw a rough skeletal shape which is an ideal place to start and I like to draw a curved line which will be the mermaids spine and fishes tail, see the drawing below to see what I mean...
Now we want to work on that fishes tail first, so that we get that curved tail right as this will be the most dynamic part of the mermaid together with the mermaids hair which will be floating under the water, try and draw the shape around the spinal line that I've drawn below...
Now we need the drawing to come together and the arms need to be sketched in at this point, so that there is some sort of balance, it's all about testing the position of the arms, to see if they look right, it took me two times to get the arms looking good against the flow of the fish tail, take a look for yourself at how the mermaid is coming along....
Now the hair is drawn in roughly and the head is sectioned off with a cross grid to mark out the eyes and the mermaids features, aswell as some smal detail on the fin of the fish tail and my favourite part the boobs are drawn in roughly too....
Now the final stage of the pencil drawing is completed with the eyes and nose and mouth drawn in, try to keep them in proportion of the body and a criss cross pencil mark has been added to a random part of the fish tail to show fish scales and also we draw a cheeky star fish bra to cover the mermaids bazookas....take a look!
Now, you can ink the mermaid drawing to make the mermaid appear more clearer with a permanent ink that is darker, I use the finest ink pen which is usually the cheapest from the store, see the final drawing below.
Drawing mermaids are quite fun to draw, so why not have a go and draw a great mermaid....
Getting the balance right of a half fish half woman can be difficult, as there is a tendency to over weight the woman half of the Mermaid and leave the fish tail half looking ridiculous, the thing that I've realized when practicing drawing a mermaid is that you can draw the fish tail end as large as you want and the woman half still looks ok.
Right, lets get on with it shall we? - First of all, what I do in my tutorials is to draw the drawing complete and then I backtrack through each step using my lightbox to trace each step as I would have drawn it from scratch, so throughout, you will see a changed pencil line on some of the drawing, this is because I traced at each step to show again how each part of the mermaid is drawn.
First I like to draw a rough skeletal shape which is an ideal place to start and I like to draw a curved line which will be the mermaids spine and fishes tail, see the drawing below to see what I mean...
Now we want to work on that fishes tail first, so that we get that curved tail right as this will be the most dynamic part of the mermaid together with the mermaids hair which will be floating under the water, try and draw the shape around the spinal line that I've drawn below...
Now we need the drawing to come together and the arms need to be sketched in at this point, so that there is some sort of balance, it's all about testing the position of the arms, to see if they look right, it took me two times to get the arms looking good against the flow of the fish tail, take a look for yourself at how the mermaid is coming along....
Now the hair is drawn in roughly and the head is sectioned off with a cross grid to mark out the eyes and the mermaids features, aswell as some smal detail on the fin of the fish tail and my favourite part the boobs are drawn in roughly too....
Now the final stage of the pencil drawing is completed with the eyes and nose and mouth drawn in, try to keep them in proportion of the body and a criss cross pencil mark has been added to a random part of the fish tail to show fish scales and also we draw a cheeky star fish bra to cover the mermaids bazookas....take a look!
Now, you can ink the mermaid drawing to make the mermaid appear more clearer with a permanent ink that is darker, I use the finest ink pen which is usually the cheapest from the store, see the final drawing below.
Drawing mermaids are quite fun to draw, so why not have a go and draw a great mermaid....
Learn To Draw Peppa Pig (Just For Fun!)
Drawing Peppa Pig and any cartoon character is not my usual drawing tutorial to show here on this blog, but since my daughter put in a request, then I thought I would have a go at drawing Peppa Pig in an article drawing tutorial, which you may find quite useful in a step by step kind of way, just to see how you approach the process of drawing a cartoon character.
See how to draw Peppa Pig
See how to draw Peppa Pig
Watch Me Draw A Twisted Skull
A new video has been posted to my Youtube Channel on how to draw a twisted skull, the video only lasts a few minutes and it shows me drawing a twisted skull design in real time like most of my videos, I welcome any feedback on this video if any as I do intend on doing loads more drawing videos about different stuff to draw and drawing skulls are great to do and fun!
Enjoy the video....
Also see - Drawing A Skull Tattoo
Enjoy the video....
Also see - Drawing A Skull Tattoo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)