Drawing Secrets, Are There Really Any Secrets To Drawing?

Drawing secrets, yeah right, I don't think there are any secrets to drawing, as they are all out there in some form or another and further more drawing, you either get on with practising sketching or you don't, because the world of art revolves around you actually trial and erroring the way you work anyway as an artist, so test every medium to find your strengths and your weaknesses and lose the weak mediums, for me watercolour painting is my weak medium, but I will be practicing to try and improve my skills in this area.

There are no drawing secrets because no one is hiding them or with holding the truth behind drawing, it is up to the artist to draw some stuff, as much as they want!! Sorry for this rant, but I am annoyed by the apparent marketing of Drawing as hidden secrets, which they are not, fine, show how to draw something, but do not pretend that there are drawing secrets when there are not, people either choose to learn to draw or they do not, end of!

Now here is a little drawing secret...you what, shut up!!

Sorry about that little rant and rave, now what I want to do with this post is to do something different and to ask you what you are good at drawing, because I thought it would be interesting to see what we are all up to and what we all enjoy drawing the most and so I'll go first and show you my drawing.

You can comment below and add a link to your best art and I will check it out and comment and subscribe and just generally encourage you, as it should be really!

Right now I've been drawing all day as usual and today I have drawn another demon design, but it's for a tattoo and which will be a set of 8 demon head tattoos that will all be the same size and I hope you like it, because this is what I enjoy drawing every time, monsters and demons and other wordly creatures.

Drawing Vampires: Sketching The Figures

When it comes to drawing vampires I do like to sketch out a load of potential figures and poses first to choose from, the process of draft sketching is an important one for the artist as it not only gets you into the practice of drawing in an ordered way it builds your confidence as well with quick sketching, by creating fast ideas right on the page.

We all know what vampires look like with the many horror films that have come and gone and so,it's just a case of deciding on a character idea that you are happy with, I've settled for the woman villager type of vampire (which is based on those classic Hammer horror Dracula films!), dressed in an old style dress or maids out fit, possibly a nightie, haven't decided yet, we'll just see as I start to sketch along with my written words here.

In the following draft sketch I have drawn the full figure of the vampire woman and then done a separate head shot to see a close up of the vampire woman's head fangs and all, you'll notice that a sketch is just the rough outline and will probably be not the final drawing so don't worry about getting it wrong at this stage, because you've got plenty of time to make it work, that's what they made art erasers for!

Hopefully in these web cam shots you can see the vampires drawn figure, together with the close up sketch of the head too and this is the classic way of drawing new characters, a profile head shot with a full figure drawing, of course you'd add other notes along the way like costume colours and things you would change, but it's a start.

I'm going to do a couple of follow on posts for this blog post as I can see it as a small drawing project and a 3 or 4 part series on drawing this vampire so watch out for the next post soon!

Art Book Review: Drawing And Painting The Undead By Keith Thompson

Drawing the undead and painting them seems a rather brilliant statement to undertake and with the above named book I have been having some fun with the many undead creatures in this book (Drawing them that is!) there are a couple of classics, but there are some undead nasties that I must admit I've never heard of, but they do look like fun to draw.

The book itself is filled with fantastic illustrations of such undead classics as Wraiths, Vampires and undead corpses or zombies, in fact the book gives a rough outline of how the drawings are created from scratch with small sketches that form the basis of an idea and then you can see the progression of the drawing to it's finished form, but this is done in such a way that it inspires you to come up with drawing your own creature of the undead.

The cover of the book, just drew me in when I was going to buy it and who can resist drawing the undead? I certainly couldn't and plus I read some of the reviews on Amazon before I purchased it and some people said it was a good book and I agree, with over 145 pages, each page has a drawing or painted piece of artwork to draw inspiration from.

From the start of the book you are introduced to sources of finding inspiration from outside sources such as movies, comics and books and then with quick overviews in working with digital art and the importance of keeping a sketchbook, then really short, quick overviews of the building blocks such as basic anatomy and then it's straight into drawing a few examples or draw your own and that's what I like about this book is that it doesn't say draw this and that, it just lays it all out for you to absorb what you will and go off and sketch some stuff.

Keith Thompsons art is excellent and you can visit his website here - Keith Thompson, although he does occasionally have help from other artists in the book, but you can see that this guy is a fantastic fantasy artist who likes to draw some horror elements in his work, although I never heard of Keiths fantasy work before and his work I most certainly do now.

Drawing and painting the undead is available to buy on Amazon and I do recommend it if you like to draw all that horror fantasy stuff like me. Check the book out below!

Draw Fantasy Blog Artwork

Draw Fantasy artwork that I did which at the time had to incorporate a fantasy feel in a way that also included the logo type Draw Fantasy to match the domain name of that blog, also I wanted the pencil drawing to be just this raw drawing that described in a visual of what the blog was about, so as to make it clear.

As you can see in the drawing below, which also has a sword and tree branches which are part of the angry looking face. I wanted this drawing to be a good visual too and I feel I achieved this, although in time I may jazz it up a little. What do you think?

Daily Journal Sketching: Demon Tattoo Idea Sketches

Sketching demon tattoos is a little hobby of mine, ever since I saw those two classic Dario Argento movies Demons and Demons 2 I have always sketched demons at least once a week ever since, demons have many variations that you can sketch out and that's why I like to draw monster creatures and demons are my most favourite to draw, often you can draw just the heads and then work on what the body will look like later on.

Drawing a demon tattoo idea is what I do often and I like to either sketch with pencil the initial idea or I'll sketch a drawing and then ink it to see how the design could look and this is what I've done here with the following few small sketches, tattoo designs are different from the finished versions as the complete tattoo drawings need to be crisper and more tattoo friendly and so that means losing alot of the over top detail that I always add to my comic book type art.


The first demon idea was one I did previous but with a skull in the centre of a flame design and sometimes this works as a standalone tattoo and one that can be re-drawn many times with different creature or head concepts in the centre.

Obviously different ideas can be inspired by other drawings and designs that you do and demonic tattoos are no different, I suggest that you build on the old sketches that you already have, I'm sure you have half finished drawings that could be reworked to create a finished drawing that is much better.

The drawing below was an idea I had whilst watching ghostbusters as it has a ghostly feel to it slightly and although it is just a head drawing of a demon tattoos it can be re-designed at a later stage.

Sometimes you come up with lots of tattoo ideas other times you struggle, but what I do is force myself to draw ideas even when I don't feel like it, because you find you can draw some great stuff if only you set aside some time to get on with it.

The demon tattoo idea below is a variation on the first one, except it has a swirly almost tribal smoke but not quite background design to it instead of a flame design. I did at one time have lots of demon heads all drawn in a massive sketchbook, but to my horror I lost it whilst at college and I still have nightmares about losing that book!

Demon creature sketching is becoming more and more a part of my weekly routine, together with other fantasy things I like to draw, you can find out what the best things you can draw just by practice and lots of it.

Daily Journal Sketching: Fairy Sketching

A couple of months ago, my mum requested a fairy/angel drawing that would be coloured as a present for her birthday, which is in under 3 weeks (Yikes!!) and so between this time I've only done a couple of sketches for this, to try and work out how it will look and will more than likely finish this last minute for her colours and all.

The idea that I had was of a small fairy angel after trying to draw full size fairy angels I settled on a 2 sketches to work on in the next few days and you can see these 2 below, they are of typical fairies with almost old fashioned dresses and long flowing hair with some curls on it, I always liked the idea of fairies dresses made up of bits of flowers for decoration and make the fairy angles look quite nice and beautiful.

Although if you've seen all of my other drawings, you would know that I'm more used to drawing demons and monsters, but I took this upon myself to challenge my artistic abilities and try to draw a fairy that my mum would be proud of and hang on the wall in her house.

Now the first drawing was one that I won't consider for my mums fairy angel, because it's too large a fairy and more of a comic book fairy, but I thought I'd show you the sketch anyway....

The fairy sketches below are the ones that I think are more suited to my piece of fairy art for my mum, as they show the angel fairy small and quite tiny compared to the flower and I think this will better reflect the design brief my mum told me, although she wants the fairy to be coloured a turquoise colour, which would look quite nice, I think I need to do a few more sketches before I decide on a definate fairy pose.

Here is another fairy, which I liked when I drew it, I wanted to almost capture the fairy flying in the air, possibly above a garden of flowers or something that fits what a fairy is expected to be doing like in the fairy art of Amy Brown or some other fairy artist.

Hopefully you can see the image of the fairy holding her arms up in the air, much like actors do when they are on wires and so I've took 3 web cam shots to see the drawing in slightly different views.

What I hope to achieve is a fairy angel artwork that will look good and last forever as that special piece of art that Wayne Tully took the time to create for his mum.

Sketching Wraiths

Wraiths are almost like ghostly figures that remind me of the ring wraiths from The Lord Of The Rings films, although they have no legs usually and they have lots of rags and bits of cloth that flows behind them to make it look even spookier, I have had a go at sketching a few wraith like figures below and all I've used is a HB and a 2B pencil to try and capture the energy of the wraith like ghosts!

I wanted to try and draw a wraith, because it is a superb example of a fantasy figure that has no real human form, it can be made up of the raggedy flowing cloak and bony hands of the undead, although I like to do a skeletal form under the cloak and suggest some form, but also try to balance the drawings as ghosts.

Take a look at this quick drawing below it only took 5 minutes to sketch, see how I've just sketched in the skeleton hands with claws and the skull peeking out of the cloak with rags all flowing behind it.(And I do so hope to get my scanner fixed as I can go back and add the proper artwork that would be nice and clear!)

Now obviously you have to do a few more sketches to get the look and feel of a wraith right, maybe by doing a head sketch and another couple of body sketches, so that you know the ins and outs of the wraith form and the way of drawing one.

Update - Here is the newly scanned version of the inked sketch I did with my trusty Sharpie Marker, it's heavy on the ink and rather sketchy, but it turned out quite well I think.

Below I quickly sketched out a head for the wraith and it shows a little bit more detail of the rotting skull form and the hood of the wraiths cloak flowing downwards, I enjoyed drawing this!

Update - Here is the inked version of this sketch, I used a fine point ink pen instead of the thicker Sharpie marker to get some detail in there.....

Have a go yourself at drawing a wraith, they are great to draw and if you are stuck for inspiration, just watch Lord Of The Rings or The Frighteners for wraith like references!

All fantasy art drawings Copyright Wayne Tully 2010

How To Draw A Comic Book Page

The process that I use to draw a comic book page is a rather simple process and one that incorporates a small written note pad of ideas and some rough sketches and just the actual doing it instead of thinking about it.

First things first we have to have some kind of rough idea of the story, so that we can plan the action on the page, I like to describe each panel in maybe one or two sentences to give me a working description that will help me draw each panel out right.

I do this next, draw a rough page plan (which could change at any minute I might add!) the draft doesn't have to be that detailed as you want to just get down the layout of your page.

Top tips - Try and work out the panel layout early on, so that you get it right and so you can just get on with the business of drawing everything in the panels, sometimes you may find that a few sketches are needed in order to plan a good comic book page out.

Also some pages require something that makes the page stand out, some do splash pages which are a one page panel of action usually or you can create a 3 panel page with the third being the largest one and a character bursts out of the panel creating some dramatic action.

The choices are up to you, but here is an example of a quick written description followed by my own little comic book page layout drawing:-

I've opted for the 3 panel page layout as I described above, so....

Panel One - Our character is an evil demonic creature who we see just a close up head shot looking really evil.

Panel Two - The demonic creature in a slightly larger panel where we see the full dark shape of the demon.

Panel Three - The largest panel we see the demon bursting out of the panel almost leaping towards the reader.

Now see how I planned the action out below in my rough sketch, nothing fancy yet, but you get the idea....

Now what we do is take this intitial draft sketch and we try and develop it, I prefer to start with a fresh piece of paper and roughly mark out the panel layout and then I start to loosely sketch the innards of the page panels, you'll find that re-drawing what you envisioned will help to bring out some creative ways of relating your idea on to the page and most times it will be better than the rough sketch or thumbnail as it's more commonly called.

As my preferred method I use a darker pencil to get some sense of shadow and form to the drawings, although not that detailed at this stage, I simply refer back to my written description and try and fill in the blanks with my own imagination of the demon creature, the drawing below is what you should be aiming for, some that looks like it is progressing and developing into something more....

The best part of drawing is moulding and shaping your drawings into solid ideas and this stage is the best as you can be as imaginative as you like and with mine I draw in lots of detail that probably at the inking stage will be blocked out when I start to realize the light source to add a bit of atmosphere to the page, but I try and make the demon creature look evil and scary just like my written description said, as often as a comic book artist you will be working from writers notes and scripts so it's best to get used to this way of working.

The idea is to get this stage of pencil drawing finished and ready for the inking stage, so by now it should be clear of where there will be totally dark areas and what remains light, you can fill large areas with your pencil or just leave them blank and add small crosses to identify for inking later.

Here's the drawing now, see how finished it looks...

The inking stage is more than just going over each individual pencil line, it's about adding a style to your work, now in the real comic book making world, you may find that you are a penciller and someone else inks your work, but today I'm going to assume that you are a complete comic book artist and just start inking your own work is the best thing you can ever learn to do.

I usually fill in the large black areas first and then swing back on the detail of the characters in the panels, this way I don't do really great detail ink work and then ruin it by using my large black markers, you though may have some other way of working and that is entirely understandable, so just work however you want as this tutorial is just an inspiring look at what you can achieve with your comic book pages.

I try to at the inking stage vary the line weights, so that it creates a good style, sometimes you'll see other artists do this and you'll notice the difference that it makes, it seems to bring the characters to life by adding movement lines and such...

Here's the finished piece drawn and inked.

So I hope you have a good time drawing a comic book page and remember, there are many ways to draw a comic page and you don't have to feel limited in any way, because comics are to feed the imagination, so go wild and be creative in your comic creations on the page.

Of course the above example isn't finished in terms of the lettering and any colour that you want to apply to your comic book page, I may write further blog posts about lettering at a later date.

Have fun!

Learn to draw comic books the Marvel way is an old book that I recommend if you need further help on drawing comic book pages and characters too...

Drawing Fantasy Worlds - Drawing Ideas

How do you draw fantasy worlds? This is a good question and one that results in a how to draw drawing tutorial that I did recently, this was intended as only one example of what you could posibly draw as a fantasy scene and I hope to do two more video series on drawing different fantasy world pieces of art, but this one I did a classic fantasy castle scene with the mountains as a backdrop with the sun in the sky and a couple of stray clouds thrown in, with the path leading to the castle from the corner of the page.

In the first drawing video as always I try to pre-plan the scene as well as I can and get in all the elements of it that I want to, obviously the main part of the scene is the castle, it's the centre piece, although it's to the left of the page, hopefully it will be the visual draw of the artwork, castles can be drawn anyway you want, yo can try and draw realistic castles or fantasy castles that look cool, but in reality they would never get built.

The sketching process is light at the start to get a feel for the drawing and as such you can figure it all as you go along with the drawing stages.

Watch this video to get an idea of how to approach those first pencil lines...

Video 1 - Draw Fantasy Worlds - First Sketches