Drawn in Black » Pencil

How to Draw a Horse Tutorial

Lee — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 23:22:35 +0000

This post is divided into two sections: first, the horse drawing tutorial that I have put together (immediately below); second, links out to other worthwhile tutorials on how to draw a horse.

How to Draw a Horse: the Drawn in Black Tutorial

Now let me start by saying that before this tutorial, I have never drawn a horse (that I can remember anyway). However, I know I can do better than most tutorials out there, so what I want to show you is how I would go about if I wanted to become an expert horse drawer (heh). This method would work well for me, and it might work well for you!

First, find a good picture of horse. If I want to draw a realistic horse, the best thing to do is actually look at a horse. If you don’t have one in your backyard, find an awesome picture online. Some clutch resources are Flickr Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and of course Google Images. We’re looking for pictures that are large in size, good resolution, and with proper contrast so they make nice print-outs. Here’s a picture I found via Google Images: a pretty badass wallpaper a wild horse on its hind legs.

Next, print out the picture. The first thing I did was crop it in Photoshop so that it would fill out the entire sheet, and then printed it out:

Now the first thing I want to do is explore the shapes of this horse. I’ll do that using my lightbox and a separate sheet of paper (don’t worry, this is NOT a tutorial on how to trace a horse). The lightbox I’m using is the Artograph Lighttracer Elite:

Then, trace the major shape masses of the horse. Put the horse printout on the lightbox, overlay it with a sheet of paper, and then find the large shapes that make up the horse:

What this gives you now is a general sense of the shape masses of the horse and the proportion they have to one another.

Next, freestyle an outline of the horse. The final drawing will not be traced, but by tracing, our hands and minds get acquainted with the horse so that when we freehand we already have a much better sense of how all the parts fit together.

Now that we’re more familiar with the horse, let’s go ahead an sketch it out freehand (remember, we’re NOT tracing this drawing!):

Freehand the horse outline. This was my first pass just getting the basic shapes of the horse down. Having traced the horse before, this is much easier to get down.

Find the shade shapes. After you have the basic outline of the horse on paper, it’s time to explore in more detail and putting the outlines of the various gray values down. I like to just go ahead and pencil in absolute black value shapes right away.

Finally, shade the horse. Here I’ve completed most of the shading using cross-hatching. Finally I cleaned it all up a bit and darkened the outline so it would pop a bit more:

Overall, I worked fairly quickly, so there’s obviously a lot of room for improvement. I wasn’t particularly loose, so the horse actually looks stiff. You’ll also notice that the neck and head are a bit shrunken and that the tail could look a bit more like hair.

But if you want to learn how to draw a horse, this is how I would go about it. Hopefully this little how to will be of benefit to you, definitely let me know in the comments what you think.

For more horse madness, here are additional horse tutorials worth your time.

Product Review: Realistic Pencil Portrait Mastery by Christopher Sia

Lee — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 03:27:06 +0000

Realistic Pencil Portrait Mastery

Today I’ll be reviewing Christopher Sia’s “Realistic Pencil Portrait Mastery”, a home-study course that will teach you how to draw realistic portraits. Now let me begin by saying that I care very little for so-called “pitch sites,” the online version of OxyClean infomercials. They all have the same structure: 1) Hey check out how great my product is; 2) see how great these people think my product is; and 3) but wait, there’s more!

Well, this online course is sold through just such a pitch site, but Mr. Sia got in touch with me so I figured I’ll give it a try. At this point let me also provide full disclosure: if you access his site through any of the links I provide on this page and ultimately end up purchasing his product, I will earn a commission on that sale – money that will be reinvested in keeping the lights on around here. Nonetheless, I will try to do as objective a review as I can.

So let’s get started.

All sales pitch aside, what product do you get for your $47.00?

5 e-books lessons and 5 process maps (more on that below)
1. How To Draw A Realistic Eye
2. How To Draw A Realistic Nose
3. How To Draw Realistic Mouth And Teeth
4. How To Draw A Realistic Ear
5. How To Draw Realistic Hair
100 high-resolution reference pictures (70 head shots, 30 facial feature close-ups)
12 weeks of exercises

Ok, so let’s a look at what we’re getting.

The Lessons

As the author states, the lesson contain 208 pages and a total of 605 illustrations. The basic technique used is that you start with a picture, draw a light outline of the feature, and then shade it in. He goes into painstaking detail on all the required shading.

How to Draw a Realistic Mouth

Following his instructions will definitely make you see things you might’ve otherwise not caught. There are good little tips dispersed throughout. Here’s a bit on drawing hair and eyes:

How to Draw Hair

How to Draw Eyes

The Process Maps

Each lesson comes along with a process map, which is essentially a diagram on how to go about attacking the particular feature that you are looking to draw.

Process Map for the Eye

The High-Rez Photographs

Included in the package are 70 high-resolution images in black and white (resolutions are in the area of 1500px by 2000px). These are definitely helpful as they provide you good reference material, although they are all celebrities – subject matter I always find slightly tacky. In addition to the celebrities there are 30 images of facial features, which are great for you to get a sense of how individual features vary from person to person.

Liam Neeson

Female Mouth

The Exercies

The 12 weeks of exercises are a bit light on the exercises per say, but contain some additional good information on various shading techniques.

How to Draw Eyebrows

But wait, there’s more

Once you’ve purchased the course, you can upgrade to the VIP level for another $29.95, which will give you access to another 30 high-rez black and white celebrity pictures as well as a worthwhile guide on how to make sure your drawing doesn’t lack contrast but shows more volume.

David Beckham

In addition, you can send in your reference picture and Mr. Sia will make sure that it is properly edited for you to draw from.

My Thoughts: The Bad

There are several things that I miss from this package, the most important being a lesson on how to pull it all together into a coherent face. There is no theoretical background on some basic things like proportion of the head or face. Moreover, each lesson focuses on only a single facial part, instead of varied facial parts to illustrate some facial differences.

If you want to be able to draw from your mind, this course is not for you – it is strictly useful in drawing from a given photograph. The course also requires some basic skills in being able to trace the contours and features that you’re later going to shade in.

The Good

Mr. Shia is very detailed and you can fully follow along his entire drawing process. If you want to see each step in how his drawings are put down, you’ll find them. There are many good tips and tricks on shading and pulling off tricky bits like hair. The process maps give you a birds-eye view of the drawing process and the exercises have some additional beneficial information.

The reference material will keep you busy for months if you don’t mind drawing celebrities. The facial features pics give you sense of the variation of facial features. The photographs are very large and very crisp – great to draw in other words.

Conclusion

If you have been drawing largely from photographs and want to elevate your game to the next level, this is certainly a purchase you may want to consider. If you are looking to be able to draw the human head and face in 3 dimensions from your mind, look elsewhere.

Hopefully this review has been beneficial to you, and thanks to Mr. Sia for letting me review the product.

Good luck and happy drawing! – Lee

“The Drawing Is the Most Important Part” – Interview with Matt K. Smith

Lee — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:15:36 +0000

"Geist" by Matt K. Smith

In our ongoing series of artist interviews, I was able to catch up with Matt Smith, illustrator and artist in San Diego, California. Matt has some great figure drawing work displayed on his sites that form the basis for his superb illustrations, often of the fantasy or horror genre.

Thanks to Matt for agreeing to participate.

What’s your name?

Matt Smith

Where did you grow up?

Endwell, NY

Where do you live now?

San Diego, CA

How old are you?

What is your educational background? What, if anything, did you study?

I got a degree in Illustration, but I am where I am today because of Watts Atelier, a traditional figure drawing and painting school in Encinitas, CA, and all the hard work I have put into it. I still take classes there, as good as my drawings are, I still have lots to learn.

"Untitled (Female Head)" by Matt K. Smith

How do you make a living?

I create fantasy and horror illustrations for different companies.

What does “art” mean to you?

This is kind of a hard question since the word art and artist now applies to so many things these days. I am not the deep “artsy” type of person exactly. For me I guess I use art to create things, but not “abstract”, bizarre stuff, but tangible and understandable. Anyone can look at my work and understand it, it’s a monster, a person, its a skull, etc, just trying to take these things and make an interesting story. As well as all the figure drawings and paintings that I have done, they are not in depth pieces of art, just practice and training so I can get good and keep getting better, nothing more or nothing less. I hope that answered the question.

How long have you been making art, and what role does that play in your life?

I have been drawing since I can remember. I used to draw all my favorite video game and cartoon characters, such as Super Mario, Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mega Man, the list goes on.

"Godzilla Sketch" by Matt K. Smith

What role does drawing play in your work? Is it a means to an end, or an end in and of itself?

Drawing and learning how to draw is very important in my work. When it comes to creating a finished piece, the drawing is the most important part. Flashy rendering and awesome paint strokes can never save a piece if the foundational drawing is lacking.

Are there any people that influenced you that stand out? What current artists do you follow?

Besides my teachers at Watts Atelier (Jeff Watts, Erik Gist, Meadow Gist, Lucas Graciano, Ben Young, and Stan Prokopenko) I have many artists that influence my work. Here is a short list of people whose work I enjoy looking at: Zhoaming Wu, Joseph Clement Coll, Frank Frazetta, Phil Hale, James Gurney, Steve Huston, John Asaro, Glen Orbik, Richard Schmid, and many many more.

What would you consider your “style” of art to be, if you have one?

I guess I would say that I have several “styles” (though I don’t really like that word) depending on the client I am working with, but mostly I consider myself a traditional illustrator and figurative artist.

"Untitled (Sitting Woman)" by Matt K. Smith

What’s your weapon of choice? What medium and drawing tool do you prefer to use?

I mostly use pencils, pens, conte charcoal pencils, and oil paint. I am also a good digital painter, but I don’t use it so much now, I prefer getting a real painting as opposed to something that doesn’t really exist.

What approach do you take for your work? Do you plan it out or does it emerge spontaneously? How long do you usually work on a piece?

When I create an illustration for a client everything is planned out, starting with small thumbnail sketches, to a finished drawing and then to the painting. When I draw or paint from life, it is planned out as well, but much more spontaneous due to the fact I only have a few hours to create an image.

What are you currently working on?

Creating designer T Shirt illustrations for Remetee. I get to draw a lot of skulls which is fun! And also working on some personal projects.

"Grunt" by Matt K. Smith

What would you tell aspiring artists?

Do lots of research before you pick out a school to go to. If you want to do figurative types of work like I do, I would suggest not going to college and go to a traditional figure drawing school like Watts Atelier. Check out the Art Renewal Center for schools. Also try to always keep a positive attitude, a negative attitude only gets in the way. Anyone can get as good as me and better, you just got to find the right place to learn and work real hard.

Anything you would like share and let us know?

There is another Matt Smith artist out there. He is an awesome plein air painter, I wish I could paint half as good as he can. Just letting you know I am not that Matt Smith!

"Untitled (Asian Male Head)" by Matt K. Smith

Eduardo Recife: Interview and Drawings

Lee — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:41:33 +0000

"True Love Waits" by Eduardo Recife

Eduardo Recife seems to me that rare talents who’s work is both distinctly his own and in tune with the times. This Brazilian illustrator has an impressive list of gigs under his belt, including a cover for a New York Times article and ads for Upper Playground – check out his professional portfolio for more. He’s developed a fun “mash-up” typography and was even voted as one of the Top 10 Fonts of 2008 on MyFonts.

His personal site is misprinted type, itself a collage like many of his art pieces. On version 4 now, you can see still the previous versions. As he puts it, it’s his “personal playground” and also features many of his great drawings.

Eduardo was kind enough to partake in our interview. Here’s what he had to say:

What’s your name?

Eduardo Recife

Where did you grow up and where do you live now?

Brazil

How old are you?

What is your educational background? What, if anything, did you study?

I graduated in Graphic Design (even though I consider myself self-taught).

"Question Everything" by Eduardo Recife

How do you make a living?

Illustration, art and type.

What does “art” mean to you?

It means something that touches you somehow.

How long have you been making art, and what role does that play in your life?

I’ve been drawing since I was a little kid. But I started doing it professionally 11 years ago. I guess its something that was born with me, sometimes I just have an urge to produce.

"Judge Not" by Eduardo Recife

What role does drawing play in your work? Is it a means to an end, or an end in and of itself?

I usually draw things that are in my head. A large portion of my work was about things I was searching for answers, things that bothered me, or made me full of joy.

Are there any people that influenced you that stand out? What current artists do you follow?

I think tht Eric Boucheron from antitext.com was probably the guy that influenced me the most when I just started working with collage. I still think that the stuff he did 10 years ago was fantastic! Nowadays Im very much into abstract art.

"Heal" by Eduardo Recife

What would you consider your “style” of art to be, if you have one?

I’m not really into categories.

What’s your weapon of choice? What medium and drawing tool do you prefer to use?

I really love everything; Collage, drawings, painting… But drawing is probably something Im more obsessed with. I draw all the time.

"Are You Together" by Eduardo Recife

Thanks Eduardo for taking the time to interview and sharing your fantastic work with us! Hope to see more from you in the future

Drawings by Wonman Kim

Lee — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:53:09 +0000

Lions by Wonman Kim

Recently Wonman Kim, a 35-year-old freelance illustrator and graphic designer from Seoul, South Korea, got in touch with me and graciously agreed to answer a few questions I had for him, which I have summarized below.

Growing up in Seoul, Kim is a self-taught artist who majored in business and has had a passion for drawing and painting since his childhood. After he graduated, he worked as a key and clean-up animator before going into the game industry as a character and background concept designer nine years ago. He currently works in the book publishing, t-shirt, and toy industry.

Kim loves to describe his thoughts and imagination through his work, and appreciates the effect that art has on people. During his career has an artist, his simple goal was to do what makes him happy. While he has always both drawn and painted, he has recently focused more on drawing, a worthwhile pursuit unto itself. Influences on Kim include the old engravings of Gustav Dore, Australian artist Robert Ingpen, comic artist Moebius, Nicolas de Crécy, Enki Bilal, James Jean, Tomer Hanuka, Phil Hale, Jon Foster, Terrada Katsuya, and Grampa.

You can see Kim’s work on his website and keep up with him on his blog; he’s also got some great pictures on his Flickr account, and his toy company is MadWitch Toy.

"Chinese Juck Tale" by Wonman Kim

"Untitled (Sketch No. 5)" by Wonman Kim

"Untitled (Sketch No. 9)" by Wonman Kim

"Untitled (Sketch No. 18)" by Wonman Kim

Godmachine

Lee — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:29:25 +0000

Back in Black T-Shirt by Godmachine

Aziz a.k.a. Godmachine is an illustrator based out of Wales, UK, with some seriously nasty skills. Growing up and working as an electrician and bricklayer as a young lad, it was skateboard graphics through which he rekindled his connection to art. Influenced by artists such as Horsebites, Gieger, Aubrey Beardlsy, Klimt, and Richard James, it is probably fair to say that he does a bit of influencing himself these days. As a freelance artist Godmachine’s art graces skateboards and band merchandise such as t-shirts, album covers and posters. Even though he considers himself old-school, he does most of his sketching straight on the computer these days.

I think t-shirt illustrations such as the one show above are a great example his work and what I personally like: gory, detailed illustrations. His work in general is quite dark, and this is the essence of his appeal I think – at least for a certain type of audience.

If you haven’t done so already, check out Godmachine’s website or blog and put some food on his table by buying his stuff from his store. There are also a number of interview with Godmachine if you want a deeper look at who he is:

Interview with Godmachine on Abduzeedo

Interview with Godmachine on We are the Zombie Nation

Interview with Godmachine on Creep Machine

Interview with Godmachine by Rockett

Sonisphere Poster by Godmachine

Untitled Sketch by Godmachine

How to Draw Hands: 35 Tutorials, How-To’s, Step-by-Steps, Videos, Studies, Poses and Photo References

Lee — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:37:45 +0000

I’ve found drawing hands one of the most challenging aspects of drawing the human figure. You can get away with quite a bit when rendering the human figure, but get the hand wrong and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Once you start learning about the hand in greater depth, you’ll find it is truly amazing just how complex the hand is even though we see it everyday. Perhaps the following tutorials can help you and I draw better hands. Enjoy.

Tutorials, How-To’s and Step-by-Step’s
Videos
Anatomy
Books
Poses
Photo Reference

Tutorials, How-To’s and Step-by-Step’s

It’s often useful to have a step-by-step guide, tutorial, or “recipe” on how to accomplish a certain task. I’ve found that following steps is good to grasp basic concepts before going on to experiment and expand one’s understanding. Tutorials on drawing hands are no different, and the tutorials and how-to’s listed below should be a good starting point.

J. Peffer created some nice step-by-steps for about a handful of hand poses.

Nice little tutorial by Ron Lemen.

Tom Richmond’s site is a must-go for any aspiring cartoonist and caricaturist and has a wealth of information.

Joumana Medlev has a superb introduction on the anatomy of hands on DeviantArt; also check out her work on cedarseed.com.

Quick hands and feet tutorial on Scribd by unknown author.

This tutorial is a bit different in that it’s more focused on how to draw using a graphic tablet as opposed to a hand per se. Nonetheless, it’s never bad to learn two things at once, so check out Whyball’s “How to Draw a Classic Hand using a Graphics Tablet” over on GoMediaZine.

Short and sweet hand drawing tut by uchuucacahuate on deviantart.

(Very) short but good tutorial by nk-chan on deviantart.com.

Excellent hand tutorial by alexds1 on deviantart.com – I really wish I could executive cartoon hands like that!

Good step-by-step tutorial by vashs-angel on deviantart.com: simple illustrations and descriptive text.
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Videos

Often it’s helpful to see someone else do something, not just in pictures, but in real-time. Here are some videos that show hands being drawn:

For you all you manga heads out there, you wanna go check out Mark Crilley’s channel on YouTube on how to draw manga. Among those the video above on how to draw a hand holding a sword and how to just draw a hand.

Nice demonstration on how to draw a hand by cattusOK on YouTube.

Here we have another tutorial on how to draw female hands, also executed in Photoshop, via WonderHowTo.
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Anatomy

As one of the more complex instruments of the body, a sound understanding of underlying anatomy of hands can help considerably when trying to render realistic and convincing hands in your drawings. Below are resources that should help you begin to understand how hands truly work.

The Wikimedia Commons continues to be a great place to find reference material, such as the hand anatomy plate from Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body pictured above.

Drawing and Anatomy by Victor Perard has pretty in depth coverage of human anatomy even though the drawings aren’t the best I’ve seen. Nonetheless, very useful for the artist seeking to deepen their understanding of anatomy.

A more comprehensive discussion on drawing hands and feet which (I believe) originated on WetCanvas by JayD and then ended up on document form on Scribd.

Great mini-tutorial on hands by T. Arthur Smith on DeviantArt, looking to go beyond a tutorial on simply the idealized form of the hand.

I’ve mentioned him before in the post on skulls, and I’ll mention him again here: check out Michael Hensley for some great anatomical drawings with a distinctive style.
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Books

Perhaps the ultimate “tutorial” on drawing hands, “Drawing Dynamic Hands” by Burne Hogarth is a must-have reference book in your library. You can buy it here on Amazon.

Mr. Hogarth has more hand material in that most amazing work, Dynamic Anatomy. You can buy it here on Amazon.

Thankfully there’s a copy of “Drawing Head and Hands” over at Scribd, by that other master of drawing, Andrew Loomis. The section on drawing hands isn’t as comprehensive as that on heads, but a great resource nonetheless, especially when trying to draw non-male hands (female, baby, etc.).

George Bridgman is the author of yet another treasure of a book on drawing. Above you can see a plate from his the chapter on hands in the book Constructive Anatomy, available at the Internet Archive (or here via Scribd).
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Poses

Here’s a list of resources that display hands from many different angles. It’s truly remarkable just how many poses the hand can be seen in.

Useful collection of hand poses by Chrissy Fellmeth.

More hand poses by what-i-do-is-secret on deviantart.com.

A nice little collection of female hand poses by artrush73′s hub page.

Mickey Mouse Hand Model Sheet by Les Clark

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has some true gems when it comes to old drawings, such as this hand model sheet of Mickey Mouse by Les Clark from 1932. Lot of other great stuff too, check it out. Found via this post on Animopus.

Another hand model sheet can be found on the Ultimate Iron Giant website, this one in particular being of Hogarth’s hand. There’re literally a ton of other drawings on sketches related to the Iron Giant, you’ll find the hands in about the middle of the page.

Nice little reference on drawing animal hands/paws provided by Kelly on drawfurry.com.

Great study of the hand in its many incarnations – love the minimal style here. By jimmymcwicked on deviantart.com.
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Photo References

Although you’ve got a pair for easy reference, it can help to look at a photo of a real hand, especially for awkward angles. Here are a few sites that should give you ample hand pose pictures for hours of hand-drawing fun.

Nice collection of hand poses taken by Thomas A of Ander’s hands, via elfwood.com.

This site is certainly something out of the ordinary: Hands for Drawing by Pose Maniacs allows you select various hand poses and then turn them in 3D (select one of the numbers in the right-hand menu). Great when you can’t find a proper reference at just the right angle.

Nice collection of both male and female hands in various interesting poses.

Female left hands by WindsweptSummer on deviantart.com.

Hand holding pencil by dragyourstock on deviantart.com.

"Joan" by Anna Shipstone

Lee — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:00:58 +0000

Joan by Anna Shipstone

Anna Shipstone hails from the small seaside town of Cromer, Norfolk, UK, where she lives with her pet dog and family. On her website you can find some of the truly gorgeous sample work of this pencil portraiture artist – in particular I enjoy her children portraits and the one pictured above. Joan seems to be almost three dimensional and pops out of the page. While you’re there, also check out her abstract color work – trippy!

"The Feeb" by Mike May

Lee — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:51:37 +0000

The characters developed by veteran concept artist and character designer Mike May are anything but ordinary – each inhabits a unique world, suggested not so much by the environment they’re rendered in but by the dress, demeanor, and look of the characters themselves. Mike is a also a superb caricaturist. There’re a ton of drawings and illustrations on his portfolio site and additional, more recent, work on his blog, so if you need some inspiration, go check it out.

Drawing #008 by Mathis Rekowski

Lee — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:18:39 +0000

Although Illustrator Mathis Rekowski has some wonderfully trippy drawings like the one featured here, he’s got even more illustrations seem to me at once retro and cutting edge. Certainly someone to watch out for. You can purchase the image above at Mathis’ new store, or follow him on his blog