Drawing Asa Butterfield.
I’m making this guide so that I don’t have to keep explaining the entire process again and again; I can just point people here… (hi!) :)
- Find an image. Grid it. This is essential for me. It helps you focus and add the tiny details to your drawing, so, if you’re going to do it, do it with a grid! Box your paper AKA draw an outlining square. I always do this because blank paper makes me nervous. If there’s a box that I have to draw inside I feel better about everything. Sketch the outline. TIP - Don’t press too hard with your pencil - you need to oil pastel over it later.
- Once you’re satisfied with your basic sketch, start pasteling! (Don’t go overboard with sketching - you’ll cover it up anyway. It’s just so you know where the basic features are.) I usually start with blocks of colour; in this case that’s Asa’s jumper.
- Skin is hard to oil pastel. Fact. It takes hours. And by ‘hours’ I don’t mean 6. I mean more like 16. You have to put the effort in here. Even at the beginning. Though, at this stage, it’s pretty rough. There’s no details, it’s just the right shades blended slightly together. This stage never looks perfect. Just go with it. TIP - textured paper adds ‘pores’.
- I zoomed in on this bit so you can see that I’m not even kidding. It’s not perfect at all. And it doesn’t have to be. I took this photo to prove it.
- Hair. The thing about hair is, it’s really frustrating. Sometimes I can be bothered to sit and draw the individual strands for hours, sometimes I can’t, either way it’s best to block colour the hair and then slowly bring out sections and then bring out stands and then bring out split ends ( :P if you’re really determined and have A LOT of patience - I just don’t.) TIP- you can draw individual strands of hair much easier with the flat end of the pastel.
- A reminder that you can never perfectly match skin tone - and that’s okay. ;)
- Eyes. Eyes are my favourite thing ever. Start with the iris. Lay down a base colour. Add the pupil. Work out where the light’s going to shine and then pick up the white and draw it on. You have to press quite hard sometimes to layer the little flecks. Keep trying. As you can see, it’s still rough (details later!) and I wasn’t paying enough attention and I added FAR too much white! But if that happens you can just blend it in and try again. TIP -I use cotton buds to blend.
- Give the person their second eye. You automatically feel like your getting somewhere, when you have both eyes in place! :D
- Both eyes compared. The one that needs correcting and the one that looked pretty much okay first time. Just keep trying.
- Go back over the entire thing and do A LOT of colour blending (this is where those hours come in). Try and smooth it out until you’re happy with it. The look I have is the product of overblending and me refusing to have the bold, big natural pastel look. I usually leave a couple of the ‘rough’ marks in, purely because I like them. They have a certain rustic charm to me. :P
- Don’t give up. I’m stubborn, I refuse to eat, drink, pee or do anything until I’ve reached a certain point and then I have a break. Set goals.But remember, breaks are important too. Take them. Allow yourself to get frustrated but not TOO frustrated. Plus, taking a step back and having another look usually makes you happy because from a certain distance everything looks good!
- Do it again. The next one will be better, it always is. :)
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If you want you can make a request on specific information that you would like to see here and if I have it I’ll post it and explain it!
Just drop the request on my ask!
Just something I collected (from the blog written on the pictures) about “Boob Physics”.
It’s pretty self-explanatory: mind gravity, remind yourself of it’s squishy consistency and keep them going with the movement.
Details like these may seem silly but they really give the character (in this case female) more life!
Have fun!
Don’t know where i found this but it might be usefull to you so take it!
Here are 3 examples on surfaces and specular lightning.
The surface of an object can determine if the specular lightning will appear on the object itself, theoretically the specular lightning is always there but practically it cannot be so, depending on the surface of the object.
On very polished objects the specular lightning will be very obvious and contrasting, it will reflect the light very well, these objects can be metals, PVC fabrics for example, surfaces with varnish, etc.
On the opposite hand we have materials that are very rough and unpolished and these don’t have any specular lightning to them for the light does not have one or 2 points to concentrate, instead it has thousands of them. Materials with this nature can be cotton fabrics, most common papers, skin that has no excess moisture to it, etc.
Before painting or capturing your object study it to finds these little details and then apply them to your work, it will have a more realistic feel and of course it will be much more accurate!
This image is an example of Light and Exposure.
Take close attention on the lightsource and it’s strength on the subject, we can play around with this to express certain feelings, or strengthen certain atmospheres/ambients.
Some are soft and give the character a calm aura, other are more contrasting and can give a feeling of fear or a “not so pleasent” aura.
Hope it helps, try and apply this to your future work and you will see your characters and scenes gain a new and better lifelikeness.
Example is by artsammich, Check him out!!
Also posted this on my main blog, hope it helps you.
I mentioned shadow edges on my previous posts, I thought I had clearer examples of this but i guess not, so I’ll try and explain how I best understand them.
Shadow and light are essencial to comprehend if we want a good result on our work, but just knowing what i have shown on the past posts is not enough, there are also shadow edges that help us understand how to apply shadows to said object.
Here are presented 4 kinds of shadow edges: Lost, Soft, Firm and Hard.
My awnser to undertsanding the edges is simply the angles of the object.
Hard Edge: these appear on objects that have a very angular surface(s) and on cast shadows. Think of a cube, the shadow to light transition is very sharp thanks to the striking angles of the object, try and spot the hard angles of said object conciously so it becomes easier for you to define the light/shadow.
Soft Edge: these are just the opposite of the Hard Edges, they appear on objects with a very smooth angled surface(s), the sphere example has alot of soft edges mainly because of it’s round surface. The light to shadow transition is very smooth and gradual, try to keep that in mind.
Firm Edge: it’s quite simple to understand this one, it’s just between the Hard Edges and Soft Edges, it appears on objects that have a surface with a reasonable angularity, not too striking and not too soft. These can become tricky if you overthink them, just look at the object and try to spor them has best has you can.
Lost Edge: These are quite complicated to explain but in simple terms, it’s when the edge of one object becomes “blured” with another, when there is no clear distinction when one object starts and the other one starts(cant find a better way to explain this). These appear generaly on dark environments.
This is how I understand shadow edges and I hope that it has helped you too!
I’ll try and search for other examples too!
I promissed a more detailed example of shadow and light on an object so here it is. This sphere is a simple object but what is shown here applies to all objects.
Most of this stuff is from what I have gathered through the years so i will most likely not have the original places from where i got them.
If you are the author and would like me to take them out please contact me and I will do so.
For my 1st post I will give you a very basic scheme to understand how shadow/light work on an object. This does not reference shadow edges just the shadow and light that constitute the object, how they make the object appear to have volume.
In this image there are only 4 named components: sunlight, skylight, terminator and bounced light.
A more detailed example would have the highlight, medium tone, form shadow, reflected light, cast shadow(umbra, penumbra, etc.) and so on(some of these terms might have synonyms so they can go with diferent names). I will post a more detailed view of this soon enough and also the shadow edges information.
For now I hope you have enjoyed this.
