How to Draw Realistic Animals | Soft Pastels & Pastel Pencils | Meerkat Tutorial Preview

I recently uploaded my latest tutorial 2 Patron featuring this rather adorable miacat created using soft pastels and pastel pencils on 30X 40 cm past the m board as a thank you for the continued love and support here on YouTube I'll now share an in-depth preview of this tutorial if at any point you would like to watch it in full including steps on how to get started on the accurate outlines and the full materials list you can find the link to my Patron in the description enjoy so once the accurate outlines are in place I first get to work using a dark pastel stick to map out some of those darkest areas here I'm using the Unison gray 13 I'm really not applying too much pressure I'm sort of just letting the pastel stick Glide along the surface and you can see in these areas that the paper is still slightly showing through which is great as with soft pastel sticks a little definitely goes a long way so you don't want to press hard and fill in all of the paper because that's just going to make it really hard for any penil details to go on top in future layers so keep in mind when applying pigments with your pastel stick to just sort of Let It Glide along the surface and that'll be more than enough because when you come to blend that all out you'll see that the paper gets very easily covered with that pigment so in this particular area of the Mia cat's body you can see that overall the fur is quite light in this area but we have that darker underneath as this less fur density in this area meaning we have more of that dark background showing through so I'm just getting these dark pigments in there and then we can sort of cover it up with lighter hairs on top as we see it in the reference photo but for now this is just a mapping out stage so continue with just some of those darker areas and here I'm just going to take the cretacolor black chalk pencil and this is the darkest black on the market and going back to the eye area I'm simply just going to draw in all of those jet black details so we can see for the eyes themselves they are very dark so I can just go straight in with this pencil and the reason I'm using a pencil and not a pestel stick it's just because it can be a bit more precise and it gives me a bit more control and I can also fill in other detailed areas such as the nostrils which are also jet black so again I'm sort of just working from dark to light first filling out those darkest areas and then I'll work to some of the midtones and then the lighter areas and that's just personally how I've always processed through a pastel portrait okay so back to using the soft pastel sticks now and I'm going to again continue filling in the base layer for the F now you might be a bit confused why I'm using this sort of dark gray color here when in the reference photo the fur looks quite light and this is because this is just the base layer on which those highlights will sit so if we take a look at this other photo of AIA cat you can see this more clearly where we have darker values and tones underneath and in between those highlight hairs so the base layer here which I'm creating for my pencil highlights to sit on top of is just going to represent that darker color underneath so it might look a bit funny in these beginning stages and I will be mixing other lighter colors in with this darker gray color so it's not just going to look like this don't worry but until we start to draw those highlight hairs on top it might look look a bit funny but in the base layer but you'll quickly see as we work through the steps why and how this layering process works so here on top of that cool gray you can see I'm also mixing in some neutral Grays here and you can see that I've left some of the paper blank already and this is where we have some of those lightest values so to blend all of this soft pastel pigment out I'm going to use my soft sponge tool first starting with and continuing on with some of these midtones but first up here I'm going to put on my rest respiratory mask because blending out the pastel like this can be quite a Dusty task and it's very good practice to keep your lungs safe during the process I also have an air purifier in my studio and this also helps to keep the air clean if you're new to using these soft sponge tools then it's important that you stick to blending similar colors and values at one time so for example if I started to blend out all of the very dark pigment and allowed it to become embedded into the sponge and then Tu my sponge straight to some of those lighter areas I'm going to unwantedly transfer over those darker Pig ments into those lighter areas and the same can be done vice versa this is how you can end up muddying your colors unfortunately so always stick to the same or similar colors and values and then as you work through the piece gradually pick up lighter or darker colors depending on what sort of areas you would like to blend next so you can see for this portrait in particular I've gradually started to pick up darker pigments these will start to embed into my sponge so that I can safely continue into those darker and darker areas gradually so that I don't transfer over any unwanted lighter pigments gradually shifting between different values like this is really important to make sure that our colors remain pure okay so just continuing with the darker value areas now so I'm going to blend all of that pigment out that we see for the ears and then also make my way down to the shadowy patches on the body you might think that I should do the eye area as well but I'm actually going to leave that till a little bit later just because I'll use a small detailed sponge for that as it will give me more control the eyes are one of the most important aspects to a portrait so I like to be extra careful and precise in those areas especially so then I'm left with quite a lot of dark pigment embedded into my sponge and now you can see I need to blend out those lightest gray areas so I can either get a brand new sponge head or I can just take some spare piece of pastel matte board apply that to light cold gray pigment to it and then pick that up with my sponge you can see here now I have those lighter pigments embedded and I can go straight onto my artwork and start blending with this sponge without worrying about transferring a huge dark streak into the lighter areas it's still important that you keep a relatively light pressure with your sponge once doing this because if you press too hard the darker pigments are still going to be embedded into the sponge so if you press really hard then they will eventually start to come through and darken your area so just be mindful with your pressure but anyway it's good practice to always keep a relatively light pressure with your sponge tool when blending out regardless as this way you'll always have the smoothest blend possible so as I'm blending I'm making sure to incorporate the different sections and areas together for a smooth even finish we don't want any harsh lines or borders between the different sections within this base layer any detail or definition we will add only with our pastel pencils so for that we want this base color layer to be essentially a slightly darker soft and blurry version of what we see in the reference image I'm also able to continue picking up that lighter pigment on my scrap pastel mat board as I go through blending out these lighter areas and this is just helping okay okay so the very first thing I want to do when refining this base layer in particular is to get a knable eraser and sort of mold it into a flat shape and then just gently lift off the excess pastel pigment throughout I simply do this by very lightly swiping the Eraser on my base layer there are going to be some areas that have more pastel and are denser and just carefully wiping off the excess like this is going to give our pastel pencils the best chance to deposit their pigments on top when there's too much pastel pigment in our base layer it fills in the tooth of the paper making it harder for pastel pencils to deposit their pigments on top so this is why I like to use the need eraser as long as I keep a light even pressure and don't press too hard I shouldn't really erase anything noticeable just the excess pigments which aren't going to affect how the base layer looks so I'm then going to take a scrap piece of pastel mat board and add some more colors and tones to it some will be on the more vibrant side but I can mix and combine the colors together here before applying them to my base layer this is another reason I love the sponge transfer method here because you can really figure out all of your colors and tones before you commit them to your artwork and as I've mentioned in other tutorials the sponge transfer method is the lightest and thinnest way to apply soft pastel pigments to your artwork so you don't really need to worry about filling in the tooth of the paper so you can see here I've picked up these warm pigments and this is with the Unison color ne16 I can then combine and mix this with my light cold gray and this gives me a whole new color perfect for what I'm looking for in this area so this is really using the blendability of pastels to our advantage because we're not going to have every single color and tone that we're looking for so the sponge transfer method is a really great way to mix those colors before committing them to your artwork you can see in the reference that we have hints of those warmer colors and tones throughout some of the lighter values of our miria cat so this refining process is going to be really helpful for the accuracy of the final outcome I'll just start speeding up some of the process here but you can see that I'm starting to incorporate even some of those increasingly vibrant warm colors into my color mixture just when I need that extra pop of color so again as I'm transferring these pigments in it's important that I'm only using a light pressure with my sponge and to take my time to gradually build up the refinement layer I'm sort of just dabbing it on top it's really handy because sometimes when you're first creating the initial base layer it's quite hard to exactly color match to the reference image so knowing that I'm able to take the time to refine the base layer in this way with the sponge transfer method take some of the pressure off getting it perfect straight away so here under the mouth and Chin area when looking at the reference we can see those hints of warm brown colors so I'm going to pick up some warm Browns into my color mixture and add this vibrancy in here my plan is not to make it as brown or vibrant as I see in the reference image I sort of want my artwork to have a slightly more muted color and that's just my personal preference if you're drawing alongside me feel free to adjust the colors or tones however you want or just follow the reference photo exactly if that's what you prefer to do so we can see some brown colors down here too for the body so I'll be sure to add them in also I definitely have a slow and steady approach when it comes to creating animal portraits but that's what I found works best for me I'm sure it probably takes longer than some other methods but I have found it to produce the best outcomes so moving on to the body here I can see some of these warm yellow tones sort of mix in with these cooler gray colors so you can see by adding in this refinement on top of that cold gray layer we're close to matching what is happening in the reference I'm actually not thinking too hard about these specific colors rather just the values so how light or dark they are and also the temperature so how cool or warm the colors are but here you can see how this refinement layer is also mixing with the initial base layer that we've already put down so I'm not necessarily covering it with complete new pigments but rather this refinement layer is slightly mixed in with the base layer that we already have okay so now for the fun and long part this is where we can start to add all of the detail and definition for the Mia Cat using our pestel pencils here I'm first using the gray carel 704 and I'm just going to use it to draw some of the hairs that fly out into the background and also overlap that dark ear area when drawing such hairs it's handy to start with a neutral gray like this which isn't too bright and if we need to we can add brighter hairs on top in future layers it would look a bit flat if we just went straight in with the bright pencils so it definitely helps to build up the layers and work from dark to light again here I'm using the Carbell 724 at the very edge of the ear just to help It Fade Into the background slightly so that those dark values are not so harsh against the gray of the paper I'll then continue to add more FlyAway hairs aiming to flick my lines off and bend them slightly for a realistic appearance so now I've got that first layer of detail held down with the neutral gray I can go on top with the much lighter Carbell Ivory 105 and just start to follow the same pattern and draw on top of that layer I'll also very lightly add in some neutral yellowy orange vibrancy with the bronzo 48 for that pop of color that I can see in the reference image but as I'm drawing in these hairs on top hopefully you can see why it's beneficial to start with that darker gray pencil first it really helps to elevate these lighter hairs that I'm putting down now it makes for a more Dynamic texture as it looks like we have darker and brighter highlight hairs within the area which is what is occurring in real life too this is pretty much what I will do throughout the whole portrait go in first with a mapping out layer to figure out some of the flow direction of the fair and then draw on top of that with brighter and more intense pencils pretty much following what I previously put down the combination of two or more layers really adds a realistic Dynamic to the texture which I think shouldn't be overlooked so I'll talk about this more as the portrait goes on but to draw realistic hairs in here you can see I hold my pencil a bit further back and that just allows me to be a bit more expressive and loose with my lines so for realistic hairs we don't want each hair to look like a carbon copy of the previous one we want to keep adding in some sense of Randomness as in real life obviously every hair is unique and sort of flicking off and bending in all different ways so that's what I need to aim to replicate with my pastel pencil so now taking the carbel 700 which you can see is this very light gray and I'm just going to start drawing in the highlighted hairs here paying attention to what direction they're flowing in but also the lengths of each of these hairs so I would say they are a little bit shorter than ones we previously Drew in and I'm just slowly building up that lighter value that I can see in this particular area which also helps to carve out this area of the snout as we add in these lighter values here and then leave some of those other sections to be darker midtones you can see some sort of 3D depth start to emerge as different parts of the face seem to appear in front or behind other parts so you can already see that the nose area looks as though it's starting to protrude out from the face producing that realistic sense of depth and that simply is created just by the change in value so how light or dark some of these sections are when some of the hairs are less intense and less bright I can just use a darker gray to start filling out that texture still making sure to think about what direction the fair is flowing in and how long or short it is and then for areas which are brighter again I can go back to using the lighter gray pencil just like with the first ear section it typically helps to do a slightly darker layer of highlights first a sort of mapping out stage to figure out what direction everything is flowing in and then when you're happy with how that's looking you can go on top with brighter and more intense pencils to really bring out the brightness and intensity where necessary before I start adding some of the hairs for the chin area here I'm just going to lightly shade in some more of those blue tones with the carbel 724 and then very lightly draw in some wispy and thin lines using the carbite gray 700 the hairs here are slightly curved and B around so I'll be sure to do the same with my pencil again it helps to hold the pencil a bit further back so that I can be more expressive with these lines and I've also sharpen my pencil to a flat tip point which allows me to get these really thin fine hairs along with a relatively light pressure because if I apply too much pressure the lines will be thicker some of the other hairs on the lower mouth area here are less bright and intense so I can switch back to using that darker gray which is again the 704 from Carbell and mainly just really focus ing on the lengths of these hairs obviously they start to bend around the other way as we come around to the other side and I'm also thinking about the gaps in between each hair as well because we still want to see some of that dark base layer showing through as we see it happening on the reference image we don't want to add these lines too close together so they it completely covers up that base layer and then we're not going to have any sense of depth we still need those darker values to show through in between these highlighted hairs and that's going to give us a really healthy realistic sense okay so quickly back to the whites I'm just adding a few select highlight hairs within this area you can see I'm spacing them quite a bit further apart so I'm just picking out a few on top not lightening too much of the area and then I'll use the light gray car dash to really make those eye Reflections shine so I don't want to cover up that lovely vibrant blue color but just adding these light Reflections to some of it so again I'm making sure that I have a sharp tip and I'm sort of just dabbing these dots on top again the carar and Das are very soft brand of pastel pencils so they're going to find it easy to deposit their pigments on top of many layers so sticking with this light gray car Das I'll also do the same for some of the small detailing and texture on the nose here so again essentially just adding in these dots on top and just picking out those small details and textures on the nose where the light is hitting as I come into some of the darker areas here I'm just making sure to apply even less pressures just so that these dots are a bit more subtle I'm just just going to pick out a few more Final highlights with the carar dash Chinese white okay so I want to start drawing some of these whiskers that flick out into the background and for that I'm going to use the dark gray Faber Castle 175 holding the pencil a bit further back making sure I have a sharp tip and I'm sort of just flicking these lines off and slightly curving them as I do as well I'm not necessarily following the reference photo exactly as I see it but just aiming to get the rough sort of length and shape of these hairs but really you can see how holding my pencil a bit further back is just allowing me to be very expressive with these lines and it allows me to easily flick them off for that realistic appearance if I was to hold the pencil quite close to the tip and I was slow and controlled then these lines wouldn't look very good and they would just sort of look like Stumpy lines rather than just whiskers so once I've got a few of those dark lines in place I can also add some light lines that's the great thing about having a neutral gray background such as the dark gray pest mat that I'm working on here I can add both dark and light details and both will show on that background so for these lighter lines I'm using the 704 I'm then going to switch to using the black Carbell pastel pencil I'm going to add some Dots here next to the nose for where those whiskers grow out so then once they're in place I'll just do the same process of holding my pencil a bit further back and just flicking those lines off while also curving them as I go around as well and obviously each each whisker is unique and different so I make sure that they each have a different length and a SL slight different shape as well but following the same general direction and shape okay so we're moving on down to the body for step six and this is going to be straightforward because we're essentially repeating the exact same process methods and techniques as we did for the face area just with longer fur so first up here I'm using my subtle highlight pencils to create a first layer of highlights in the slightly darker areas I'll use the carbel 704 and then in the areas with brighter values I'll just go straight in with the lighter Carell 700 I'm just really focusing on the particular direction the hair is flowing and also the lengths of each of the hairs all while using a light pressure I'm slowly going to build up these layers by using more intense and brighter pencils on top so essentially working from dark to light but also from subtle to intense we want to save our intense pencils such as the carash till the final layers and remember you can always mix and combine pencils together to achieve those EXA tones or values that you're looking for so again here on the other side I'm going to start drawing in these hairs that grow out from that dark Center parting and bend them around the neck as they grow making sure to achieve that same curved line I'm then using the black celic with a very light pressure because it is too dark for this area just to enhance some of these dark gaps here adding a more texture to the area but also helping to darken the overall value of this Shadow section underneath the chin I'll then switch s to using the slightly less intense dark gray Faber Castle 175 and continue with these dark gaps further down this is sort of a mapping out stage to figure out the flow direction of all the feir while also adding in texture and increasing the contrast before any highlights even get drawn in I can then begin to draw the highlights around these dark gaps and it will be easier as I have already started to figure out what direction the fur is growing in the area so again back to the subtle highlight pencils just really figuring out what direction the f is Flowing because it does change quite a lot here and being sure to use a light pressure and to take a slow and gradual approach we will work with more intense pencils on top if we need to in future layers but right now I'm just taking the time and continuing to map out the flow directions with a light pressure here in the underside of the miria cat's face you can see things are in Shadow and there's not as much detail here so I can just go ahead with that more subtle neutral gray and just pick out a few hair details here I'm not going to go crazy with the details cuz when we look at the reference we can see that things aren't that defined so I'll only draw a few subtle hairs in here I'll then switch back to using the light gray 700 Carbell and continue with the hair details to the left side of the body here and just start to map out the flow direction for all the fur in this area again so we have that dark patch here which we've just drawn in some of the dark gaps for as well so I'll be sure to leave quite a few gaps in between these highlighted here so that we still have some of that dark base layer showing through as we see it happening in the reference image we don't want to cover it it so I'll make sure to space these lines out apart obviously the hair on the body here is much longer than a lot of the previous details we've been drawing in so I'll be sure to do long continued Strokes with my pencil again you can see I've got a already know the process by now as we did the exact same and completed for the face area but now I'm switching to the carar dash pastel pencils which are brighter and more intense first going on top with the gray 802 and for these brighter pencils I simply want to follow the reference photo and see where those brightest values are in particular and you can see that they're quite intense in this part of the left side of the body I've already mapped out the flow direction of the fur here so all I need to do is follow the same pattern and length while thinking about how to space these lines apart too I don't want to draw them too close together I still need some of the darker values to show through in between and underneath otherwise we will lose the texture and depth similar to how the right side of the body appears however this side of the body has lots of lovely textures so we need to make sure that both our dark and light valys show within the F texture and that's how we're going to achieve a realistic sense of depth and obviously here as we make our way towards that darker patch and the flow direction of the fair changes I'll be sure to replicate that and you can see that some of the hairs here are shorter as well as they're poking up through the first so make sure you're always paying attention to the length of these hairs as well and just generally try and keep things random so you don't want every hair to look like a carbon copy you want them each to be a bit unique so keep changing and tweaking the lengths and also slightly change the directions and curves as well and that's really going to lend itself to a realistic appearance but one of the main important things here is just keeping those values in check constantly compare and contrast the different sections and ask yourself is this area brighter or darker than this area and by doing that throughout you'll be able to represent the reference photo Faithfully the lighting and values affects everything about how 3D the animal portrait looks so it's really important that they're correct slowly build up from dark to light and take your time doing so when looking at the reference a lot of the light fair for the body has that blue underlying tint to it so before I go on top with the Final highlights I'm going to take the carboy 724 which we've previously used make sure that the tip is sharp and very lightly shade in these underlying tones on top I need to make sure that I only use a very light pressure barely letting the tip touch the paper to lightly add these pigments in inevitably this will reduce the definition of the details but not by too much but nevertheless this is why I wouldn't add in these tones after the final highlights because it can reduce the detail and definition so this is why I'm doing it now before those final pencils get added on hopefully here you can see how this subtle pop of blue underlying color is really adding a whole new dimension and sense of realism to the fur as I've mentioned before I always love to see within reason what interesting colors and tones I can include because it definitely makes the artwork more interesting to look at okay so now I'm going to spend a bit of time going back on top with the gray car dash 802 just to add some more details in the areas which I think need it so I'm looking back and forth the reference and just seeing what parts need to be brighter or have more texture for example just following so that now concludes this meat tutorial preview you can find the full tutorial over on my patreon now along with many other lessons included in your subscription on patreon there are beginner friendly lessons for soft pastels graphite and oil paint with a wide range of subject matter I often get asked about how I create my artworks Patron is where I share all of my favorite and must know art tips from my years of experience with each tutorial you will learn my go-to methods and techniques for both the materials and tools our time is valuable so I've made sure that my lessons are efficient and straight to the point so that you can quickly learn and take away the skills and knowledge that you need to know for any artworks that you wish to create once subscribed you instantly unlock access to all of the lessons available on my patreon to start learning from straight away subscriptions are monthly with no contract so you can cancel at any anytime to find out more feel free to visit the link to my patreon in this video's description if you would also like to take a look at the lesson catalog before joining I have a dedicated page on my website showcasing each video which will also be linked below before you go why not pick up my free beginnner soft pestel guide it's yours to download and keep forever