Core Elements To Draw Exceptional Realism In Colored Pencil

Magnificent drawings full of high details and exceptional realism. They make your jaw drop and question, how is it possible that this comes from a human and isn't a photograph? And what could you possibly do to make sure your drawings end up at that level of exceptional realism? I'm going to be showing you the best and fastest skills and techniques that the pros possess and how despite how perfect these drawings seem, that the journey in getting it to that level was not perfection at all. These skill sets are at the core of being able to draw realism or creating realistic art in general and are what the pros and myself have mastered. Starting off with proportions. Proportions really are the foundation for any drawing turning out realistic. How do you get proper proportions? One is to trace or transfer a reference, which gives you 99% accurate proportions for your sketch. Another is to just freehand sketch and build your skills to be able to draw perfect proportions naturally, which takes a long time to learn. The fast way is the first option, but it does not guarantee you end up with a properly proportioned drawing because just the sketch isn't the only proportions that you need to have right. So then how can you make sure you get 100% proper proportions with your drawings? There is a very handy tool for that called a proportional divider. It allows you to measure between two different points and it keeps that exact measurement so you can hold it up to your reference that you're using and then also hold it up to your drawing and draw those same proportions or at least measure out maybe something that you have wrong. And depending on where you put the little slider in those dots, you can actually use a smaller reference image and draw a larger drawing. It transfers the proportions to how large you want to make them. Or vice versa, you can use a larger reference and transfer it to make a smaller drawing. The most handy way that I like to use it though is to just pull the two prongs apart, measure out on my reference exactly what it is I'm trying to get the distance from and you always want to make sure you measure from one point to exactly another point and keep that memory in your head. Then compare exactly to those exact marks on your drawing. If you don't compare to the exact marks, your proportions will be off. One of the ways that is great to use this tool is to be able to measure from the outside edge of a reference that you're drawing from and measure to the exact location of a specific type of anatomy of whatever you are drawing. That way you can get the exact distance that is from the edge of the paper to that. And from that point, then you can easily measure the distances to the other subject matter from those particular points. I have a link down below in the description to this proportional divider if you want to check it out and maybe get yourself one. The next skill set is developing your skill of self-critiquing because ultimately this is the skill set that determines how good you will become and how fast you will get there. It is a skill set that you have to learn. You have to be really honest with yourself in learning to see the mistakes that you make because if you don't, you will just continue to repeat those same mistakes and you will never learn to get better. The good thing is though that we can all learn to be better than we were yesterday with virtually anything that we are applying ourselves to. If you put in the time and the effort, you will get better. And the simplest way I can think about putting this together for you to understand when it comes to drawing and learning to see the discrepancies is imagining a cartoon printout of two images. They look virtually the same but there are different objects or placements of objects or lines that are missing in those images on one versus the other and you have to pinpoint what those differences are. The only thing is with drawing and artwork, it's way more complicated than just a cartoon image. So what is the best way to develop your self-critiquing skills so that you can be on your way to being better at drawing? Which is why I think it is really important to take breaks while you're drawing but still continue drawing and getting more progress done. Focus on working on a different area and then come back to what you were working on before. And when you come back to what you were working on before, just sit back for a moment, don't do anything, and just stare at your reference and compare what you have to your drawing. A lot of times you'll see that what you have actually looks pretty good but you may also notice those differences and what you need to change. Making all of these minute changes while you are actively drawing will end up with better results in the long run for your drawing instead of waiting until everything is all said and done before you try to look for any of those differences and make any adjustments. The major thing that you want to try and pinpoint is how light or dark everything needs to be. Is what I have accurate? Is it too light? Is it too dark? Do we need more dark in this area versus this area? Did I not have enough lines there? Are those lines too stiff looking? Maybe I should change this. That color's not right. I need to add more yellow. Or a lot of times you may be confused about what colors to use so you just ask yourself, that color doesn't look right. So I'm going to take out my scratch paper here, get down the colors that I have, and then I'm going to experiment with maybe some other colors that I could add to see what I actually need to put in there. The biggest thing is you notice a problem, you can see it, you just need to work out how you can solve it. When drawing, we all make mistakes. Even us pros make mistakes. Now there's all kinds of fluctuating differences in the level of mistakes that we make. So sometimes it's really small mistakes. Sometimes they can be big mistakes. But one of the important skill sets that you need to develop is adaptability because we're all going to make mistakes with our drawings. There are some days we're going to make more than others because depending on how tired we are, overworked we are, or we're sick, there are just days when we're going to be more productive or with the program of what we're doing than others. And when you make mistakes, you need to be able to adapt your drawings because a lot of the time, especially when you're working with colored pencils, you cannot erase everything that you have down or you can only erase so much and it kind of scuffs up the paper and makes it difficult to add any layers over the top of that after. And then there are just some mistakes where you have added too much in of the darker colors and you can't erase it. It's always going to kind of be there. So you just have to make do with what's there and change or adapt your drawings to compensate the mistakes that you've made. This is a skill set that also evolves when you develop your skill of self-critiquing because as you learn to spot the mistakes that you're making, you're going to have a better ability to be able to find ways to adapt to those mistakes that you've made. Like for example, in this horse drawing, I accidentally was not paying attention to that background and ended up making this horse's belly a little too far down on my drawing. So to adapt to this mistake, I ended up changing the background a bit and made it a little easier. So I decided to just fill in the whole bottom section with the darker black color and shape out the belly to be the exact shape that it needed to be. And because I already had a darker color down, it's not going to erase well. And there's a little strip of a lighter portion of the background that just would not work so well. So I ended up just filling out the whole entire lower section with black. If you're making mistakes on the fur of an animal you might be drawing or on the skin, those are pretty easy to also overcome because you can just change the shape of the scales or the fur, change the patterns that are there. It doesn't have to be exactly the same as a reference. The next skill set, finding patterns and coming up with the ways you can achieve the same look. Either by layering a certain way, how your colors end up turning out, depending on the layering style, and being able to decide which is going to have the best outcome for what you're trying to achieve. Now patterns, what are patterns? Patterns are something that is repetitive. It means it happens over and over again. But the thing is with each pattern, they aren't always the same. They're different. Depending on the area, the type of fur, the location of the fur, really anything that you are drawing, it's all going to have patterns and they're all going to be different from one another. Think of it as you're buying fabric in a fabric store. They have patterns on them. Little dogs, little elephants, those are patterns and they are just repeated on the fabric. Essentially what you are doing when you're drawing is scoping in on a small little area, maybe half dollar sized or quarter sized, whichever, and you are trying to memorize those patterns that are there and copy that to your drawing. And what you need to be asking in your mind is how can I get my drawing to look like that? What do I need to get down first? What should I put on top of that? How well is that going to layer out? If I put this color over that color, is it going to turn out okay? Or do I need to put this one over that one? And oftentimes, if you just practice on a sheet of scratch paper, you can rule out all of these problems on your own. Even I do this. There are some subjects that I still have not drawn yet. If you guys are familiar with some of my previous videos, I stopped drawing for about 10 years. Whereas today, I'm drawing again, but there's still a lot of animals I haven't drawn, textures, patterns, and I work out those different types of strategies about how I'm going to go about doing it on sheets of scratch paper before I apply any of those techniques I tried to my drawing. Learning to find patterns and draw them realistically is a skill. And with enough practice, you can learn to master it. If you practice drawing a little each and every day, you can only get better, not worse. One of the easiest and fastest ways that you can build your drawing skills is to draw from drawing lesson tutorials where you can follow along through the entire process in real time and receive instructions and explanations from an experienced artist. You can follow along with this horse tutorial and learn the many techniques to drawing a realistic horse, what key components you need to incorporate into hair to make it look real, and much more techniques that I use for achieving exceptional realism with my drawings. Sign up from the link here on the screen and begin your journey in achieving exceptional realism with your own drawings. And I will see you guys in the next video. Transcribed by https://otter.ai