How to Draw & Sketch Animals - Part 3

Hi friends and fellow artists and welcome to part three the final part in this mini course on how to draw and sketch animals. Now if you did miss part one and two I definitely recommend you start with those especially part one because I cover some important fundamentals about proportion, believable shape, placement of features that kind of thing so that you can draw pretty much any animal that you want. I'll link to both of those parts in the description below so that you can find them nice and easily. So in this particular lesson we're going to be sketching a lion and again we'll be starting from scratch making sure everything is in good proportion getting a good laying and then we'll be adding some shading over the top this time with a little bit more of a refined style to the horse sketch that we did in part two. Now you'll find a link to the reference photograph in the description and if you're the kind of person that enjoys sketching but you sometimes struggle for ideas and inspiration I'm also going to link in the description to my free guide 101 sketchbook ideas that will save you lots of time looking for reference material it's hopefully going to give you some inspiration some sketching challenges that you can follow at your own pace and it's completely free I'll pop a link in the description for you to check out. Please do let me know in the comments after you finish today's sketch how you've got on with this course do you feel more confident and more able to draw and sketch animals with good proportion and good shape I'd love to hear your feedback until the next lesson until the next video take care enjoy your drawing and I hope to see you in another video very soon here on the channel. Welcome to this final lesson in this series on sketching animals I've got a really nice reference photograph here of a male lion taking a little bit of time out I think this is going to make a really good sketch now I'm going to pick the pace up a little bit for this one maybe not quite as fast as I would work if I was doing this for myself and my own sketchbook but certainly faster than the previous lessons so if you've jumped to this lesson maybe because you've seen the lion in particular and that's the one that you want to have a go at what I recommend you do is maybe back up to one of the earlier lessons where I go through things a little bit more slowly a bit more methodically to make sure that I get all the importance the most important techniques explained correctly now our first protocol as with all the sketches that we've done is to think about compositionally where we're going to place our sketch on the paper and no you're probably never going to frame the vast majority of your sketches so it really doesn't matter if your line is too far to the left or too far to the right you can just trim the paper down if it's touching the edge too much so that you can't get a nice mount around the edge it's not going to matter but from a good practice point of view a best practice point of view I want you to take that 30-60 seconds to think about and to plot out your sketch your drawing on your piece of paper first what that does is it gets you into this mentality of thinking about the big general basic shape and then gradually moving towards more specific shapes and then individual contour lines textural marks that kind of thing so I'm going to make a simple mark just towards the edge of the paper just it's going to represent the back edge of the sketch and then for the front edge I'm going to think about where the paw is so roughly around about the same kind of space there and I'm also going to make a mark for where the head is I don't need to worry about how far away I am from here at this stage and what it is in relation to this distance here I'm just putting something very very rough now from here I can look at the ground level so I can see that that's on a slight upward slope and I just want to think not so much about the slope although I'm going to put a representation in for that but I just want to think about where I want it on the paper so that I'm not too high up and I'm not too low down now from here I can start to put in some very general shapes so I'm just looking at this back here what's the angle of that's what I'm looking at here look at this break point here so if I was to make a mark there and the outer edge and this edge here where does this mark fall in relation to that distance halfway in between would be somewhere here so I know that it's a little bit less than halfway so if my halfway distance is somewhere there I know that the break point is going to be somewhere around there just very roughly I'm not going to be measuring that with a ruler you know or even a kind of a proportional measure of any kind so I can look at that angle so I probably need to be a bit steeper but at this stage I'm keeping it very very loose very rough this is where the head's going to be so the nose is going to be somewhere around here I've got the paw so let's just put basic oval in for the paw holding the pencil right at the end I've got the mane which obviously comes around here let's go back to this edge so we've got the tail which comes around I've got this paw here so let's just put that in as an oval so I'm just thinking about where is this in position in relation to this break point so it's somewhere around there and then let's look at this big part of the leg so we just get the oval in of that part of the leg so look how general things are look at this part of the tail here I'm looking at this as a very basic shape in relation to this and by keeping these as basic shapes it makes it very very easy for me to judge one to another the distance between the angle from one to another and no it doesn't matter if you get the tail in the wrong position that's not going to matter but if you do that and you're using it as a reference point for other parts of the drawing it's going to compound and it's going to put things out so look just how rough and ready that is how loose and how quick it is what it has allowed me to do though is see where the overall composition is on the paper and I'm happy with that certainly for a sketch of this nature what it's also given me and this is much more important is the ability to start making references from one part of the drawing to the other part of the drawing now these references these reference points and I'm going to show you exactly what I mean by a reference point in a moment give you a specific example there are dozens of them every single picture it's going to differ if I was to do this drawing 10 times I'd probably start with or I could start with 10 different reference points there is no right or wrong it's just about making a start picking something out that you compare one part of the drawing to another so let me give you an example if I look at the top part of the lion's back there and I draw a horizontal line so horizontal to the picture plane so this obviously this reference photograph that I've got here this horizontal line notice how it goes into the lion's chin so what this does is it gives me a point to say if I get the lion's chin and it's the same height or on the same line as the lion's back there's one reference point I could then take an angle up here and measure that angle and I've got the height of the lion's head relative to the length of the body so let's take a look at that so if I take a horizontal line across as best as I can see it and it's always best if you stand up and or if you can be a little bit further away from the sketch you'll see that better so a horizontal point tells me the chin the bottom of the chin is going to be somewhere around there and then I've got this angle that I'm looking at I don't have to be exact but it's this sort of an angle here so that tells me that the height of the head relative to the length is about right what I had it was about right okay but that gives you an extra reference point for you to shore up that particular proportion now let's take another reference point so there's lots that we could choose from but I'm going to look at this paw here and I'm going to see what can I compare this paw to to get it in a good position well if I take a horizontal line across I can see that roughly it's on line with the front paw there's maybe a slight upward slope there so that means that this paw is slightly lower down than this one now I don't know that I'm in exactly the right position with this one so I don't simply want to take this and move it lower down but mentally now I know this at some point has got to be slightly lower down or at least on line with this one so that's another reference point so what about the main here look at how the foot here sits in relation to the main so we can see that the main is sitting on this break point here of the neck and we've already established that this break point is more towards the left it's not quite halfway it's slightly more towards that side which has is where I've got it but look if I draw my main as I've put in a basic shape down there for it look how far away this is from the main so this is telling me that really this paw needs to be somewhere up around this position here okay so we just erase that which tells me that this part which I was already able to see but I'm making this check this is too deep so we can get rid of all of this the bottom that we've just put in very very quickly very very loosely so let's just put that back in that paw so I'm looking at if the main runs down here this is going to be the bottom let's look at the angle between this paw and the bottom of the chin we've already said in relation to this that the bottom of the chin is around about here so the angle between those two is another reference point that I can take so that's telling me that maybe I've got this a little bit too low down so I've maybe gone a little bit too high up maybe gone a little bit too over keen with that so it's somewhere around about there and for a study a sketch like this and with the subject matter of animals you don't have to be really pedantic with it you do if it was a portrait you've got to take your time really take your time with the portrait but that's why animals are a great middle ground practice between say a landscape where you can get really quite sloppy with your observation so let's just establish that line a little bit more firmly this is this is going to be the back part so this is a little bit longer and then the tail position it's going to be here this foot remember is going to be slightly lower down than this one so we can move this one up a little bit further it's going to be somewhere around about there you can look at the angle so look at this angle here right down the front of the lion's head so I know that if the nose is down there on that sort of an angle it runs straight into the foot so I'm happy with that position and then let's have a look at these shapes in here so look at this nice piece of I suppose you could call it a negative shape but it's just an abstract shape so rather than seeing this part of the leg and trying to draw it in as a leg let's take a look at this as a triangular shape it's even got this mark in here which helps to see it as a really clear triangle so I can see that it's starting about where the paw is and then we've got straight edge there so remember this idea of converting curves into straight edges and then the top of the leg comes up there and now we can create this triangle this nice triangular shape so paw slightly adjust that shape only ever so slightly the tail needs to be just adjusting things all the time and when you keep things really loose and really quick you're willing to make these adjustments and that's the most important thing it's not about getting it right first time but the tail that comes down here so I can even look at that little negative shape there all good practice so tail is more here seeing this shape here okay and look at this front paw here so what's the distance between this again as a bit of a negative shape so we've got this band of dark hair so I can just make a judgment about how thick that is we've got the paw which I don't want to put all the specific contours in at this stage I'm just happy to put this in as a really loose shape let's just clean this area up so we can just deal with the head with a little bit less a little bit of a cleaner surface so I've still got the marking for the bottom of the chin so that's the line of the bottom of the chin which is on line with this and then I've got this part of the mane that comes through here so I can look at this shape so I'm just looking at the size of that shape in between and then edge of the nose is going to be somewhere around about there isn't it let's take a look at the line of the nose so it's going to be around about that so I'm just making a judgment a reference point how much higher it is than this so let's say somewhere around about there so this is the nose the tip of the nose here that's the outermost part of the face I can look at this angle again just check this angle am I happy with that that's okay so straight line there so the chin is chin is here straight line for this part of the face and then we've got this nice flat edge for the bridge of the nose how do I know how long to make this I could start making comparative measures so how long is this line maybe in comparison to this one but a much quicker technique one that I go back to time and time again is to look at angles so what is the angle here between the foot and the eye I'm using the pencil here just for demonstration purposes when you do this enough time and you look at angles you know enough times it becomes second nature you know you can just look at that angle visualize the angle between the two you don't have to keep laying your pencil backwards and forwards do that in the early stages as you're familiarizing yourself with these techniques but in time you'll be able to drop that so I've got the eye somewhere in that position and then just looking across this eye just see a bit of the eyelashes there so then we've got the break in the angle the top of the lion's head there and then I can now just look at this as a shape so I'm not going around the outside and drawing this line all around the outside I'm looking for these slightly more slightly less general slightly more specific shapes within this overall big shape that we've created okay so let's look at where the main is coming out so I'm putting it up here but look how close it is that's another reference point how close is it to this eye what's the height above this eye here I probably need to be a bit more around here and then main up here so this eye is slightly too far to the left just needs to be a bit more in the center of the shape there we go and then okay the position of the ear so I don't want to get lazy I still want to maintain that observation this fur here haven't we and then he's going to come here but this part of the main before we've got this dark piece here so what I'm left with looks granted a little bit of a mess the marks that I've used are far heavier than if I was doing this for my own sketchbook and I've used far more marks than if I was doing this for my own sketchbook a lot of these I would just be ghosting the pencil to get a feel for them and then making a bit more of an accurate mark that just allows me to go into some more accurate contours a little bit earlier on but I don't want you to do that I don't want you to get sidetracked by that I want you to take it through these steps where you end up with something that's a bit scruffy that's a little bit too heavy that we've now got to erase back and take it through to the next stage if you do that yes the process is a bit more methodical but it's like anything it's like learning to drive initially the whole process is very conscious but you're getting it right and it doesn't take a lot of practice of doing things correctly doing things right before it starts to have more flow before you can start cutting corners that you know aren't going to have a negative impact on your sketch that's much more efficient than trying and draw with lighter neater marks fewer of them but getting it wrong missing those overarching principles so I'm going to erase this and then you can see me draw it back in I'm going to draw it back in quite quickly okay so you can start wherever you want to but the observational process shouldn't really end so I'm going to start using a few more broken lines now just to remind myself of the textures in and around those areas so even when I'm putting these marks back in I'm looking at this shape here how do I feel about this as a a negative abstract shape in comparison to what I can see there and to get the eye in correctly so look at the eye for angles so I'm not worried about curves I'm looking at this top edge here where's the position of that so how what position how low down is it in relation to this line how far in is it relation is it in relation to this line here I've got a nice straight edge there for that part of the eye and then creates this nice distinctive tear drop sort of like a tear drop or tear duct mark at the bottom there and just showing the pupil okay if I take this line down that takes me nicely into the nose so what I can see is this shape here and I think mine is just a little bit too wide so rather than move the eye let's just bring this in ever so slightly so just looking at that angle there and then how this part of the the mouth comes out and then let's look at this as a shape this is just a simple shape the bottom of the chin but it's quite an easy one to distinguish because it's this enclosed shape it's a nice enclosed basic shape and then we've got the main that comes around here and there's not a great deal of distance between the bottom of the chin is there and where the leg is so my leg I put a bit more of the main in my leg was maybe just a touch low down so I can start looking at some angles now so I've got a flat edge to here and I'm just seeing where is this there's a break point about there so I've got a flat edge then a break point and I'm seeing where is that in relation to this so I could take a plumb line up to the top a plumb line just being a straight vertical line and I can see what the distance is there or I could take a little angle from the nose to here as well I'm going to go with that one so I'm going to say it's going to be somewhere about there so again let's just break this paw into straight lines so I can get a straight line to here out a bit and then this is a nice straight line it's got a nice angle to it and then I've got a bit of a straight edge to give some depth to the paw straight edge straight edge straight edge so what I've now got is a much more believable shape than if I try to draw this as nice as a nice soft contoured line okay and then let's look at this little shape in here this little triangular shape so I can get that in and then I can get this part of the the main in so just looking at that as an angle so it's a little bit flatter than what I had it paw I can put back in I can just about see where I had it before and in the same way that I used straight edges for that one I'm just going to do the same so we've got an angle I can see there and then an angle down here and then this is just a nice straight edge that creates this part of the triangle there's the tidied up more accurate line drawing and it is more accurate than that first stage that I erased but it was only because I had that first basic blocked in stage that this process was actually really quite quick and quite easy so let's do some shading now I'm going to keep this simple and just use one pencil a really soft one a 7 or an 8B if you want to spend a bit more time and it makes something that's a bit more refined a bit more impressive then just add a couple of harder pencils the HB maybe a 2 or a 3B but the trick is don't have too many you know three pencils is plenty even to create quite a detailed drawing so just the one pencil to hand then this is the 8B what I'm going to do because these don't hold a point very long is start with the finer details so obviously got the eye there and got some really nice dark tones that outline the eye so it's not often that you get not often at all that you get outlines or the ability to outline in nature this is one of them bit of detail on the eye there and then what I like to do is just establish the other eye in this case it's just a bit of an eyelash that's sticking out just because that helps me get them in the right place comparative to each other this is really really important so really all I'm doing here is coloring in basically coloring in the shapes that I've already laid down all the time I'm looking backwards and forwards so my if you could see my eyes they're flicking backwards and forwards literally every second between the reference and my drawing so I'm not just looking at the lines that I've made and then going over the top of those heavier I'm still looking backwards and forwards trying to continue that observation process I can maybe put some of the darks in around the ear here all I'm doing is I'm just looking for the darkest values the darkest tones within the lion or within and around the lion's head because that is our focal point so we want the strongest contrast between light and dark in that area that's going to help to pull the observer's eye towards that area anywhere you've got the strongest comparison between dark and light this is quite attention grabbing okay and then I'm going to put some dark tone in for this part of the mane here because what that then gives me are some nice areas in and around the face the focal point that are at one extreme end of the scale so the darkest end of the scale I've already got the white of the paper which is at the other end of the scale so it just then helps me to make a better judgment of the more subtle tones and values that were that are within this part of the lion's head and the top of the main there so just being mindful of the the lighter fur that's coming over the top of it so I'm not just blocking it in as one solid shape I want to create a little bit of texture within that and some broken edges some rough and loose edges just to give the impression of fur and then even within this look how there's darker areas so I've I've kind of put a not using full pressure more of a mid-tone down first and then I can start to pick out darker areas within that okay so with those in place then it just helps me to start making better judgments as to how much pressure I need to use in other areas so I've got some shadow tones up here in this part of the fur but I know that it's not as dark as this area but it's obviously darker than the lightest areas and certainly the white of the paper so just easier for me to make that judgment a little bit of a shadow that's just going down the center of the lion's head and then look how there's just a bit of shadow tone coming off of that the lightest area around there so I'm just going to hold back to the white of the paper for that bit and then we've got a little bit of tone just around here there's some patterns just above the nose and this is obviously a light so that you can see that it's a white color but it's not all white because underneath you've got a bit of shadow and then I think we should be putting in just a few little dots there just for where the whiskers are really quite distinctive okay and then you can add a little bit of tone to this part of the mane just trying to feather the edge and I'm just looking as well how there's some darker marks and then some lighter fair in front of it just really varying the pressure that I use I'm not obviously trying to get every hair in place or trying to get anything exact I'm just trying to get a feel for things and then make my representation of that with the pencil so this is the darkest part here isn't it let's put a few of these darks in so rather than just working one from left to right from one part to the other it is a good idea I think to dance around your drawing a little bit just so you can start balancing those darks and those mid-tones with one another if you just move from one side to the other what you'll find is that you have a nice balance over here but comparative to this over here it's you know it's if you move around the drawing a bit more everything overall tends to end up a little bit more balanced and harmonious so look got some really strong darks in here so around this foot is silhouetted a really nice way to outline that shape really dark down here so let's just block all that shaping really quickly and same under here so you can see I'm still holding the pencil at the end I'm not right down here trying to make really precise marks that's going to be so much more time consuming and it's what you have to do if you're doing a really really photo realistic drawing but for everything else try and hold your pencil further down the end you'll just make more more authentic marks looser marks and it'll just speed everything up I'm just looking at how this is a little bit darker you see that pattern there I'll just use a bit more pressure around there and start picking out some individual bits of hair just with the point of the pencil so switching from going side on to a bit more of the point so I look at this area I'm just going to block the whole thing in get rid of the white of the paper side of the pencil everything's so much easier when you get rid of the white of the paper that's why I like to work on a tone ground so often particularly with colour media when I'm doing a sketch and I've got to block large areas in that this is what I tend to do so with this triangle here let's just get the shape in first so I'm not using full pressure just want to get the shape in first but hold a little bit back so that can go darker again and then within that we've got this nice shadow here so as dark as you like for that just feathering it out slightly it's not a hard edge is it it's soft edge as it comes away so this is just a case of building marks up adding more tone so where I've just blocked it in there just needs a bit more variation so you can look at little lines and details like these here and just put those in something akin to those anyway they don't need to be exact okay for the port I'm just going to put a little bit of tone just on the top because it's not white no it's not the white of the paper and then what I'm going to be doing is putting some really nice strong shadows just for this bottom edge here because that helps to define the bottom of the leg putting these shadows in first just helps you to define that shape a little bit more get that in place and then we've got some shadow tone just on the bottom there and then really there's not a lot of detail in these paws they've just got a separation between each of the claws but there's not much more than that so I want to keep that nice and simple tiny little bit of just a little bit of tone just to take the whiteness of the paper away so all that's left then is just some tone in this area so what you can do really really quickly block the whole thing in and then areas where you think it's a bit stronger let's just bring those up we're just using a bit more pressure but by putting that layer down first where you've got this smoother fur it just helps to create a bit more of a nicer a bit more of a softer blend between the two and that is obviously indicative of the texture that's on this part of the line this part of the body so I'm going to leave that sketch as it is this is one that if you've got a bit more time I would definitely spend a little bit more care over that shading process maybe adding a HB and a couple of slightly harder pencils than the 7B I've used start with those harder pencils the HB and build up the lighter tones then add the darker values particularly around the face I think you could end up with a really nice drawing something that is more than just a quick sketch so I hope you've enjoyed this lesson I hope you've enjoyed the series as a whole and above all I hope that it's given you a little bit more confidence to go and sketch any animal that you please you know there's nothing out there there's no animal that's going to cause you any additional challenge than what we've covered in this course so go and find maybe some reference photographs of your own of animals that you're particularly fond of and see how well these techniques will stand up to those and indeed other subject matter as well so thank you for watching and I hope to see you in another course very soon