How to Draw a Realistic Human Eye - Soft Pastel Tutorial Preview

As a thank you for the continued support here on YouTube, I thought I would share a preview of my recent Patreon crash course tutorial of a realistic human eye. Even though this is a condensed version of the full Patreon tutorial, I still think you'll be able to take away a lot of useful methods and techniques for your next pastel artworks. If this video is helpful for you, please consider liking this video and subscribing to not miss future uploads. Thanks so much for the support and I really hope you enjoy this preview. First, using the sponge transfer method, we'll build an initial base layer for the skin and the eye itself with our soft pastel sticks. We'll then use our pastel pencils to refine the base layer for the eye and then to add in all of that rich detail that we can see in the reference. Once we complete the beautiful blue iris, we'll then complete the whites of the eyes along with the small visible veins with high realism in mind. Next, we'll then refine the skin base layer, figuring out the correct values for each section and adding in all of the subtle realistic skin vibrancies. Once refined, we can then push the realism by adding in all of the skin texture and definition, transforming the flat base layer into something that has life. Lastly, I'll walk you through my process and method for drawing realistic eyelashes that also go slightly out of focus for that strong sense of depth, finishing with any final refinements to really push the realistic appearance. Before we get started, here are a few of my must-know pastel tips. What to do with pastel dust? This is something I get asked a lot about and for me personally, I work upright on a cleat or easel, so the majority of the dust just falls straight to the floor which I can then carefully vacuum up afterwards. However, for the small amount that accumulates on my work, I carefully vacuum that also, making sure that my artwork is stuck down firmly and then holding the vacuum nozzle at an angle so that it doesn't pull on and attach to my artwork. And if you're working on a flat desk, you may need to vacuum any pastel build-up often, making sure to always hold the nozzle at an angle. I would recommend never blowing the dust away as it will just end up all around you and in your lungs which is obviously not good. In my studio, I also have an air purifier which detects any dust particles in the air and it's surprising how much dust can be there without even realizing or being able to see it. This is why it's important to carefully vacuum and not blow the dust all around you. For extra dusty activities such as blending initial base layers or sanding down many pastel pencils, I use a respiratory mask to be extra safe. Keeping your hand off the artwork to avoid smudging. As I mentioned, I work on a wall easel so naturally I don't need to lean or rest on the artwork the majority of the time. For small detailed areas however, I have created this mold stick which allows me to rest my hand on it whenever I need to. If you're working on a desk, there are these artist bridges that you can purchase which allow you to rest your hand above the artwork. These are not only a lifesaver for avoiding smudging but also for reducing shoulder and back strain. Picking the correct colors. It's sometimes hard to know what specific colors we need so I like to use some sort of color picking app. There are many available and I use a few different ones but the main one I use is just Procreate on my iPad. It allows me to swatch a specific area of the reference photo which I can then use the paintbrush tool to pick out what that color is. I can then use these color swatches to better inform me of my color choices when choosing what soft pastels or pastel pencils to use. Sharpening your pastel pencils. I don't use conventional pencil sharpeners because they tend to just snap off the pastel pencil tips. Instead, I carefully shave off the wood casing using a Stanley knife and then sand the tip down to a point. If I'm sharpening lots of pencils, I'll just use a belt sander machine to do it quickly and then for quick sharpening as I'm drawing I'll just use some nearby sandpaper. For detailed lines instead of sanding down the tip to a round point, I'll sand down just two opposite sides to make a flat tip point and then this is perfect for drawing in those really thin detailed lines when needed. Super glue for broken tips. We all know how easily pastel pencil tips can snap off whether you drop the pencil or just apply too much pressure when drawing, so when they do I just simply super glue them back on. Okay, so the very first thing I want to do here is to take a 4H graphite pencil and I'm just going to sort of scrape the pencil along some of the outlines that are important to me. The way this works is that the soft pastel layers will have a hard time adhering to this graphite line wherever I draw it, so when I come to add in the base layers in a little bit with soft pastel sticks, these lines will still show through those pastel layers allowing me to continue seeing the important positioning of everything that makes up the eye. But I'm not going to outline everything but rather just some of the lines that I think will be important to keep track of moving forward. So once that's quickly outlined I can then proceed to using my soft sponge tool. So the way I'm going to apply pastel for this study is by using the scrap paper transfer method. So here you can see I have a scrap piece of pastel mat board and I've simply just rubbed down the colors that I want from my soft pastel sticks and you can find all of the colors I've used for this study in the attached pdf. In case you haven't seen any of my other tutorials, I really love using the scrap paper transfer method because you're able to pre-mix and work out the colors before applying them to your piece. Also applying the pigments with just the use of the sponge tool like so creates a really soft light layer of pastel and this in turn means that your paper will not be quickly filled in with the pastel pigment, which can often happen when applying the pastel stick directly to your paper. When creating soft pastel artworks it's invaluable that this method applies only a very light layer of pastel. This becomes especially important when we want to work in more future layers, especially when putting pencil details on top later on. With a very light base of soft pastel pigment we can easily work in many layers to build up a deep definition and texture. If you've ever tried applying pencil details on top of really thick pastel layers you'll know that this is very difficult to achieve as the paper finds it hard to accept any more pencil pigment. In all of my tutorials I always stress to use a light pressure for a very light layer of pastel so that we can work up in multiple layers. This is key to achieving lots of depth and detail within your work. So now I'm applying this base layer for the corner of the eye here and again this area of the skin is slightly in shadow which you can see is darker compared to the left side which is highlighted by the light source. So as I'm applying these pigments to the artwork I'm making sure to add those darker pigments into my mixture. I can also see it has some slight yellow undertones in this area so I'll just replicate that with my colour choice. Again I can work in many layers so I don't have to get it perfect for this initial base layer. I can just refine the tones and values on top in future layers if needed so I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself at this early stage to get it 100% right. So now you can see I'm the initial layer for that eyelid crease and in the reference you can see we have those underlying red tones. Again I will add those pigments into the overall mixture on the scrap paper. I can adjust how much or little I add into the overall mixture so if I start applying it to my piece and I think that this pigment isn't quite red enough I can just pick up more of those red pigments into my mixture. But as I added in this darker crease colour I made sure to push it up and blend it in with the lighter skin tones just to make everything a bit more incorporated. However the colour has spread too far as you can see compared to the reference photo but that's alright because we can now re-pick up some of those lighter skin tones and move those lighter values back down closer towards that crease line. And because we already have some of the previous colour mixture on the scrap paper we can sort of just pick up where we left off instead of trying to figure out the specific colour mixture again. As we are drawing a human eye here obviously there's no harsh lines or edges within a skin so we need to keep everything looking soft and diffuse. This will mostly be achieved with multiple layers and also just taking the time to blend and incorporate different layers and colours together. Here now as I start to fill in the layer for the bottom eyelid I can see some underlying purple tones so I can just take a bit of this purple pigment on my scrap paper and add it into the mixture, making sure to only take a little bit as to not overwhelm and make it too purple and dark. As I'm adding in this new colour which is quite different to the previous light skin tones I've put in, it's important that I take a bit of time to just blend and incorporate the different colours together. Again always with a light even pressure for a smooth even blend. Okay so here I'm now just picking up more of that deep red pigment with my soft sponge tool and I'm just going to place it in this crease here where we can see that deep red shadow. Again I'll start to softly blend it in with the other pigments that are already in place just so that we have no harsh edges between any of the sections. I want to keep everything looking as smooth as possible and I'll then drag this darker red colour down the crease line to form the shadow there too. The shadow on this crease line is quite thin here so I'm just going to pick up that mixture with the side of the sponge head and then I'm just going to sort of slice this colour onto that crease line. Using the side of the sponge head like this just helps to be a bit more precise for detailed areas such as this. Okay so now just briefly back to that lower eyelid area where we have some more of those pinky tones. I'm again just adding a tiny bit of this vibrant pink into the mixture along with some of that deep flesh red and I'm just going to add a bit more saturation to this lower eyelid area before moving on. Now I'm going to shift my focus to adding in the base layer for the upper eyelid and seeing as that we already have some of those dark flesh pigments embedded into the sponge I'm just going to continue in this same colour group. So here I'm first focusing on the right side of the upper eyelid where we see those deep shadowed colours. So I'm essentially just placing the colour where I see those darker values in the reference and then I'm sort of just going to spread and expand it further across the eyelid. I don't want to apply loads and loads of pigment just enough to give a soft lightweight base layer. As I have these colours embedded into my sponge I can see some similar values and tones towards the far left side of the eyelid crease. So again while I'm working in the same colour group I can just quickly also add this colour in here too and this colour is also very similar to the bottom eyelid next to the eye so I'm just picking up and adding a tiny bit of a light pink into the mixture before adding it in place. As we come further around to the right side you can see that the light hits that bottom eyelid section and lightens the values and the tones so I'll just pick up more of that lighter flesh colour to replicate that in my study. At this stage everything might look a little bit messy and confusing but you just have to trust the process. Again this is just an initial base layer and we can build upon and refine in future layers this is just to give us a decent starting point. Okay so once I'm done with the skin colours you can see the pigments are embedded into my sponge so the other side of my sponge head is completely clean so I'm just going to remove it from the handle, turn it around and then slot it back on so that we have a blank sponge head to work with the new colours. This will make sure that the new colours we pick up don't become contaminated with the old embedded pigments. So I'm going to start work on the whites of the eyeball itself and here I'm just figuring out what colours to mix together to put this base layer down here. It can be quite tricky to figure out so I would say that using a colour picker app can be very useful. So you'll see that I'll mix a little bit of blue and I'm going to add it to some of the deep red flesh tones that I previously used and this is to first place down some of the darker shadow colours within the whites of the eyeball here and then as I move on to the highlighted areas I'll start to lighten the colours with some lighter blues and greys making sure that everything is smooth and blended together. Again this is just an initial base layer for the eye for which I will It's helpful to think of the eye as a round 3D surface where the corners and the edges fade into a deeper darker shadowed colour and then the middle is highlighted where the centre sort of bulges outwards and catches the light. But in practice that's not really the way I work, I just prefer to pinpoint what colours are in what exact areas and then if I'm accurate with my placements that 3D shape will start to take effect. So in the reference we can see that the left side of the eyeball is more highlighted and therefore the colours are lighter and brighter whereas the right side is more in shadow so we have more of those deeper shadow tones. So I'm now just picking up some of this deep purple pigment into my mixture and just placing it in the very corner next to the tear duct and then I'll extend some of these shadow tones to the upper section also where the eyelid creates a darker shadow. The tear duct itself has an almost light flesh colour so I'll pick up and place some of those replicated pigments there, again we will refine and adjust in future layers as needed so there's no worry about getting it perfect straight away. Okay so now for the fun part, let's put our focus on the beautiful blue iris. So first I'm going to place down those lighter blue colours in the central blue ring and then switch my focus to the darker outer blue ring next. So just like with the skin we don't want the lighter areas of this initial base layer to be too light because we will be spending quite a bit of time creating all of those intricate highlight details with our pencils in future layers, so in order for those highlighted pencils to show they'll need to contrast against this base layer. If this light blue was too light here then those future pencil marks won't have anything to contrast against and the iris will look flat and undetailed, so I like to keep my base layers just slightly darker for this reason, it will make more sense when we work for those future pencil layers. For the highlights of the iris I'm first going to work with some cool greys, I don't want these highlights to be too vibrant, just a sort of light cool tone with a hint of blue to replicate what I'm seeing in the reference. We can switch to slightly more vibrant pencils in selected areas when needed in a little bit. I like to think of these highlights as sort of fibres also radiating from the pupil just like a bike spoke wheel, it may be helpful to look at other examples of high definition iris photographs to get a real sense of the texture within the iris here. So you can see I've got a sharp flat tip on my pastel pencil as I've sanded down either side to give me this flat tip and this is just allowing me to draw very thin detailed lines, I'm also holding my pencil quite a bit further back and this is allowing me to easily use a light pressure and also give me a good view of where I'm drawing, the pencil I'm using here is the Brunzeal 94. If you look close at the reference image you'll see that these fibre lines also extend out to the dark blue outer ring, so here I can carefully overlap making sure not to go too far out. What I'm really focusing on at the moment is just the lengths and directions of these fibres and I'm also making sure to space them out enough as well as I don't want to draw tons of lines in with no gaps because that will just brighten the whole area and also make it look flat. We need some gaps in between these highlights so that the dark vibrant colours underneath in the base layer can still show through and allow us to perceive some depth and texture. When moving on to some slightly darker areas of the iris such as at this top section here, I can switch to some slightly darker colours and here I'm using the Carbothello 724, as this colour is less bright as well as using it for the darker area above I can also use it in the dark outer ring just because it's less bright and intense so it's a more suitable colour choice of pencil for those areas too. You'll also notice that I'm not drawing in straight lines, I'm adding some wiggles and some curves to my lines because that's how I see these fibres in the reference image and also just another reminder, if you would find it helpful to watch any of the process not sped up, you can always watch the accompanying real-time process video at any time. I'm really happy with how things are looking at the moment and I'm also just going to go in with a slightly more vibrant light blue just to add some more realistic variation into the texture into areas that I think could use a pop of colour. At this stage you can also see that I'm making an effort to brighten the highlights slightly around the pupil, in the reference photo immediately after the pupil we have that deep blue colour and then just around it in a small area, some of this texture is lighter so I'm also replicating that in my drawing. As I've mentioned before I don't typically think hard about what I'm actually drawing, I just really study the reference image and see where the lighter and darker values are. That's typically all I need to guide me throughout the process and as long as I get it right, the realistic 3D shapes and textures start to take effect. Within the iris you'll also notice these dashes of yellow colours which I think look great so I'm adding those in with the Carbobello 690. It's important not to get carried away and overdo it so I'm only going to do it within a few select areas. Okay so I'm happy with how the eye itself is looking so I'm now going to shift my focus to refining the base layer of the skin. So first here I'm taking a warm brown pencil and this is the 630 from Duent and I'm just shading along the eyelid crease where we can see those deep warm flesh colours and I'll also refine with some even darker browns where we have the very deep values along the line itself. So obviously the base layer as it stands is quite flat so now with our pencils is where we get to really put down our colours to increase the contrast and sense of depth. So as I'm shading in for the skin I'm again holding my pencil quite a bit further back with a sharp tip and this is allowing me to do long sweeping motions for a smooth even layer. This is still the base layer so I'm aiming to have everything look smooth and blended together just like we have with real skin and then all of the detail and texture that you can see in the reference we'll add that in once this base layer has been refined. So looking at the reference photo we can see that the left side of the eyelid is highlighted and the right side is in shadow causing that deeper red skin colour. So sticking with the 630 I'm shading in the darker skin colours like so, beginning to form that 3D shape. So realistic skin is made up of many different combinations of colours and the great thing about pastels is how well they blend together so I'll definitely be using that to my advantage. So my method of drawing skin involves combining multiple colours on top of one another and the initial base layer we have underneath definitely helps as it will subtly mix in as long as we keep using a light even pressure. So for light skin especially I find that a mixture of browns, pinks and blues work very well and I'll be combining them in different ways to achieve a particular skin tone that I'm after. So for example here in this shadowed area I've used a lot of that warm red brown but here I can also very lightly shade in on top with this blue to give the skin the subtle cool highlight that we can see in the reference image. By using a light pressure the pigments from the previous layer will mix in with this colour and the combination gives us something realistic. But if I press hard at all it's just going to cover the area in blue which obviously would look incorrect so your pressures with your pencils are really important here. So now here for the eyelid itself looking at the reference it's obviously covered by a lot of those eyelash hairs but if we take a close look between the gaps of the hairs we can see that it's a mixture of this pink and blue. Even though this area is going to get heavily covered with those eyelash hairs we still need to add in the colour now to avoid drawing in between the hairs later on. So you can see by mixing and combining these two colours together I can achieve the particular tone that I can see in this area. In this dark shadowed area as well you can see that the skin is red but it also has a cool tone to it so again to achieve that colour I'm also going to lightly shade in with some cool blue colours so the pigments will mix and combine to achieve the exact colour that I can see in the reference. So I'm happy with how those shadows and mid-tones are looking so I can now start with some of the lighter values for the eyelid. So here I'm This is still the base layer so I'm not going to worry about the bright highlights details that we can see here, I'll add those in later on top. Right now I just want to get this left side looking brighter as well as ensuring that the mid-tone is nicely balanced between the light and dark values. In the reference I can see that the colours here are slightly cooler in tone and less saturated so I can very lightly go on top with the light cool grey just to tone the warmth down, taking my time with a gentle pressure just so that the pigments gradually mix in with the previous layers. I think that the combination of the light flesh pencil with this light cool grey works really well and closely matches what I can see in the reference image. So now I'm just taking some vibrant pinks and also lightly shading in areas that I think could use a hint of these vibrant colours, so the eyelid crease as well as the eyelid area immediately next to the eye itself. You'll notice that the bottom eyelid in the reference is quite a bit lighter in value so here I'm going in with some light pinks and again using the light cool grey. The particular colour tone that I'm looking to achieve is somewhere in the middle so I can just create light layers with either pencil. Okay so let's now tackle the skin based layer for above the eyelid crease, so I'll be using much of the same pencils, mostly the light flesh 681 for those lighter more highlighted areas and then when we come over to the right side where things just become a little bit more in shadow, I can start to use some browns, yellows and blues. Again always using a light pressure so that the layers mix in with each other rather than pressing too hard and applying too much of one colour. You need a combination of multiple colours to get a realistic sense of skin tone. Obviously compared to some of the other areas, this is quite a large area to draw in with pencils so it definitely helps to have a sharp tip for which you can then draw on the side of the tip and then holding your pencil a little bit further back and doing long sweeping motions just really helps to keep the layer even and smooth. If you hold your pencil too close to the tip or the tip is too blunt it makes it much easier to be patchy and uneven which we definitely want to avoid. So I think that working on skin is a great way to test your colour theory skills because it forces you to think about the particular colour combinations which change constantly depending on how light or dark an area of the skin is. So you can see I'm using a mixture of browns, yellows, pinks and blues and so on and because it's soft pastel I'm constantly adjusting how much pressure I'm applying with my pencils. Mostly always using quite a light pressure so that the area is nice and even and we have smooth shading but we're limited to the colour choices from the pencil brands so different pressures allow us to use certain pencils that may be a bit too dark or vibrant for an area but if we just use the lightest touch then only a slight amount of that pigment will be added. On the other side if an area requires more of one colour then we can just press a little bit harder when shading to achieve more of that tone but hopefully you can see by shading in many layers with carefully selected colours achieves a realistic skin appearance. There isn't just one flesh colour that you can put down and make it look like authentic skin because you need all of those underlying tones in certain areas to make it believable and we can achieve that by using soft pastels carefully drawing in multiple layers on top like so. So here for example in the reference you can see the corner of the eye next to the tear duct has that slight yellow undertone so I'm lightly shading in with the yellow due into number 50 so just making sure to add in these slight variations of colours in the right areas really does lend itself to the realistic final outcome. Again if you are struggling with any of the correct colours in any areas then I suggest using some sort of colour picker app to help inform you. So here with the White Carver Fellow Pencil I can start to plot where some of the highlights are going. You'll notice that this middle part of the bottom eyelid is catching the light quite nicely and the way I'm going to draw these highlights in is sort of to dab lots of lines next to each other. This helps to also build up some texture while putting in that brighter value. I'm still using a relatively light pressure because I don't want to completely cover the skin colour pigments underneath because if I press too hard then the area will just look white instead of looking like highlighted skin. Quickly here I'm just going to further refine some of the shadowed area carefully with some browns as I want to make sure that the values are rich and dark enough before going on top with any highlights in a little bit. Back to the white pencil now and this is where we can start to bring out some of the skin texture for the highlights that we can see. So if you look at the reference at the bottom left the highlighted texture almost looks like horizontal lines going across the surface so this is what I'll replicate with my pencil. This is quite different to the almost scale like highlighted texture that we can see to the right which we will come to in a little bit. But as I'm highlighting you can see that I'm using the white pencil to lighten the values of the pigments in the previous layer. Too much white in one area and it will just start to make things look flat and unsaturated as neutral colors such as whites can just suck out all of the color if you use too much of it so remember to leave gaps for that base layer to still show through as well. I would say the corner of the eye here is more blurry and out of focus so instead of creating those highlighted texture lines here I'm just going to softly shade in with this light gray as I can't see any texture here in the reference image. So it's important to know where to apply highlighted textures and then where to keep things looking soft and untextured. Just constantly study the reference image and see where the textures are in a particular area. In contrast you can see this other eyelid has quite intense highlight marks that stick out so with these I can just press a little bit harder to get that brighter value and remembering to leave the gaps in between for the base layer to still show through in those slightly darker mid-tones. But essentially what I'm doing here is just aiming to replicate the specific shapes of those highlights to the best of my ability. As I move across the eyelid I'm adding in more subtle less obvious highlights with the light gray as the white would be too strong here and I'm also taking some dark pencils to add in some of the secondary less visible skin creases that I can see in the reference. I'm mostly just taking my time and really paying attention to detail here. As this is quite a dark area and this light gray pencil is quite bright I'm making sure to use only the lightest touch as to not brighten the value too much. In theory I could use a darker light gray but I can just stick with this one and make sure to really ease off the pressure to achieve the same outcome. So next here I'll go through the area with both light and dark purples just to add in some of that lovely saturation and vibrancy here where needed. You can see I'm holding my pencils quite a bit further back and this is again just allowing me to glide the tip of the pencil along the surface allowing me to be really gentle and careful with adding the pigments to the previous layers. Obviously this pencil is too dark here but with just a light touch I can add just a little bit of this color and then soften it by combining with some lighter purples on top. Sometimes you just need those extra dark pencils to get the dark values where necessary and then if they're too dark you can just pair them with a similar lighter color on top. So back to the light gray now again just adding in some more subtle highlights where needed, barely letting the tip touch the surface as to be really gentle. Here with the white I can quickly enhance a few select highlights just to add some realistic variation and definition but it's important not to overdo it though so I'll only add in these few brighter dots in a few areas and not all. So once happy with how the skin is looking I can then commit to the eyelashes. If you don't have much experience with drawing eyelashes I think it can be quite a tricky area for many but here is my process. So here I'm first starting with a sharp dark gray and I'm going to slowly go through the area taking my time and just figuring out the general lengths and shapes of each of these hairs and just like with the other areas of my drawing I'll be starting with basic initial details just to sort of organize the area and then once I'm happy with the general positioning and shapes I can then commit on top to adding more layers and details. So as I'm drawing in these bottom eyelashes I'm essentially focusing on where each hair starts and stops as well as what sort of curve it has and I'll aim to draw my lines in that same way. I work upright on a war easel and as you can see I'm resting my hand on a self-made mile stick and this really helps to keep my hand steady without needing to lean my hand on my drawing. I'm also holding my pencil quite far back and this actually helps a lot to create these curved lines because I can flick and bend my lines with ease so if you hold your pencil quite close to the tip then you could end up with wobbly and messy lines. Realistic eyelashes have a lot of variation to them as some are shorter some are longer and they also bend in slightly different ways and also overlap as well so it's important that you draw these lines in that same way. Often I see beginners resorting to drawing eyelashes that all look identical which just takes away from the realism so definitely add some variety and randomness into these eyelash hairlines. When moving on to the initial upper eyelids you'll notice that they're much longer and have steeper curves so here you can really see the benefit of holding the pencil quite a bit further back because I'm very easily able to bend and flick the lines and this helps to create that really smooth curve. It's really important that you pay close attention to where these eyelashes start and stop because the size and positioning does change quite a bit throughout all of the hairs so obviously to the side here we have those long hairs that flick outwards but then as we come towards the middle you'll notice in the reference that the hairs are facing towards the camera and instead just flick upwards into a slightly blurry position as the hairs become slightly out of focus. Again right now I'm just aiming to plot these specific positioning and shapes so you can see that these lines look quite thin and not like what we see in the reference but I will build upon them in more layers as this is just to get the area organized first. So once happy with the initial details I can then start to refine and enhance so first here I'm sticking with the dark grey and I'm shading on top to thicken and soften some of the eyelashes that you can see go slightly out of focus. For the bottom lashes I'm taking an even darker sharp grey and I'm thickening the base of some of the hairs and then switching over to a lighter mid-tone grey and I'm going to use that to soften some of the hairs at the ends. Here with the mid-tone grey I'm also using this pencil to continue thickening and blurring some of the hairs by shading on top like so. Obviously the hairs are still quite sparse at the moment especially when you compare them to the reference image but I'm just going to take my time to go through the area as I refine and enhance one step at a time. And here quickly with the light grey I'm adding in those small detailed highlight hairs that we see in this corner. Adding in small details like this really does add to the overall realism. And then briefly back to the dark grey just to add a few more hairs further up where needed. Okay so back to the upper eyelashes again using the very dark grey Faber-Castell 181 I'm going to continue enhancing and thickening the hairs adding more in where necessary also and because I've already plotted out the general shapes and directions of these eyelashes it's very easy for me to now go in with some more opaque pencils with a harder pressure just to really solidify where these details are going. So for the next little bit I will just continue to go through the area adding in more eyelashes like so making sure to add lots of randomness and variety for a realistic appearance. You'll notice that the eyelashes sort of clump into a few main sections as they're not evenly spread out so just paying attention to important details like that is really important too. Here I'm again being really careful and precise so that I only darken the eyelashes at the base as they start off thicker from where they grow and then you can see they flick off into a flying line as they finish. So here with the dark grey I'm just thickening the bases only. One of the final main remaining details is this highlight line at the bottom of the eye here so to draw it in I have my hand steadied by the mold stick and I'm using a sharp white carbofalo with a medium pressure to carefully plot this line in place. As we come further into the eye you can notice that the line shifts to more of a blue colour so for this area I'll also go in with the light blue grey Caran d'Ache pencil. As the Caran d'Ache pencils are very opaque they are really really good at these final details that need to draw over many or dark previous layers. Other harder pencil brands such as the Faber-Castell for example would have a hard time drawing opaque details on many layers of pastel. And here I'm using a sharp black Caran d'Ache pencil just to quickly neaten up the white line in places where it's a little bit too thick. I'm then just going quickly enhance the white section of the highlight line by also going on top with the Caran d'Ache white and you can really see how that brightness helps to up the realism of the eye here showing that it has reflective moisture just like a real eye does. With this white in hand I can also slightly brighten and enhance the reflections in the tear duct as well. So lastly here I'm just going in with previous use pencils just making any final last adjustments before calling the study complete. So that now concludes this human eye soft pastel tutorial preview. I really enjoyed creating this study as I love the challenge of realism so I hope you found the methods and techniques helpful for your next pastel pieces. If you would like to watch this full tutorial and many others included in the membership you can find my Patreon linked in the description. Thanks so much again for the support here on YouTube, I really appreciate it and I hope to see you in the next video soon.