Back to Basics: How to Draw Animals

1. Introduction: Hi everyone, and welcome to back to Basics, how to draw Animals. I'm Paul Richmond, and I'm Melissa Foreman, and we are going to be drawing animals together. We have a bunch of different animals that we picked out. And we'll start by doing some quick gesture drawings at the animals. What's a gesture drawing? Melissa Paul. A gesture drawing is a quick, simple sketch. It usually just captures the overall essence of whatever your drawing. This case we're going to be drawing a couple of different types of animals, like birds, and wolves, and horses. So we're just going to be capturing the gesture or the overall feeling of those animals. It's a good way to warm up. Then we'll do some longer drawings where you get to be a little bit more detailed, starting with a pen and ink drawing of a sea horse. And then we'll be finishing up with a graphite drawing of a tiger, which is my favorite. It's going to be a lot of fun. Before we get started, we wanted to introduce ourselves so you have a little bit of a sense of who we are. My name is Melissa Farman. I am an artist, art director, and now a teacher. I have been working in the professional arts field for, oh my goodness, 20 years now. Paul and I went to college together. We both majored in illustration and began collaborating on projects of all different kinds. We love the idea of sharing what we do with all of you. So I have been creating art my whole life. I started on professional portraits when I was 14 years old and have been doing that ever since. And I now work for a large creting card company. I am an art director and run a department full of illustrators and different types of artists. I am a painter, I also love painting people. I do a lot of portraits and figures, and I do illustration work as well. I've illustrated the covers for over 400 novels. I've gotten to do some commissions for some really interesting people like Dolly Parton. That was super fun. And like Melissa, I love sharing what I know about art, what I love about art with all of you through these courses. So we're very excited to be able to spend this time drawing together. Melissa and I have a long history, so we will be making a lot of jokes. It will kind of just feel like you're hanging out with some friends making art together because that's what you're doing, pretty much, that's what we do. So we thought we share with all of you this course. Perfect for any artist at any stage. If you're an absolute beginner, this will be a good introduction into how do you actually look at something and capture it on paper. But if you're more advanced, it's still great to go back to basics and practice those foundational skills. And you might even be able to try some more sophisticated things, use some different mediums or different techniques in your drawings. It's always good to go back and practice no matter how established you are as an artist. Yeah, that's why I love teaching these classes because we get to go back and do all of this ourselves too. And it really has helped my art a lot. Yeah, it's really good practice. And practicing all the time is the only way to get better at something. This course will also be great for anybody who just wants to improve their drawing skills, Whether you eventually want to go on to continue making animal drawings or not, learning how to look at something and find the shapes and break it down and make it feel like it has volume and form that applies to any subject matter that there is a Polly? I am so ready to get started. Let's get moving. Okay, I'm ready. Let's go. Let's do it. 2. Projects: What's first? So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to start with some gesture drawings. And we will have three different chances to practice our gesture drawings for different types of animals. The first one we're going to focus on is birds. And we're going to draw birds in different poses, different shapes, different dynamic movement. And then we are going to move on to wolves, wolves in different poses. And we're going to do this the last time with horses, just focusing on different ways to draw different animals, different shapes, different poses, different dynamic line work, ways to practice drawing quickly, which will give you an idea of how to practice form and shape. We'll spend three videos drawing an adorable little horse. And I will be using micron pen, so it'll be a pen and ink drawing. There's my horse. See how prints out, focusing a lot on the contours. How you can use lines to create more of a sense of the form of the animal. Our last series, we'll have three videos put together where we will draw a tiger. So we will focus on adding a medium value to the background and then erasing out the highlights and adding the darkest darks with graphite. We're going to be creating the tiger out of different shapes and highlights and different values. And bring that out of our tone paper. So many animals, it's going to be a blast. Let's get going. Let's do, Polly. 3. Materials: All right everyone, for drawing Annals, we are going to need a couple different supplies. So the first thing you're going to need is a sketch book. And you can use any size sketch book. It doesn't matter how thick the paper is. You could even use some loose paper if that's what you have. We just need a lot of different pieces of paper to draw different gesture drawings. These are quick sketchy drawings that we're going to work on in the beginning of this series. So make sure you have a lot of paper with you. You also need some pencils for this course. Nolis and I are using mostly soft blood pencils. So anything in the range, I have some four B pencils, even six B would be good, a range of soft drawing pencils. But really any pencils that you have on hand will be just fine. You're also going to need a needed eraser and a pencil sharpener to sharpen your pencils as you go along. The needed eraser is helpful because you can mold it into different shapes depending on how you're drawing or how you're using it. So I would recommend a needed eraser over another eraser. For my sea horse drawing, I am using micron pins and I have three different sizes, 810.12 It's not necessary that you have the same pins as me. Even the same brand, you can use any kind of pin that you want. Even ballpoint pins will work for drawings like this. But if you want to go out and get some good pins for drawing, I do recommend the microns. They work great. And then for my drawing at the end, the drawing of the tiger, I use a piece of watercolor paper because it has a nice texture to it. You don't necessarily have to have that paper, but a thicker paper would work well for making the mid toned value. And then you're also going to need some paper towels. The paper towels are good for smearing the graphite or the charcoal on the paper. And then last, charcoal for Melissa's drawing too. What kind of charcoal did you use? I use what's called vine charcoal and it's charcoal without any kind of wrapper on it. It's just a piece of thin charcoal. It's long. You can sharpen the end of it if you want, but you can use the side of it and the tip of it. Depending on how you're drawing, go gather all your toys and come back and let's play. We will meet you here. 4. Gesture Drawings of Birds: Hi everyone. Welcome back to back to Basics how to Draw Animals. We are going to get started today by drawing different poses of birds. We're going to do some gesture drawings, which are very quick, loose, sketchy drawings. You don't have to be perfect about these. The overall idea is just to get a quick impression of the pose or the shape of the animal. We're just going to learn a little bit about form, a little bit about shape, and a little bit about line. Polly, what do you think? Ready to get started? I'm ready for these birds to strike a pose. Oh my goodness. All right, birds do it. Let's go. Okay, we're going to do some gesture drawings of birds in this lesson. Are you ready to draw some cute birds? Melissa? I am Polly. And we should probably tell people what gesture drawings are not a bad idea, why don't you do that? Okay, of course, gesture drawings are exactly that. You're just getting the gesture of whatever you're drawing. So it's just a brief sketch, it's usually timed and it's usually fairly quick because you just want to get the basic forms down. So it's just a way of practicing how to draw something and getting used to things not being perfect and just looking at the shape of the form. All right, so let's just jump in and do it. All you need is pencil and paper. And we're going to give you 2.5 minutes to sketch this first bird. Ready, go. When I'm doing gesture drawings, I like to use very loose scribbly lines. I don't try to draw everything really perfectly. Draw a bunch of lines and make it messy. Messy is fun. In this instance. I don't usually like messy, but I think it works well for gesture drawings. Yes, what are the good, Just drawing tips. Look for shapes, break things down into simple shapes. Don't get too caught up in details. Hm. Yeah. You're going to look a lot at what you're drawing and less at your paper. Yes, that's good. I might even consider that a pro, pro tip. You know, we like our pro tips around here. Do you have a minute and a half left when you do just your drawings? You need to be prepared for some of them to not look great. It's it's okay. That's all part of the process. Yeah. Some will be better than others, but just use the time you have. I would say try to avoid using the eraser. If you draw a line, that's not what you want, just draw another line darker. Yes. Keep moving. Definitely, just draw right over it. I know Paul is using pencil, but I am using some soft charcoal, which I think a softer drawing tool usually works better for gestures because it flows a lot nicer. You could get some of those dark values in if you have time. Mm hm. Yeah, You could even use a marker or something like a ballpoint pen. I actually like using the ballpoint pen because it definitely makes it so you can't do the erasing thing, but also there's just something nice about the lines. Hm. With that, yeah, you definitely don't need anything special for these. Just a quick sketch, I would say. Focus on the shapes and the form. All right. 5 seconds okay, and time. Perfect. Nice job. All right, Are you ready for another one? I'm ready. Let me turn my paper here too. All right. Next up. Nice little profile view. All right, you may. Another 2.5 minutes. Let's draw. We're doing a couple different poses of birds here just so you can get used to the anatomy and the structure of birds. So this is really more to practice the different shapes that make up different animals. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's so interesting how we're drawing basically the same shapes, but they're doing such different things. Yeah. When the perspective and pose is different, it makes you think a little more about the movement. It's a cool thing to capture in a still drawing. Animals are rarely just sitting still, perfectly posing for you very long. So that is sure to think about movement. I think gestures are a good way to capture that movement because you can do quick, dramatic line work and they really capture the rhythm and the overall feeling of drawing. Yes, I do like some drama. Really you fully, we have about 1 minute left, of course. Now if you're watching this video, you could always cheat and pause. If you want a little bit longer, that is okay. But I think there is a really good benefit to just making yourself get in the habit of doing some really quick drawings too. It makes you loosen up, focus on the detail. Actually, even when I am doing a longer drawing, I try to start out approaching it like it's Adjust your drawing so I can just get it roughly placed without getting too tight. Too quick. Yeah, I think it's a good way to practice thinking about shapes. Yeah, just like the overall image because it's so easy to get, get into the details and you missed just the overall essence of what you're drawing. 5 seconds goes fast, time and time. All right. Are you ready for one more? I am ready for one more. One more bird. Here we go. There My point here and surprise. It's another bird. All right. Ready is fun with the open wings. That's uh huh. Feel. Yes, I'm looking up at the bird. Yeah. So as you're drawing this, don't think about each feather that makes up the wing. Just focus on the shape of the wing. Yes, I like drawing lots of scribble lines because chances are if you do that, one of those lines will be right. Yeah. You have your choice. And just ignore the wrong ones. And then if there's time, I'll go back and just darken lines that I actually like. So I can be like, yep, that's the one I always meant to use. You can start anywhere on the bird, it doesn't really matter. Whatever shape you feel stands out the most to you. Yeah, I don't know if anyone's done any of those drawing tutorials where you draw the different shapes usually start with a circle or you start with rectangles and you define the shapes that way. That's a good way to start too because that really makes you think about the different shapes that make up an object or an animal, or whatever you're drawing. Yeah, Yeah, I think that's really like one of the benefits of doing a lot of gesture drawings too, is that you can try different approaches and see what's going to work best for you. What is your best way into a drawing? 40 seconds left. Then once you get those overall shapes, you can start defining some of the smaller shapes. Yeah, yeah, you just use the time that you have. It's kind of about prioritizing stuff, really like Hm. What's most essential to getting across the essence of the animal. Start there and then whatever time you have, you can just keep going and keep building out more details. Hm. And I think that's true for whatever you're drawing. Yes, for sure, 5 seconds. You hear my pencil going real fast Now, pencil, that was fun. Yeah, every one. Great job. I hope you'll enjoy getting to learn a little bit more about gesture drawing. Getting to learn a little bit more about birds. Paul, what do you think? Did you have fun? I had a blast and I can't wait for the next one. What are we drawing next time? We are drawing some wolves. So a little bit different shape, a little bit different animal. So let's get that a shot. What do you think? I can't wait. Let's go. 5. Gesture Drawings of Horses: Hi everybody. Welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. We are going to do some more gesture drawings and we're going to focus on horses this time. Paul. I know this is a dreaded animal for a lot of people to draw, that's why we decided to focus on it today. What do you think? How's this going to go? We can handle it. It's going to be great. Okay, perfect. We got this everybody. Let's do it and we're back at this time, we are going to go galloping around on some horses. So here's our first one. Let me set the timer. You know the routine. 2.5 minutes again. Oh horse, look at you. Beautiful. We have a lot of shapes going on here. A little bit similar in some ways to the wolf, but proportionally different? A little different, yes. Yeah. Big old neck? Yes. Have you gone horseback riding before? I have before, but not lately. Mm hmm. Have you? Yes. Dennis and I went horseback riding on a beach out here. Oh my goodness, very cool. Was this Dennis idea? Of course. I don't see Paul coming up with this idea, No, but it was very fun. Oh, okay, that sounds very romantic. My horse was really nice. Dennis horse kept like knocking him, so he was sort of like riding at the diagonally, those long legs. Yes. It's interesting to try and get some of the, I don't know, geometry of those legs. Like instead of drawing the whole leg, maybe break it down into you know, section so that you're thinking about what is, you know, this section doing, What are the angles? I tend to draw things a little bit more geometrically at first. Just angles, right? Yeah, thinking about the structure a little bit, okay? 40 seconds, no pressure. No pressure, but do it in 40 seconds, no pressure. But yeah, clock's ticking. Oh my goodness, Remember It doesn't matter. Doesn't have to be perfect. You're just getting the essence. Yes. Just start thinking about the different shapes that make up a horse and the different angles. Paul and I picked horses for a reason. Horses are not the easiest things to draw, and I know they scare a lot of people. If you Let's try this. Yeah, let's torture them. Let's torture everyone. That's a great idea. Right? Time's up. Speaking up toward all right, and next we're going to go with a little running horse. Look at that. Kind of similar, but the legs are at different angles this time? Yes. All right. Ready? Said, oh my gosh, you were on it. Uh huh. Goodness. No messing around here. Melissa? No, goodness. Get to work. It's interesting how it is. Like you said, it's similar shapes but they're definitely doing some different. But they're moving now, which is different? Yes. It's fun to try and capture movement in a drawing. I have to think about which legs have the weight on them, which legs are flying, what directions is all over the place. All the legs. There's a lot going on with these legs. Yes, there are. The nice thing about gestures is you can capture movements and angles and different shapes easily with a few different lines. We figured it would be nice to start this way before we get into a more detailed drawing. Oh, the likes, there's so many lines a minute and 20 seconds you can certainly you make of just your drawing where you maybe roughly sketch out the whole thing, but then maybe you only do detail in a certain area, create kind of like a focal point. There are different strategies for how do you make a drawing feel finished, even if it's not, like, rendered all the way or whatever. Hm. 40 seconds, goodness. I think it's the back legs of horses that always trip people up because they bend in very weird angles. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's like every leg is going a different direction. And I think that it's common for people to sort of accidentally humanize things when they draw them. So we want to draw make the knees do what our knees would do and things like that. That won't work here? No, it's very different. Set up? Yes. All right. And time is up. We did it. Yeah. One more left though. Oh, that's right. I thought we were done. Oh my gosh. Now I need to go like Oh, okay. No, pal, you have the hardest one left. Oh, Melissa, that's why I was trying. We break up. All right. Ready? Okay. All right. I am ready for you little horse student. Okay? And go, oh my gosh, that's a big belly. There's a big belly here. I'm starting with that. I think that's a I like how Melissa cut me on track there. I thought we were finished and she's like, Mom, we do have one more, hey, hey, get out of it Okay. So this is definitely one where you want to look at the shapes and how things connect. Yeah. How does one shape interact with the next shape? Where does it, where do things overlap? That's a good pro tip, I think for this lesson is like really paying attention to intersection points and how things align. That can help you to get proportions. You can always draw some guidelines for yourself too, since you're just sketching things. I drew a straight line straight through his nose and up through the top of his back just to sketch that spine, because I know I want to make that straight M. That's a good idea. I think once you get the head figured out, you can figure out where the legs go. Yeah, look at the space between the legs and where, how far down they come compared to the head. It's kind of like you get one thing on there that you feel pretty good about and then you can just base everything else on its relationship to that 40 seconds. It helps me too, to draw like, not just the outline, but some interior lines where I see different shadows sometimes or just different, you know, shifts. So it's not just about the, the outline, it's silhouette. Okay. 5 seconds. This one is tricky too because there's a lot of overlapping lines and shapes and things. Yeah. Okay. Time's up. If it even looks remotely horse like, I think you should consider that a win success. This is definitely something you can keep practicing. Just find all kinds of different images of animals in different poses and do a few of these to warm up before you start on a bigger project. Mm hmm. Fabulous job everybody. You did it, You drew some horses, You got through it. We figured out a little bit more about how horses are put together, the forms, the shapes. And hopefully everyone learned a little bit more about gesture drawings and why they're important. Paul, the next chance is yours to talk a little bit more about sea horses and how we're going to draw them. So we just drew horses, now we're going to do sea horses and see it there everybody. 6. Gesture Drawings of Horses: Hi everyone and welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. In this lesson, we are going to do some more gesture drawings, but this time our model is a beautiful wolf. Actually three wolves. You ready to draw some wolves? Melissa A. Paul. Let's give this a Okay, let's go and we're back. This time we are doing just your drawings of wolves. You ready to do some of that? I am ready. All right. I am putting 2 minutes and 30 seconds on the clock. Ready, set, go. Okay. Different shapes here? Yeah, definitely different than the birds. Yes. I tend to like to start with what I see as the biggest shapes. That's just how I prioritize stuff if I like. So I'm starting with a big shape for the body in that way. I know that anchors it and then I can go from there. Mm hmm. I think that's a good way to start. It's a lot happening here, I know. I'm like, oh my gosh, I want to go back to the birds. Yeah. That's how we lured them in. By making I know, right? Well, this will be no, this is not bad. We got surprise. But again, don't get hung up on all the details. Just get the overall essence and use whatever time you have. In fact, you know, when you do adjust your drawing, you don't even have to draw the whole thing. You could choose to just focus in on one part If you wanted to do just like the wolf's face or the front part of the body or something and draw it really big. That can be a good strategy too. Sometimes for these, sometimes you're just going to focus on lines or the overall silhouette. Sometimes that's a good way to start. You don't have to draw every single piece of the legs. It could just be a line. A simple line that defines one side of it. Yeah, 45 seconds. Oh my goodness. Wow. It's fun though to see it when it starts to take shape. Mm hm. When it starts to become something other than Yeah, Goes like instantly from a bunch of scribbles to like, oh, I kind of see there's a woman there somewhere 10 seconds. Okay. And time's up. Okay. If there's room for improvement, but we're starting out, so that's all right? Yeah. We can only go up from here. It's all good. Exactly. Let's go with that dramatic mood that we are all. All right. Ready? 2.5 minutes again, like Paul said the last time, focus on the larger shapes and think about the silhouette, what shape is the wolf making overall. Yeah, that's good pro tip for this lesson. Just really try to simplify, boil it down to the essential stuff. Yeah, one thing I'd like to do too is when I'm doing gesture drawings, I tend to hold my pencil farther back away from the tip and that helps me not get too tight with the lines and marks. If you're someone who tends to be like a really tight technical person, that's a way to trick yourself into blooding loose a little. Yes. Because you won't have as much control. Melissa's worst nightmare. Yes, I do enjoy practicing this. The gestures have not always been my favorite thing. If you're out there drawing with us, maybe they're not your favorite thing. But it is fun to play around with different shapes and different media. If you try a pencil and it feels too stiff to you, try something that you don't have as much control over, like I'm using this piece of charcoal. And I'm actually really enjoying it because it's flowing really nicely over the paper. It gives me less control over all, but it makes really nice lines. Mm hm, Yeah. Sometimes gesture drawings can be so beautiful because the lines are a lot maybe freer than in tighter, more technical drawing. You might even experiment with drawing different sizes. Some people really like doing like gigantic gesture drawings. And especially if you're using something like charcoal. And you can just like let those lines move with a lot of energy across the ph. Okay, we have 25 seconds. That's not much. No, no, but like the birds, just start paying attention to the anatomy. Which way does the legs turn? Which way does the head turn based on the way the neck is turned and how does everything fit together, what's the proportion of everything? That's really what we're focusing on here. Because every animal is so different. Yeah, definitely. I think you notice that more when you just do a bunch of different ones like this. Okay, up but not least, we have this gorgeous creature. I love that. Oh, that is pretty. We picked a good one, Paul. We did. I'm impressed with us. Look what we did. I'm constantly impressed with. All right, let's do it. Are you ready? 1.5 minutes. And that's a little bit more challenging. This is a trick on to deal with foreshortening here. The way that shapes look a little distorted when they're coming toward you or moving away from you. Yes, This time I'm focusing on the head. And then I'm going to add the body in here because I feel like that will help me get the proportions right, because this is going to be a tricky one getting proportions, right? Yeah, this is a definite case where you want to try and draw what you see, not what you know. Because if you just are thinking about a wolf and drawing what you think a wolf looks like, it's probably not the shapes that you see in this pose. Yeah, I try to just look at it very abstractly, not even think of it as a wolf. And I'm using the shapes of the negative spaces too. Like especially with the legs. That can be helpful. Tip. Yeah. Again, you want to look at that silhouette or the shape that the outside of the wolf is making. How do things fit together? How big is that body compared to the head? All those different relationships. You notice that in this one, the head looks pretty big. But it's also because that's the closest thing to us. And we're getting some of that shortening happening. Mm hm. We have 30 seconds left. I love the joy that you got out. Why is it so fun to know that? I am just stressing people out. I don't know why, but you do get a lot of enjoyment. Yes, that's true. All right, and time is up lovely. Some fun. Great job, everyone. Okay, You now have experience drawing birds and wolves. And in our next lesson, we're going to do some more gesture drawings this time, horses. What do you think about that? Melissa? I am ready to try this. Paul, can we turn them into unicorns? You bet. All right, I'm in. 7. Project 1: Sketch: Hi everyone and welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. In this lesson, we are going to start a three part drawing of a sea horse. And I'll be using pen and ink. I'm using micron pens for my drawing. If you have those or some other sort of ink pen that you want to use, go grab that. Are you ready to draw a sea horse? Melissa? I am ready, Paul. Okay, I can't wait. Let's go. All right, we are going to draw this adorable sea horse. Now I am using micron pins because I wanted to use a pin and ink technique for this drawing. I have three different sizes of pin. I have 810.12 that just refers to the thickness of the tip, but you can use any materials you want. If you want to use a pin and ink technique, you could use microns. You could use a pidio graph fancy pin, or you could use just ballpoint pins. Whatever you have handy. What are you using, Melissa? I have a couple of different sharpies and these come in different weights. So some are a little bit, some are a little bit thinner. I just have that, that's what I had in my drawer. I do have one little tiny micron pen, but you don't have to buy anything fancy. Just whatever you have will work. I think part of the fun of this is just grabbing something that you have easily available. And just starting, I am actually beginning with a pencil and I'm going to do like a gesture drawing, like what we've been doing. But I'm going to draw it very lightly because I want to be able to erase the pencil lines afterwards and only have the ink lines showing. Just like before, I am starting with sketchy loose lines, getting the basic shapes on there. And I'm starting with a pencil because I want to make sure that I get the overall proportions down before I start committing things to. In. Some people go right for ink. I do that sometimes myself, but this time we are playing it safe. Look at you not taking risks. I know I guess, you know, you get to be the rebel this time. Are you are you starting with a pencil too or I am. I am, yeah. Okay. Okay. So we're both we're both we're both playing Five, terrified. It's a complicated little creature It is. There's a lot going on. It's an interesting shape though. Yeah, there's a lot of texture on it that Yeah. Will be fun to draw. I picked this because I was just on a trip to Hawaii and one of the things that I did was went to a sea horse farm and got to hold a little sea horse Oh up. And like wrapped a little tail around my finger and just hung out with me for a little bit and it was the cutest thing ever. And I was like, Melissa, we have to draw this. I'm glad that you weren't afraid to hold it because I feel like the Paul that I knew in college would have been like, do you want me to touch what I have to go? Yes, we have grown, we have evolved. So one thing that you can do to check proportions is to hold out your pencil, line up the tip with the end of the little snout. I'm putting my thumb, sliding my thumb up here to the back of the head. And then I'm using that to measure how many heads high the sea horse is. It's 12 less than three. Let me check mine in the drawing now. It's 12t less than three. We are good. All right, let me see if there's anything else I want to. I might just stretch the tail out, just a smidge. That's the advantage of doing it very lightly with pencil. And you can just use your eraser and get rid of the stuff you want to change. Okay. Cause once you start doing inc, it's a lot harder to change it. Yeah. Yeah. Give yourself I'm going in and doing some quick little lines here to just show some of those, I don't know, markings on the side of the body. The more you can work out loosely in a sketch, the easier it'll be to go in and just really have fun with the ink. Hm. Look at that crazy eye. I love their eyes. I know I was going to say, it's got these eyelash type things. That's probably why you appreciate them. I know it looks like I did. Its make up. Yes. So one of the things that we learned at the Sea Horse farm is that you should not buy sea horses from pet stores because those are most likely just poached. And those sea horses are really able to live on the food that is made and sold for sea horses and aquariums. But they have bread, you buy those sea horses and they just die within a few weeks. Yeah. But you can go to sea horse farms like this one in Hawaii and they will ship them to you. And they have actually been bred to eat the proper food. And the whole idea is that way they're protecting the ones who are living in the ocean. They will ship you a sea horse. They will. Okay. Get a little plane ride and everything. Yeah. All right. I think I have them all sketched. So now I'm going to start with my number eight micron pen, which is the finest tip. I'm just going to start by going over some of the lines and getting it a little bit more solidified. Also learned that in the sea horse world, it's the males who get pregnant. They have like hundreds of babies and then a day or two later partner, because sea horses are monogamous, their partner, she gets them pregnant again. Really, Wow. Male sea horses spend their whole life barefoot and pregnant. Right. The monogamy thing, I guess is another reason why they have, the ones that have been poached do not survive in captivity because they're sad that they're not with. They're the ones that they are breeding for the purpose of being able to have as pets. They're teaching those ones to not be monogamous. I don't know how those lessons work, but apparently it's been successful. Can't you just sell it with a partner? I don't know. It seems so sad. I'm teaching you to know that you're going to be alone for the rest of your life. Well, teaching them to be a little bit more open to trying new things, play the field again, not really sure what that class looks like, My goodness. So, how do you start with the pen? Do you do more of an outline or do you how do you begin? Yes, that's a good question. I like to start with an outline. And I'm just going around the perimeter right now and paying attention a little more to some of the little bumps and shapes and trying to just get that all in. Then in our next lesson, we'll start showing some different techniques for how you can do shading with the pin. Gotcha. So I'm just working my way around the outer edge really right now. Get the sea horse a little more solid on there. The sketch was to give you something to build on and then you're adding more detail as you do the line the pen. And you can do that like a little bit more confidently, knowing that things are in the right place, the right size and stuff. All right, so that is going to be all for this lesson and we will come back and work some more on this little D. Great job. We have our sea horse on the paper. We are ready to go now with adding in some more detail and texture and shadows in the next Lawson. You ready for that? I am ready, Paul. Okay, let's do it. 8. Project 1: Ink Lines: Hi everyone and welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. In this lesson, we are going to continue working on our sea horse drawing. You ready to get back to work, Melissa? I'm ready. Okay, let's do it. Okay, back at it. I am still going to do a little bit more with my number eight micron pin which is the smallest one. I just want to finish up drawing a few details and then I'm going to jump to a thicker pin to start going in and doing some of the textures and shadows and fun stuff like that. Okay. But first I have to get this magnificent eye sketched in a little bit more solidly. The interesting thing about doing pen and ink drawings is that if you're wanting to do shading, you have to come up with ways to simulate that feeling of the modulation of the value. Because you can't make a pin be lighter and darker. I'll show you some different things that you can do to use like cross hatching or stil different ways of making shadows. All right. That I'm just going to come down here really quick and do this little edge and then I think we'll be good. How's your shirt be drilling coming? It's going All right. So far I am using a micron right now because I figured I can use this little one to do the outline. Mm hm. And then it won't give me a really harsh outline, it'll give me something thinner that I can work around. Yeah, if I'm adding a lot of shading, I don't want something that looks like it's outlined like a coloring book. I want something a little bit Yeah. That I can play with a little bit more, I guess. All right. I am jumping over here now to my number ten and you can see it's just a little bit thicker on the tip. I'm going to start, I like to squint my eyes and look where I see the darkest values so that I can start to bring that out. It's again about prioritizing things. I'm going to start right over here. Along the right side of the body. I see some really dark values here. I'm using lines that go in the direction I imagine that particular part of the body going. It's like you're almost tracing the contour of the body. This is one way to think about doing shading with a pin is using those lines to actually suggest a little more about the form, the volume of the shape, three dimensional shape. The closer you put the lines together, the darker it will be. Wherever you want, those really strong shadows make it really tight. And then when you want it a little bit lighter, you can just open it up. So I'm going through and making it really dark. In between these little ridges, wherever I see highlights, I'm leaving it a little more open. This is fun. Mm hmm. Yeah, I like how you just get this immediate, you know, darkness. You don't have to build up to it like you do with pencil. It's like that is true. Yes. Instant gratification. That is Paul's favorite Y. I do think it's a good lesson in form and shape when you are creating lines that define the shape. Yes, define the way it changes in space. It just makes you really think about it differently than if you're shading it with a pencil and doing more of an overall tone. It's like every mark you make, you're really thinking about that section. It's a lot of thinking. It's a lot of planning. Yeah, I'm surprised you're doing this and I'm not. I know, I mean I'm doing it. You're teaching it. Trying to Ten. Just plan, That's a class no one should take. No, I'm just channeling my inner Melissa. Oh, wow. Mm hmm. So that means I'm going to be so perfect all the time. That means you're gonna be here for a very long time. Yeah. You're not even going to get to teach you drawing because we're gonna spend the rest of this drawing Sea Horse. Fine with me filing. Now you can follow along and do the way that I'm doing, but there are many other ways to do shading with a pin. I'll show you a few other ideas to even in the same drawing, just combine a bunch of different things. You can use whatever you want. Another option is doing something called stippling. I'm going to do that maybe right here on the face. And stippling is where you just use a bunch of little dots. And it's the same idea as the lines really. It's like how close you put the dots together, makes it appear darker. And then when you want it to get lighter, just open them up a little bit more and you can give that sense that there are all these value shifts happening just with. So I'm not going to do the whole drawing that way, because we will be here a very long time. Hm. But it is cool. There are some really beautiful drawings that have been done like entirely with stippling. And It's very impressive. Yes, it's amazing, but very time consuming. You've probably done some of those, haven't you? I don't think so. I was always more into color drawings. Yeah, I guess that was always my thing. Yeah, I know a lot of people use scratch board too, which will give you a similar look. Scratch board is something where you start with black and you scratch it away to white. Almost like reverse drawing. Yeah. But it will give you a similar look to pen ink. An old engraving look, Yeah. Yeah. Another technique you could try is just using cross hatching. I'll do that right here. I'm just going to make this little dark shadowy area. The way that you do cross hatching is doing all the lines one direction first and then where you want it darker, come back and do more lines the other way. And you just keep building that up until you get it as dark as you want. In that case, the lines are not so much about the contour, they're just all going the same directions. Sea horse is just going to be a hodgepodge because I am trying everything. That's okay. It's all an experiment. Yes. Okay, now I'm going back and just doing some of these ridges along the body and there's actually a lot of lines that you can see within the texture of the sea horses skin. Just draw those as you see them. Yeah, I think you picked a good technique for a little sea horse ball. There are a lot of linear elements to this, so it makes sense. It's so fun when you really just get to take the time and study something like this. And look at it so closely. Because it's such a complex little, there's a lot going on in here. Yeah. You might not notice if you didn't take the time to draw it and analyze it. Great. I mean, they're so small. Mm hmm. All right, so that is it for this lesson. We have one more lesson to finish up our little seahorse friends. Great work everyone. You are doing such an awesome job. And in our next lesson, we are going to finish this up. Are you ready to finish your seahorse drawing? Melissa? I'm ready. Paul, got my pen. Okay, let's go. 9. Project 1: Final Touches: Hi everyone and welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. In this lesson, we are going to be finishing up our sea horse drawings. You're ready to finish your drawing up, Melissa. I'm ready to wrap this up, Paul. Let's do it. I know it's such a cute all right, let's get to work. Okay, time to finish up our sea horse. I am still working with my number ten micron pen and just following along the side of the body, trying to get some of those ridges in. Then I'm going to go back and do the spots. I think it's helpful for me to break it down into two different techniques there. First, I'm just thinking about the overall shape and contour, and then I'll go back and focus on the patterning. I think that makes sense. Thank you. I'm so glad you app I app. I think that lets you focus on the overall shape rather than the pattern itself. Yeah. You have to have a sense of what the body's doing before you put decorations on it. Yeah. I'm just working my way down here, squint my eyes a lot when I'm drawing. That helps me to focus on the differences in value or the lights and darks rather than the details. I'm still using my lines. Using very curved lines here, that's helping to show that the body is wrapping around. That it's got some form to it. It's not just a flat little cut out. Don't try not to get overwhelmed by all the detail that you see in the sea horse because it really is something where the more that you look at it, the more you're going to see. You could spend forever working on a drawing like this. You have to edit and make choices about what you want to focus on. Yeah, I think the nice thing with pen and ink is if you start small, you can always build on top of it. Yes, just start with a little bit of shading and work up from there. Okay. I am going to jump up to my number 12 pen now, which is the thickest one and I'm going to use that to make some of the spots and patterns that I see. Very fancy little creature. Mm hmm. Yeah, there's a lot going on with you, little sea horse. Mm hmm. So they said that more sea horse conservation stories because now I'm a sea horse conservationist. Sea horse trivia for everyone. Yes. They said that, you know, when they first started trying to breed them or, you know, like domesticate them, they didn't want to eat food. The frozen food that they were giving them, that has been the biggest challenge for domesticating the sea horses. They would give them the frozen food and they would all just look at it and be like no. But then there was one little sea horse named Mike. Oh my gosh, this is totally a made up story. No, this is real. And it happened at the farm where we were at my started eating the frozen food that they were giving them. They took little Mikey and put him in all of the different tank so that all of the other sea horses could see Mikey eating. Then pretty soon, everybody else started eating it, too, because they wanted to be like Mike, of course. Yes. And then when Mike and his friends started having babies, the babies automatically that food like, they didn't even have to be taught because it was just somehow in them. Huh? They just knew. Isn't that amazing? Yep. Nature is pretty incredible. God love Mikey. He really showed them the way I wish he could teach my cats how to eat the food that I give them. Maybe you just need like the cat version of Mikey to come and show them how delicious it is. Yeah, yeah. I do know that struggle, though, when we, our last dog never wanted to eat anything, so I would just like be crawling on the floor pretending to eat her food. This is good, this is great. Don't you want to have something? Actually, their food does seem really good. We feed them like the most ridiculously expensive. Of course, you. Yeah. Probably better than what we're eating. I know I tried giving her the, you know, the expensive quality cat food. She didn't want anything to do with it. She wanted the cheap stuff. Wow, yeah. Like give me the stuff that tastes like fast food. I'll take that. Don't give me that. Don't give me the homely stuff. That's what she got. It's trashy little thing I'm going through now and just like varying the thickness of my lines, I think that makes it look more interesting too and more dimensional. Less, less coloring book like. Like Melissa was saying, I'm using my thick pen and just making it thicker in some parts and then leaving it, the thinner line in other parts adds a little interest. You can kind of use that to emphasize certain things to Mm hmm. The spots are fun. Once you start adding the spots, I think they really add some interest. Oh yeah, definitely. This is feeling like it's getting very close. How is yours coming? It is getting there. It is definitely something you could spend a lot of time working on. Oh yes, there's a lot going on with this little sea horse. Mm hmm. Hopefully we've just given you another idea for a different technique you can use. Sometimes I feel like it's always the default to just use a pencil and paper when there's nothing wrong with that. You have that available and that's great. But also just see what happens when you try picking up something else that's in that drawer and try making art with that. Sometimes that can really free you up or just put a little variety into your process can be good. Yeah. Yeah, it's always good to experiment. Yeah, I think it can help with creativity too. If you feel like you're stuck and you're not sure what to do next and you've tried a bunch of things and nothing seems to be working out for you. Just pick up something totally different. Yeah. We have to be like Mikey. We can't be like Mike. Love, I love that you had a moral to that story. The moral of the story is like Mike. Now the final thing that I'm going to do, but I have to wait until my ink dries, is I'll take my needed eraser. I'll go back and erase all of the little pencil lines that you can see. And then nobody will ever know that we drew it out with pencil first. And they'll just think, wow, they just did that first. You're amazing. Yes. That is the reaction that we want. But definitely wait till your ink is dry because it will smear all of your page and that will not be amazing That can lead to tragedy. Yes. If you don't. Very sad. All right. Are you ready to call this one? I think I'm ready. I mean, I could keep working on this for a long time, but I think this is a very good start. Okay, well, we will show you Melissa's too, so you can see what she has been up to over there. And then we are going to start on a new drawing in our next lesson. Great job. Oh, I love how that turned out, but we're not finished yet. Next we have a drawing that Melissa is going to be leading us in of a tiger. You ready to take charge? I am ready to take charge, Polly. I hope everyone else is ready. All right everybody. It's tiger time. 10. Project 2: Coat Paper and Sketch: Hi everyone. Welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. We are going to get started on our three part drawing involving a tiger. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to tone our paper, and then we're going to get this tiger sketched out. Paul, you ready to get started? I am ready. Let's do it. P. Come on everybody. Let's go. Okay, everyone. Now we are going to start drawing a Tiger, and we are going to be using a graphite technique for this. Paul walked us through a pen and ink technique and now we're going to go back to the graphite. I'm actually going to coat my paper. It gives me a medium tone to start with because this is a very dark image. I think that will make it easier on all of us if we have a tone to start with. I have a piece of charcoal here. You can use whatever. You can use the side of your pencil, You can use graphite powder. I have a graphite stick here to any of those things will work. We just need an even coating on our paper. Just start coloring in. Take a nice gray square to work with, and this tiger is more vertical, so we probably want a vertical rectangle here. Once I get enough of the graphite or charcoal on my paper, I'm going to blend it with a paper towel. You can use a blending stump. You can use your hand, whatever you want to use. How dark do you want it to be? I would I would say like a medium gray. I wouldn't make it too dark because we are going to draw the image of the tiger within this shape. You want to light enough that you can still see other graphite lines on top of it, but dark enough that it gives you enough to erase, because we are going to go back in and erase some of the lighter tones, okay? Not too dark. Not too light, right? Just right. Yes, we have a gold lock situation here. If you put some down and you feel like it's not dark enough, you can add more. I'm going to add layer here. You want it somewhat even, but it doesn't have to be perfect because we are going to draw on top of it because this isn't the end all, just a place to start. Kind of like when you're painting, if you coat your canvas in a color first before you start painting, that just makes it easier for you to build on top of it. This is a similar thing? Yeah. Yeah. Gets rid of that weight Y, and you don't have to cover the whole paper although you can. It's up to you. I'm just doing a shape within my little rectangle paper here. Okay. Right. You have the edges so I don't get all over my hand here. All right. So we have that now. I'm going to take a soft pencil. I have a three here. And I'm just going to use this to start sketching out the Tiger. And I'm going to use a similar technique to what we've used in all of our other exercises so far, including our gesture drawings, where we're just sketching in the shape. To start, okay, I'm looking at the overall shape of the tiger. The way the back curves into the side of the stomach. How big the head is compared to the rest of the body. There's something helpful about starting out a drawing or a piece of art with a little bit of a sense of urgency. I think it makes you just like figure things out and if you pretend that you only have like two or 3 minutes or whatever, like it's a gesture drawing and then go from there. I like doing that to myself. Paul likes making things more stressful for himself and everyone else. Everyone else. But if I feel like I have too much time or I think like, oh, I know this will be easy. I can take my time. I don't draw as well. I need that press. It is good to keep looking back at the reference and then looking back at your drawing and going back and forth constantly checking things. Spend too much time on any one area of the drawing, especially when you're getting things figured out. Yeah. Hopefully you can all see this on camera, but it is a little bit low contrast because I am drawing into a, a darker background. But I'm just drawing the shapes right now and drawing the outline of the tiger, making sure I'm getting things wind up where they should be. As I'm drawing, I'm looking at where certain things are falling. So where's the head? Where's the edge of the head? How big is the head compared to the body? Where does the body connect to the head? And then how do the legs fit into all of that? We're just looking at different, it's a weird shapes. It's a weird shape. We pulled this up as we were starting to draw this and we were both just like, oh, okay, why did we think that we are cruel? Why did we take such a hard shape like the body is, looks so small compared to the head? Yes, it is a little bit tricky. I'm actually running out of space here at the bottom, so it's going to ad a little bit more gray, come sure, get the tail in here. And the way the shapes overlap is interesting, especially when you come down to the legs because it stops making sense as far as like what shape and where does everything meet. There's a lot of shadow there, so it's hard to tell where everything is. This is really an instance where you have to just pay attention to the shapes and not worry too much about exactly what that is or exactly how that leg works. Yeah. And just get that shape in there based on what you're seeing. You draw what you see, even if you have no clue what it is. What's happening. Yeah. It will look believable, It will look right in the end. Yeah. It's amazing how that works. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're just going to get the basic shapes established here. We have the silhouette of the tiger and how everything fits together. Then we were going to use our next couple lessons to add a lot of the details. Don't worry about that right now, especially not the stripes or any of the patterning. We're just getting the overall structure of the tiger established so we can build on that for our next couple of lessons. I'm just going to get the mouth drawn here, the nose, and the structure of the face, we will call it quits on this one. The eyes in there, Tiger's eyes are actually really close together and much further up the head than you would think. It's always rising. Hm. And if you make a mistake and you need to go back and erase something, you can't, or you can just rub it out with your paper towel. Whatever works easier. If you need to add more gray in the background, you could do that too. Okay. So we will see you in the next one. All right. Beautiful job everybody. You did such a great job on that Tiger. I cannot wait to add some more detail to this. Paul, do you want to add some shading in the next one? I do. Okay, great. That's what we're going to do. All right. See this everybody. See you soon. 11. Project 2: Shading: Hi everyone. Welcome back to back to Basics how to Draw Animals. So we are going to get started on the second round on this Tiger. We're going to add some more shading, a little bit more detail, and then we're going to use our needed erasers to pull out some highlights and then add some dark areas. So Paul, you ready to get started? That sounds like a lot, but it's a lot. It's a lot. Let's do it. Okay? It'll be okay. I'll help you. Alright everybody, we are back our little tiger here. We are going to continue drawing and adding a little bit of value variation within here. I had most of my tiger sketched out last time. I'm going to add a few more details and then I'm actually going to start going in with the eraser and erasing out some things, which is always fun. I always like that part of these type of drawings. It's like working backwards. Yeah, it makes a big difference. I think it's good, especially if you're starting out drawing because it really makes you look at things differently. Yes, one tip while you're working on this type of drawing is to take a paper towel or a piece of paper and lay it over your drawings. So you're not constantly putting your hand in it. Pro tip? Yeah, let's target little pro tip. Let's say don't make a mess of yourself or how nice, less. So you can run your hands all through this and use your hands to blend everything if you want. I like being a little messy. Yeah, I actually do that sometimes without even thinking about it. All right, let's take our eraser. The point of the eraser is to find your lightest lights in whatever you're creating based on your sketch or your drawing. You're going to go in and you're going to find some of the whitest areas in the photo reference and you're going to start pulling those out. You just do that with needed eraser. What's nice about the needed erasers? You can sculpt it into any shape that you need. I like to make a little point with it, almost like you're drawing with a pencil. I just go in and start pulling out some of those values. You don't have to be precise with this. You can always go back in with your pencil and add other darker values around it if you feel like it doesn't get exactly detailed enough for you. This will just give you an idea of where some of those lighter areas are. They're pretty minimal, really? Yeah, there's not a ton. There's a little bit on the tiger's face, a little bit, maybe on the back of the tiger, which give it some shape, some form. It's cool how to us tapping it with that eraser. You all of a sudden start to see it look more dimensional. Yeah. You can use different techniques with the eraser. You can use it almost like a pencil. That's if you're pulling the graphite out of the image, like Paul said, you can just tap it. Just press it against the paper and then pull up and it will pull up a larger area. If you tap lightly, it'll just pull out a little bit of the graphite. You can use it in different ways. Just experiment with what works for you. You can go back and forth. You can add with the pencil, go back and erase. You just keep pushing and pulling those values till everything ends up where you want it. Yeah. Now that I have some of those lighter areas, I'm going to go in with a darker pencil and that would be one of your softer pencils if you're using a variety of drawing tools or drawing pencils here. I have a six B. I'm going to go in, I'm going to start adding some of my darker areas in the drawing. I like going back and forth. Lead is good for that because of the, the softer lead will give you a darker value just because it's so it will leave more graphite on the paper. You won't have to build up as much with the harder lead. It will just not leave as dark a mark. It's meant to be a little bit lighter. You'll have to build up a lot more work to get it to be as dark as you want. If you use a hard pencil, we don't like that, We don't want to do more work than we need to. We are going to use the soft. Depending on how hard you press With the softer pencils, you can get a lighter value or you can get a darker value to experiment with how hard you press and how that works for you. You can build up in layers or you can press hard from the beginning and get a darker area. I like having that based on there because it just takes some of the extra work out of all the middle value y, y. I think it's a lot easier to get it to start looking dimensional right away. And we're going to use some of the same techniques that we used in some of the other drawing exercises that we've already done. We're going to build up slowly in some of the areas. We're going to think about the mid tones, and we're going to think about the highlights and the darker areas. We're not going to focus on the pattern right away, we're going to focus on the overall shapes in the form itself. And then once we get that established, we can add all of the patterning just like our sea horse friend. Even though very different creature. Yes. All very different creatures, but we're using some of the same techniques on each one. So now I have very heartwarming stories about my visit with the sea horses during my lesson. Melissa, do you have any heartwarming tiger stories? I can't say that I've ever had a heartwarming moment with a tiger. I guess I would like to keep it that way. Do you guys I guess, and similar more prepared for today's lesson? I guess so. Well, did his research just for this class? Mm hmm. Flew to Hawaii just for all of you. That is my level of dedication. He is a giver at a sacrifice. You made their Paul for everyone. You're welcome. Okay. And as you move throughout the drawing, you can keep going back and forth to go to your pencils and then go to your eraser. Keep pulling out some of those areas based on how light they are, how dark they are. It's all relative to like once you start getting other values in the Yes, what's already there. You have to go back and adjust. Mm hmm. Yeah. You'll start seeing that some areas feel a little too light or a little too dark based on whatever you put around it. It will definitely change as you get more established in the drawing. Yeah, if you're working for a yo, then you look at it and you think, oh boy, this does not look right. That's okay. That's not a bad thing. That, I mean, that's part of every artist process, usually just stop and try and figure out why is that? What do I need to adjust to make it look better? Yeah, I would say a lot of drawing is knowing where to go next, thinking all right, this is what I have now, how do I get this to look the way I want it to look up? That will come with practice and experience. But I will give you a few little tips along the way that hopefully will help you out. The biggest one is just don't give up. Don't get discouraged. Don't give up if it looks like there are issues because that's normal. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, everything goes through an awkward phase. Trust me, I don't care who you are and how long you've been drawing. Everything will go through a phase where it doesn't exactly look the way you want it to look. And you start to think, do I even know what I'm doing? What am I doing? The normal creative process is, you start off and you think, oh my gosh, this is awesome, I love it. And then you get to a point where you're like, I'm not sure about this, this doesn't look quite right. And then you just think, oh my god, this sucks. I hate it, it's horrible. And then slowly despair. Yes. You slowly get back to the point where you're like, all right, this is okay. This is working now. I can get this where it needs to be to hopefully at the end, you think, all right, this is awesome. Again, I made this work. That is true. It's just, it's normal. Please don't get discouraged and think, oh my God, this is never going to work. This looks terrible. I can't make this work for me. Everybody else can do it. Let's. Yeah, you can do it. All right. Wonderful job everyone. Hopefully you're feeling good about your Tiger. We got some shading added in here so we used our racers to pull out some of those highlights. We added some of the darker areas. In our next round, we are going to finish up this Tiger and be done. Holly, what do you think? I'm excited. Let's do it. Let's do it. 12. Project 2: Final Touches: All right everyone. Welcome back to back to basics how to draw animals. We are ready for our last lesson. We're going to get this tiger finished up, so we're going to finish up the shading, we're going to add some stripes and it's going to be beautiful. How are you ready to get started? It will be gorgeous. Let's go be gorgeous. Come on everybody. Okay everyone, welcome back to our little tiger here. So we're just going to keep going with this and we're pushing and pulling, going from darks to lights, adding those wherever we see them. In this photo reference, I was working on the face a lot last time. I'm going to start working on the body here so we can get moving on that. Okay, Again, I'm using a very soft pencil just because we are adding more graphite to this dark background that we created. And I feel like that's a lot easier if you are working with the soft pencil, it's just going to show up a lot more on this dark ground. Yeah, I also think if you use a harder pencil on this, it's going to give you a bit of a shiny look. Mm hm. It's not going to feel as soft and as dark, which it can get to a point where it's actually, like, hard to even see what you're doing. Yeah. It's too shiny. Yeah. There's a lot of shadowing on the tiger's legs here. I'm just adding some of that, like we were talking in the beginning, it's very vague. Down here, there's a lot of shadows. It's hard to know what Yep, just focus on the shapes that you're seeing. Focus on those dark shapes and where they fall, based on some of the lighter shapes and then how all that connects to the tires head. It's coming together. It is getting there. Yes. I like adding those values in. That just makes it really Mm hmm. Yeah. It will really start coming together and start having more shape and more form once you start adding those darks in there. Yeah. Lots of drama. Just for you, Paul. Thank you. You may not have had an interesting tiger stories, but at least you're giving me some dramas. Many of the drama appreciate that the stripes are actually really interesting with the tiger because they outline the forms and the shape of the body, which is interesting. They feel like they're adding contour to the tiger. Yeah, almost like our cross hatching lines on the sea. Yeah, it's very similar. You can almost use those lines to help you define the shape itself. Yeah, once I get a lot of these values in here, I'm going to go back and I'm going to start adding some of those stripes, which I think will really help define the shapes. Right now, my tiger is looking a little bit like a lion just because it doesn't have to be interesting. You don't have to get every stripe exact. You can just get the most important ones. You're really just saying that for me, aren't you? Yes. Melissa can be perfection. Sometimes I can admit that it's not a bad thing except when you're on a time, except where you're trying to actually get something done. Yes, it's a little bit more value here on the Pal. And then I'm going to start focusing on those stripes, which will be very fun as you're going. If you're feeling like certain areas are too dark or certain areas aren't light enough, feel free to go back in with your eraser and pick up some of that dark value a little bit lighter, make things come out at you a little bit more. I think you'll probably start to see as you're adding the stripes, you might need to play with the values a little bit. I love how the stripes on the leg and the foreground really define the muscles of that leg. The way around the leg is really interesting. Yeah. It starts to curve up on the left and then it sinks in. There's a whole little shaping thing helping there. Yeah. As you start to put those shapes on the areas that come out at you, so those more foreground shapes, it will make those shapes feel like they are closer to you in space. Yes, it will help with the whole effect here. Then I want to definitely start adding some stripes on the head. I want to make sure I get that. Maybe I need to get some tiger stripes like tattooed on my arm so I'll look more muscular. Perfect. It sounds like a great idea. One of your best ones. Okay, I'm on it. Okay, perfect. Can't wait to see that. Hey, it works for this. Yeah, a little creature. It is interesting that we picked animals with a lot of patterning. Mm hm. We like the fancy ones. Yes, adding all of these stripes on the head. And it's interesting how the stripes change as the head moves into the back. The stripes get a little bit closer together and a little bit smaller and help define those shapes as well. Like the top of the head, the stripes get a little bit flatter and then they curve into the back of the tiger. Yeah, they really change and if you make them all the same, it'll flatten out your Tiger. Yeah, Yeah. You really want to pay attention to how those shapes work within the tiger and the different forms that you're seeing, because it really will help define your tiger and make it look more real. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And I'm just quickly putting some of the stripes in here, but you could spend a lot of time getting all of these stripes perfect and making sure you're adding every stripe and playing with a pattern in here. Does so if you're a detailed person like Melissa, you don't have to stop at the end of the course. You can always keep working on these. Hm. Yeah. Usually these stripes across the back, they get really interesting the way they fold over the skin and the way they change based on the different movements that the tigers in or different body shapes. It's almost like wearing a pattern shirt and the way it would fall across someone's shoulders or the way someone's body looks underneath the shirt will affect the way the stripe looks. It's the same way. Now, you're talking my language. Yes. I definitely have lots of obnoxious pattern shapes. There we go. Perfect. Now Paul's with us. Yes, I get. I understand. Net. Okay. One of the things you could do with us is that a little bit more of the background elements. But I think as far as our tiger goes, we have a really good start on establishing the tiger and the shape of it. Awesome job everyone. We got these tigers finished up in there looking beautiful. Hopefully you learned a little bit more about shading, about creating a toned background to work on, and how to use a needed eraser. So are we are done here. We wrapped it all up. Amazing. Tell everybody. 13. Closing Thoughts: Well, that was a lot of fun. I know I really enjoyed it, Paul, and hopefully everyone else enjoyed it too. We've experimented with a variety of different approaches now. And hopefully you learn something new that you can carry on with you and put to practice in your other work. Yes, I know Paul and I spend a lot of time focusing on different forms and different shapes and how those forms and shapes make up different animals. So hopefully, you learned how to carry this forward in different drawings. No matter what you're drawing, always focus on those shapes, the forms and the drawing will come together and look like no matter what you're drawing. We would love to see your artwork that you created in this course. It's always fun to know that there are people out there all around the world who are drawing along with us. So take a moment, post your work. Share it with us. And also, if you enjoyed this course, leave us a review and let us know what you thought. We would love to hear from you, Paul. And I love doing these courses because we love sharing what we know with all of you and we would love to see how you're creating. With Atledge, we have a bunch more classes already available and more in the works. So be sure to subscribe to us and also take a look around at some of the other courses that we already have. Because we might have some that you want to sign up for next. So keep practicing and Paul and I would love to see you back here soon. Bye, everyone. Bye.