How to Draw Animals for Beginners: Simple Shapes and Shading

1. Welcome to animal drawing: Hello, and welcome to this course on drawing animals. Drawing animals can feel complex, but with the right approach, it becomes much more manageable. In this course, you will learn how to simplify animals into basic shapes, build them step by step, and add shading to create volume. We will go from simple construction to a complete drawing of a dog. The goal is not just to copy, but to understand how animals are built so you can draw them more confidently. This course is perfect if you want to clear structured method to start drawing animals. 2. How to use simple shapes to draw animals: So in this first part of the course, we are going to learn a key method to draw animals using basic shapes. Before even thinking of adding details or shading to the animals, it is really important to learn how to break down some complex form of the animals into some basic geometric shapes like triangles, circles, squares, trapezoids, and other ones. This will really help us to create some good foundation before drawing the actual contour of the animal. This will help us to get a great structure and to build the animals with the right proportion. Animals can feel a bit intimidating at first to draw them because of their different proportions, their complex forms or their dynamic pauses. But by breaking them down into simple shapes and basic shapes, it becomes much more easy and much more manageable to get the right contours and to draw them properly. So in this next lesson, we will see how to break down this animal into basic shapes. We'll try to identify that with different models. We'll analyze them to see what geometric shapes could fit into each of these animals. And then we'll see how to draw them with these basic shapes before actually getting the right contours of these animals. So if you haven't followed the course on the basics of drawing, I strongly recommend you to draw these different forms, these different shapes before actually watching this video. Try to draw at least 50 triangles, 50 circles, 50 squares, 50 trapezoids of different shapes before actually diving into the video. So that really masters these simple and basic shapes before watching this lesson and do them with different sizes. And so now let's see how to break down these animals into very simple geometric shape. So with animals, we can break down their bodies into simple shapes. I really show how to identify and draw these simple shapes in my course to learn the basic, but let's look at the different simple shapes that we can find and draw with animals. So first, you have the circle, the round, you can do it very easily. Then there is also the square, the rectangle, the triangle, as well as more complex shapes like the parallelogram, the trapezoid, or even the diamond can be fund into animals. And these simple shapes will really help us to draw precise outlines of animals. And these simple shapes, they're going to help me to draw over more complex shapes that I can use. For example, by drawing a rectangle and a triangle, I can get a new shape. By using a square and a trapezoid, I can create yet another shape. Then by combining a circle with a rectangle, I get a new one. And like that, we break down the animals before drawing them properly ourselves. Alright, now, let's dive in and see how to break down this dog into simple shapes. Take a good look at the figure, and I'll give you 10 seconds to think about how you will divide this dog into simple shapes. Let's go. So let's get started, and you should do it as well to divide it into simple shapes. So I can see that there is a triangle right here. Also, right there, I can see some sort of a circle. And from that circle, I can create some kind of parallelogram that goes for the neck of the animal, and for his pow, I can see some sort of a rectangle and at the tip of the pow some kind of a triangle. As well. And at the back of its body, we can see that we could create some sort of trapezoid for its rear legs and also for its sort of back. And for the rest of the body, I can do another parallelogram right here. Then under the neck another rectangle with some triangles, small triangles as well to complete the body and also at the upper part. And so I divided my dog into the simple shapes, but I could have done some other shapes for the body. Like, for instance, I could have made a big rectangle big trapezoid from the neck to the paw that would have been possible, as well. Or a very big oval that take the entire body, that would have been possible, as well. So there are many possibilities. The best option is the one that seems the most obvious to you when you see this dog. It doesn't have to take a long time to draw the shapes that you see when you see the most obvious one. We are going to do the same thing with some other animals. So the best thing is that you imagine the shapes during the 10 seconds that I will leave you then watch and do it after or do it along with me. You print the reference, and then you draw the simple shapes of this animal. So let's get started for 10 seconds. So let's get started with this cat. So for the head, for instance, I can see that there is a circle and with the ears, some kind of triangles I can draw. For the body, I can see that it goes from the head to the pals some kind of a rectangle that I can draw like this. And on the side for the rest of the body, I can draw half trapezoil right there. And then I have done almost the entire outline with these simple shapes. On the side, I can do some sort of oval, and on the inside, I can draw also the rest of the piles with some very simple shapes and some circles at the tip of the bows. And then I have done most of what I wanted, and I will have a great basis to create a nice outline afterwards. Let's get started with another example, and as usual, I give you 10 seconds. For the cow, I can see for the head some sort of an oval that is bigger at the top. And with the horns, we can see some very long triangles that could be drawn. For the body, a very big rectangle that goes from the head till the end of the body seems to be right. And then between the head and the body, I can see some kind of a triangle. Just right there. And for the legs, that's going to be very easy. I can draw them with some rectangles right there and just right next to this leg, some sort of square. And these legs, these real legs, I can divide them in two with some sort of rectangles. And then that's it. You can see that it doesn't take very long to divide these animals into simple shapes. Just in case you didn't see it very well with the purple color, there it is with the silver one. Let's do another one with this monkey. It gets a little bit more difficult. Just think about what shapes you see. Let's get started with this monkey, and as it's often the case with the head, I can see a circle. Then for the arm, I see rectangles. I can divide this arm into two small rectangles with one position at the shoulder joint. For the body, I also see a very large rectangle that I can overlap with the head, and it's perfectly fine to overlap shapes like this. It's not a problem at all. Similarly, for the other arm, there's another rectangle with a small triangle just above it. As for the legs, I can divide them into several small rectangles, free exactly for the two joints at the ankle and the knee. And for the oval leg, it's pretty much the same. I'll divide it the same way. And then that's it. It's done with the monkey. Let's see another animal, a little bit more complex with the bear. For this bear, I can start as usual with a big circle for the head, then some sort of rectangular shape for the entire body. But I'm sorry that there is a problem with the recording. You won't see me draw the entire shapes. But this is how it goes. There is some sort of very big rectangles that is for the entire body. Then this body, you can divide it with some up rectangles that get bigger as you move upwards for different legs and then some small lines to divide these legs. And then that's basically it for this bear. And finally, let's work with this last animal. That will probably be the most complex one we'll have to draw. For this gollla, I can see another circle with the head. Then what seems pretty obvious is the rectangles that we have for the arm that I can draw right there. And the same thing with the other arm, I can draw some rectangles as well. Just like this. And finally, for the body, I can divide it into two areas. This first one with another sort of rectangles that I can draw rectangle trapezoid that I can draw right there and another one with the lower area. Then small rectangles at the bottom, and that will be it. So now let's train to draw these different animals with shape and draw their outlines. 3. Finding basic shapes in animal references: Now let's draw these animals with shape, and at first, we'll start with the dog. So you will see the picture just at the top of the video. And also don't use very expensive paper, use some ordinary paper to draw these shapes. So let's start with the head. And like we said before, there is some kind of a circle with a triangle, and then I can draw the neck with some sort of trapezoid. When I look at it, I can see that the proportions aren't right, and I know that because I am very experienced, but I could use the proportion techniques I shared with the basic course with measuring with the ruler or with your pencil. And also, right now, what I can see for the proportion is that I compare the different elements together, and on my picture, I can see that the height of the head is almost the same of the neck. So when I compare these two, I could tell before that the proportions weren't right. Then I can draw this kind of trapezoid again, right there that has the same height as the neck and then keep going with the leg of this dog that is a little bit longer than what I did before. So I can draw that. And then with this parallelogram, I can draw the body of this dog. When I draw, I am very light with my pencil because this shape, I want to remove them afterwards. So I'm using an HB pencil, I think. And I'm very light. Even though with this video, I press harder than I would usually do because I want you to see what I am doing. So I'm not that light on this video, but be very light with your pencils on that you can erase that. And so at the back of his body, I can draw this on other trapezle and then we'll be able to draw this outline more accurately now. Now that I have my simple shapes, I'm going to work on this outline again, but in a very much more accurate way. I'm going to do the blocking technique. That is to say that all my outline, I'm going to draw it with some very straight line because it's easier to do it like this. And thanks to this technique, I can see the different angles of these outlines and the direction that I have to give to my line. I think that this way, it's much easier. For me. And once I will have done that, all I will have to do will be to erase my different lines of the shapes the shapes, I could actually erase them right now and of this line as well. And I will draw again over these lines, but in a very light manner and I will draw in a way so that I will have the final outline with some curved line in some areas, et cetera. So I draw the outlines and also the lines of the body that are necessary to create the volume. For instance, the lines of the lake that go in the belly area as well, I drew it because it's a line that you can really see. And I keep going with this belly of the dog. So there is a circle, but you can see that I don't draw this curve line. I draw some straight line. I will focus on this curve line afterwards. There, I realized that I've made a mistake before with my shapes because right there, it should be at the same height than the one of the legs that are on the right. You can see that there could be a line right there, and they will be on the same line. So I modify my drawing so that the proportions are the right ones. And it's not because you have done the shapes at first that it is perfect. Now, you have to still check at what you've done, and if there are some mistakes, you readjust them. Okay, I will continue now that I have adjusted that, and we can clearly see that this leg here is a little lower compared to the ones on the right and the one we have just drawn before. I'll continue to close my drawing with this hint section where we'll also have a nice curve. Then I will what I'll do is compare the different elements that I have drawn to see if there's anything that seems disproportionate compared to the others. If there is there something too big or too small? And if I have any doubts, I can use my measuring techniques with, you know, the technique with the arms stretched out or with a ruler. But since it's on the image, I can directly check with the ruler. But that's the technique I used to that's the technique I used to check my proportion. Now that I have done that, I'll erase everything with this needed eraser so that my lens will dissipate and we can work on the final outlines of the dog. Now that I have erased my lines, I'm going to draw over this again. But this time, I will be more supple with my gesture and also very light with what I'm doing and working on a different curves of these outlines. And even though it might seem a little bit dark at the moment, it is because I am using something like two B or four B pencil so that you can really see what I am drawing. And but usually when I do this, I would use an HB or two H pencil and being very light because in some cases, I have to erase the outlines when I'm shading my drawing, and you'll see that with some other examples later. So that will be it. And once you have finished with the drawing of the outlines, don't throw your paper because later in this course, I will show you how to draw the different elements of the animals, like eyes, mouth, et cetera. Now let's draw out this beautiful cat. On the reference photograph, you can see some elements that we didn't draw before because we will be doing it on the picture in a few moments. So I start with the circle and before drawing this circle, I can do it on the paper without touching without actually touching the paper so that my circle will be better. And this will see that a lot in the basis course. So for the ears, like we said before, I draw some triangles, small triangles, and then I progress with the body with some sort of a rectangle. Well, actually a trapezoid, so it gets a little bit thinner as we go lower. One good way to measure the height is to add some head. That is, to say I'm drawing some circles that has the same height than the ones of the head. And then on my drawing, I will do the same thing. So, for instance, I can see that the body right there is approximately three heads. So I'm drawing these three heads on my body right now, one, two, and I can see that my trapezoid isn't long enough. So thanks to this method, I will have some better proportion. So this is some kind of tip that is very useful to make sure that you have the right proportion with the body. So now my height is better, and I can keep going uh, the width and for the width, I'm going to do the same thing on my photograph. I'm going to draw anoer circle on the side. And you can see that the width of this cat is approximately two heads. So I'm going to draw another head on an over circle on my paper. And I can see that right there, it was pretty good. So I can pursue and draw this straight line that goes upwards right there. And what I can see on my reference photograph is that this line stops approximately at the second head. And then I can finish the drawing of the shapes for this cat with the puss and with these very small circles. And we can keep going with the blocking method. Now I can start with my blocking techniques. So first, I start with the face, and you can see that there is an angle that is very noticeable on the left side of the face. And then I pursue with the drawing of the body and of the legs that are also very straight. So it looks like a lot like what we did before with the drawing of the shape. Just like with the ears, I won't modify my ears because this triangle were pretty accurate and really looks like the final shape of this cat. And so with the right side, it's also very straight with just a little bit of an angle on the right side, and then I will draw these legs and the inside of the legs, with these lines. One good way to know where these lines stop is that with the right legs, this one that I'm going to draw, you can see that its height is also the same that this thing that we have on the right that I'm about to draw, like, write this, it's at the same height than the legs. So it's great to use the different elements of the body to make sure that you have the right proportion. Like right there for the drawing of this left side, I can see that Starts just a little bit under the head. And so this way, I make sure that it is the right height to draw it. And so I finish my blocking, and then I will move on to drawing the final outline of this cat. Alright. Now I'll take my needed rubber and erase everything to make sure that these lines that I drew aren't noticeable. And I'm going to draw the final outlines. So you will see me using the two B pencil so that you can see what I have drawn so that my lines aren't too light. But in the real life, if I wasn't shooting this tutorial, I would probably use a two H pencil or HB. And when I draw this, I draw with being very light on my pencil to draw these curves because when your drawing is lighter, it gets better. It's easier to erase those lines. And also, I see I am insisting on this point because I see too many people that draw some harsh outlines, and then it really waste their final result. Their drawing could be so much better if they didn't press so hard on their pencil. So I really insist be light with your drawings. And so I'm going to finish this outline, and that will be it. We'll be able to draw another animal. Now, let's work on the cow, and I'll start with the head. And just like I did with the cat, I can pretend to draw the head before actually tracing it. Starting from this oval, then I can draw the triangle that we have right next to it, which start from the top of the head. There, we'll draw this big rectangle. I estimate the proportions by eye relative to the head and, of course, to my reference photograph. If I want to be more accurate, I can use the proportions technique that we covered in the basic course. Now we have this rectangle that seems pretty good. And we'll see later when we trace it using the blocking technique if it works or if anything needs adjusting. We can always modify what we did with the pencil, and that's really the advantage of drawing with the pencil. From there, I have drawn the horns with some long triangles. Then we saw right next to the leg there that this was there is this small square, and I draw the leg with a rectangle. For the cows ders, we can also draw it with some geometric shapes. It's true that I didn't mark them on the photograph, but we definitely need to add them. It will be a shame to forget it. For the back legs, we'll use two rectangles to draw the leg since we can see that the leg is bent in two, so a single rectangle wouldn't be enough. All my elements are drawn now, but I have to confess I am not entirely satisfied with the head because I made this oval. But you can notice that the oval gets thinner at the bottom part, so I'll adjust it and that's it for my basic shapes. Now we can move on to the blocking technique. Now, let's start the blocking technique for our cows head. You can see that on the sides of the head, there are some very straight lines. While on the top, there's a slight angle, a small curve where the head rises. Then we can see that the face narrows down towards the muscle area where it widens again on the muscle. So I'll trace that, and that should be about right for the shape of the head. Now, I can continue with the horns where I will have shape that closely resemble the triangles that we have drawn so far. Also had the air which is under the horn. I had forgotten to sketch its shape before, but it's not very complicated. It looks like a lot like an ovel. Then let's move on to drawing the body now that the head is finished. Overall, for the body. I see that I'll have mostly a straight line with a few bumps here and there, but not too many. So I can mark them lightly or I can add them later in my final outline. Here I've added the main ones. When we move towards the hind legs, we can see that there are mostly straight lines drawn. While on this leg that I have just drawn, you can notice that around the joint, it forms a rather significant fold, so I'll add that as well. Let's continue. This will connect to the cows other area. I can see that originally, I made a straight line inside the rectangle, but it's not quite right, so I'll adjust it and draw this line slightly diagonally up to here, which connects to the front leg. Of course, I won't forget the hind leg, which was fair easy to draw. I'll do that now, and then we can move on to tracing the front leg as well. For this front leg, there aren't too many difficulties, either. It looks very similar to what we did earlier. So I will trace this area. Now, what I notice after tracing this last part is that the cow's belly might be too big, and the gap between the head area and the leg seems a little bit too wide. So I'm going to modify this. And I see that, especially when I imagine and trace this line. I feel like something is off. So I will adjust it. The belly will be made a little thinner. My cow is too fat. So what I'm going to do is that I'm going to trace the same line, but just above the previous one and then draw another line to slim down the cow's belly, extending the legs I have drawn here. Now that looks pretty good. So I'm going to erase these lines with the electric eraser. I'll see the result, but I think it will be good. Now it seems pretty good that I have modified this line. All I have to do now is to erase those lines with the needed eraser, and then I will draw the final outlines of this cow. But I will skip this part of this video because it's pretty easy and we've done that several times, and now I'm going to see how to draw the gorilla. Let's go. We'll do the bear before moving to the gollla because it's easier. Let's start by sketching its shapes. And like with the previous animals, I can begin with the head and draw a fairly large circle because this bear has a very big head. Then starting from the head, I can draw a straight line and extend it to create a base that strongly resembles a rectangle. Now, to determine the width of my bear, I can use the same technique that we used earlier, which is to ask myself how many head whites it takes up. Here, I'd say that the weight the width, sorry, of this bear is equivalent to two heads. Next, I'll have this diagonal line going upward, and I can continue on the overside to slightly close the rectangle as we initially decided. Then I can draw this line to create the diagonal and inside the bear's legs as well with perfectly straight lines. I'll do that and afterward, we can continue working on the blocking technique to refine our bear more precisely. Here we go. And now let's work on this blocking technique. So I'm going to start working around the head or rather build up from the head. And here I reach this bump that we can see. I'll try to define it a little bit more, especially by working inside the bump as well. I continue with the bear's headquarters, which shouldn't be too complicated to draw since it's pretty straight. In fact, the whole body isn't very difficult to draw. We have a lot of straight lines that really make the task much easier. To make things to make things simpler, sorry, I have decided to erase some line. That's why it's clearer. I continue with the lower part, this leg, which is going to be quite bulky. But before that, I'm going to better define the fold that we can see that clearly separates the leg from the rest of the body. Here, we have a leg that's very straight and quite thick, so don't be afraid to make it nice and big. Then I continue with the v leg. You can see there is a slight shift between the large area of the leg and the tip, which is a bit offset. So for the rest of the body right there, it's pretty much done. Now I'm going to move on to the head. The head will also have quite a few geometric shapes, sorry. It will have a lot of straight lines. So let's go ahead and outline it. Here, we can see the chin is well defined, very straight, so I'll draw that as well. Same thing on the sides. The bear has quite an angular face, so I'll trace that. Finally, all that's left is to close it off and draw the hears after doing this area. So for the ears, I will carefully check the spacing between them, and then I can draw them. Once that's done, and that's left all that's left, sorry, is to erase all these lines to work on the final outline. But again, I will skip that part since it's not very complicated and it is similar to what we have just done. So now we can move on to the gola. Oh, no, sorry. It's not the gorilla yet. First, we are going to draw the small monkey. For this little monkey, I'm going to start by drawing a small circle for the head. We saw that right in the middle of the head, there was this rectangle that begins, which I can go ahead and draw, and it will represent the body of the monkey, at least the whole abdominal area. From there, I can continue with the shoulder that I'm going to dry. This shoulder slightly extends beyond the head, and from that point, I can extend my line and work on the monkeys for harm. Next, I continue with the other arm and to know where to place it, I look at my reference photograph and figure out that this arm is halfway between the bottom of the belly and the spot where the head meets the torso. From there, I can draw it. Now, let's move on to the legs, and we can see that they are made up of two rectangles. I check the direction of the angle to draw the first leg. Don't be afraid to get started. If you make a mistake, you can always adjust it. Then I draw the second one. I tweak a little bit because the gap between the two legs wasn't wide enough. Well, right there, sorry, this gap wasn't wide enough, and then we can close off the head. And we are done with this monkey, which has quite a human like posture. I find it pretty fun to work on, and now we can refund our outline more precisely. Alright, now let's refine the outline of this little monkey, but it's not going to change much from what we did earlier because this little monkey still has a very geometric body with limbs that are really quite straight. So it's going to be very similar to what we've been doing from the start. But we will add a few elements like here, the end of the arm with the hand. I continue from there. This line along the belly is pretty much the same. There's just a slight angle at the lower part of the stomach. Then I can move with the thigh, the calf, and the feet. And honestly, the feet are quite unique when you when I get to drawing them, they have a shape that's pretty distinctive and fun to sketch. But before drawing the feet more precisely, I need to do the second leg. You can see that this little monkey has pretty muscular legs, so we'll need to emphasize the quadriceps. Now here's that foot with its slightly unusual shape, which is also quite fun to work on, I think. I can close off both legs now. As mentioned earlier, these quadriceps will be very well defined for a little monkey that must have quite a bit of strength. So I'll really emphasize the both to sow that muscular look on this little monkey. I continue with the last arm over there, and overall, this outline of the animal is drawn. Now we can finalize it with the finalize. There we go. And now let's move on to the last one. Here we go with the last animal to work on, which is the gorilla. I'm starting again with the head, a big massive head. And in the middle of the head, you can see a line that splits the face in two. Then I'll continue with this trapezoid form for the body. This shape seems like a good starting point. Next, from the trapezoid, I can continue with the small element that we have on the side, which is the extension of the arm. Then I will move to the lower limbs. And here for the lower limbs, I have a shape that looks a bit like a trapezoid again. But now I realize that it's too long because if I look closely, I'd say that this diagonal line should be roughly half the width of the upper trapezoid for the upper body. By comparing the elements, I can tell that this part is too big. I can continue with the arm, which is really massive. It looks like a big rectangle, and I will draw a second rectangle which extends it and the second sorry, a second rectangle extend it into the forearm. For now, I am not too concerned with the ends. They are inside my trapezoid, and I work on them later without any problem. Finally, I continue with the last arm. You can see that there's another big rectangle that starts roughly from the head, and I can see where it's position and to determine length. I use the lower limbs I drew earlier as a reference to figure out where it should stop. With the shape work done, we can now continue with the blocking. Now, let's block in this gorilla. And so I start with the head. That is a very angular head with a lot of straight lines that I can draw, and I want to make this head looks very strong with those lines because, yes, it seems to be pretty solid. Then I pursue with this area of the neck that really connects to the arm. So I am drawing this straight line again and moving on to this and connect to this area of the lower limbs. Then I go back to this arm because I really wanted to do it. Sometimes I go from one area to another one without any reason just because I want to draw this area a lot. Sorry about that. And then I draw this massive harm. We can see that it has some angles as well for the biceps, and I can also draw this tree. I didn't do it before, but it can be really great landmarks to make sure that we have the right proportions with these elements. You will see that in a few moments. I go back to the lower limbs now with this big leg that I can draw right there. And right here, there will be also a small some kind of a yeah, bums. I don't know really how to describe that due to this tree that the gorilla is seated on. And I can also draw roughly the ends of this gorilla. We'll go into detail later. Now, I just want to draw a small shape of it, and then I can draw its foot. And from its foot, I can see that I had the right proportions because when I extend this line of the tree, I can see that it really connects very well to this foot, which means that my proportions are right. Okay, now I can close this leg with the knee right there and draw this big belly of the gorilla that has some pretty angles as well. And finally, I'm going to close my outline with this arm that is pretty big as well, and I can draw roughly the end on the tree as well, just like I did with the other ones. Alright, this way, it should be fine. And I can close the face of this gorilla with the jaws that seems to be very strong as well. And so they have some very nice angles. And a lot of straight lines as well. So I draw them. And finally, the last elements to draw will be these small lines that we have on the chest and the arm that is also very big this second arm. And then that will be it, and we'll be able to move on to the drawing of the final lines. But that I will skip these parts, and we're going to see now how to draw the different elements of the face of these animals that we have drawn. 4. Contour drawing practice for animals: Let's start adding details to this gorilla. As you can see, my lines are refined, and now we can work on them. We'll begin with the gorilla since we just finished sketching it, and this animal won't be the most complicated when it comes to adding facial and body details. So I'll start with the ear. What I notice is that the ear is positioned roughly at the height of the shoulder line. The bottom of the ear is about at that level. To draw the various elements and place them correctly, I'll be using the techniques of comparing different features to one another. This will be very helpful. I also see that the gorillas eyes are located inside what forms a kind of a rectangle. This rectangle is about at the same height as the shoulder line, and it ends at the point where the top of the head pecks. It's like I could draw an imaginary line and it would land right there. That's how I have positioned the facial area for the gorilla. Next for the eyes, we won't see much detail. There will be just a few lighter elements inside, and we'll figure out how to handle that with other animals when we work on shading. Right now, we are just focusing on the contour shapes. There's this slightly irregular line along the lower part to outline the eyes. Then I see that there's a line that runs downward and almost separates the skin area from the third of the gorilla. On the lower jaw area, sorry, you can also notice a kind of a curve that I am currently drawing. That's why. So, yes, that's what I'm drawing, sorry. And also, this diagonal line that I have just drawn earlier, I'm going to extend it a bit because it seems a little bit too short, and I'm connecting it to the curved line I have just drawn. Next, there's also a sort of a circle that will help to define the nose area of the gorilla. Inside, I can add the small nostrils that we can see. And just below that, there will be the mouth line that we can draw. But overall, that's about it for the facial features. Also, keep in mind that if your animal doesn't look much at this stage, that's completely normal. It will look realistic when we had some details, and most importantly, when we'll be shading it, adding the different values of the animal. But that's totally fine if it doesn't look very good at the moment. It's just some basic lines to define the animal. You can recognize it a little bit, but that's it. And finally, I can draw this line that separates the orange hair to the rest of it. Alright, next, I can add more detailed elements. For example, around the chest area, I can define the angle a bit more, but most importantly, I'm going to add the different shadow areas. There are some pretty well defined shadows on this gorilla. For instance, on the entire left side of its arm, there are darker section. I also have a very dark area on the lower part of the forearms, I will mark that. Finally, I work on the end with more precision, focusing on the fingers, which I'm going to draw now. But overall, these are pretty much the only types of detail I'm adding at this stage. I include this number of details because it will help me to create a better drawing later. The details we are adding are meant to guide us. After that, it really depends on you and how many details you want to add to your base sketch. Some prefer to add very few details while others like to include a lot before moving on to shading. So really, it's up to you to decide what feels the most useful and will help you the most. Finally, I continue with the leg section. There are some very dark areas I can outline, and I can also mark the lighter areas to separate them. On the gorillas hand, I'll draw the fingers again, which are nothing more than small ovals that we can sketch in this spot. Then I work on the overside of the end where there is a very dark shadow area that helps define the end. We'll also had a few fingers on the lower part, and that will be about it. Now, I'm going to close off the foot and have the few details that are visible there. I can position the foot by comparing it to the end next to it. By comparing, I see that the toe should be at the same height. This technique of comparing different elements is super useful to ensure everything is in proportion. And that will be it for this gorilla, and we can move on to another example. Now, let's move on to the cow. On the cow's head, what I notice it does, there is a tuft of hair on the upper part that's really well defined. I can go ahead and sketch that. How do I know where it ends? I can see it stops roughly at the height of the ear. I likely work on this area just marking the contours to outline them clearly. I can continue with the placement of the eye. And how do I know to place them? Once again, I use the airs as a reference because I can see that the eye starts approximately at the same height as the ear. There's a sort of eyelid at the top that touches the air area and that I am drawing right now. And then it slopes down on a diagonal line. After that, I close it off with a curved line. That's all I'm doing with the eye for now. I'm not shedding yet. It's normal if it looks a little bit odd, it's just the basic shape that I have added. Right next to this eye, there's a small spot that I can add. And to place the second eye, I can see that they are roughly aligned. This little line that I'm drawing serves as a guide to position the second eye precisely. Again, if you lightly curve line help me sketch it out. There's no real trick to drawing an eye. It's all about observation, especially with small eyes like this. You need to notice the subtle angles created by the lines that you are adding. Then I have this patch of hair that comes down towards the snout. So I can start placing the different features of the snout. And how do I place the snout? It's very simple. These diagonal lines act as guides, and inside, I can draw the slightly rounded shape and add the two small nostrils of the cow. And with the facial features done, we can move on to the other parts of the body. All right. Let's move on with the body. Here, I realized that the area I had drawn was placed incorrectly, so I will adjust my lines to fix that. Keep in mind that just because you have created the bus that looks good doesn't mean it's perfect. As you continue the drawing, you might notice certain elements that don't work, and you shouldn't hesitate to modify them. Next right beside it, I see that there is this small spot near the area. But before that, I realized that my horn is probably a bit too long, and because of that, the ear is too long, as well. So I will adjust that as well because it doesn't look right. You need to make the necessary adjustments. Don't let your ego tell you, My drawing is perfect. There's nothing to change. That's not the case at all. So I make those changes, and I notice also that the end of the ear lines up roughly with the start of the leg. I can imagine this invisible line, and it helps me position everything correctly. Then I can have the spot in this area. I'll also have a spot under the head area, so I will work on this one, too. On the leg, I also realize that there is a small spot, so I can mark that. What's going to be important on this overlay is to clearly define the different lines for the folds that are characteristic of cows and their legs. So I can mark this fold right here and also highlight this shadow area next to it. I can do the same work with the Oleg. That is on the right, where you can see some significant shadow areas on this lay. Again, there's also a pretty dark shadow around the hoof. While I'm in this area, I can also work on the tail of the animal and add the small spot on the side and the large spot that covers part of this area. To align it to place it correctly, I align it with the cow's order, and I can see it starts around here near the other leg. I'll close off this large spot, and that will be pretty much for the lines of this cow drawing. The last thing will be to add a line within this large spot over here, which will help to create volume and emphasize the roundness of the cow's belly. And there you go. It's done. Finally, let's work with this little cat. So while working on a different features of the cat, I noticed that on the side right there, there's this small curve which aligns roughly with the diagonal line that is on the left. From there, I can I can start adding more details to the cat face. So I will begin with the mouth, which will be at about the same level as the chin area lining with the diagonal line on the left. It starts around the same height, and from here, I can draw the cat small mouth just right there using some gentle curved lines leading up to its little nose. Drawing the nose isn't too complicated. I'll make a triangle with slightly curved and rounded sides. After that, I can have the small lights that define the ridge of the nose. I'll admit I'm not entirely sure how to name that part, but we'll figure it out. Next, we can see that the eyes will align along the same line. And this line is roughly at the height of the right ear. Starting from the tip of the right hair, I can trace horizontally to match the eye level. Then I can start drawing the eyes. For the first eye, I'll make a small curved lines, one following the line and another line to complete the shape of the eye. Once that's done, I'll repeat the same process for the other eye, which will also be aligned along the same eye line. So these eyes are pretty good, but I think that they are not exactly the same size. So I'm going to slightly enlarge the left one and reduce the right one a bit by erasing and adjusting it until it looks right. There's not really secret for the eye. The key, I would say, is to observe them carefully comparing with the reference photograph. Also, if something feels off, the mirror technique works like magic. I take my drawing, holding up to a mirror, and then I'll see the result clearly and see what is going, what is wrong with my drawing. Next for this cat, what I can add in terms of detail are the little lines for the animal's pow. And I can also add some dark stripes that are very characteristic of this cat. I can clearly see this big patch of fur in the center of the cat with the messy hair going in all directions. And so I'm adding also the lines of it. And I can also notice these curve lines on the left that defines the pow well. And that's it for my cat. It's all done, and that's all for the entire set of drawings. So now, if you'd like, I encourage you to do the other drawings, the other animals like we did before. I didn't record it because it's pretty much the same thing that we have just done. Practice, practice, and practice, redo the outlines, work on the different lines until you feel comfortable with it. And so that's it for this basic shape. And you will see that the more you will practice these basic shapes before actually drawing the contour, the more you will do it quickly, more confidently and more accurately. These basic shapes will really help you to get some right foundations before actually creating something very realistic with details, with shading and the actual contour. Now, what I want you to do is to observe animals in a different way. When you are watching animals, whether in photos or in real life, try mentally to break them down into basic shapes. And by doing this process when you are seeing animals, you will see that it will become even easier to do it on your paper when you will be drawing. It will be very natural for you to see and to tell, Okay, for the body, this is a rectangle, then here I see an oval, here, a trapezoid, it will become even quicker for you to do it. And what I want you to do is to repeat these steps, this work on the basic shapes on other animals. I provide you some other photos, some other models, so you can do it. Again, and try to break them down into simple shapes and to draw them into simple shapes. So thank you for watching and see you in the next video. 5. Rhino drawing study – analysis and outlines: In this second part, we will focus on shading, which is a really key step for bringing realism to your artwork. So we will look at how to play shadows, how to place the highlights, how to put the right intensity and which pencil we should use for this area or this one, how to create the highlights. And all the element and structure that will help to create something three dimensional on our paper. And for that purpose, we will use and we will be drawing a reno. A reno is an excellent model because it has many folds, lots of shadows and highlights. And I will show you that just with a simple sketch, a quick shadow, we can create something very realistic. We don't have had thousands of details to create a nice skin texture and to have something that feels alive on your paper, something that feels free dimensional because this shading step will really help us to move our drawing from something flat, just a simple contour to something free dimensional and alive. So for this drawing of the reno, at first, we will try to analyze the different values at stake that we will need to use. And for that, we can use our value scale that I showed you in the basic course. Then we will draw the renal, and I strongly encourage you to draw along with me to make some progress. And to make it easier for you, you have the image of the contour of the reno that is ready to be printed so you can focus only on shading. I know that we are at the beginning of this course. You are starting maybe to get familiar with the basic shapes, and maybe you want to move to the shading part, even if your contour steps aren't perfect. And so that's why I decided to give you the contour ready to be printed. However, if you want to practice even more on basic shades and on contour, then before even shading this animal, it's even better if you want to try to draw its contour using these basic shades and the way we did with the animals in the previous sport. So it's really up to you. And now let's get into practice with this reno. Welcome to the shading part, and now we are going to work with this reno that's going to keep us busy probably a few hours. So this is the subject in colors, and we are going to take a look at the different grays, the different value of this reno and try to analyze them to make sure that we are able to shade this reno in the best manner possible. So here is the analysis of the different grays of the renal, and we'll take a closer look, starting with the left side first, then moving on to the right side. On the left side with the red lines, we can see that they point to areas that are very light. The grays we're going to use won't approach pure white, but will still be quite light. So I think for this area, it will be best to use HB pencils or at most two B for the darker areas. Just below with the blue lines, we have a very interesting area to work on as it's the rib section. These ribs are really well defined, and you can see they create volume. To build this volume, we'll need to use three main types of shading. A very light shading for the highlights of the area, medium dark shading between the different ribs and the ribs themselves will be quite pronounced requiring darker shading. So from looking at this photograph, I'll say we'll probably tend to use pencil ranging from four B to six B. Finally, in the area just below, we notice that the belly area, the shading is really very dark, especially in the lower section, which is almost made of pure black, making it extremely dark. Between these two dark areas, it will be very important to highlight these lighter elements to successfully create the volume of the belly. And on the other side, I marked with yellow arrows, the section of the lag, which is very interesting because we can see that a kind of volume is created in this area, and this is what we observe every time in shaded and light areas. That is to say, we'll have an area with a medium gray, a very light gray, well, light gray, and a dark gray. And here we can clearly see that the first yellow line, the one at the top points to our medium gray then the one in the middle still represents our light gray, and the yellow arrow at the bottom points to the very dark gray. And in this way, we managed to create that fold in the leg and the volume. So I highlighted this area because it's extremely interesting and it perfectly illustrates the concepts of shadow and light to create volume. Finally, the four arrows in purple, except one, I'm not sure what happened there. It's in gray anyway, are pointing towards the head. I wanted to illustrate the fact that even though the head is a small area, we are going to see large variations in gray, and it will be important to accurately create all these variations to achieve the volume in the head. The horn will also be very interesting with many details to work on. So there are plenty of elements that will be great to work on and we'll see how to proceed right now. To find the right shades of gray that I will be using for shading this reno, I can use my value scale and show how to create it in the basic course and explain the usefulness it can have. It will really help me select the right gray for different elements. This is a very helpful tool, especially for beginners. But I think the more you progress in your practice, the more you realize you need it less, as you start to know your pencils by heart. That's the case for me now. I don't really use it anymore, but it was very useful when I began drawing. But yes, it can still be very useful for you and be a great tool to determine which grade to use and when, whether you're working on a reno or with any other drawing. Attached to this course, you'll find the outline model of this reno with just the contour drawing. You can printing on drawing paper so you can shade properly. Avoid using regular paper, as drawing paper is better suited for shading. Alternatively, you can print it on a regular paper and then trace it onto your drawing paper to save time and have the model ready, allowing you to really focus on the shading work rather than the shape of the animal. However, if you prefer to also work on the shape and contour first, that's also a great practice to reinforce the skills we initially covered on forms. So it's entirely up to you, but at least you have this tool available if you want to focus solely on the shading process. So before actually shading this animal, what I'm doing now is adding some lines inside my model to define the different shading area. So I have drawn some lines to define the belly better and also the legs. And right there at the crest of this animal, I am adding also this small line because there is a lightly darker area. Also, right there, with this kind of trapezoid, I'm defining the area of the ribs, but I won't be drawing any single rib right now. Like I said, when we worked on the form work, well, I just draw the main area that will be useful for me. But if you feel like you need more details when before shading, it's really up to you. Some people don't need to do what I'm doing right now and can be just keeping this part. But some other really like to had a lot of details when they are drawing this inside contour. So really, it's up to you do what is best for you, and that's always what I will recommend to you. So right there, I am also adding this line because like we saw with the analysis of the gray, there will be some great volume. And with the belly, I just add in the different area of light and dark area of this bell. I am also adding this ear as I forgot to do it earlier, and I will be also drawing the other one that is on the left. Okay, for the rest of the head, there will be a lot of small areas of different value like we have seen before, so I will be adding them with some, yes, basic forms. In this area that I'm showing you right now, I won't be adding a lot of elements because if you take a look at this area, you can see that it's mainly some different gray, but it's not really well defined. So I don't need to add much lines to define this area right now. I will be doing it while actually shading my drawing. Also, I can have some more details around the eye. So right there, I am modifying it a little bit. Right now, and I will also had the wrinkles, some of the wrinkles of this animal to have a better understanding of this area before shading it. And also the horns will need to be a little bit more defined. And I will also have the shadow areas with the horn and also this big dark spot, I can draw its contour as well before shading. And that will be it, and we'll be ready to start shading this animal. 6. Shading the rhino body realistically: The drawing is finished, and now we can start shading. There are several ways to approach this, and we'll explore the different methods. One approach could be to shade each small area with the appropriate pencil. For example, you might shade one small area with an eight B pencil, another one with a ten B pencil, and yet another with a 12 B pencil. This is a valid method, and we can definitely use it. Another approach could be to look at larger section like the leg and ask yourself, what is the lightest value across the entire leg? If the lay is fairly dark, you might notice that the ltus area is the highlight in the middle. So you can start shading the entire lay based on that ltus value, knowing that the rest of the leg will be at least as dark as that highlight. So that's what I'm doing here. I have initially started with an eight B pencil, but it turned out to be too light, so I switched to something darker. Now I'm shading the whole area with a ten B pencil. I have a bit unorthodox way of holding my pencil, but it's a method I like because it allows me to shade quickly while maintaining a light touch using the side of the lead. By working with the side of the pencil, I can achieve smooth, even shading across large areas. This technique helps maintain consistent shading while also spinning up the process, even though the video is speed up right now because I'm doing the exact same thing across the entire area. So here we are shading everything with the ten B, and later we'll come back to add darker details on top of that. Now that I have applied this base layer with the ten B, I can start working on the darker elements. One of the darker areas in this side is this side, sorry, which is going to be very black. Since this part is extremely dark and almost pure black, I can work using my 14 B pencil or 12 B pencil if I don't have a 14 B. I press down quite a bit to make sure that this area is really, really dark. I'm still trying to work with the side of my lid, but I apply more pressure on the pencil to ensure that the elements are deeply shaded. Then we can see that this area next, just that I am drawing shading right now, is still quite dark but not as intense as what I have just done. So here, I either switch to a 12 B pencil or as I have just done with this section in the middle, I simply press a little less on the pencil. One technique I really like for ensuring smooth transition, like what I'm doing here, is making small circular motions with my pencil. It's almost like I'm scribbling lightly with the side of the lid, but in small rounded shapes. This way, I found that the transition between a dark area and a lighter one is much smoother, so that's what I have done. In this area, we also find over slightly darker spots. So I mark those, and little by little, this section of the hind legs starts to gain volume. Here, too, there's a small darker elements that I can emphasize. So that's what I'm doing right now. And finally, after darkening all these areas, I noticed that the lower part of the leg looks too light. So I go back over it and had some darker tones, again, using the side of my lid. I can see that the very dark areas around the belly are dark enough, but there was too much contrast with this lower part of the leg. So I am adjusting that a bit, and then that will be it with this area, I think. On this leg with my 14 B pencil, I can also add a few creases that will be even darker in the slightly lighter area. So I'm adding those with the 14 B pressing quite firmly with my pencil to make sure that they stand out. These are just a few small details, but overall, with this piece, we are not focusing on the details. That's not the goal of this video. The goal here is really to work on shading. I'll add a few more, but I won't spend too much time on it. What I am also going to do is use my ed eraser because it is an excellent tool for highlighting lighter areas and slightly softening my work. For example, around here, I want certain elements to stand out more and be more visible. So with my needed eraser, you can see that I have shaped it to a small pointed tip. I gently dab at this area. This help this helps lift some of the graphite and make certain parts appear lighter. It's really an amazing tool that allows us to brighten specific areas. Feel that some areas have been lightened a bit too much because of the needed eraser. So what I can do is use my blending stamp to redistribute some of the graphite in that area. This will darken it slightly, but not as much as it was before, giving me the exact gray value that I wanted. Finally, for this leg, we can work on the toes. There will be some slightly rounded shapes that I'm going to define using this dark pencil, working carefully with the tip of my pencil and darkening them well like this. So I'm marking those, and then I will also darken the area just above the toes, which is a bit too light. I'll darken it slightly more, and that will finish off this leg perfectly. Now let's move on on to the area above the leg we just worked on. You can see that it becomes noticeably lighter, but there's not an abrupt change either. So here, I'm applying a base layer with the eight B pencil in this area, which will help me create a smooth transition with the rest. In this zone, you can notice some slightly darker elements, especially on the side. So using my 14 B pencil, I had small touches without pressing as hard as I did in the really dark areas. This helps to mark the transition between this section and the one I worked on earlier. Now, with my eight B pencil, I go over the area again, pressing a bit harder because it felt it was still too light. So I apply more pressure and shake this area once more. Using my ten B pencil for a slightly darker effect, I can highlight the darker marks on the upper part of this area and along the side. This will help me create more volume as well. Finally, in this section, there's a spot that appears light. So with my eraser pen, I remove some of the graphite, making that part looks much brighter. He the area above, I will use a four B pencil to create a noticeable change in value since this section is significantly lighter. However, it's not as light as the area in the middle of the reno. I'll shade this section on the left side and along the top of its back. I'm using the four B with a light touch working a bit with the side of the lid. I can extend sorry the four B shading to the area just above the ribs. This will help create a smoother transition with the rib area for later. We'll stop here now. This already gives us a good section to work on. Between these different areas, I will use my HB pencil to work on the lighter zone. It's not pure white, so I need to apply a light gray, but not too dark. HB seems perfect for this. In the upper section, I'll press a bit harder just right there with the HB to connect the areas shaded with the four B more smoothly. So now with my four B pencil, I can work a little more on the darker areas of this reno. And there we go. It's not that I'm trying to add details, but rather to emphasize certain areas more than others, so they stand out a bit more. The same goes for the upper part and also for the ridge of the animal. Here we have this slightly darker area. So I'm bringing, sorry, it out a little bit more. The same applies to the right side as well. I will do that later. There, too, there, too, to ensure a better transition with the lower area, you can see, I have added a few darker strokes, but that's pretty much it. And in my lighter area, there will also be some slightly darker spots. In general, when drawing something, just like in painting, you rarely have an area that is completely uniform. In texture areas whether light or dark, you'll either have slightly darker elements or slightly lighter ones. And that's what I'm trying to add now to this arena. So earlier with the leg, we saw how to work an entire area at once and then layer over it. Now, what will be interesting is to see with the belly area, how to work on a small section first, and then another in a more precise way. That's what we are going to do each time, adjusting our pencils and the pressure we apply to get the right value in this belly area. What I usually do is start with the darkest elements because their values are certain. We know they will be very dark, almost black. So I begin with those, and they are also the most obvious elements. And I will repeat this many times throughout this course. I like to start with the obvious elements because they are simple to draw. Once a simple element is in place, the risk becomes easier around it. Once you have one element, then another and another, everything starts to feel simpler. Here, I'm filling everything with a 14 B pencil pressing down quite a bit to get a strong dark tone. I don't hesitate to go over certain areas again if I want them to be really black and to properly saturate the paper. I will do this throughout the entire area, which is why the process is slightly sped up. Also, by making small circular motions, I achieve good results with my shading. So on the upper area, I am adjusting my pencil a bit because it's not as dark anymore. There is still a difference in value compared to the lower belly area. Here, you can see I have switched to a ten B pencil because it marks a certain transition. But to ensure a smoother transition between this area and one below, I will use a 12 B pencil. So that's what I'm going to do right now. And this way, the elements will connect with each other much more naturally. That's why I had left before a small white space to come back and work on it with the 12 B. Now I am feeling this area at the belly, looking at the belly zone and asking myself, what other dark elements I could enhance with a 12 B. And here we go, there is this small um, band that I can chain I can shade Say with the 12 B. So I darken it well. There are also other elements on the side that I can work on with the 12 B pencil. I continue progressing through this area searching for elements that could be worked on Say with 12 B. But I would say that's about it. The surrounding area is going to be a little lighter, so I will adjust my pencil and go for something like an eight B pencil. That seems like a good choice for shading. I feel that with the eight B, I'll get a slightly lighter result than with the ten B elements I worked on earlier. That means the pencil is probably the right one for this section. Comparing the values of different elements against each other can also be a good way to orient yourself. For example, you might think this value looks about the same as the one over there. So why not use the same pencil and comparing the different values together might be something very good to make sure you are shading it properly. I continue here, and I think that this band that I just pointing out, I have just pointed out with my pencil is actually lighter than what I've worked on so far. So I adjust my pencil and switch to a six B for this area. Each time I estimate and ask myself what the right value should be and why this pencil might be a good choice. But it's possible that later once all the elements are placed side by side, I might find this area too dark or too light and need to readjust it. So the result is never final. It's important to always maintain a critical eye on your work. Now, with the six B, I can also shade this adjacent area, which is still a bit lighter than what I had shaded earlier. But now looking back, I think I might need to darken it because it seems a bit too light. Well, we'll see. Inside this band, there are even lighter elements, so I worked on them with my four B pencil. For the rib cage area, there will be a lot of value changes, and I don't want to keep switching pencil every 30 seconds to go from a darker elements to a light element and so on. So I prefer to use the first technique I showed you with the lay shading everything with a four B. That seems like a good intermediate value that will allow me to easily add darker elements on top. Also erase easily with the needed eraser or eraser pen to bring out lighter elements. So instead of immediately placing the lightest value in this area, I choose an intermediate value that can easily darken, but I can easily darken or lighten as needed. Finally, now I go in with a lighter pencil and HB and work on the entire top part of the reno shading this upper area. Also, something I hadn't done yet and I will be doing in a few seconds is I will erase my control line. I do that because this initial line that I drew is too dark compared to the shading I'm now applying with the HB pencil. I can start working more precisely on the rib cage of this renal. Here, we can see that there are some fairly dark elements. I begin by marking them with my eight B pencil. To create this irregular texture, since these dark element don't have a precise shape, they are not straight line or perfect circles or anything else. I use the tip of my pencil and move it left right up and down, scribbling a bit. This gives a more natural look to these dark elements. Can also see that I have switched to a 12 B pencil for the rib cage because I felt that the dark areas weren't standing out enough, and I can now enhance a few of these darker elements with the 12 B pencil. Finally, to emphasize and add more volume to the ribcage, I use my eraser pen to highlight the lighter elements, some of which stand out quite a lot. The eraser pen seems like the best choice here rather than the needed eraser, which would only soften the area. With the eraser pen, I can actually remove some of the material, making it much brighter. This rib cage area looks good to me. Now, we can move on to the center of the belly and had a few and had more dark elements. For example, I'm not quite in the center yet, but I had some slightly dark details I could enhance here. Now in the actual center, some elements need to be darker than what I initially did. Overall, this area is still too light, so I will need to darken it. These darker elements need to be added. Initially, I had apply sorry, a base gray tone, but even though the second technique allows for more precise overall shading, we still work in broad strokes rather than adding fine shadow details right away. That's something we do after applying a second layer to refine the work, refine the shading. And that's exactly what I'm doing now, improving my shading by adding tiny darker or lighter elements. Now, I show you this area, which I have showed you this area, which is too light. It stands out too much compared to the surrounding elements. It looks too visible, so I go over it again and add more dark elements to balance it out. Just like I did earlier with the rib cage, I'm now scribbling in different directions to refine my shading. There are plenty of small details to add. Now I'll be doing this across most areas. For example, in this section, it was overall a bit too light. So I'm scribbling again, adding a few darker elements, but not everywhere, just in certain spots to create a bit more contrast. In this area that I worked on earlier, I had noticed a lighter band. However, I now feel that it stands out a little too much, so I go over it again, adding some slightly darker details to balance it out. Finally, on the upper area, which is currently very light, I can add a few slightly darker elements to enhance the shading of this reno. And that will be good, I think, for this larger area. Let's move on to another area now. As you can see in the process, I erased the lines that extended beyond the renos belly. And now we are focusing on this section of the leg. In this area, I'll start by marking the dark elements since they stand out clearly and are easy to identify. As I mentioned earlier, starting with the easy to see elements makes the drawing process simpler and more manageable. Now, using the 14 B pencil, I can also define this very dark line. You can see that it's darker at the beginning and gradually becomes lighter. And also becoming slightly thinner. Among the dark elements, I have also added this one that marks the beginning of the head. I've outlined it and just above the first line we drew. There's another fairly dark area that I can start marking as well to make it stand out properly. Next, I continue with the small band, the slightly rounded area above the dark line. I progress in this way and once I've completed this band, I can mark the next element beside it. You can see there's a small slightly dark strip, and from there, I continue refining the other elements. It's true that I could have marked these details from the beginning, but as the drawing progresses, as we progress at drawing, sorry, we often tend to avoid marking every element too early. However, by using the existing elements as reference points, it becomes fairly easy to position everything correctly. Still using my 14 B pencil, I can mark over fairly dark elements in this area. In the end, we realize that with just one pencil, we can define quite a few elements. With my 14 B pencil, you can see that I've created very dark elements, like, for instance, this line, then a slightly less dark area towards the bottom there and medium dark areas over there, and even lighter tones in oversection for instance, right here. If I want, I can go really light so in the end, the value scale is very useful when you are starting out. It helps a lot in choosing the right pencil. But over time, you realize that with any pencil, you can actually have a wide range of values to work with. You can achieve many different shades with just one pencil. That being said, having multiple pencil is still reassuring and being able to compare them using a value scale is very helpful. That's why I still highly recommended for the beginner. However, as you practice and improve, you'll likely reduce the number of pencil you use to just four or five. Now, let's go back to our drawing, and I move on to this pow, which won't be very complicated. It will be mostly dark, so I can shade it and apply a strong dark base using my 14 B. Now I can start applying a base shading to the upper area. Going back to the multiple pencil approach, I would say that an eight B pencil seems to be the most appropriate choice for this area. It allows for a fairly dark tone, but not too dark. I can work smoothly using the side of my lid. However, in the corner, you can see that there's a noticeably darker element. So I adapt my pencil to make sure this area is marked with a darker tone. As we move upward, the values become even lighter. So I adjust my pencil once again. And for this section, I would say that a six B or four B pencil would be more suitable. So I will work with those to start shading and marking these areas. Finally, I can go back and refine some elements. Some areas seem a little bit too light to me. For example, in this section, I feel that it stands out too much and looks a bit too bright. The same goes for the highlight just above this fold. I find it too noticeable, so I darken it slightly. Similarly, the lighter areas on the legs seems too bright to me, so I go over them again, darkening them little by little until I am satisfied with the result. Before moving on to shading the head, we'll finish working on this neck area of the animal. There are some very dark elements along the side and along the line. You can see that on the left side, it is slightly lighter, which helps distinguish the neck from the body and creates volume between these two areas. As I move upward, I also notice that the tones gradually lighten, so I have applied less pressure with the pencil. Now I will switch to a six B to work on the upper part of the body. However, to ensure a smooth transition between this dark area and the rest, I apply heavy pressure in the darker section, then gradually soften my strokes as I transition into the lighter area at the top. I'll continue this approach up to the ear area using my six B as a base. On top of that, I can later add darker elements or as I'm doing now, use my needed eraser to lift some areas and make them appear brighter, creating more depth and relief. I also add a few darker details in this section and that should be about it for this area. There's nothing too complicated here, and now we can move on to shading the head. 7. Shading the rhino head step by step: Let's start shading the L. As you can see, I have gone over the eye contour and outline with something very dark using a 14 B pencil. Then I darken the inside of the eye again, with 14 B because it is really deep in tone. However, even within this 14 B shading, you can still notice some slightly lighter touches. Using the 14 B, I also drew the deep wrinkle above the eye. With my pencil, I will also mark the main wrinkle surrounding the eye as these will serve as key reference points for the entire area. So with all this wrinkle, I focus on marking only the main ones. I don't necessarily trace every single wrinkle, since it's not essential to add that much detail. As I mentioned earlier, we're not aiming for an exact photo realistic reproduction of this wrinkle. The goal here is primarily, sorry, to work on shading rave capturing every small detail. Now I can shade the surrounding area surrounding area using a ten B pencil. You can see that it's still quite dark but not as dark as the 14 B, allowing the wrinkles I just drew to stand out against the shading. The ten B seems like a good choice to apply and work throughout the area around the eye. For the head, I will try to apply precise shading from the start. This is somewhat similar to the second technique we talked about before. So here I focus on marking each area with its correct overall value before later adding darker or lighter elements if needed. Next, the lower section of the head will be very dark, especially with this distinct dark patch that stands out strongly. Once again, I use the forcing B to deepen and refine it properly. Overpa I want to darken significantly is the lower edge of the renos head. You can see that this bottom section is also very dark along the edge. So I will work on as well. This is how we progress step by step, adding one element after another. The more elements we build up, the more the drawing starts to take shape. Patience is key, and this is how we will achieve good results in the end. Right above this dark patch, we can see that there are elements that are noticeably lighter, so I use a six B pencil. However, as I get closer to the dark patch, I press a bit harder to create a smoother transition between these different elements. Next, with my six B, I look for other areas where I can apply it to save time and work efficiently. I realize that I can use six B across this entire area just above the eye where the elements appear quite light. There is also a lighter patch on the left side that I can start working on right away. And this is how I progress carefully applying values in the right places. On the upper part as well, there are lighter markings, so I will add those as well. As I move closer to the eye area, I notice that these elements are becoming darker, so I switch to a darker pencil. Now using a ten B, I can shade all these side areas and work my way up to the ER section. In this ear section, there are some small bands that are very dark, but underneath the ear, there's a very deep shadow. So I don't waste any time and I will mark it immediately. This helps me establish a reference point, making it easier to position the other elements accurately. Around this area we'll have a mix of darker and lighter elements, so I continue shading accordingly. Uh Now, I just realize that the lower section of the drawing should have darker elements than what is currently there. So I go ahead and adjust that right away. Some might think that jumping from the air area to a completely different section doesn't make sense, but for me, it does. If I don't correct it now, I might forget about it later, and then I'll end up wondering, something feels off in my drawing, but what since I have spotted the issue now, I had it immediately entering, it's taken care of. This way, I won't forget it later. If I don't apply this method consistently and leave too many uncorrected areas, I might reach the end of the drawing only to realize there are too many, too many mistakes to fix at once, and even and I could even overlook some of them. By correcting things as I go, I can ensure that every necessary adjustment is made in the right moment, keeping the process structured and efficient. Now I will continue progressing through the rest of this area and add a few more details. Even though I mentioned that the goal of this drawing isn't to focus on extreme detail to achieve a highly realistic result. We still need to include some level of detail. Otherwise, our reno won't fully resemble reno. One of its defining features, sorry, is its wrinkles, after all. So I will mark the main wrinkles and key lines that we can observe throughout this area. I will also refine my shading by darkening certain sections where I feel the tone should be deeper or certain features are more pronounced. However, I won't be tracing every single wrinkle in my drawing. In any case, that would be difficult to achieve that on an A four sheet of paper. So wrinkles are extremely fine and my pencil tip wouldn't be sharp enough to capture all of them. So I will emphasize only a few selected ones those that seem most significant and create visible shadow that help define the forms. These are the ones we naturally notice. It's important to include them, therefore. Once this part is done, we will move on to shading the horns. I'll speed up the video here because for the most part, I'll be repeating the same process. I analyze each section and ask myself, which element here is interesting? What can I add to improve the drawing? How can I enhance the sense of volume? I will continue doing this for the next few minutes until we begin working on the horns. So now that I have shaded most of this area, another thing I'm going to do before working on the bodies is to mark the lighter elements since there are quite a few of them. Instead of reserving lighter space with the pencil, I prefer to go over them later with my eraser pen and erase them. So I observe the areas where I have lighter elements and add them in. By the way, I noticed that under the ear area, there's a fold that isn't perfectly defined as it is in the reference photograph. There's a lounge fold and just under the ear. Well, it's not very visible on my paper. But it's not a big deal. Technically, I could erase the area to refine this fall, but even without it, the reno's head still looks entirely believable and realistic. So I'm not going to stress about hating it. That's the advantage of drawing. When you're not doing a portrait of a specific person but working on an animal or any other subject, you don't need to achieve 100% accuracy and precision with every body detail. For example, with the head, I can afford to be a bit flexible unless it's something essential like the eyes, ears, overall proportions. Small details like this don't necessarily have to be perfectly placed. So let's move on to our final area, the horns. What we notice about this horn is that one side is going to be extremely dark, and these dark areas that appear in different places will help us transition from a flat shape to an object that appears freedom dimensional. On the side, I'm using my 14 B pencil without holding back. I'm going very dark to emphasize this area. Here, I realized that the upper part is Too dark, so I use my eraser pan to make it disappear. We can see that it erases well. It still remains slightly dark, but it's not too dark compared to the rest of the horn and what we are aiming for. If I had known that the areas right next to it would be extremely light, I probably would have been more precise in my work. But since the horn is actually pretty dark, that's okay, even when I've had to erase it. So I emphasize these very dark elements. I'm sorry if you can see my exact hand movement because my hand is in the way, but I really needed precision to finalize this. So I had to position my hand this way. Next, I'm also shading the rest of the horn with the 14 B pencil, but more likely, actually, this way, I'm creating a base that is still quite dark for the rest of the horns detail. Later, I can add small light touches with the eraser pane to highlight these lighter elements. We can also note that on the left side of the horn, there is a well defined dark line that um you may have seen me ha. Finally, in the central part, I go over it again with the 14 B pencil to ensure that all these dark elements are well defined. Little by little, we can see the horn taking shape and gaining depth, so we are on the right track. Now, with my erasor pen, I can also clean up the edge of my reno, which was slightly imprecise, inaccurate, sorry. And later refine the horn along with the lighter elements. But before that, I add a few more strokes with my pencil, but we can see that the lighter areas are quite precise lines. So I have no choice but to use the eraso pen. So first, I lighten the upper area, but here we see lines that are very distinct and well defined. Therefore, I must use the eraser pen and not the needed eraser. Let's move on to the second horn. And on the second horn, we can see that once again, there is a very dark edge. I mark it with the 14 B pencil again, as well as the curved area. However, the rest of the horn is generally lighter than the previous one. So here I adjust by using a lighter pencil and eight B to define the rest of this horn. I still create a slightly dark base, and on this base, I'll add a few darker elements that help give the horn more texture and depth. Texture is something we'll explore more in other videos, but we can already start creating it here. To further refine my area, I can tap lightly with the needed eraser on the upper part of the first horn, and you may have noticed that I also worked on a few small areas on the second horn with it. However, this needed razor isn't useful for precise lines like before, but in this case, it worked well. Finally, to complete the drawing, I can remove any Exhals pencil marks, but may have gone beyond the intended areas and onto the rest of the paper. I can do this with the needed eraser, or the electric eraser pen to ensure they are no longer visible. And to make my work even more realistic, I will add a few small lines to create the effect of the reno standing on grass. And with that, the drawing will be finished and we can move on to a new subject. And so this is the final result for this reno. So this is it for this drawing of the reno. I really hope that you liked it. And what I really encourage you to do is, of course, to draw it if you didn't do it along with me, but also to draw it second times in a week or maybe in a month because this will really help you to see the progress that you have done, and you will probably analyze and see things that you didn't see at your first trial. So that's always a good idea, I think, to redo a subject that you did a few months ago. Now, what I really like you to do as well, is in your daily life, when you are observing animals to wonder and ask yourself these questions. For the drawing and the shading of this part of the animal, what value would I use? What pencil will be the best to get the right shading of this animal? And asking yourself these simple questions and doing that several times will really help you to make some progress as well, because when you will be on your paper and you will want to shade that part of this part of the animal, it will become even easier for you to pick the right pencil to get the right value. So that's it for the shading part. Now let's move on to the texture work of the animal. 8. Dog drawing project – outlines and head shading: Are now reaching a major step in this course with the realization of this beautiful dog that they sit. So this final subject will really be the conclusion kind of conclusion of this course because we will have to put into practice everything we've seen so far with the creation of the contour, the shading, the work on the texture of this animal, making sure there will be the right proportion. So this is a really nice challenge that we will have to do, but you are definitely able to do it because you have followed the course all along with me. And the creation of this artwork will really help you to make some nice progress and to create something really beautiful. So you have to practice. I will guide you through it through the entire process. Don't worry, but most importantly, you have to practice and to do it with me. So let's go and let's draw this dog together. Here we are new tutorial this time focusing on working on this magnificent dog. I thought it was a great subject to use as a final piece because its pause is one that we can find in many animals, but it is not the usual standing position of a dog on all four legs. Additionally, this drawing allows us to work on fur in a different way since the fur goes in various direction, making it an interesting challenge. As always, we will start by identifying the shapes before drawing them. Of course, I'll give you a little bit of time to recognize these shapes. So let's go 10 seconds to identify the shapes of this dog. Let's start dividing our animal into shapes. So at the head level, I clearly see a circle as is often the case. Right next to it, it to encompass the snout and the mouth. There's another rectangle that we could extend inside our circle. Below that, there will be a trapezoid. Again, I could close it by working within the circle. As for the body, we could imagine this complex geometric shape. Each time we can close the shape, but it's not necessarily required. And finally, for the legs, I clearly see a sequence, succession of different rectangles of varying size, which will help complete the lays. Then I could eventually close it with lines. Now, how do we ensure the correct proportions for this dog? Once again, using these shape techniques, we can identify different proportions. For example, I clearly see a height breakdown of the head. I could draw free circle approximately the size of the head to represent the whole body. This way, I know that when I draw my dog, if the body is equal to three head height, the proportions will be more or less correct for my dog. So this is a good reference point for getting the right proportions for our animal. Now it's time to draw these different shapes. I'm working on an A for sheet about 20 by 30 centimeters. What's really interesting here is also saying how to work on a different scale. On the previous sheet I sketched where I sketched the shapes before drawing right now, the dog was much smaller than it will be now. So I think it's also very interesting. Start, I draw these four different circles, one for the head and three for the body. This way, before refining my shapes and drawing them, I already have an approximate proportion for the dog. I know its overall size will be based on these four head sized circles. From there, I can draw the rectangle we identified earlier for the snout and the mouth. Then I extend the straight line beneath the head circle, continuing it down to the lay. The same straight line will help me outline the first small rectangles for the lower part of the lay. I then add more rectangles for the overlay section once I will have finished this. Okay, next, if I observe carefully, I see that this rectangle extends up to about the second circle, and I continue drawing the lower section lines right there. Then another rectangle for the second leg. Again, I use the circles as a guide, noting that the second leg also extend to the second circle. Then I move on to the rest of the body, and I see a line that connects two of the circle, and this helps me position an over shape correctly. Ultimately, these circles not only provide a general propuultion reference, but also help us accurately position different elements relative to one another. And I finish by closing the structure with various lines, refining the complex body shape. And overall, with this basic shape, I now have a solid foundation to continue and refine the animal's outline in more detail. And by the way, you can see in the photograph that I have added these small red squares, which clearly highlight this reference point I talked about. They help us properly place the different lines in our drawing. Let's start our blocking technique, and I'll begin with the head specifically with the snout. So I started with the snout, but then I found the angles at the top of the head interesting to work on. I continued in this direction also because I didn't want to move down the snout toward the mouth just yet. It was a slightly complex area, and I preferred to have other reference point to work with first. It seemed easier than starting from that side, and I prefer to connect it later from the other part of the dog's mouth by linking it from the neck. At this point, I was able to draw the color. When I carefully examined the shapes, I noticed that the color was positioned roughly between our two circles. Then at the very top of the first circle, you can see that the dog's mouth begins again so I can, um, sketch it in. There are also some well defined angles here that we can refine, particularly around the opening of the dog's mouth. You probably don't see this as I made quite a few cuts, but before drawing my angles, I always take time to carefully observe and analyze what I see. It's important for me to ensure that my drawing is done with the correct proportion. I cut out the moments where I was simply thinking because watching me do nothing on the paper wouldn't be very engaging. That's why I remove those parts. However, know that I really take my time to ask myself in which direction is this angle going? You could even use an angle sighting to ensure accurate proportion. So take your time before working on it. That's exactly what I did, especially with the mouth opening, which is quite tricky. There are multiple lines and directions involved. So try to measure the different angles of this outline as accurately as possible. That's really the goal with this blocking technique. Another thing, I rely a lot on different elements for reference. Here, I can see that the opening of the dog's mouth hands at roughly the same height where its neck begins. Once again, using different reference points make it much easier to progress and ensure accuracy in the work we are doing. And you can see that I have added this line I talked about in blue on the photograph right here. Okay, now we can keep going with the other elements of the face of this dog. So now I can move on to the eye area now that I am done with this previous part. Once again, I will use reference points to help me draw and position the eye correctly. Placement is extremely important, and you need to be very precise with this. What we can see here is that once again, we can use imaginary lines to help us. I noticed that the right corner of the eye using an imaginary line aligns roughly with the corner of the mouth. You can see this with the green line that will appear on the side. It connects the corner of the eye to the mouth. Then the left corner of the eye is approximately at the midpoint of the upper part of the head. Here, I can also visualize an imaginary line connecting them. This is another green line that you see. Finally, the lower part, we can imagine a line starting from the snout and running across the entire head with the eye position along this line. Of course, it won't be 100% accurate using just these imaginary lines, but they will greatly help by providing reference points to place the dog's eye as accurately as possible. From there, it's all about comparison, observing, analyzing the drawing, and checking it against the reference photograph to determine if the positioning is correct. Next, this eye will be extremely dark. The real difference will come when we start shading. It's at this stage that we will see whether the result is satisfactory or if adjustments are needed. At this point, what I do is mark the different small gray areas within the eye, as well as the darker areas surrounding it. Once this is done, everything should be in place with this eye, and we can move on to the next step of the drawing. Normally, I tend to draw the entire outline of the animal before working on the interior details, the contour of this element, but in this case, I just couldn't resist it. I really wanted to position the eye and get a sense of how my drawing would look even just with the outline and that eye to see if it would be accurate or not. So yes, I broke my usual rule. But as they say, rules are made to be broken. It's not a big deal. You can absolutely start with one element and then move on to something else. It doesn't disrupt the overall drawing process. Now I can continue. And from here, I will mark the different angles that will define the rest of the body. This step won't be too different from our previous work on the shapes, as those were already quite precise and didn't require many adjustments. Perhaps here, I had forgotten to add the hinlay which was hidden by the grass, so I will include that as well. But overall, the angles won't be too pronounced. Of course, there will be some, but not as many as in other drawings where angles are more prominent. So now I have reached the leg area, and I will progress steadily focusing on this blocking technique, refining the angles across the entire body. Here, I can mark the transition between the white fur and the light fur on the dog's chest. This is another key aspect of blocking, marking only the contours that will be useful later inside the contour itself. For example, I know that drawing the dog's leash on his chest will help as a reference. So I will mark it and the same goes for any other distinct elements. Whether there are darker or lighter areas that need to be defined, I define what will help me in the future to make a better shading. For the legs, I don't need to be very overly precise at this stage. A basic outline will be enough for now. Later, I might refine the details and work on shading, but this should be sufficient. The same applies to the silhouette, the global contour. I will refine it more precisely later. I likely won't need to draw every single tuft of first ticking out as each more detail will take shape naturally as I progress and as I will shape my drawing. The last element I need to complete is this large ear. To determine its exact placement, I once again rely on comparisons with other elements. For example, I compare the height of the ear with the height of the dog's jaw. Once that alignment looks correct, I erase any unnecessarily guidelines and will refine the contour with a bit more fluidity. At this stage, I will adjust some of the edges to be slightly more rounded than before. This helps create a softer and more natural outline that better represents the final outlook of the drawing. The goal is to achieve a light and dynamic contour that captures the essence of this beautiful dog. Now that my outline is well defined, I'm going to start working on the interior of the dog, refining the different elements within the contour. We had already marked key features like the eye, the snout, the inner ear, the leash, and the patch on the lower part. Now I will focus on marking these elements more precisely. I will start by sketching the dog's teeth, which are quite prominent and noticeable. It's important not to forget them as they add character to the drawing. Then I will define all the shadowed areas, the shading that will appear throughout the dog's body. I will also carefully mark the borders of these shadowed regions distinguishing between the darker spots and the lighter shaded areas. For example, in the ear, you can see that there are numerous shadow areas, even though it might seem a bit complex at first, we can break it down into smaller sections. On one side, there's a fairly light area. While in the middle, dark line separates different shapes. By identifying these variations now, shading later will be much easier. I won't have to constantly figure out where the dark and light areas go. I'll have already mapped them out and it will be easier. This preparation makes the shading process smoother and more efficient in my mind. Now moving to the legs, I extended my line slightly and we'll define the shadow areas behind it. The shading clearly reveals all light source which is coming from above and slightly to the right. As a result, most of the elements on the left side will be darker. With this step almost complete, we'll almost be ready to move on to the actual shading phase of the drawing. 9. Finishing the dog head shading: Now let's begin shading our piece. I will start with the eye. It's an old habit of mine. When I was younger and just starting out with drawing and portraits for animal or human beings, I used to believe that if I got the eye right, everything else would naturally follow and turn out well. Of course, that's not always true, but I still kept this habit over time. So let's get started. And in the upper part of the eye, it is incredibly dark. So I am using a 14 B pencil pressing down firmly on my lines. And I will begin by marking all the darkest elements in the eye as they are the most obvious and noticeable. Once those are in place, it becomes much easier to add the rest of the details. Among the darkest areas, there's the upper outline of the eye, the lower outline and the corner of the eye, which is also quite dark. While shading the eye itself, I also focus on the surrounding elements as they contribute to making the eye appear more realistic. One key detail to mention is that my pencil are very well sharpened, which helps me get precise details. In the corner of the eye, you can see that there's a slow shift in tone, just a slight difference in gray. You might barely notice it, but I apply a bit less pressure on my pencil in this area to create this effect. Now moving back to the inner part of the eye, the outer edge is very dark, as you can see. And as I approach the highlight area where the light hits the eye, the shading gradually lightens. To achieve this effect, I apply lighter strokes as I move toward the upper part, allowing the gratons to transition smoothly from dark to light. I continue working on the eye, and now I am switching pencils. I will use something lighter, an eight B pencil to refine the variations in gray tones. There is a noticeable shift in tone on the left corner of the eye, and using an eight B helps create a smoother transition without an rob jump from shadow to highlight. This allows for a more natural gradient. Another key feature here, is the well defined line running beneath the eye. I've drawn it with the eight B pressing down firmly to make it stand out while keeping it subtle enough for a seamless blend. Now, with my eight B pencil, I will continue refining the shading around the eye. Looking at the surrounding elements, we can see carefully planned shadows that contribute to the realism of the eye. I will also mark these areas with the AB, especially the angles I previously outlined and the deeper recesses around the eye, under the eye. So there's also a slightly lighter area that I want to emphasize. I want it to create a strong contrast against the darker shadow of the eye that I drew before, and step by step, this eye is becoming more and more alive and more and more realistic. Now I'm going to shade the entire head of the dog. To begin, I'll apply an HB on the upper part of the head, since this area contains the lightest elements of the face. HB seems like a good choice to establish a base layer without making it too dark. One important step here is also erasing the initial control line I drew earlier. The reason why I am doing this is that my outline is actually darker than the shading I am currently applying. This happens quite often, and if I don't erase it, the drawing might look off as if something isn't quite right. Once I have laid down the HB shading, I switch to something slightly darker. Since the gradual transition from light to dark becomes noticeable as we move toward the lower part of the head, I use a two B pencil to start intensifying the shadow. This helps define the deeper areas more effectively. Seeing that the two B isn't quite enough for the darker parts below, I'm going to move on to six B for the lower region. At this stage, I am not focusing on texture or fur details that will come later. Right now, my goal is simply to accurately map out the shadowed areas across the dog's head. Just by marking these shadows carefully, the head will start to appear more three dimensional and voluminous. Now I move to something even darker with the ten B pencil. With this, I emphasize the deepest shadows in the lower part of the head, as these areas are extremely dark. With the tel B, I get something that is a bit darker than six B before jumping to the 14 B. And with the 14 B, I can now shade the area under the jaw and on the lowest part of this face. This will reinforce the darkest elements in this area. These rich deep tones help add some weight and structure to the drawing, making the shading feel natural and well balanced. And right now, already, my drawing is starting to look kind of three dimensional. This is great. We are on the right path. Now that I have created a shading base that is quite satisfying, I can start working more on the details and also begin working on the texture of this dog, specifically it's fur. What I'm going to do is start with my 14 B pencil to define the different elements we have. For example, under the eye area, I can see that there are some darker elements, and I notice this line. On the lower part, I also see elements that are very dark in 14 B, and I can go ahead and mark them as well. I'm starting with the darkest elements because I would say these are the most obvious details in this area. It's true that in my drawings, you often see me gradually transitioning from light to dark, marking the 14 B elements at the end. And that's the case, for instance, when we work on the horse and specifically on its leg. So that's something that I usually do, but it's also completely possible to start by adding dark elements first. Dark details first, as I am doing here. So both approaches are valid. It depends on the situation and depending on what we are working on, sometimes it's better to use one method over the other. It's up to us to get a field for it and decide which approach works best in each case. Next, I mark all the elements that I see as very dark in 14 B. The reason I do this is that I want to be efficient in my drawing, and it speed ups the process when I mark all the elements of the same value across the entire drawing. Also, when I look at my reference, and it's easier to focus on one value at a time. Now, don't get me wrong. I love drawing, I love creating, but I also like when things move quickly because I enjoy being efficient. It's part of my personality, but I like efficiency, especially when drawing animals in real life. When observing them, you need to be quick because unfortunately, animals don't hold still, or if they do, it's never for long. That's why I always keep efficiency in mind and mark all the elements of the same value at once. Now that I have done that, I will start working on the fur. I am adding I will start working on the medium value fur. And so I am adding short hairs. Again, I haven't emphasized this enough, but for this dogs hair, we are dealing with short fur, and I will mark them with an intermediate gray value, which will be lighter than what I just applied with the 14 B. Another important thing to keep in mind when working on texture is to leave certain areas light, like under the eye, for example, or on some other parts of the head and not over texture the fur or get too caught up in the details. When we try to add too many individual hairs, that's when we realize that the drawing no longer works and doesn't look natural. Just adding a few small strokes as I am doing now to suggest the texture is enough. There's no need to overload the drawing. At least that's my opinion. If you want to experiment, well, go for it, but in my view, overloading a drawing with too much fur detail runs the risk of making it look less successful. Another thing that I can do with the fur is to add very few dark touches on the edges where certain elements stand out, like where the whiskers typically are. Or maybe that's only for cats. Honestly, I'm not sure anymore about the whiskers of a dog or not, but there are some slightly darker elements that needed to be marked. And so that's what I did right there near the snout. And so, about the snout, I can move on to the snout now. I'll start by marking the darkest areas because they will serve as reference points before shading the rest. Even on the snout, I'll try to draw as faithfully as possible to what I see. However, this isn't a huge format like I sometimes use for painting, where I work on canvases over a meter wide. Here, I'm working on an afro sheet of paper, so there's less need to get overly caught up in details. Adding a few small details is great, but what really matters is accuracy in values. For example, when working on a snout, I won't make everything too dark. I will leave some lighter areas to stand out. This is what will make the snout look realistic and help the entire dog appear lifelike. This work on values, balancing, shading, balancing, shading, light areas, and darker areas is truly the key to making an animal come to life on paper. Now, let's move on to the dog's mouth. As I did before, I start by marking all the darkest elements visible in this area using my 14 B pencil. I mark them because they are the most noticeable features in this zone, and doing this first makes it much easier to place the lighter elements afterward. So I carefully place these dark areas with my 14 B, making sure to be as precise as possible to keep things simple. There is a dark section towards the back on the left, as well as some dark elements near the dog's fang. I also notice a few darker spots in the lower area. But overall, that's about it for the darkest elements of this area. So just right here, a few more dark elements, and that will be it. So next, I'm going to work on the mid tone areas between the dark section, and this mid tone will also be pretty dark. So I will still use my 14 B pencil, but apply less pressure on my pencil. This way, the shading remains dark but with subtle variations in value, making the transition more natural. Then with my eraser pen, I create even lighter details to add more volume to this area, making it feel more realistic. For this small area I am about to shade, I notice that the shading is darker on the left than on the right. So I will press a bit harder on the left while keeping the right side lighter to maintain the contrast and creating more realism in this area. For the tongue, I will use my pencil, the same pencil, but with an extremely light touch so that it stands out well. Then with the eraser, I will leave some graphite to highlight the natural shine of the tongue that we can see on the right. For the teeth now, I find that outlining them first, especially the fangs makes it much easier to shade them and the tongue above them. Since the tongue is folded, it requires special shading to reflect its natural shape, sorry, and depth. And as for the fangs, I won't leave them pure white. Instead, I will gently apply an HB pencil over them because contrary to what we might assume, teeth are never completely white. They tend to be more of a grayish tone. Finally, the last detail I am going to add once this is done, will be a slow highlight below the teeth before drawing this dark line along the lower part of the mouth. This line is dark, but is slightly less intense than the shading inside the dog's mouth. And that will be it. And now we will be ready to move on to the other parts of the body once we have applied this line right there I talked about before. All right. Now, I am satisfied with the face of the dog, and I can move on to the next area. So in the logical order of things, I think we can continue with the ear. The ear is not necessarily going to be the easiest area to work on because there are hairs going in all directions. And on top of that, the zones can be somewhat complex to analyze and separate. The first thing I do is mark the boundaries between all these different areas and identify the hairs of fur that seem the most characteristic, the ones that stand out the most and will help establish clear separations between the different elements of these dogs here. Generally, these are the darker elements that can be identified within this already dark area. I also marked some lighter hair on the right that helps separate this lighter fur group from the darker area on the left. Overall, what I have done so far should be enough for now. Now, so now I'm going to apply a base layer for my shading. And in this part of the here, we can see some very bright highlights. So I apply my base shading with an eight B pencil, and on top of that, I will have some darker elements where needed. However, for the adjacent area, since it is much darker, I use an A B pencil for my base shading. This way, I have a darker foundation to work from. This is how I progress, allowing me to start with confidence and peace of mind in this area without making things too complicated at this stage. By breaking it down step by step like this, we simplify the task of working on the ear of this dog. You can notice that I have added very dark elements in this upper part to create a separation from the head area as seen in the reference image. For this, I use a 14 B pencil, and from there, I can add a few hairs that are lighter than the elements in 14 B, but slightly darker than the HB base layer I created underneath. And this is how I will proceed with the ear. Gradually, I will add elements that get darker and darker incorporating hairs that go in multiple direction while giving them a slightly curved effect. This is what will give my dog that wavy fur texture. What is also noticeable is that on top of the skull, some hairs appear to be flowing as if caught in the wind. I sketch them delicately with a very light pencil so they don't stand out too much as this area is quite bright. As mentioned earlier, the hairs have a waving motion in multiple directions. So I carefully mark them. I define strong dark elements like this, and little by little, this will give the hair its realistic appearance, as seen in the reference photograph. Here, I'm really working with the tip of my pencil because I want to refine the fur texture. I aim for precision in my work while also creating strong contrast where necessary. That's why working with the fine tip makes the most sense when adding details for the fur. To enhance the area and create more depth, once I will be done, with these dark elements that I am currently adding, I will use my eraser hand to erase to lift certain spots and make them more contrasted and with some highlights just like it needs to be done to create some volume as well. And I treat the erasing process as if I were drawing with the pencil, carefully sculpting the highlights as if I were drawing some wavy hair. We are good and we've done what needed to be done with this area. Now I'm going to move on to the adjacent area, which is darker. And as you can see, I will start by adding darker elements, group of slightly darker strokes. These give me reference points before working on the different sections in more detail. For the rest, I will now have individual hairs. I'm not trying to place them exactly millimeter by millimeter as they appear in my reference photograph. If I were drawing a live dog instead of working from a photograph, it would be nearly impossible to capture each air with such precision. Instead, the key here is to observe the general directions of the fur, identifying where the darker and lighter areas are, and add them accordingly. Just like in the upper part, you can also see that I have added a few straight hair extending outward to enhance the impression of fur blowing in the wind. I continue working on these elements in the lower section, and step by step, this hair will take shape through the darker details I had throughout. And as you have noticed, in certain spots, I will create more depth by adding lighter elements, highlights that stand out, which I achieve using my erasopen. In overall, I will continue finalize this work by continuing this process, repeating it across the remaining areas of the ear of this dog. 10. Shading the dog body – part 1: Since the ear is now complete, I can move on to the area below it. This section is important, not because it's defining feature of the dog, like the muzzle or the eyes, but because it will help the ear stand out, creating more volume and enhancing the three dimensional effect. I start by shading the most significant elements in this area. There are some very dark elements where the fur meets the ear and at the lower part near the leash. I shade these with a 14 B pencil to ensure they stand out properly. Then between these dark areas, there are slightly lighter elements. So to create smooth transition between these zones, I apply less pressure with my 14 B pencil. I will do that once I will be finished with the very dark elements. And that will be pretty much all there is to do to it. On the side, you will also see at the very end, I will use a lighter base with a two B pencil as this area has some slightly lighter effect on the left. This section won't take too much time since it doesn't contain many intricated element. However, it's still essential to execute it properly to maintain consistency throughout the entire artwork. Some areas like this one don't require excessive time, but they play a crucial role in ensuring harmony within the overall composition. If certain parts of the drawing are extremely well executed with high detail and precision, while others are neglected, the final piece will feel unbalanced. Sometimes these less prominent areas might not seem as exciting to work on they aren't the focal point of an object, an animal or a person, but they need to be well executed to maintain realism. For example, if we compare this to a portrait of a person, it reminds me of drawing an ear. Whenever I do a portrait, I often feel like the ear is one of the least appealing things to draw. It's not necessarily the most striking feature that defines a person's likeness, but if the ear is poorly rendered, it can ruin the overall result. The person might become unrecognizable, or the first thing a viewer might notice is that something feels off. That's a shame because otherwise, an otherwise well drawn portrait can be diminished by one poorly executed element. And so I thought the comparison would be almost the same thing with this area that we work on. So as you can see, I have now started to work on the first texture of this element, adding some small pencil strokes here and there, just like we did before, adding some darker elements on the 14 B area and some lighter ones now with the pencil eraser. And this way, this area will be realistic. And that will be pretty much of it for this zone. Now, let's work on this area to the right where the fur appears white. Starting from the neck area, I had the dark element that can be seen here, as well as another one on the side. Then just below that, there is another slightly darker section. For this part, I apply much less pressure on the pencil to create a much lighter gray. Next, we have this section of white fur. But upon closer observation, it's not truly white. It's more of a very light gray. That's why I use an HB pencil rather than leaving the white of the paper, which will be too bright. Again, through this area, I follow the same approach. I establish a base layer to work on. On the side, the fur becomes slightly darker. So instead of using HB, I switch to a two B pencil to define that element. Now I can start adding more details. First, I extend the fur that originates from the left of the ear area and flows into this section. I also work on the hairs coming from the head that overlap this part. And finally, on the side, some slightly dark hairs add depth. Here, I can create movement with my pencil strokes. Once again, I observe that the fur has a slightly wavy or curly texture. To capture this realistically, I use circular strokes here and there to create that movement. Over the HB base, I add slightly darker elements to make the texture stand out. This enhance the sense of motion and depth in the fur. Similarly, on the side, I can introduce even darker hairs to further emphasize this effect. And that will be that's about all for this section. And once it's complete, I can move on to the leash area. So I will have just more finishing touches, some straight hair overlapping into different areas, and this part of the drawing will be done. Let's work on the leash. It should be fairly straightforward. Nothing too complicated with this area. For the leash, I'm using a 12 B pencil because it appears slightly lighter than some of the darker shading I applied. For example, on the ear. Although I'm using 12 B, I still firmly apply pressure. I still apply firm pressure, sorry, to make sure it stand out properly. Prevent visible pencil strokes, I use mcular motions with the pencil tip. Additionally, I refine the strands of the fur that overlap the leash. This helps enhance the realism of the drawing by integrating the leash naturally into the scene. Overall, that section about there is and that's all about there is to say for this section. It's not particularly complex. In the reference photograph, the leash has small patterns, but since my drawing isn't very large, I think adding them would do more harm than good. It will be very challenging to capture them clearly at this scale. Avoiding them with extreme precision would require unnecessary effort for this particular lesson. So I'll skip them and leave the leash plane. Sometimes, depending on the drawing and the effect we want to achieve, we don't need to include every detail, especially if they don't contribute significantly to the overall impact. Here's what my dog looks like at this point now that the head is finished. Now, let's move on to the lower part of the body, starting with the area on the left. Why this area? Well, simply because I had to start somewhere, and this left section felt like a good place. I could have just as easily begun on the right, but I decided to go with this one. As usual, I begin by marking the most obvious elements, those that stand out clearly. Here, I notice that the outline of the paw, a very dark area is quite prominent. So using my 14 B pencil, I define it with strong pressure, making sure to also sketch the small hairs that overlap the pole on the right. Next, one obvious element is that bright area at the top. I lightly shade it with my HB pencil, and I notice that this light patch extends slightly to the side. So I include that as well. And from here, I see that most other elements are also quite distinct, so I will work progressively from top to bottom, shading the entire area before refining the texture to make the dog look more realistic. For the darker section, I have hoped for a six B pencil to define them. I also extend the black line I initially marked, keeping it slightly lighter than the 14 B shading, but still dark enough to stand out more than the surrounding elements I have shaded. Next, I continue shading the different areas, applying the dominant gray tone for each section while maintaining precision. At this stage, I focus on building a soft even base, ensuring that the shading is smooth and avoiding harsh pencil strokes on the paper. To achieve this effect, I also use the side of my pencil tip as I usually do when shading and laying down a foundation. Now I can move on to the *****. The left corner in the left corner, there is an extremely dark section, which I will shade using a 12 B pencil. Meanwhile, the more oval shaped area on the right has a noticeable value difference. So I will use an eight B pencil to capture that variation, and that will be all for now. This will establish a solid base before adding further details. Now that I have applied a solid base, I can start working on the different layers of fur in this area and refine it in more detail. For example, in the lightest area at the top, you can notice some slightly darker elements. So I have worked on this part by adding a few darker touches. The same goes for the intermediate area that I initially shaded with six B. Now I can enhance it with a 12 B pencil to introduce slightly darker elements. This step is crucial because just like with the neck area, working on those details will allow me to create the movement of the dog's fur and achieve that slightly wavy effect. By focusing on this detail, I try to capture the thickness and density of the fur without overloading the drawing with unnecessary elements. And little by little, the fur will come to life through the different layers of shading that I carefully add. It's important to be patient and take the time needed to create a harmonious texture and realistic one. Taking the time also means being gentle with the pencil stroke that I had and observing a lot the different layer, the sub changes in values. That we can see as we progress. And the same goes with the small highlight made the same applies to the small highlights made with the eraser pen. This one should be worked in smoothly and delicately so that the pencil marks are not too harsh and don't appear forced. Achieving a soft and natural effect is key to giving the fur its realistic wavy texture. And by taking the time to refine these details, I can create the illusion that some strand of fur slightly separate from the rest, enhancing the sense of movement. Here you can see that I have already applied pretty solid base in certain areas. And now I can start adding more detail and darker elements that will stand out even more now what I have done so far. Than what I have done so far. Right now, I am using a very dark pencil in some areas, and I won't hesitate to go over certain parts multiple times, especially in the per section. I can also add a few extra dark details if I feel they are unnecessary. For example, as I observe the drawing, I notice some strands of fur that I want to make stand out more, so I go back and apply some additional darker elements, and I will continue progressing this way until I am fully satisfied with the entire area. Finally, I will complete this area by working on the poles. I'm not sure how you spell it. Sorry. In the lower section, the left ple won't be too detail. It primarily be very dark. So I'm adding more dark elements like this. Yes, that should be good. For this one, I noticed that my initial shading wasn't dark enough, the one on the right, so I'm going over it again to achieve the right value, and I will refine it a bit more afterward. Because I also noticed some stray hair on the side. The ones that appear to be blowing in the wind, and I think they don't stand out enough, so I need to hide a few darker touches over them to enhance the contrast, and there we go. Now I can go back to refining the pow, and I see that the center has very dark areas, which I will define more clearly. Next to them, there are some slightly lighter hairs and others that are much brighter, which I can soften using my eraser pen. And overall, that should be enough for these pale. And with this section fully completed, I can now move on to the next area. 11. Shading the dog body – part 2: All right, let's move on to the next pole. On this one, I noticed that there are multiple values spread throughout different areas. So I need to establish a base that encompasses most of these variations. On the left side and at the bottom of the pole, I see that the overall tone is pretty light. So I don't overthink it. I simply apply a light base that will allow me to shade different elements more easily. Meanwhile, in between these areas, I noticed that the base is significantly darker. This section will be more shadow, so I switch to a darker pencil and lay down a strong and dark foundation, which I will later enhance with even darker details. This is an area where the fur flows in various directions. On the left side, the fur is quite wavy, while on the upper part where the white area is, things become a bit more complex. So I'll need to be careful with how I work on this section when I will be adding the details of this area. Through this white part, this white area, you can see that I am applying a very light HB base. It's barely visible. This way, I can later add some darker elements on top, and that will be enough to create a fairly realistic foundation. In this area, there is a very dark edge that clearly separates the p from the torso. And as you can see, I have, I have marked it well, pretty darkly. This part requires patience that this area that we are working on. Hans once I start adding details, I will observe the natural movement of the fur. And looking at the lower part of the pw, I can see an interesting movement in the fruit that will be nice to work on toward the end. Now it's time to add the individual hairs and details. I notice that in the upper part, some dark hairs stand out clearly. Since I can easily identify them, I mark them right away. This give me reference points, making it much easier to add another surrounding details later on. By marking the most prominent elements first, I can progressively refine the entire area with more precision. So this is really meticulous work, and I'll need to be very patient to carefully mark the entire fur texture in this area with precision and add the necessary details. It requires a lot of observation, but step by step, the fur is taking shape and starting to gain volume. That means I'm on the right track, and I just need to keep going this way to create something that looks right. Finally, in this area, I will now add the darkest elements next to the moderately light hairs I worked on earlier. These dark elements will really help work, my work standout and enhance the sense of volume even more. This is essentially the final touch for this section. These dark hairs create a strong contrast compared to what was there initially making the entire area more defined and dynamic. Now I am reaching the lowest part of the pow, and in this area, there is a clear separation between the slightly darker section above and the pow itself. At this stage, it's crucial to pay attention to the movement created by the fur. The hair flows in different direction with a beautiful wavy effect. My goal is to capture this movement before moving on to the final part of the section or rather the lowest part, where the darkest element will be. I can also enhance the contrast by emphasizing the lighter elements found on the right, making the overall texture more dynamic and well defined. Now that I have worked on the fur, I'm going to focus on the small details at the very bottom of the pale. This area is quite chaotic with elements going in all directions. To simplify the process, I start by marking the dark elements first. These are easy to identify, making them a good reference point. Once these are in place, it becomes much easier to have finer details, small hairs flowing in different direction which will make the paw look completely natural. At first glance, it may seem like a mess, very disorderly, but it is actually a controlled chaos. The hairs are in place randomly. I intentionally create this disorganized effect to achieve a realistic look. From the dark elements I have marked, I then observe the surrounding hairs and carefully add them to enhance the sense of realism in this section. This kind of detailing can feel overwhelming at first, but it's easy to wonder where to start. But as with many things, beginning with the darkest and most obvious elements make the process much easier. Once they are positioned, I can gradually add more details, and step by step, the entire area will come together. Now, I think that I have achieved a result that looks very close to reality and matches exactly what I wanted for this part of the drawing. So it's going to be good and finished, then we'll be able to move on to the next area of the drawing. This area I am about to work on might also seem chaotic at first glance with elements going in all directions. So once again, I need to be methodical and try to make sense of it. First, in this first section that appears white, I have already added some darker elements to make it stand out better. Next, I carefully observe my drawing and mark the most obvious elements. Element, one thing that stood out to me was that the edge on the left looks too sharp, and I wanted the fur to create a smoother transition. Speaking of obvious elements in this section, I notice that some hairs flow downward, forming an angle wave like shape. So I add them in. To finalize this element, I will take my eraser pen and use it to highlight lighter areas that stand out, creating a sense of undulation in the fur, creating something wavy. Now that I have done that, I can move on to the slightly lower section, as well as the area above where I see all the curved strands of f, and I add them in gradually, one element at a time, and this way, what initially seemed confusing starts to become clearer. In here, there is also a very dark section, which I shade, sorry, using a 12 B pencil. It looks good, but even though I'm using 12 B, I'm careful not to press too hard because I plan to erase some parts later. However, where possible, I reserve certain areas to keep them naturally lighter. And because I haven't pressed too hard with my 12 B pencil, I can still use the eraser pen in the very dark section to lighten specific hair, specific fur. And I can apply this technique to other areas as well. But when I have the opportunity to be precise and avoid shading over very light areas, I take advantage of it just as I did in this section. And so I left some areas blank, and I will shade them later on with something a little bit lighter than what I am currently doing with the 12 B pencil. So like I said, I shade a little bit this very light area. Then for the dark area at the top, I refine it as well using my eraser to soften some parts. However, my eraser is leaving marks that are a bit too thick. And to fix this, I go over it again with a well sharpened pencil to improve the definition and refine the lighter hairs in this section. Next, in the lower part, one element stands out as an obvious detail that needs to be added, the deep shadow between the dog's legs. It's indeed very dark, but later, I will use the eraser to bring out some lighter hairs, adding more texture. Just besides this, I start shading some slightly darker, some dark areas while being careful to leave out sections or lighter details that I will refine later. And bit by bit, I am nearing the completion of this section. What initially seemed chaotic and difficult to render is now taking shape, becoming more structured, and finally gaining volume. So now I add the final dark details, and to complete this part, I plan to do a forward pass with the eraser ten. This will help bring out more volume, making sure that the lighter hairs stand out clearly against the dark areas. And with this final step, this section should look much more realistic with well defined contrast and depth, and that will be it for this area. Once I will have erased some strands of hair. Here is my dog, and I'm quickly shading this area. I also speed up the I will also speed up the detailing process since overall, it's the same technique as what we did on the other pale. The main difference is that the fur movements are slightly different, but the approach remains the same. I have shaded using different gray values because they are clearly distinct sections with well defined contrast on this lay. Once again, the key to working on this area is carefully observing the movement of the fur and always starting with the most obvious element. For example, in the upper section, I noticed some slightly darker hair, so I headed them. Moving downward to the lower part, I see that most of the fur flows toward the right, except for a few longer darker strands that go to the left. So I mark those as well. And step by step, I will continue adding these final elements to complete the pile. So stay motivated because we are almost at the finish line. I know that after a while, working on fur textures can become tiring. Don't hesitate to take a break if you need one. Personally, I work on this drawing in multiple sessions instead of doing it all at once. Life's daily commitments mean that we don't always have hours of uninterrupted time to draw. So take your time. Rushing through it could ruin all the great work you have done so far. Also, I like to go back to previous to go back to previously completed areas and refine them, adding some overlapping first strand that extend from one section to another. For instance, the fur in this new section blends into the one we worked on earlier. So it's important to ensure a seamless transition. As for the lower part of the I will use the same method as before, marking the visible dark areas first. And once that's done, the only thing left will be to have a small background element at the bottom to ground the dog so it doesn't look like it's floating in mid hair. Well, right, then I'll check back in once that's finished. It shouldn't take too long. M To complete my work, I have drawn a few lines under the dog's pas to create the impression that it is firmly seated on the ground. And so this is the final result for the drawing of this dog.