Leaping Fox Drawing Tutorial | Colored Pencil

1. Before you begin: Thank you for signing up for this course. All of my courses include instructions at downloadable image and the materials you will need for this class. These are all done and four inch by four inch size. You can choose to draw a smaller or larger, but I recommend staying with the original size to stay with the pace. Please read the instructions before beginning. Once you have completed the portrait, I would love to hear your feedback. You can not send me a message through any social media or email with any questions, comments for a photo of your results. And I would absolutely love to see your results by the end. So if you do have a picture of it, send it my way, any which way you can. So thank you again and I hope you enjoy. 2. Part 1 Intro: Hello, hello. Let's get started on this fox tutorial. 3. Beginning the head: And as you should know by now, this is done in a four-by-four inch. And so we'll go ahead and get started with a black colored pencil here. Now, if you've done the outline, it'll be a lot easier if you did to be able to drop proportionally. At least for the most part, it really, I think I'm doing a lot of free hand with the colored pencil, but the outline that does help in terms of I, you know, where things are located, at least for the eyes and the ears are in the limbs as well. So that's really why I do an outline. And it does go by a lot faster. We'll use this black here and we're just drawing the ears first, the pointed ears. And you don't want to use too much of a heavy pressure. Of course, you want to be able to build up your layers. So even if it is just gonna be simple, black colored pencil, you still want to build up your layers that we don't ruin the paper underneath. And as we finished that part, there is a little bit of black and it goes underneath the right ear there. So we're going to kind of emphasize that just a little bit. You have to be very careful to not draw too heavy because it is just barely there. And a little bit of the fur as well. If you are a little bit, I'm afraid of using the black for the for right there. You don't have to draw that area. You can wait until you've filled it in a little bit better. So now we're using a light warm gray. And you can use this in the same colored pencil set. Or if you have Karen dash luminance, that's what I'm using for this one. And you're just filling in the spaces around the ear. Most of the head, that's gonna be your good bass player. As well as smoothing all of the colored pencils on top. Which is called burnishing or on, which basically blends those colored pencils together. So that's what you will use that in the future. But for now, we're just doing that first layer. And of course you want to make sure you're using a light pressure. Be careful where you're drawing it that way. You are not drawing outside of the proportions for the head of the fox there. And now using a brown colored pencil. Great. Now you can't really see it, but you can see the little tufts of hair coming just below the ear. And you just kinda wanna draw that a little bit and kind of fill in some of the black part of the ears itself to that way it's not just straight up black. And just basically anywhere that you see, darker toughs of fur is where you're going to use that code pencil. Now you do want to make sure that your pencils are sharp. Sharp as possible. I know mine aren't quite as sharp. But that's something that you want to be sure you're doing, especially for smaller sizes. Because the sharp pencil, the more detail you will be able to get. The I is nothing special. It's just kind of a small almond-shaped and you just want to be careful where that's located. It is a little bit closer to the edge of the head, the top of the head and they're not nostril area so it's a little bit closer, you know, not to further back. And it does have this little black Tulsa for kind of like a black smudge it comes down to, but if you are a little afraid of doing that with the black, you can just wait on that until you've filled in more color and the head. So we're going to use a pale skin tone. It's almost creamy ivory color. But just pick something that's kind of like a very pale skin, almost yellowish tint to it. And you use this very lightly, just like your first layer for everything. And I'm kinda start to fill in the spaces there. Now you do want to make sure that you're drawing in the same direction as the firm. And the work can be a little bit sporadic. Sorry for the shaky camera there. But we do want to draw in the same direction as the further that you see in the reference image. And then you can use the brown color pencil and start to bring in the fur around the ear there. And of course, make sure it's very light, not too heavy. And you can go back and forth between the brown and the red brown there. Now this red brown is kind of, I'm like a good mid tone for a lot of the rest of this fox here. So that's something that I will keep coming back to, really ties in to the orange tones, which we will be using a orange colored pencil, as you'll see in just a second year, it really ties in those orange tones on top of that yellow base layer there when you use that bread, brown. Now I know you can't see it as part either, but you're basically just filling in where you've already drawn that first layer with the orange and not too heavy, of course, and you just kind of blending it in a little bit. Not, not too heavy of a pressure. And really just making that second layer and warming up that the first layer with that yellow, turning it a little bit more orange. And then now we get to use the light warm gray to finish up the rest of the face of the fox there, just before the nose and the mouth. Because underneath the math is mostly white. Leave that area a bit more blank than the rest of the muscle there. And then we'll use the black colored pencil and darken up some of the features that look like it has a little bit more black in it. I'm breaking on the top of the head that some of that furnace be darkened up a little bit. So we're doing that there. And you definitely want to use short strokes, short and light for this area because it is a smaller portrait. And going back to the handy-dandy light warm, go re, colored pencil and we're just filling in a little bit more here. The light warm gray is the base color that I'm gonna be using for this fox, believe it or not. Oh, great base layer for the fox because it's more neutral tone with a hint of warmth to it. So it works really well for being able to blend the colors together as well as that first layer. So that's what we're doing here. And you'll start to learn these techniques and stuff over time as you start to practice more and more with the colored pencils. That's something that I have learned over a year's time span. I'd say, you know which color pencils work best for you, and especially with the paper. Paper is a very important piece of the portrait actually. And you want to find one that suits you best. There really isn't one that is the vast kind of use with colored pencils. Some people like more of a tooth to their paper. The tooth basically means a rougher surface. But I like to use more of a smooth surface, but on a thicker paper, I'm actually 4. Head and neck: Smooth surface but on a thicker paper. So I'm actually using hot pressed watercolor paper. And it works great for blending colors because it's thicker so I can actually add more layers as I go without ruining the paper. Or I've noticed that a thinner pieces of paper don't take well two colors. So the thicker the paper, the better that it will take. Two of the colors, meaning more vibrant colors, darker, black, stuff like that. So that's one thing that you just had the try out for yourself. Of course, I have options for colored pencils and paper in my materials list. And those are ones that I've tried out myself. So, you know, of course that there's gonna be a lot more options than just those. But it's always good to get a good foundation first and try out one side. Other artists have tried before making a big financial mistake and purchasing ones that definitely don't work with colored pencils. So I really like Prismacolor colored pencils. Those are my favorite for starters. I still even use it to this day, but when I make commissioned portraits, I like to use Faber Castile, polychrome OS, and Karen dash luminance. So those are my two favorite and one is wax based on, one is oil-based, so they both provide their own benefits. So the face is looking pretty good now I just wanted to do some touch ups on. Later on. I'll also add more to it, but it's pretty good for now. So we're just going to continue on and darken underneath the mouth a little bit more. Use the brown colored pencil and darken up some of the features a little bit. That way it looks a little bit more complete. So now we're going to use the pale skin tone and finish up a little bit of the bottom area of the head here. And use the black too for the mouth there. And once we have that part down will start to move on to the rest of the body. You definitely want to make sure that you have a sharp pencil for the mouth area because it's a very thin line there. I even drew a little bit thicker than the reference image. Now back to the light warm gray. We're going to finish it up a little bit here under the chin and just really start to blend it in title and together there with the light warm gray. And I know it's a pretty small portrait, so it'll be a little bit difficult to get those key features in there. But I really love doing these small portraits. And my favorite part about doing these small portraits is that you can get them done within a reasonable time. A lot of these little portraits you can get done in an hour to two hours. Well, probably more like minimum of two-hour timespan. But you can also go up to like four hours for some other ones that you really want to add more detail. And the reason why I love these little mini portraits for that is that anybody can do that within a two-hour timespan. Anybody can complete a whole portrait within two hours. And that's what I want. That's my goal is for you guys to really enjoy the drawing part while also completing a whole portrait and feeling satisfied with that. So that's why my all my monthly classes are done in a four-by-four size so that you can get that whole portrait done. And B, feel like you have accomplished something to be proud of yourself for it. And the more that you practice, the better you'll get. And that's something that I did myself to was I just kept practicing and I did lots and lots of portraits and a lot of them, I was frustrated and for sure, but And over time, it got better and better. And I loved the satisfaction that I got in the end. And once I kept going with that because I was satisfied, I even started to enjoy the process a whole lot more. And because of that, I'm able to complete larger portraits even though it takes a long time. So we're using the pale skin tone here and continuing on now you do want to leave room at the bottom of the of the fox there because it is white. Toss a pair there. So we don't want to use, but just use that pill skin tone and draw in the same direction as the first course. And parts of it starts to kinda come down and out a little bit. And then towards the top because come up and curves a little bit rather than sticking straight up. So you definitely want to pay attention to that to make sure that you're drawing in that direction. And then we can use a light worm, great to use as the shading of four though white fur underneath. You just very carefully with a sharp edge. Draw the little tufts of hair underneath for that shading. I try not to leave any whitespaces completely blank. So I'll use very light pale colors to draw the shadows for white. For this one thing that you really want to remember is that when you're drawing white furs and things, gray fur or anything like that, you want to pay attention to the shadows and tried to replicate the shadows than anything else. And that'll really help you go along way with your portraits. So now I'm just blending the pale skin tone with the light warm gray here. And we will build other colors on top so you don't have to try to heavy. Let's use the red brown here and start to add the depth of colors to differ. And the back of the firm doesn't have too heavy of any one colors. So we're just going to lightly with long nurse strokes, draw that furthest coming up and kind of curving a little bit, moving down along the side of that back there. I do want to make sure that you are curbing your your strokes so that it does go along the same same pattern as the firm. 5. The back: I hope you all are doing well so far. If you are struggling, of course, let me know. I am happy to help. You know, the one biggest thing that people have an issue with is building up enough layers so that when people have a hard time completing their portrait with enough layers. And the biggest thing that I can say that will help you with that is to be patient and it stayed consistent. Keep building up those layers when you think you're done and you still see the tooth of the paper. That means that you're not really done. Keep going, building up those layers. You definitely want to use light pressure and build your layers from light pressure and light color to dark, heavier pressure and darker colors. And the reason why you want to start out that way is that that tooth, the paper underneath, there's not going to show up nearly as much if you've already got that first few layers down. And those first few layers are going to be lighter colors. So it's, it's helpful in the end when you have the first few layers that we'll be able to grab to that tooth first. So let's use the brown here and draw in the same areas as the red brown a little bit. You really, you're just trying to add some depth, depth to the four here. So it doesn't have to be directly on top of the red brown. Just anywhere that you see that there is darker for I hope you're having fun so far. It is a long process, but it is definitely rewarding in the end as I usually say. So, just keep going and blending those colors, all the same colors that we've used already and just keep blending them together. Now, I'm using a dark orange here to really warm up this area. Because in certain sections of the fox it is a little bit warmer toned with that orange than what the red. So that's how, but I'm doing here is. Just doing it, you'll want to keep your pencils sharp of course, and dry short strokes. And the more shaded areas, I would say, the shaded areas tend to have more of an orangey tone to it. Use the brown now to darken the back side of the fox as well as down to the shoulders. Repeating that same short and light strokes. 6. Front leg: Now that we've gotten a good section down for the shoulder and the upper half of the fox there. We're going to use the black and start to draw the paw, as well as the rest of the leg here for the fox. And as you are filling in the blackened area for the leg, use a lighter pressure and you don't have to. I would recommend still drawing in the same direction as the further to see. Because you'll start to see those the direction of the colored pencil as you layer up. So you just want to be careful about that and watch where you are drawing. And definitely keep a sharp points so that when you're drawing these minis, you can keep them as detailed as possible. And now we get to use a brown colored pencil and fill in the darker part of the leg there as well. Since the black is kind of a warmer tone, I'm using that brown, darker brown colored pencil. And I'm just drawing the little bits of fur that comes out and kinda occurs down. You can see that the Fed does start to curve and it gives that realistic effect of the leg. I'm rounding out essentially. So that's what you wanna do and you build up your layers that way so you don't have to draw two heavy there and use the dark orange and start to fill it in a little bit more. You can do a little bit heavier pressure since On this has all that orangey tone. And you can still see that the brown is showing through underneath the dark orange. So that was the purpose of that was to still show the dark the brown underneath the orange. Now you can still go back through, which is what I will do and draw in the hair's a little bit better too. And this will help as you're building up layers because as you've probably heard it in the past, you always want to draw with light colored pencils first with a lighter pressure and built up over time. That way. You can still see your highlights and your low lights as much as possible with that method. And for the white fur here, I'm just using a little bit of brown and pretending like I am drawing the shadow part of the white fur. That's really important there, and I'll discuss that a little bit more later on. But I'm coming back down to the leg here are using a red brown and warming it up even more and getting it a little bit darker so that it does look a little more realistic. 3d layer. I know you can't see very well right here, but I am drawing the shadowed area of where the wafer is. You really want to pay attention to the the shading as much as possible when it comes to light for so look at the shading and just color in what that shading looks. I cannot in the white spots at all. So go ahead and do that and then you'll see in a second here what it will look like. Yeah, So you can still see that there's white coming through and that the brown is acting like it's either a brown parts of the fur closer to the head. And then it starts to blend into the white fur in the shading of the white for a little bit. Now I'm sure you want to be done with this leg hair does it's taken a while to complete, but the more detail that you can provide, the better outcome you'll get. So just remember that. And you want to slowly build up your layers. Because if you have already drawn pretty heavy and one section, without building up your layers, there's no going back. You can't go back and fix that mistake by adding more layers. There's only so many layers that your paper can handle, especially if it's a thinner type of paper. So you just want to be aware of that and make sure that you are drawing lightly and building up those layers and making sure that you are getting that detail in. And don't forget about the shading, as well as leaving room for the highlights. And now we can continue on from the leg there. And we're going to use a red brown and just draw in the underbelly here in the shaded area. And of course, leave room for the white fur that's underneath. You want to draw, starting, starting down and drawing up. What happens is that when you are drawing one direction or the other, with your short strokes, you'll start to notice that the starting point is a little more blind than the end point. The end point will be a little bit sharper. So you really want to pay attention to that as you are drawing so that your finest points are going to be showing in the areas that you want it to. For instance, here at the belly, you can see that it's a little bit more blunt and flatter of the fur. And then it going towards the middle of the body there. You can see that it looks a little bit more finer. That's because your end point is a finer endpoint than your starting point. So that's something to remember as well. In case you needed to use your when you're doing those strokes, doing it up and down or side to side, making sure that your starting point and end point are going to wreck out in your favor. And of course we're using the light warm gray as your first layer. Now this is the end of part one. So I hope that you have had fun and not have gotten too impatient or bored out of your mind. But I really love how this one it turns out, and I hope that you enjoy it as well. I will see you in part two. 7. Part 2 intro: Welcome back. So this is part two of this box tutorial. 8. Begin the lower half: And we'll go ahead and get right into it. We're going to start off with drawing the leg part here and start with the first couple layers using lighter colors with lighter pressure, of course. And we'll do the brown underneath the leg here. And really you just want to enjoy your time and just draw it short strokes and build up those layers and most of all the patient but have fun. And it really doesn't have to be super, super detailed because this firm has lots of blended colors in it. And you really just want to make sure that you're not drawing it too heavy of a pressure at this point. I like to use this light warm brown color to draw over the top of some of this, some of the layers here. What that does is that blend those colors together. Now it does lighten it up a little bit. So if you are not looking to lighten up certain areas, just make sure you're not using a lighter colored pencil on top. Hello. Hello. And then in the bottom part of the fox here, I'm going to use the Bronco pencil and just draw in some loose detailed for here. Nothing too close together really at this point, because we'll still both of those layers. But for this part, we're really just trying to get a good idea as to where the direction of the first going and also where the darker shadowed areas are for the bottom part of the fox here. And we're going to go down the leg here. And I start to add in even more detail. 9. Back leg: In even more detail. Sometimes I like to work in larger sections, especially if it is a smaller portrait. So sometimes they'll just kinda make very light first few layers or a larger part of the body before I get the details in. And it helps me kind of understand where everything is located proportionally. When I do that, it doesn't always work. When it comes to larger portraits. I like to work one section at a time for larger portraits, but it's still something that is an option for smaller portraits if you want to work in larger sections first, or finish your details and the small sections at a time. Good. And one thing that is really fun about this fox portrait here is that there's not a lot of layers that you have to build up an order for this one to look completed because the fire is very fluffy, very light and airy. And the fluff here it is easier it is to not have to build up so many layers over time. But that's really something that is up to personal preference as well. If you want to build up more layers or whatnot. But for this tutorial, it is all about getting a completed portrait within a reasonable amount of time because my goal is to have you guys complete miniature portraits at a reasonable amount of time. And what that will do is allow you to build up your experience while not getting discouraged because you're having a complete portrait made while you're learning these techniques at the same time, if that makes sense. Because when I was learning to draw, I was completing larger portraits in the beginning. And I was rather discouraged most of the time because I didn't have a complete portrait within, Let's say even just a week's time. I didn't have much motivation to complete the portrait because I was getting heavily discouraged. So what these miniature portraits, it really allows me to have some sort of satisfaction that I get to have a complete portrait while also learning all these new skills. And it will suddenly start to show up over time in your portraits that you really are learning these skills and you're improving it significantly without having all these incomplete portraits. We're moving on to the tail. Now the tail has a lot of white in it, so I'll show you what to do for this. But for now we are using the brown and we're just doing the same light strokes to build up those shaded areas as much as possible. And we're here, we just want to make sure that you're not drawing too heavy. And really you got to just think about it as you're drawing the shadows and not the actual for itself. So if we think about it in terms of that, it'll be a lot to draw this more white tail here. We're going to use a light warm gray once again and start to build up over the top of what you've already drawn. And you know, not, not filling all the sections here, but just kinda showing that there is toughs of white fur in there. And that the colors that are in there or more of the shadows than the actual for itself. So some of them, I have it sticking out a little bit in a different direction. That's really important when it comes to the, for the tail because the tail comes in flux out, up and out and down and out. And to emphasize that you just use this light warm gray and, and I, and draw those a little bit. Now it doesn't show up completely. But it still, when you're looking at the original image and you look at the details, it'll definitely show up. So I'm using a black here and I am drawing those darker sections where the shadowed areas are and where you can see that the like the black parts of the tail are showing. And for this one, I definitely don't want to draw too heavy either. And make sure that your pencil is sharp still. That way you can get in those details without so much of the tooth showing. 10. The tail: The tooth showing through from the paper. So this is a really fun part of the fox is drawing the tail because it has so many different colors, so many different directions. And really trying to make it look fluffy is a little bit difficult, but it is a fun challenge still. So just have fun with it. Don't stress out too much about it. And if it comes out looking a little bit off or different from the rest of your flocks. That is completely okay. This is really just for fun and for your own improvements. So don't worry about that at all. And this pale skin tone color pencil is really great for the white parts of the firm as well. Because it's really showing a warm tone to that white tuft of fur and the fox. So even in the body to the pale skin tone color is great for those warm highlights. And the light gray colored pencil and others when we haven't used yet and the rest of the body. But we're using it here for the very end of his tail because the very end of it is strictly white. So we're trying to draw that somehow. And what I'm doing for this is using the light gray. It's a cool gray color and I'm just drawing the toughs of firm that's coming out and emphasize not more because you don't want it to be too dark and you just really want to show that it is a white fur by drawing the shaded areas. And now I am just going back over to finish off some details. This part, is it very important going back over your portrait and finishing off the details. Sometimes you can have tunnel vision and not see. That you may take one or two mistakes and other areas. And that is why you want to take a step back and look at your portrait first, once you've basically finished it and see what areas look proportionally off or need more color, anything like that? Definitely want to do that and make sure that you are finishing your portrait that way rather than just completing it and then never looking at it again. And the light warm gray is very important for after you've completed the portrait. Because you can go back over certain areas and blend those areas together using a light gray or white colored pencil. Even a pale blue and some instances is great for forgetting those details all blended together. Or just areas look like it has a little bit too much tooth coming through, anything like that. And for this, you do want to still keep your pencils sharp. But if you're just blending or you really don't have to keep it too sharp because you're you're trying to use that dole side to blend certain areas. So we are almost done here. And I hope you have enjoyed this video. This sleeping fox is absolutely adorable. I got this reference image from one of my favorite Instagram at photographers. She is a wildlife photographer and she takes pictures of all sorts of animals in her area where she lives. She has a lot of OWL pictures, as well as bears and bobcats and all the wildlife that I I'm into all about. You should take a look at her Instagram is at lid bug, it is LY D, E, BUT I believe and her work is just absolutely fabulous. And couple of my wildlife pictures or have come from her photography. The big bobcat that I've done is from her and the short erode owl came from her as well. And if you're enjoying this class, I do have previous classes that you can follow along as well that will be in the colored pencil crew member ship. And they are of all sorts of critters. And one is a butterfly. Read Cardinal. And what was the other at a hummingbird? Yes. So birds, drawing birds and a small portrait is super easy and really fine. And there's all types of birds out there, so they're really easy to be able to draw and have a variety to draw from. So I thought that doing this sleeping for a frog, leaping fox would be a fun one to do because it really helps you understand how to draw firm and an easier way. And it's small and it's in motion, the foxes in motion, rather than just doing the head and neck portrait. So I thought that that would be really fun to do this as a class and draw a little mini, miniature portrait of them. So as you can see, I'm still doing a lot of finishing touches. There's still areas that are not completely filled in and need some more details. So I am blending lots of different colors. So using the browns, bread browns, even though pale skin, tone, pencil. And this can take some time, but that's completely okay. When to take your one to set your pencils down and call it done? I really don't know. I sometimes I just set it down and come back and look at it and if I think it's finished, then I will be done. So it's hard to make a decision right away. And you don't have to make a decision right away, just let yourself kind of naturally flow into it and out of it. Such occurrences down and come back and see if there's anything else that needs to be done and if there's not anything major, then call it a day and that is it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching. I really hope you have enjoyed this video. If you have a complete portrait, I would love to see it. Send me a picture. You can send it to me via e-mail, Facebook, it basically anywhere I'm available. So I would love to see it and I can't wait to see the results. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask me as well. I am always available to answer and help you guys out.