Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello everyone. My name is Ivan
Florentine know Ramirez. I'm a graphic designer, painter and fine artists. I've had a lot of
experience taking painting, figure drawing, life, drawing, Life Studies,
everything in-between. And one of the
reasons I decided to start this course
was to get rid of all of the boring things
and just go for it. With my experience
having graduated from California State
University, Fullerton, I taken many courses
in painting, traditional art,
in figure drawing, life drawing, and life studies. A lot of the
introductory courses were a bit boring
and buy the books. So I decided to create a course that
involves pop culture. I think as artists, it's
a great idea to always create what you love
and have fun doing it, allowing yourself to create something from your childhood, like a favorite celebrity, a singer, a superhero, or even a fictional
film character, gives us a chance to
steer away from the bite, the book's approach
that can sometimes be very strict and uninspired. So if you're a new
art is looking for fun ways to approach
drawing realism through the fundamentals of free-hand drawing by
the way of pop culture, I can teach you these
techniques in this course. Mastering the fundamentals of free-hand drawing with
a graphite pencil is one way to do so in which iconic fictional
hero to draw then Yoda, one of the most recognizable
film characters of all time. And come on, Who doesn't like a Wrigley friend, Master Yoda. I created an easy
step-by-step guide on how to draw faces using three small exercises and the required materials
to create them. And the one of the most
important to have is a reference photo or make it available and
easy to download. A value scale template, which will help us create our soft, blended, realistic look. And at the end of this lesson, you can even upload
your project in the project section
of this course, I'll be guiding you through
the necessary steps in order to create
our subject using our observational skills and by mastering the fundamentals
of free-hand drawing, I want to challenge you to
break away from that fear that creating realistic art is
for professionals, only. Turn that intimidation into
a fun learning experience. Then we'll carry on
into your art journey. I hope you feel
inspired to join me in this course and get all
of that boring stuff out of the way and just
jump right into it with your favorite
pop culture icon. So let's get started.
2. Class Project Summary : For today's project,
we are drawing Yoda, who doesn't like Yoda? We all know who this iconic
pop culture icon is. And so one of the reasons
I decided to create this project was to work within pop culture and have fun with all the techniques
that I've learned throughout the years
at university. The way freehand
drawing works is using your observational skills
in order to try and create your character within
your reference photo and create the likeness of that character as
much as possible. And what we do is we study the lighting because it's already in the reference photos, so we don't have to do any
work when it comes to that. We studied the form
and also with one of the exercises that
I like to do is drawing in thumbnail sketches. These tiny sketches will help us get familiar with our
character that we are drawing. And when we learn the techniques and the materials
that we need in order to create our final
drawing and make it into a realistic drawing
that we're proud of. And most importantly, this is beginner friendly
from any level, from beginner to
intermediate to advanced. This is a perfect class
for anyone to get started in as we improve
our observational skills, this will help you in your
future projects as well. You will improve your
skills in creating realism, blending and shadows, using pencil and
different graphite tones, and even drawing with portraits. It will also improve
your drawing skills. And in my personal work, I've always used pop
culture to do so, whether it was video
game characters, film characters, or celebrities, these types of projects
didn't feel like homework to me
because I was drawing things that I enjoy
doing and any kind of fan art helped
improve my art skills. Before we get started, I do have some project files
that you can download. The high resolution Yoda photo, the pencil gray scale, and an example of how
shadows work on shapes. So are you ready to get started? See you in the next lesson.
3. Materials: So here are the materials
needed for this lesson. Some various erasers,
some pencil sharpeners, soft bristle paintbrushes
for blending. Some paper stumps for
blending in various sizes, different types of pencils. Now let's get into
the specifics of why we need most of these materials. Some of them are optional, but these are the
main ones we need to create our drawings. So I have a collection of
Staedtler pencils are varying from the lightest to be
all the way up to eight, e being our darkest. One of the main important
ones that we always need for any drawing is the
number two pencil. The reason a number two
is the most important in any drawing or sketch
that we create. It's because we can
create tones from light to dark depending
on the pressure that we apply to the paper. However, this one's optional, but if you do have a pencil that's lighter
than the Tooby, I recommend a drafting pencil. And this one is a to
H, which is fairly, fairly light and it doesn't matter how much
pressure we apply, it's going always going
to remain fairly light. And the reason I like
using a drafting pencil just when I need to begin the initial drawing is because if we do make any mistakes, lines are easy to erase. Having an optional
mechanical pencil like this, any type of lead pencil comes in handy when it comes
to making hair, very thin hair and anything
like eyelashes and eyebrows. Estimate of the erasers. I have several I have an
art gum eraser, a Staedtler, Mars plastic
eraser, and immediate eraser. Any brand that you have is fine, but you do need at least one
hard eraser for general, all around erasing, but you
do need a kneaded eraser. And the most important reason is because It's able to be
manipulated like clay. You able to mold it and shape it into any size that you want. And you're able to
lift any type of lead, any type of graphite that
we're using, any pencil marks. And it's easy to shape it into various sizes
that we may need. These following are optional, but I do recommend
at least having one of these because this one, you're able to go into
the fine corners of any type of crevice when it comes to the face that
we're going to be drawing. And this one is an
electronic pencil eraser. This one can remove
almost any type of dark, dark marks and just reveal the pure white
paper underneath. If you don't have any
electronic pencil eraser, picking up various pencil
erasers like this is also fine. You're just going to have to put a little bit more elbow grease just to erase any
of those marks, but these will do just fine for all the detailed
erasing that we'll need for the
pencil sharpeners and make sure
they're very sharp. And if you don't
have any on hand, you can also use
an exacto knife or a very sharp box cutter
to get the job done. Now for our soft blending, for our skin tones, we're going to need
soft bristle paintbrush is any that you have are fine. Any type of acrylic
or oil paint brushes, as long as they are
in various sizes, these are going to help us do the soft blending and the overall rendering
of the drawing. Now, these here are called part stumps or blending sticks that
are made out of paper, or also called torta lens. And these are one of the most
recommended blending types of tools to have
in your arsenal. Because these you can get
into corners inside the lips, inside the ears, eyes, and for hair, and
also for wrinkles. And this one is going
to help push and pull all the type of graphite and
lead into different areas. And they usually come
with these strips of sandpaper that are used to
clean and sharpen them. As for paper, make
sure you have drawing paper that's thick
enough to withstand a lot of the lead pencil
that we're going to use and also the erasing that
we might also do. So this one, I had a huge Strathmore drawing
pad that I just cut down into sizes and you can do this in whatever
size that you like. And finally, if you have
just regular paper or also what I recommend is tracing paper to put
underneath your hand. So when you're drawing, you're not pushing or
smudging pencil and graphite all over and making
mistakes onto your drawing. And don't worry, we will be
going into more detail as we get into the drawing with other materials
that I just listed.
4. Reference Photo: Now in this step we look
at the reference photo. So one of the main
reasons I created this lesson and why
you're here is because the importance of a reference
photo is that it takes a lot of guessing work out
of the lighting and shadows. And this is why I recommend having a high resolution photo. And usually you
can find those on the Internet if you search up Getty Images is one of
the ones that I like to use, but any high resolution photo, you can zoom in and pinpoint every detail that you need
when you're drawing is a must. And you can have
it several ways. One of them, you can
have it printed out. But one of the ways I like
to do it, It's habit, both on my phone and on my iPad, or you can have it
on your computer. It makes it really
easy for you to have your iPad next to you and also your phone where you can move it around
easily and just zoom in. And now as you're working on the face and whatever portrait
that you're working on, this gives us many options
for us to study the photo. Now what do I mean
by steady the photo? We need to learn what
we're working with. So in this case, since
we're drawing Yoda, we want to see the
shape of a space. Special features that details that this portrait and reference
photo that we're using. We need to know where
the lighting is, where the shadows are. And before we begin
the actual drawing, we are going to be sketching out the head in smaller
sizes in our next step. But before we do that, let's look at what
we're working with. One of the first
things I do is I like to invert this
and make this into a black and white photo
and can easily be done on your phone or iPad or any
software program that you have. Just make it a black and white. And this, you're
going to be able to see where the darks are, the medium tones and the lights. And as you can see,
the main light source is coming from the top. And you can see it because it's the lightest part of his head. And it gradually moves down into the middle tones of his forehead and nose and the
lids of his eyes. And as we move down the photo, what this does is because of light cannot penetrate
solid matter. We do have shadows that are
cast underneath everything. So when we move down to
the bottom of his nose, eyelids, the bags of
his eyes, the cheeks, and chin, and the
bottom of his lip, you can see a huge difference between light, medium to dark. And this is how we're going
to use our pencils to create the same tones
with graphite pencil. Now that identify
our darkest darks. And you can see it's
right inside of the ears, the pupils inside the nostrils, and right where
the lips touched. This is where the
shadows being cast where light cannot
penetrate at all. So now that we state our
subject in our reference photo, we can move on to the next step, which is sketching them
out in smaller sizes.
5. Thumbnail Sketches: So in this step we're
going to be drawing the heads in smaller versions. And this way we were
able to get a feel of how we're gonna do our
bigger final drawing by knowing where the light is
and where the shadows are and actually approaching
it in three separate ways. And then these they're small, but you can do them
in any size you like, but I recommend making them
in 1 " or two inch sizes. And in the art world, these
are called thumbnail sizes. And this lets us get the
idea across very quickly and to know if we're capturing the likeness of our subject. That is the main
important part of this entire class
lesson is capturing likeness by using
the free hand method and without using any
measurement and guides. This in turn will help improve your overall art ability and your observational skills
when approaching any drawing. So you don't need
prior knowledge or experience of drawing faces. This is going to help
us just go for it. With these warm-ups, you can use whatever you like to draw on. I happened to have
several different sizes, ranging from the tiniest to the largest that goes
up to 12 by 15. The smallest one I have
is a four by five. But anyway, you can also use just regular paper
to sketch this out. Remember, these are
just a warm-up, so any size paper will do. So to begin, get your reference photo ready and place it wherever you like. And we're gonna begin by drawing the basic head and get to know
our shape of the anatomy. And one tip I want to
stress out through this entire lesson is that in the real-world there are
no such thing as lines, light and shadow
create the shapes. We're just going to
be revealing it. We are not drawing cartoons
were going for realism. So Yoda just has a
basic round face. Nothing too complicated so far. And the importance of
having a number two pencil, because you're able to apply pressure and create
dark or light lines. And you always begin by
sketching out light. So if you do need to erase those marginal,
not show through. So as you get your basic
outline of the shape, I'd like to do is divide the face and have
it symmetrical, meaning I divide it in half and then vertical
and horizontal. What I like to do in
this first method is start with the nose
and work our way out. So this central approach to a portrait and any
drawing that you do that involves a face is one of the things that I've been
doing for a long time. And this one is really
cool because it's very helpful to us
if we begin e.g. within those as I'm
doing right here. And as we're working our way out towards the eyes and the mouth, you can determine if things are going in the right direction. If things look off, you can just stop looking at your
reference photo. You can start slowly
adjusting as you go. And remember, this is a free hand preliminary sketch drawing and this is just a warm-up. This is the part where
we can make mistakes. It's okay to just go for it. Having an artist's
eye by looking at your reference
photo is key here. Just look back and
forth at your drawing, at your photo and just make
adjustments as you go. And what you're seeing
right here with my pencil, I'm just drawing a line
underneath the bottom part of the eye and where the nose
falls right in the middle. And this also helps with an imaginary
measurements so that the eyes are aligned and
they're not looking off. So as I speed up this video, continued defining the face by darkening areas around
the eyes, the nose, the bags under his eyes, the chin, the eyebrow, the ears, and the
many wrinkles within the forehead and throughout
the entire face. And remember these are
just a warm-up sketch. So this should take less than
10 min to do per drawing, or even less than
5 min as we get more and more comfortable
with our drawing. And with this time limit, we can start approaching
the shadows. We can work inside of
the ears, the pupils, right underneath the
nose, the cheeks, and right underneath the
chin, any dark area. Just go for it and start
applying pressure to the pencil and let the
graphite do the work. And the way I like to apply
the graphite pencil is just making a back and forth
motion. Really quick. And kind of work into the
shapes and into the curves. Instead of drawing
straight lines, we're going to work with
the curves of a form. And this will give us that 3D look that we're looking for. We'll get into detail
on how to draw within the curves of the
facial features as we get into the
final drawing. Here's where I like to make
useful guides for myself by drawing arrows and writing down where the light comes from. This one being
from the top-left. And also drawing
arrows at the bottom, knowing where the
shadows are going to be. This is a helpful tool for us to refer back to if we do need some reminders as we're
approaching our final drawing. And notice that I did
not use any erasers at this moment because
I drew so light, I'm able to draw on top of graphite pencil and just
correct any mistakes. No erasers are needed when you're drawing these
small sketches, but if you didn't
need so it's okay. So I liked how this one
turned out and this is one of my favorite
methods to begin with. Now, let's move on to
method number two. So this approach to drawing is beginning by one
side of the face. And in this case I'm
starting from the right. And this helps us move slowly from one area
of the drawing to another by helping us calculate every small detail from
the very beginning. And in this way, it
helps us capture the accuracy and
likeness of our subject. So you start by
drawing the circle, dividing it in half. And you notice that I
divided the face in thirds. And these guides help us
determine whether the mouth, the nose, and the eyes will be. I recommend this approach
for anyone who likes to work on one side of the
face in high, high detail. And who else patients enough
to just stay on one side? Because in this type
of drawing and lesson, we are going for realism. And if we do want to capture
it as perfectly as possible, this is one of the
best ways to do so. And as with our first method, I'm continuing with
the details by adding pressure to the pencil. And now I'm working
on the shadows, the mid tones where the
light is, the hair, the wrinkles,
everything in-between. But I'm strictly staying on one side of the
face to the right. And in turn, when we do go into the other
side of the face, things will be a lot
easier for us to accurately predict
where everything goes. Okay, so now that we completed
two methods of drawing. One by starting in
the center and a one by starting on
one side of the face. We can do a combination
of both by using shapes. And this is the
approach that a lot of artists use because this one, you're determining
where everything goes. All. In the beginning of
the preliminary sketch, we get to see if things
are symmetrical. If we're nailing our
proportions just with the naked eye of
this freehand sketch. And this method helps
us work in any part of the face anytime we wish, making it a versatile way
to begin any drawing. And have you noticed
the amount of detail we have compared to our first? By just one exercise
going on to another. We've already improved a lot
more from when we started. And this method also helps
us further determined more and more imaginary
measurements for ourselves. E.g. I. Divided the face in half horizontally
and vertically, and even added lines in
the eyes so that as we're working from the center and
out or anywhere in between, our drawing will come out
as smoothly as possible. Now, working with this
freehand method without using any preliminary measurements
can be difficult at times, but this is the point of using
our AI and estimating as it will further improve our proportions and
landing them correctly. And one reason I wanted to skip drawing shapes, like
circles, squares, cones and triangles,
and even drawing fruit inanimate objects that it's been done and
it gets boring. I want you as the artist
to just go for it. I want you to get the
feel for what you're drawing and be as
confident as possible. And these exercises
will help you do that. And as someone who has
taken many classes in college and at
university, I know that I, when I wanted to
create this course, that I wanted to eliminate the boring part and approach it head-on because you learn by doing and not just by watching. So now that you sketched out three smaller drawings in these three thumbnail exercises, we are now ready to create our pop culture icon,
our Master Yoda. Let's move on to
the next lesson.
6. How to Use Erasers and Brushes: Before we move on
to step number one, let's look at our sketches
that we created earlier. We're going to learn to
use our blending stumps. Pencil erasers are
blending brushes. And the most important eraser
of all, the kneaded eraser. I'm going to focus on this Yoda that I
drew at the bottom. I'm going to intensify
the graphite and the darkness by
using a five B pencil. In this way, we can
clearly see how to use our blending techniques. Choose a practice sketch you
did earlier and continue to darken it in the
way that you see fit. This practice step
can make us get a bit more comfortable
before we begin our bigger drawing is
a perfect way to get a feel for how our erases work and how our blending
brushes work as well. So let's begin by using some
of our blending stumps. These paper pencil
blenders are super, super useful for areas that
you'll see right here. We're going to use a
back-and-forth motion in a curved way. Because remember we're
following the form. So use these strokes and you can see that it's
pushing and pulling and grabbing graphite
and moving it onto the paper where we
didn't cover it before. Look at how smooth
everything looks. So just go into the dark
areas and push it back and forth and into the areas
that you need to cover. If you drop them an
angle you can cover more or cover less. And the more pencil
you lay down, the more graphite you lay down, the more layers that you create, and the more graphite
you have to work with. It's really easy
to do and this is a perfect place to practice
and get comfortable with it. Here's a perfect
demonstration by using the left side of
the undrawn face. We're going to push all
the way to the left. And this smaller blending
brush can go into the tight areas
like the wrinkles, the mouth, and under
different folds. And this one, you can be
super, super precise. Different sizes for
different areas. Keep that in mind. We have so many options at our disposal. And remember, when we
want to create realism, 3D dimension, and likeness, this is going to help. Now, let's move on to
our blending brushes. And remember, these soft
bristle brushes can be any kind of acrylic brushes
or oil paint brushes, as long as they're soft and
have some toughness to it. And the reason we use
these brushes is to create an overall
soft airbrush look. And remember it's grabbing the graphite that you
laid on with your pencil. And it's pushing and
pulling and softening and covering up all the white
areas that you would like. Because in the end, remember, we're trying to create
difference in value and tone. And when we look at
our pencil scale that we're trying to create, want to create the
form of the face and the head and make
things look rounded. We want to create a
striking contrast between light and dark, and obviously different sizes worth to cover more or less. So you can continue to
practice by laying down more pencil like I'm
doing right here. So that we're able to push more and more graphite in the
areas that we would like. I decided to combine
this exercise with blending and erasing because
they go hand in hand. It's easier to just get in there and learn both simultaneously. Now, let's move on to
our kneaded eraser. Make sure you're still
drawing fairly light. Adjust accordingly to
your reference photo. And this is where did
the eraser comes in. When drawing portraits
and creating realism. The kneaded eraser is a
must, must have item. So what I'm doing right
here is manipulating it like clay and making
it into a fine point. And what it does is you
can go into corners, into the edges and
ellipse graphite easily. You can go ahead and dab it
and tap if you just need to remove some or just use
it like a regular eraser. This is so versatile that
you must use this for all of your drawings and any future projects that you create. And look how easily
are removed graphite. And one of the
reasons that I love this eraser is that
it doesn't leave any residue and he marks
in any little debris. This one, the more you tap, the more you rub back and forth, you can create highlights
and middle tones as well. Whenever you feel like
it's sturdy and it's cleaned up a little
too much pencil. You can clean it by
just squishing it, kneading it, stretching and pulling it and folding
it into each other, just like DO there, it's clean and you
can start again. Now when you want to erase
with pinpoint accuracy, a pencil eraser is a must. There are several varieties. These pencil erasers can be
sharpened just like a pencil. They are very versatile
to get into areas like the eyes, create the thin, thin highlights and sharpen up those edges where the normal
erasers will not fit in. Now out of all of
them, I've found that this Tombow eraser
that's a refillable, is the best that I've ever used. It doesn't leave as much
residue as the one before. The more pressure you apply, the more it erases. One of the other useful tricks and techniques is revealing the paper underneath to
create thin, thin hair lines. What I mean is if you press really hard and in
really quick motions, you can create these
white highlights next to the hair and create a variety from light to dark.
Or Yoda is hair. The perfect one to practice
with is this squared one. By going from this side and
using the sharper edges, I'm creating hair and it
looks like white hair. This is one technique will
be doing towards the end. Now that you've got to feel
for using these materials, Let's move on to
step number one.
7. Head Drawing: Keep this in mind through
this entire class. Lines are a graphical
representation of value to form. We are creating a soft gradient from light, medium to dark. Coming from our previous
warm-up exercises, I decided to start with the center of the nose
and work my way out. Starting very lightly with this button nose
in a circle shape, working my way from the
right with one eye at first and slowly adding
details as I go. And remember I did start this drawing with a
number two pencil, but I will be switching between the HB mechanical pencil just in order to have a
variety of very light lines. If I do need to erase, it'll be easy to do so. In order to help
us align the eyes, I like to draw one eye
first and then draw an imaginary thin line right
underneath the eye later, or on top of the eye as well. And also divided the nose. And this way it'll help
us keep everything symmetrical as we're
working our way through. And remember, we're not going
for full detail just yet. Concentrate on the nodes, the upper part of the nose, and maybe the smile line
underneath his nostrils. But mainly the eyes and nose are the focal point for
step number one. And don't apply
too much pressure on the pencil for keeping everything light or making
sure everything is correct. The proportions look decent enough is a perfect
time to pull out your kneaded eraser
as it's able to lift up graphite easily. And now I'm gradually moving
down to the cheek area, the bottom part of the lip. And at the same time I just
think the eyelids, the brow, the bags under his eyes, and just working my way
out from the center. And I'm slowly forming
the shape of the head. And you can feel
comfortable to do it whenever you are ready. Because I'm confident
enough to know that the nose and eyes so
far look symmetrical. I'm slowly moving into
the entire face and defining the jaw line and then eventually moving
into the ear area. And you'll notice that
it's recommended to be rotating your
paper constantly. This is an order
for us to go into areas very easily without turning our head or
our entire body. And it makes it easy for us and our risks to
keep from hurting. And this just makes it a lot easier to see your drawing at different angles and easily catch mistakes if things
look a little off. And because this is
a freehand drawing, if you notice that I'm
adjusting as I go, because things are very light, I'm overlapping lines
and making lines on top of each other and gradually
shaping the head, the ears, and anything
that I need to as I go. If things look a little bigger, a little too thin, adjust accordingly to your
reference photo. And this is where
the eraser comes in. I'm still using my
kneaded eraser. It's the easiest to
do and doesn't leave any residue or any erasing
marks like a normal one. And just some advice. Don't think of anything
that you make as a mistake in this
very first step. These are just
lessons that we're learning by trial and error. Because in the next step
where we do go into the shading and blending detail, we will learn that in the real-world there are
no such thing as lines. Light and shadows create shapes. We're just revealing them. Now because proportion is
everything to a drawing. As you go back to redraw or just adjust the
eyes and the nose, make sure you're still
drawing fairly light without putting so much pressure
on the graphite pencil. Continued to funding the mouth, the wrinkles, the pupils, the nostrils, the ears, and the top of his forehead, and also the very
top of his head. Now continue going
back-and-forth between the areas that
need a bit more detail, but without adding
so much pressure will be getting there
eventually in step number 2.3. And remember, I'm just using fairly light
back-and-forth motions and swoops to create these lines. Especially because
he has lots of curves in his facial features and nothing is really strict. As we come to an end
in step number one, make sure you have the
entire head drawn. Makes sure the face and the anatomical landmarks,
meaning the nose, the eyes and mouth are
all completely drawn in with a fair amount of detail to know where exactly
things are going to be. For the most part, you're
happy with how everything looks and as close as you
can to your reference photo. Continue to erase at detail and experiment
with different erasers. Before we move on
to step number two.
8. Facial Features: Okay, So this is
step two and this is where we start to
define all lot of the shadows and
highlights by using either a number 2345 HB pencil. And this is going
to help us really go into whichever
subject matter it is. In this case, it's a
Yoda with a lot of his wrinkles and the contact
shadows within the lips, the eyes and nostrils. And I'm just going to
also continue to work from the middle and go
out towards the face, the chin and the years. And this is going also help
guide us where a lot of the light will be hitting and where the shadows are
gonna be lending as well. The wrinkles in Yoda space is one of his defining features. And the definition of a
wrinkle is a slight line or fold in something especially fabric or skin on the face. This can cause lines, bowls or even creases. And just like anything
that we draw, light and shadow will
also touch it and will gradually go from light to
medium to dark in tones. Here's an example of a pencil
value scale for reference. Let's take a closer
look at his bags, under his eyes and
also the top folds. Notice that as I'm drawing, I'm leaving the paper as pure white as possible
in this stage and just focusing on the contact areas where the
light is casting a shadow. So notice that I'm drawing
the shadows underneath any wrinkle that you see and also on the bags of
his eyes as well. And don't worry about the
amount of lines that he has going to be drawing every single wrinkle
that you see. We're just going to do
the most important ones. And towards the
end, that's when we can start adding the details. But for now, the most
important part is to focus on the deep wrinkles that cast the greatest
amount of shadow. And if you take a look
at this elements of light and form that
I found online, it'd be noticed where the
ball is touching the surface, right underneath
where the arrow hits. This is called a contact shadow, where it's the darkest dark
and light does not penetrate. And notice where I'm
making these lines. These are very strategic
because this is a guide that will help us later on in the following
steps where we will eventually be creating
a value using our brushes and create a fairly medium bass tone to start our hyper-realistic
look that we're going for. And as I move to the
left side of the face, I will be putting a
bit more pressure with my pencil to create
a bit more of a darker value that's not as dark as the cast
or contact shadow. And now we're going to be
defining the middle tones. Because what we're
trying to create is a gradual transition from the medium to the
darkest to lightest. I'm still keeping the pure
white paper as the base of the skin where the lip area, it's fairly the
same as the eyes. Just make sure there's a dark line where
the lips meet and where they touch and
the wrinkles around the mouth area going
up vertical direction. So just make slight movements
with your pencil and up and down motion to create
those lines fairly easily. And as you look at
your reference photo, I'm making corrections with my eraser and I'm
adjusting as I go. And you can even try
your mechanical pencil because it's super, super thin. And you can apply a great
amount of pressure to create a very thin line. This is where you can go
ahead and experiment with it and create those
fine details. So now that we moved
into the area of the mouth and created the chin and the overall
top of the head. We even made the ears. Let's go ahead and create an overall lock-in part
of the shadows. I'm going into the ears where we know the shadows are
going to be fairly dark. In the end, we're going right underneath
the ears as well. I continue to add
pencil graphite all over the entire face and
minus the highlights. Because in our next step,
this is where we're going to begin our blending process. And keep in mind
as we make lines, make sure that you're curving with the form of the figure. This will help us create
that 3D look in the end. That'll make it a lot easier
when we continue to do the blending with our
stumps and our brushes. Remember to pause and go back as many times as you wish
throughout this entire course. It's a great way to look back
at anything you might have missed in re-evaluate any of
your proportions as well. And you can go at it
at your own pace. Now, let's move on.
9. Block In The Values: Okay, this step I like to
call adding a base tone, which simply means adding in a very thin and very light layer with the HB or to-be pencil. This is going to
help us and block in a lot of where
are the shadows lay. And this is going to be all over the surface of the
subject's face. And this is also going to help us later on with the blending with either stumps and many
other blending techniques. So let's take a look at
this value scale once more. If you noticed the Raby
is right in the center. So I decided to use,
just to show you the big difference between
a to B pencil and this one. And even with just a
slight amount of pressure, we are creating some nice values between dark, medium and light. So go into the ear canals, go into the pupils, right underneath the eyelids, going for the nostrils, and also the lip area. We really want to see
a striking difference between all these tones. At this stage of our drawing, this is where we
need to make sure everything looks as close to the reference photo as possible and anything that you're
comfortable with. If you feel like the
likeness is a bit off, you can go ahead and stop. And just to reevaluate
everything by going back. From here on out, we're
going to be using our darkest pencils
and it might be a bit hard to erase if you're not sure that you're
ready to continue. So it's just a quick heads
up as you follow along. Now, this is a very
important step using a very dark pencil to really
add in the contact shadows. And this will help us also
start adding in all of the mid values and
all the way up to the highlights in
the entire face. And I'm also using a
very light brush to take away and move away
any kind of erase marks. The UC and I'm also using tracing paper underneath my hand to help prevent any
unnecessary, unwanted smudges. As you refer back to
your reference photo, continue to add as much
detail as you would like. And what I mean by this,
like I said earlier, he has so many wrinkles in his face and so many details
that can seem overwhelming. Or this is the stage
where you're able to add as much as you would like, as long as you're
comfortable with the likeness that
you've created so far. So now that you've
made it this far, we're ready to start the
blending and shading. Let's begin by using
various stumps. And these papers shaped
pencils are easy to get into the small crevices and start pushing and
pulling the graphite. In order to cover a lot
of area really quickly, use the largest
stump that you have. And this is a technique
that I like to smooth out all of
my dark shadows. You can see right here. And this depends on the
amount of graphite and the amount of pressure
you place on the stumps. Just go back and forth
in Brownian motions and continued to do the same
way you would with a pencil. Curb your movements
to the form of the face and do this
all over the skin. And this is the way that it, we will create that 3D look. This is an easy way to
start pushing and pulling all that pencil graphite and start creating those
values that we need. And notice that the stumps
grabbed the graphite in the darkest areas
and it helps you push in the way that
you would like. E.g. you can see
where it's pushing all into the areas
that we've left. Pure paper white. And it's creating a
very soft, soft look. If you need to lay down some more pencil,
go ahead and do so, and just go back-and-forth
between the stumps, The towards the lens and the
pencil as you need to do so. Now for an overall
smoother blending, Let's take out our
bristle brushes. For this final
technique in this step. This is going to help us
overall with a softer tone. I stopped there look. And because the bristle
brushes are so thin and fine, this also helps us fill in all those small gaps that
are papers Great would have. And although some paper can be thick and say that it's smooth, a lot of paper
does have a lot of crevices that these bristle
brushes will fill in. And depending on the
size of the brushes, this is going to cover
a lot of surface area. And from this point on, we're going to be
using a combination of both the blending brushes
and the blending stumps. This is where we're going to be alternating between both
because we're going to be using a lot more pressure with the stumps and less
pressure with brushes. This is, we're all
going to be using more and more darker pencils
and building layers. We're going to be
building a lot of graphite in order for us to keep pushing and pulling into every area that
we need to cover. Alternate between using
45.6 B pencil and then use the brush to help slowly move
and fill in all the areas that you want to create a value that's closer towards white, but also a middle tone. And since you've made it this
far, are following steps. We're going to go even more into detail with the skin
and add texture.
10. Final Details: We are almost there, everyone. We're almost there. Came a long way since we first
began in step number one. Notice the big difference in detail and contrast
between light and dark. Let's add the final touches
to bring Yoda together. Let's start by adding some hair. So really quick, Let's take a look at the
reference photo. You'll notice that it's white
hair is coming out from the left and right
near the brow area and right close to his ear lobe and flowing back to the crown of
his head and over the ears. Now with hair as long
as we're drawing it in the way that
it's growing and making it flow and
not pressing so hard so that we know
that it looks correct. We don't have to draw every
single strand of hair. We can just make
sure it looks like it's enough compared to
the reference photo. So this is the point
where you decide as an artist to make the
artistic choice and just keep on drying the hair strands and until
it looks correct to you. This is what a very sharp or and mechanical pencil
come in handy. You're able to draw thin
and thick hair strands very easily and effectively. Another tip when it
comes to drawing hair. Hair also can be
light, medium or dark. And compared to the photo, because it does have gray hair, the hair will appear very, very white on the top because that's where the
light is hitting as well. So some of the hairs
is going to be very, very bright white because
this is a drawing. We're going to just draw the
hair in different shades. And eventually when we get
to the erasing section, we're going to do a technique
to make the illusion of white hair by just
removing the pencil in very, very thin strokes as well. This is the time where we're also going to add
different details like skin imperfections
and he types of age spots, pimples, or just any
more types of wrinkles. And just go ahead and completely make things
a lot more contrast. And use darker
pencils if you like. And just make sure everything is intense in the way you
want things to stand out. Keep adding values and tones with darker
pencils because this is the stage where we're also
going to use our brushes again and just make
things smooth again. And you can also leave things as is with the
pencil and just keep it as a rough texture as
well so we can have a soft and light tones and different types of
shading so that we can create some interests
within the skin. Okay, so this is a step
where we're going to use some tricks
with our erasers. Now, let's take a look
at the kind we have a, remember we have a variety, but this is the one
where we're going to use a kneaded eraser the most. And one of your
mechanical pencils, the electric one or the
thin pencil eraser. And just like in the
thumbnail exercises with these smaller Yoda heads, where we use the erasers. This is the moment when we're in complete control to add as much detail and removed
graphite as we would like. Because these erasers are
thin and a variety of ways we can go ahead and add highlights, removed graphite as
much as we would like. And like I said earlier, we can even create
illusions like hair by just removing the graphite
in the darkest areas. And with the combination of the hair that we've
already drawn, it just looks natural
and it fits perfectly. For this freehand drawing
that we've created. This is one of those
cool options to have and to learn is
through trial and error, is rebuilding the white paper underneath by the
removal of graphite. And although this is more
of an advanced technique, I feel like anyone can learn it. And what better way to
learn this technique? Then by drawing something
you love and learning through pop culture
and reference photos. And this is one of the reasons I created this lesson plan. Let's take a closer look
with the electronic eraser. So one tip to stay in
control as you're using it, because it vibrates at
a high, high-speed. You don't want to spend
too much time in one spot. All you need to do is do quick swoops and curves and lines, and it'll erase it really
easily and effectively. This is perfect for drying
the hair, adding wrinkles, doing highlights in the eyes, the pupils, you it be
dropped from the side. You can create even
thinner lines as well. So as we come to an end
in this lesson plan, what did you guys think about learning the reference photos using freehand and learning
through pop culture. I hope you had as
much fun as I had creating this and
learning together. There are more classes on the way where we learn
how to draw the eyes, the lips, and the hair
through pop culture. Let's learn through fun ways, unconventional ways, and
not the standard way. To close out. Let's put these side-by-side. Compare your drawing to
the reference photo. You like how it turned out, because it close enough. Are you satisfied with it? What I recommend to do is
to put the drawing away, don't look at it for a day or
two and go back at it with fresh eyes and you're going to see the areas that
you can improve on. If things need to be erased, if anything needs
to be corrected, and if there's any techniques
that you can improve on in your other drawings
that you have planned. So thank you so much for
watching this lesson plan. My name is Ivan
Florence Tina Ramirez. And see you next time. Bye bye.
11. Conclusion: So what did you guys think? Did you guys have fun
creating this project? How you're Yoda turnout? Did you have fun
creating the exercises and everything we went
through? I know I did. I had so much fun
creating this course. I enjoyed going through
all the steps needed in order to finalize this drawing. And it was so much fun
because like I said, we are drawing something
that we all know. And remember, you can do
this with your own artwork. Choose a celebrity, a
video game character, a superhero, anything
that you like. So now that you've
completed your Yoda drawing and improve your skills and got a little bit more confident drawing
realistically, I'm gonna see you
in the next course. See you then, bye bye.
IVAN RAMIREZ, Artist, Painter & Youtuber
