Transcripts
1. Class Introduction and Materials : And Hello. Hello, everyone. My name is Ivan
Florentino Ramirez, and I just dropped a brand
new Skillshare class where we are drawing puss and boots
using ballpoint pen only. So, I'm a traditional
artist that uses programs like Procreate
to do digital design, painting, also using graphiePencil for
realistic portraits, acrylic oil and
watercolor painting. And if you ever wanted to learn through the world
of pop culture, this is a class for you because we are going to be learning how to draw puss and boots
in a realistic way. We're going to be going all in on the detail
when it comes to fur, shadows, tones, highlights, and all the details that comes with that character. And for the materials,
all you need are three. We need a small sketchbook, some black ballpoint pens, and some kind of a white marker. I happen to have a jelly
roll white marker, but you can also use some white paint or guash
with a fine tip brush. But that's only needed
if we need to make some corrections or to sharpen
things up at the very end. And this is part of
my ongoing series where we learn through
the world of pop culture, and we do it in a way that you don't have to commit
in a large drawing. So doing sketches is the
perfect way to brush up on your skills and also learn different techniques that you can apply to your own artwork. So are you ready to get started, grab all your materials,
and let's begin.
2. Drawing Fur with Pens: Okay, we're going to begin
constructing puss and boots. We're going to be starting
from the top of his head and all the way to the bottom
where his belt ends. So for step number
one, this will be the light sketch of the hat, the body, the head,
and the sword. So we can get the basic
silhouette of puss and boots. And as always, I have my reference photo
right next to me, and I will be zooming
in and out as I go. But for now, I'm going to
have it, for the most part, zoomed all the way out,
and I have my pans ready. I have both a fresh pen and one that's almost running
out so that we can get some good in between
tones that aren't too dark and they'll be perfect for some middle gray tones. Now, normally, I
begin with his head, but I'm starting with this
hat and working my way downwards so that I
can at least know where he's going to be
placed on my sketchbook. And I'm using short and
also large sweeping lines to create that brim of his
hat. I want it to flow. I want it to be exaggerated. And that way, I will know where his eyes will go and
his entire head. So when it comes
to his famous hat, I'm drawing sweeping curves for his brim that sits right
across the top of his head. So the hat should definitely
feel oversized and dramatic. And I'm building the crown of his hat using curve
lines as well, and I'm tilting it to the
side for personality. And when you're
using ballpoint pen, I'm using small amounts
of pressure because we won't don't want
to go into dark. And when you're creating yours, going too dark too soon will make things
a lot harder for you, and it's just easier to cover up mistakes when everything
is very light. So now that I created at least the basic shape of his huge hat, I can create the eyes. I started with a long oval he does have an
angry stern face, and I am creating the
angry brow, as well. So now that I created
his left eye, creating the right eye
should be a lot easier. And I even filled in the iris, as well to make it
super dark black. And again, I'm not going
too dark just yet. I want to know the
positioning of his eyes so that I can know where the middle part of his nose will be. And then working on my
way to his small mouth. And I created small dashes for his head 'cause that's
where our fur is going to be. There's gonna be a lot of short fur because puss and boots is a cat that has short
fur, not the long kind. And what's easy is that we can suggest fur by just
doing short strokes. Now Puss in Boots does have a rounded face with
a prominent cheeks. So I added two curved shapes extending from the lower
side of the circle. And for the muzzle,
super easy to do. Think of it as a rounded oval sitting on the lower
center of the face. Now I'm starting
with the right side with his neck,
working my way down. And I'm taking my time here because I want to make sure that his cape feels like it's sitting right on top of his
neck line and his shoulders, 'cause he is also going to be pointing his sword at
us towards the camera. And as I'm working my
way towards his torso, I'm creating short quick
strokes to represent the fur. And as you can see, I'm
thinking this as shapes. I'm doing an outline
that's very thin, very light for his arm.
That is for short end. That's why it does look smaller compared to the one on the left, where he's pointing
towards the camera. And that rounded part of that thrusting sword is
not perfectly round, but as long as we get that, it looks like it has
some dents in there, but the basic shape is a circle. And the actual blade part
starts off thin towards the base and kind
of goes a little bit thicker towards the camera. And again, this is
a thrusting blade, so that's why it
is thin overall. And notice how because
it is super light, you can even go through the gesture lines because we
are going to cover them up later on when we create
darker tones and when we're overlapping and layering the ballpoint pen ink. Now, for that belt, I started in the upper part, creating long curved
lines for that, where it sort of
hangs on his waist. It goes towards one side and that belt buckle,
which is a square. And with just those few
simple line strokes, we know where the placement is. What makes Puss in Boots
iconic is his huge hat, the belt, the sword,
and that little cape. So as long as we know
where those shapes belong and where they lay and
our foundation is there, the next step will
make it a lot easier because we're going to
go all in on details. We're gonna put you
pushing the fur, the shadows, some textures
with a nice, dark black ink.
3. Adding Shadows, Details to Pen Sketching: I Okay, let's begin with
step number two. I have a new black
ballpoint pen here, and this one's going to be easy to create those dark
tones that we want. Start by outlining
the eye, the iris, the brow part of puss, and checking your
reference photo to see where we're going
to be darkening in. This is the time where we're going to make sure things stand out in terms of
shadow and contrast. I'll be moving in between
the eyes and the hat. And as you can see,
the hat is creating some shadows where his
muzzle is and his nose. And all I'm doing
is using small, quick, back and forth
motions on the paper. And as long as you do some
curves with those as well, things won't seem so flat. Those short back and forth motions also helps create that
fur texture that we want. He happens to be a cat
that has short fur, and because we drew those short hairs at the edges where his
puffy cheeks are, it gives a sense that he has a lot more fur than we
are actually drawing. So not only did I draw
some of the whiskers, I'm outlining a little
bit of his mouth, and I'm darkening parts of the
brim with the hat as well. And this is the part
where I like to zoom in on the area that
I want to focus on. So that being the head, the eyes, and the entire face. Now, using an up
and down motion, I'm doing those
small strokes for his nose and even
underneath the eyes. And notice how there's
a dark brown fur and almost light orange and
the white part of his fur. Now, although we're not using any colors with just our
pen being black and white, with our paper being
the white part, just leave some of that bright
white fur as the paper, and that will help us with
the highlight portion of it. Yeah, purposely leaving
the negative space there will help us
out in the end, and we can use that
towards our advantage. So here's just an example
of a gray scale using ballpoint pen from
lightest to darkest. You can see the
spacing in between. The more parallel lines next
to each other, the darker. Knowing in advance where we're going to
leave things white will definitely help us because we won't be able
to erase anything. And this is part of the
exercise that helps us with trying to
avoid mistakes, but if we do them,
because this is a sketch, we can just push
through and cover them up as much as we can and
work with what we have. Now, notice how I created those stripes by just layering
it darker and darker. And now we have two tones for
the right part of his arm, and now we can do that towards the left part of
his arm as well. Again, going left and
right in zigzag forms, create those nice layers and creates those darker
shadows that we want. In order for me to get
comfortable, and you, as well, make sure you twist and turn your paper and your
preference photo to make sure your
hands are comfortable, and you don't have
any awkward strain on your hands or arms. And this also makes
it easier to draw. And the reason I
wanted to do that was to create those curves that I wanted in the left
side of the arm for that fur. I'm going with the anatomy, so I'm curving these
lines to keep things from looking flat and
more three dimensional. So this half of this course is the layering ballpoint
pen with many, many strokes to
build density and reducing some of that light
that comes from the paper. So we can use a
lot of scribbling. We can even use
stippling and also our pressure control is very
important in this step. With FR, I did a combination of contour hatching and
cross hatching together. As long as I'm curving those
hatching and scribblings, the form will stay rounded. So you're going to
be noticing that the less pressure I
put when I'm creating those scribbling lines
on his face across the arms and his body is what
I want for medium values. And when I want darker
and dense shadows, I put in a lot more pressure, and I keep overlapping. We want that density, and
you can see that as I'm stacking layers and layers of ink on that brim of the hat, where it curves on the
top left to the tip and leaving it white
on the right side. Notice that bright
white highlight behind puss and
boots and how it's highlighting the brim of
the hat right underneath and also some of those
whiskers and part of the fur. This is where the strongest
light source is coming from. And underneath
that brim is where the darkest deepest
shadow is because that is where the light isn't
really coming through. While the top of the brim
is more of a gray tone. And also the middle part of
the hat, the domed area, and also that red cloth
that goes around it, make sure you also curve it just slightly and give
it a three D form. And again, I'm layering
and layering and stacking, and you can see how
deep and rich that black is right in the
middle of the hat. Don't be afraid to take
your time in this area. This is where most
of the pressure and ink will be placed on. And, trust me, it is worth it. Building up that dark black ink will push out those gray tones, those white highlights,
and that paper tone. And notice how I'm also using quick curve lines instead
of me connecting them, and that also makes it
feel like it's rounded. You can use your stylistic
choice of scribbles, individual line strokes, or a
bit of both in combination. And again, I'm turning my entire sketchbook again to make things a lot more
comfortable for myself. And now I'm working
into that cape. That's gonna be
another dark area. I'm really putting
in pressure and overlapping that ink because
this is the darkest part of his entire wardrobe
that he has besides his hat and some
part of his sword. And notice how things are coming together when we have a
balance of darker objects, gray tones, and even
the light areas. And now going back underneath that arm and also
creating another layer, this is another cast shadow because the light is
not shining through. So in this part, I'm
darkening bits of the metal sword and
darkening that belt. So that belt is a deep, rich black, and I'm going to be covering almost all of it. So take your time and covering
almost every single part while leaving some of
those small highlights that you see on the belt buckle. Now, that entire belt
buckle and the lower half of puss and Boots body is
completely solid black. I'm making the
artistic choice to just focus on the
belt buckle being the darkest part and leaving the lower half of his body just a little bit more visible. And that way, we can
at least tell where the top of the body
begins and where it ends. Now, this is the part that
I do like having fun with, but you need to be
careful in order to get that reflective
metallic look that we want for his thrusting sword. So with this metal sword, I'm making sure that the shadows are next to that blade using curves to represent scratches, leaving the white part on the right as a
highlight and leaving things distressed and
irregular makes it feel like the metal surface has been scratched and damaged. Take your time looking
at your reference photo, and you'll understand
what I mean when you leave things in
shapes and silhouettes. And when things are
bright white highlights are right next to
darker shadows, it really does emphasize a reflective surface
like the metal. And I went back up to his face and did the same
thing with that fur, and right underneath the
left part of his eyes, the left part of the nose
close to his left eye is a lot darker than the
right because that is where our light
source is coming from. Again, repeat this process until you get that
desired look of layering, darkening and creating
that cast shadow in the hat in the
areas that require it. And notice how I'm taking my time and leaving
most of his mouth and muscle pure white
because I want to take my time and not ruin that area. I want to make sure that
that one has a bit more of stippling and being sparse
with the ink because, again, if it's too much detail, you can lose the characteristics of the areas that matter. And same thing with his belly. I haven't gone in too deep and detailed with the
fur just there, but I have been using
some spare thin strokes to resemble hair and
fur on the right side. This is where you're
going to be making artistic choices throughout
this entire course. And one thing to keep in mind is although things
look fairly loose, we will be tightening things
up by taking our time in certain areas like going
back with the deep blacks, covering every inch
that we can in the belt area and the cape and
cleaning up certain lines, outlining parts of the entire
character, for example, taking time in the eyes, outlining more of the sword, will make things look
clean and sharp. The
4. Refining Your Pen Sketches: Alright, everyone. We
are at the final step. We are going to be
cleaning things up and refining those details. And the way I like to do this is using a white jelly roll pen. But you can also use any type
of white acrylic marker or even a fine point detail brush with acrylic paint
or even a guash. Now, this is all optional, but this is one of the last
steps that I like to do when I know that there's some areas that you
can't really get back. You do need that
extra white highlight to make that detail pop, especially for things in
the eyeballs, the iris, that little reflective
watery part that makes eye stand out. And you can even clean up some sharp areas like I'm doing with the
brim of the hat to add that white highlight
that's coming from that bright light source on the right side of
that reference photo. Now, I'm not overdoing it, but I am using it
sparingly on the cape, that brooch part
that ties the cape together in some
parts of the sword, where we definitely need that for the metallic reflection. And this is another great
opportunity to go back in with your pen
and go all in on making things a lot dark and filling in that hat as
I'm doing right now. Again, keeping in
contour with the form, this is definitely making
a huge difference. This is the last step to make
things to make those darks, medium tones and
whites really pop. So far, it looks like
our belt is complete, but I am adding a little
bit more shadows. A little bit more scuffs, scratches on that sword, because it was a
little bit too gray. We needed that dark black. Purposely leaving the
belly a little bit more white than normal
and adding a bit of loose hairs and
going back in with some more zig zags
to add a shadow right underneath his
right side of his arm. And here's just an example on how reflective shiny
metal surfaces are versus matte and
even some shiny ones. Now, although you
don't have to go in super detail for this one, you can compare it to the
reference photo and see how identical they are aside
from the scuff marks. So this is where it's
important to have those strong darks and those
pure white highlights. And let me show you a
bit more when I zoom in on his brim of his hat,
the one that's curved. I really want to push
that a little bit more. So I'm making that as
black and dark as I can. I felt like it needed that. And now I feel like it's
finally coming together. We pushed those black and medium tones as
much as we could. And now we have a
striking puss and boots sketch that's detailed but
loose at the same time. We have texture. It's
cleaned up and even three dimensional because we followed the form and followed the
rules of realism with shadows, things being rounded and
creating realistic fur. So this concludes this course on Only Using ballpoint pens
and a white gel pen. So don't forget to upload your project in the project
section of this course. Check out my other short
videos that involve ballpoint pen only and even
my GraphiePencil ones. So thank you so
much for watching, and I'll see you in
the next one. Bye bye.
IVAN RAMIREZ, Artist, Painter & Youtuber
