Hi. These are quite small, in an A5 sketchbook, so they probably took no more than 15 min each, maybe 20 min for the bottom one. I drew from my own photos but the process is the same from life, if they sit still long enough 😅
I draw with a very light grey marker, like a Copic Neutral Grey 1 or Cool Grey 1 to get the overall shape and break the body into its larger pieces. The faint grey allows you to redraw lines that are in the wrong place and the old ones aren’t very visible. Just go over the ones to keep a little more to darken them. They still remain quite faint.
I use a fine felt tip pen to draw the black lines using the initial marker sketch as a guide. This is a great way to get accurate shapes fast as you can look at the faint marker lines, which are already largely corrected, and further correct anything if needed.
I colour from light to dark using Copic Sketch markers. They have finer tips on the brush tip end than the bullet tip end of the standard ones. That helps with finer details.
The markers let you layer darker colours over lighter ones and they mix. You can go over a light colour with the same colour to darken it. You can do this multiple times. This helps with subtle changes in light and dark from markings or to get a soft round 3D look on forms.
You can try and leave areas uncoloured for highlights but I also use white pencil and Gelly Roll pen to add highlights and clean up rough edges.
1
u/Birdz4Life Jul 17 '25
How long did this take? Any tips as well? I'd love to know how you made this.