Last weekend, I finished reading The Master Guide to Drawing Anime: How to Draw Original Characters from Simple Templates. I didn’t find the book particularly helpful in terms of actually teaching the technical aspects of drawing. However, it had tons of great artwork to browse through. So, I decided to give one of its “templates” a shot.
Over the course of the last five days, including today, I sketched, inked, and colored the following drawing. I remembered to snap a few pics throughout the process, which are presented in reverse-chronological order (sorry for the varying lighting):
-
![Girl holding a softball bat over her shoulder. In her left hand, holding a hotdog. She is standing in front of a chain-linked fence with trees in the background. Fully colored.]( "Day 5: Finished")
Day 5: Finished -
![Girl holding a softball bat over her shoulder. In her left hand, holding a hotdog. She is standing in front of a chain-linked fence with trees in the background. Almost fully colored.]( "Day 4: Color")
Day 4: Color -
![Girl holding a softball bat over her shoulder. In her left hand, holding a hotdog. She is standing in front of a chain-linked fence with trees in the background. Partially colored.]( "Day 3: Color")
Day 3: Color -
![Girl holding a softball bat over her shoulder. In her left hand, holding a hotdog. She is standing in front of a chain-linked fence with trees in the background. Black and white.]( "Day 2: Scenery")
Day 2: Scenery -
![Girl holding a softball bat over her shoulder. In her left hand, holding a hotdog. Black and white.]( "Day 1: Inked")
Day 1: Inked -
![Penciled outline of female drawing.]( "Day 1: Outline")
Day 1: Outline
The tools I used were:
- Ticonderoga HB (#2) pencils.
- Prismacolor Premier coloring pencils.
- Prismacolor Premier illustration markers.
- Brisk Learner white gel pens.
I had fun with this one. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to use my charcoal pencils for shading it, but I ended up testing my coloring skills in the end.
I haven’t seriously colored anything since high school, maybe college. Either way, it’s been a while. I think this turned out well for my jump back into it. There are some blending techniques I wanted to try, such as using baby oil or alcohol, but I didn’t have the materials on hand. So, I stuck with pencil and stump blending.
Five days was a lot to dedicate to a drawing, but I picked up several useful techniques during the process. Figuring out how to draw and ink the fence was my proudest accomplishment.