How To Paint Fur and Realism - Mixed-media

All right, so I've been working on this mountain lion drawing. This is mixed media paper and I'm using Prismacolor brush tip markers. And I'm also using acrylic paint. And so far the acrylic paint's been used for just the background, but I'll be using some on the cat as well. And anyways, I thought this would be a great opportunity to show you how I create my underpainting with my markers, how I build, how I build up my fur and then add the detail and color over the top. And, uh, just thought this would be a neat tutorial lesson thing to share with you. So just trying to find the right markers. What I've been doing thus far is basically just taking these gray markers. These are gray scale markers. This one is a 20% gray and the further up we go, 80, 90% it's going to be a lot darker. And of course, 100% would be black. And what I've been doing, so this is a 20. I've just been basically filling in. I've been blocking in these areas with these gray markers and I'll show the whole cat, the whole drawing, um, in a, another video. So this will just cover some of the details I'm working on at the moment. Also show you how I do the eyes, maybe show you a little everything. So you can see, I've just basically painting on, this is a 10% marker and you see how that goes on a lot lighter than the 20% down here. And then after I add some of that gray, this one is a little bit more like a burnt Sienna color. It's called, it's actually light umber, 30%. You see how I can just drag that over the gray. We've got a really nice tone kind of built up right there. And I'm going to take, this is mocha light. So this is more of a darker Brown and you see how we added, this was 40% gray that I added here. Now I can take this mocha light and just drag it over the top. You see how that's, it's almost like in painting, it's almost like we're glazing for really just colorizing, colorizing the gray here. I'll just block that in. And a good example for the tongue is I left this part open right here so you can see, I'll just drag, this is a blush pink. You see how bright that goes on. Well then what I do afterwards is I'll take my mocha, I believe it was mocha. I'll drag it right over the top. You see how that just kind of tones that back. So it's blending those colors together and then I can take find a 40% if I can. This is a 40% gray. I can kind of just shade around that, go around my tooth very carefully and maybe just kind of blend that in. So you can see how with layering these markers we can get some cool effects. I'm going to do now is take some 50% gray and what we can start to do here is just dab on the details. And the cool thing, what I love about doing mixed media, especially using the paint over the top is this is a good way to get it as close as we can. And if I ever get to a spot where I'm like, ah, I added too much. And as we all know, we can't erase markers if I feel like I added too much. I can go back over with paint. I can lighten that area. I can fix it. So that's just the really neat part about using mixed media. We've got a media that we can go a lot quicker. That's why I like the markers and just move a lot quicker than we can with paint. It's just a fun style to work in every once in a while. But then with paint, we can really make any adjustment we want once we switch to it. I'll just try to get it as close as I can. I just take this marker, have a nice sharp tip on this brush and just dab on the detail. I always love drawing hair. You never really can go wrong. As long as you have it in the right area, hair can bend and alter any way you want. So I just make sure that those areas of shadows are in the right places and just kind of let everything else happen as we go. And so for areas that are smooth, this is the upper gums. I just simply block it in as small as I can. I always make adjustments at a later time. Now for the eyes, probably go back. I think what I'm going to do, this is a, this is called cream. It's more of a yellow. I already have 20% gray over those eyes. Now watch when I drag that cream color, how that just colorizes the eye. Really beautiful transition. See how it doesn't push around my pupils or anything else either. I love these markers. You can just layer them so easily. A lot of you have asked about these markers and uh, so if you have any questions, I'm going to do my best just to kind of share with you how I use them. If you had questions, be happy to answer. I'm adding, this is that mocha light and I'm going right over the top part, just kind of feathering in some color. Now, wow, we got some like two tone eyes that easy. It's just so easy. I have such a more difficult time with paint and although I love paint and it can be done with paint, just takes, takes longer. This takes a lot of stress out of it. It's very stressful, free type of drawing. That's kind of why I enjoy it. I've got some 20% gray again and just look for areas to add some texture, little textures and kind of go down through here. Now I'm going to have a darker Brown patch around this eye. Just being careful right here. I want to make sure I get it right. So the first thing I'm going to do before I make it Brown, I'm just going to drag that marker just like that. Then I'm going to take my mocha light, drag it right over the top and what I'm going to do is go back. Got some more Brown to work, to work on. That's going to be through this area where these dark spots on the cheeks are. Simple as that. Just drag it over and that's pretty much done. What I'll probably do, I may want to, I may want to go a little further with some of this detail, but it's getting to the point, especially up top here, where I'm going to want to start using paint. It's just going to be easier to go from there with paint rather than the marker, but I try to get as far as I can. So I'm just adding little details. A couple more in through here, right through there. Now these big cats are Brown, but I want intense sunlight. So I'm being careful how much I put in. I want to create more work for me if I go too far. So I'm just going very tediously, going very slow. Probably just drag some more Brown through this area. Okay. Now below here, we're definitely going to have some Brown. Now, another method is to start with color. And then after we get the color in, we have kind of two layers of fur right there. After we get the color in, we add the gray after. So it's just kind of two different techniques that you can use. I think it just takes a lot of practice with each one to determine what worked best in any given situation. So we can color in, we can probably just use some color, switch directions. So we kind of know where that difference is. Add the difference right through here. Then what we do, let's start with a 20% gray right through that transition area, that layer I told you about. And now we kind of know where that layer is now with a little bit lighter pressure, just adding texture to this color. And by creating this texture really simple, it's going to create hair, the appearance of hair. That's pretty light to start with, but I like to start light and then I'll move to a darker color, add some darker textures. I say this in a lot of my videos, it just comes down to patience knowing that this is going to work for me, not rushing it, just one by one, letting it go. Now I'll switch to, see if we can't find, switch to a 40%. Look at that, just right through it. Then short strokes, kind of random. Give this side a little bit of love. Get right up against that white. And now with the tip of the marker, I kind of pull away from that white and it kind of creates automatically, it creates kind of that nice transition between the white and the tan fur, kind of makes like little white furs on the edge. Really easy to do. Now we've got a simple texture. The next step, let's go to this mocha light right back over the top. Look at that. And we'll do again, close to the chin here. Once again, just kind of blend that together. And you can see how we're just kind of subtly starting to add some texture, some fur. Okay. Now this is light umber. This is going to be a bit darker. Let me give it a try. Slowly developing some really nice looking fur. Too carried away. Go to a 50% gray marker. So a bit darker. It's just a mixture of gray, Now just to kind of keep blending it together, keep it going. I'll go back to that light umber light. Is that light umber? No, we wanted mocha light back to that mocha light. Greg, get right over the top again. And this is going to sort of blend everything together as well. Not only are you going to colorize, but it's going to help him blend. Look at that. There's some beautiful fur, very simple, nothing too fancy, but these big cats don't have a lot of fancy coloration. Pretty short fur. Just want that simple effect right there. I'll be adding some more as well, but if we add, so we'll go back to that light umber. I'm going to drag this light umber right over the lip. Then we're going to take our blush pink. So it has a little bit of red pink to it. We're just going to mix that right into it. I'm not going to worry if I go over the teeth right there. Those wouldn't be teeth. Maybe they're teeth. Yeah. I think they're teeth. I'm losing where I am. Okay. Take our 20% gray marker. Just kind of define the edges of those uppers right there. And what we can do is take some 10% gray marker right on the top of our teeth. Just kind of add some of that. It's just going to enhance that. And then on the underside of the bottom teeth. All right. Now if we want to get detailed, you can take this 20% and you know, it might be kind of cool. Let's take this blonde wood. We've got this blonde wood color. That's kind of just a yellow. And on the edge of all of these marks that are near the highlight, the highlights, we're just going to add, and this is going to be kind of just like a yellow, anywhere where the highlights meet some of this detailed work. Just kind of add some of that color. Real light. It kind of makes it more dramatic. Same thing with these grays, right? Where it meets that light. Just going to mix some color over the top and watch what that does. It makes that highlight a bit more believable. Anywhere where it meets the highlight. You just want to add that color. Notice it's not yellow. It's kind of, it's kind of a dirty, dirty blonde color. You don't want things to be too bright. Anywhere where it meets the highlights. Just going to add that. Just about perfect. And we can probably, anywhere where it might be a couple of spots, we can hide some more color. I'm going to try to get away with it and add some of that. A couple of spots down here. Sure. Why not? And we'll probably just add some to this area. All right. You can see it just starting to come alive. Now we can take this 20% gray. Not going to be a big difference, but look at that texture it creates. And I'll have to do the same with down through these areas. Just dragging that texture over the top is really going to turn something that's just a block of gray into some actual fur. Doesn't take much. Very random. Just keeping that direction kind of consistent. Okay. So I'll just keep going here and I want to show you some of the paint about how I'm going to add the paint over the top to really bring this to that next level. So I'm going to speed up just as I finish up with this detailed work with these grays, some darker colors through here as well. And then we'll add some paint right at the end. All right. Now I'm pretty much to the point where not sure how much more marker I want to do. So I'm switching to acrylic paints and I've got some basic colors here. Just some black, white, and then burnt Sienna and primary yellow. And all I'm doing is taking a liner brush, getting some water, picking up some paint, and this is solid white. Now what I can do with that white, probably just tap that on over the top, create just some extra fine details. Really going to set things off. I'll take this white paint. Now you can see I've got this white right here. Add some whiskers. You can see that goes right over the marker just beautifully. Sometimes it doesn't cover as much as I want it to with the first layer. Can always go back, add more, a couple of highlights to the nose. One right there, one right there. In fact, I'd probably just bring down that whole area above the nose. And same down here. Can add some of that fine detail. Yeah, it'll just kind of spot it over the top of the gray. And that's going to look like little hairs, little hairs that are just sticking out, being illuminated. Just such subtle details, but it's going to make a big difference. Now, same thing with the bottom, bottom of the chin here, just adding some spots, kind of float off there. You can see how that just kind of sets off. I'll put a couple more there, there, there, there. Really easy stuff. Now up here, I'll just have to add some more white. I had some green that kind of flowed over this area, so I'll have to just kind of thicken some of this area with the white paint. I'll kind of just work over. See, that's going on pretty thick. I'll just have to work over kind of this whole upper area. Really get it how I want to, very bright and vibrant. But what we'll do is we'll grab some yellow, mix that with the white, just a tiny amount of yellow. What I'm going to start doing is adding the most subtle highlights. And now the markers can do this, but it's hard to find a marker specifically at the exact right color that you're looking for. And so sometimes these, just these subtle tones, just a teeny amount of yellow mixed in with the white, that's just a lot more difficult to do with markers. So I save stuff like that with paint, just easy enough to grab a bit of yellow paint or something similar. So you can see, just like I did before with the marker with that blonde color, this is even a brighter blonde color. We're going even further out into the whites, adding more of that yellow color. It's just even lighter and brighter, but that's going to set off these highlights even more so. It's very, very subtle, just a tiny amount of yellow, but man, that's just going to be eye candy when that's done. Adding a few kind of up closer here. I'm going to mix some water with that. I'm going to give the bottom of my eyes just a little bit of glow. All right. Now the next, kind of the next big step that I'll take kind of working on the highlights. Well, we want to work on shadow, so that's just black mixed with some water. It's going to go on kind of like watercolor. That's kind of what all of this paint is going to go on. Now, as I add that, look how much deeper and darker and richer that looks compared to the marker. The black marker just isn't going to be quite as vibrant. So now I'll go back over the top and I'll start to really, look how dark that is. I'll start to really bring out the contrast by adding this rich black paint in the areas that I want to be the darkest. You can just see that all of it's going to start to pop. Before I get ahead of myself and maybe some glazes with the color or just adding more details, sorry, some glazes with the paint or just adding more details with the paint. I really like to set my contrast. I like to have my darkest darks and my lightest lights at least on there so I can see what's going on. This is going to be great for detail work. Look how that just goes right over the top. Just super tiny details. So easy to do when you thin down this paint and using a liner brush. Same thing with down by the mouth and I can go back over the top, make some of this even more dramatic, even darker. But we'll add, watch, we'll just add a couple. Look at these couple of details that's going on. Look at that. How cool that is just by tapping the surface with the brush. Sets off those whiskers. Just keep grabbing more black. Now this area, see the difference. You can really see the difference right there as it goes on. And I'll just slowly work getting all of these areas of contrast as dark as they can be and also as light as they can be. Then the last thing that I can do and I will do is for example, burnt sienna, yellow, white, kind of a brown color. Get a lot of water in that. It's going to be super runny. It's going to be a glaze. This is going to be just like watercolor and we can use it. I go on right over there and I'll kind of wipe my finger across. Look at how that just kind of blends it out real quick, real easy. Add that color, blend it in, add that color, blend it in. And then once you start running out and there's just enough on the brush to keep going, then you can get really cool effects by just kind of bouncing around, adding a little bit of color, a little bit of color, small details, small details. So this is just glazing this color on basically and warm up some of these shadows. It's going to add some depth to some of these shadows by putting some color in there. And same thing with down here. Watch as we just glaze that on, get some more mixed up, kind of wipe it away. Perfect. We just want it to be very random, very rough looking. That fur is not going to be perfect in any way. And that's why we, that's how we'd like it. That just go on, kind of wipe it clean, smooths it out a little bit. And also add some contrast. It's going to darken things. Whenever we glaze, whether that's in a canvas painting or even something like this, glazing is always going to darken. So sometimes you don't need to add that dark shadow. Just wait till you, if you want to glaze some color over it, just watch what it'll do. It'll add a lot of contrast on its own. So just like that, that's a really nice fur texture. Enhance that even more so. And of course, take some more white with that touch of yellow. Watch. We're going to just add some highlights to the teeth here. I'm going to grab some pure white and I'm going to have to add a couple more layers. Get those as white as I want them to be. And you may even want to darken those as well. I've just got some black, some burnt Sienna, some white, some yellow, basically the same mixture with probably a little more yellow. Glaze that color on, look at that go on just like watercolor. Wipe it away. Perfect. Nice little shadow that we created on those teeth. Perfect. Go right back over the darkest area. Same thing with these teeth through here. Grab some more of that. Building shadows layer by layer. Be patient. Look how much that set off those teeth. So you can see overall you can kind of use that same color. Ooh, yeah. Look at that right on the top of the eye. Tap it away. Right on the top of the eye. Tap it away. So you can see by using the paint, you can really make a lot of enhancements. So I hope you guys enjoyed this. If you had any questions or if you had some techniques you'd like to share yourself, please let me know. I think I'm going to keep working on this. And like I said, I will show you in another video, the completed painting. Hey guys, thanks so much for watching. Please be sure to leave a like and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. Also check out my free print giveaway. I give away a free print every week as well as my eBay auctions and websites where you can find other prints and originals. Those links are in the description below. Thanks again so much for watching. We'll see you in another episode of paint like a pro.