How to Draw a Realistic Golden Retriever Dog | Beginner Tutorial

Greetings and welcome to another drawing tutorial. I'm Melissa and I will teach you how to draw a realistic dog. Before we begin, don't forget to subscribe for more free tutorials. For this tutorial, you will need an HB pencil, 2B pencil, 3B or 4B pencil, a Staedtler Mars Lumograph black pencil, a mechanical pencil either 0.3 or 0.5 lead, a Stump or Tertullian blending tool, a clickable or pencil eraser, a kneaded eraser, white eraser, tissue, and a soft brush. To get started, I have drawn a 3-inch square grid. You can start your 3-inch squares wherever you like on your paper. I'm using an HB pencil to draw the outline of the dog. As I draw the outline, I'm not worrying about perfecting it right away. However, I will adjust any proportions before I begin shading. At this stage, I'm getting a feel for the overall shapes. I'm keeping my lines light with not giving too much pressure. Now I'm looking it all over, adjusting, fine-tuning my lines, and adding more specific details. Time to erase my grid using a white eraser. I avoid using pink erasers as they can sometimes leave pink streaks. Using an HB pencil, shade the background and consistently fill any gaps between the strokes. You'll see how I'm shading up close to the outline of the dog. The right side appears lighter, but that's only because I have a stronger light source casting onto my paper from that side. Now take a tissue over your first finger and blend in all the shading. Add some shadowed areas in the background using a 3B or 4B pencil. With a kneaded eraser, I have flattened down a piece to tap out some of the highlights. Using a 2B pencil, I'm shaping the dog's nose. The nostrils will be the darkest area. A tortillion or blending stump is used to smooth out the tones. To achieve a dark tone, a Staedtler 6B Mars Lumograph black pencil is used. These pencils are matte finished and are great for forming dark values. Take note of how I've left out the highlighted areas and have added some small hairs around the edges of the nose. I always work up my values rather than dive into them. A kneaded eraser is great for adding soft highlights. Using a Tombow Mono Zero eraser, I am adding small specks of highlights on top of the nose. This will represent the texture of a dog's nose. A mechanical pencil is great for fine details and fine hair. As I draw hair, I always draw them in the direction of how they grow. I may go back and forth as I build up fur on the dog's muzzle. The hair on a dog's muzzle is a lot smaller than other areas on the body. I like using a mechanical pencil because I love the fine lines they create and the consistency of a sharp point. A thicker and more dense area of fur is achieved by adding more hairs. Add small white hairs on the bottom of the mouth that will show up against the background. When stroking in the hairs, have some overlap each other to create natural fur. The black pencil is then added to create the darker hairs. Here you can see the hairs close up. I always keep my drawings clean by using a soft brush to wipe away debris. You must draw the fur in its direction of growth. If you don't, the fur will not appear realistic. Once you master drawing hair and fur, you can get relatively quick at stroking in the fur. It becomes a natural process without thinking about every hair being drawn. You will see how the hair strokes form to the top of the dog's head and down to its eye. Using a 3B or 4B pencil, begin shaping the eye and shading in dark areas. Notice where the highlights in the eye are placed. And even though an eye could appear so dark that a pupil is not noticeable, always draw in the pupil. Smooth out the shading using a blending tool such as a stump or triturlion. Drawing can appear like I'm doing surgery by using various drawing tools. Always remember that the whites of the eyes are never bright white. A lot of time can go into drawing an eye, and if drawing a specific dog, the eyes need to be perfect so that their owner recognizes them. See how the darker Staedtler pencil adds to the richness of the black tones. What a difference this can make. The fur around the eyes will appear in several directions, so studying the fur before drawing is always good. I will continue working up the dark hairs in the fur, stroking the fur from its root to taper out at the end. These darker formations of fur are called follicles. These are where the whiskers grow out from. At this stage, you can see the pattern direction of the fur. The fur will become a bit longer, moving away from the muzzle and eye areas. Using a blending tool, lightly blend over the hairs without smearing them too much. Use a light to medium pressure. A graphite pencil would be a bit wider in diameter than a mechanical pencil, so I'm adding hairs with this too. I'm showing you the various tools you can use when drawing a dog. As you will see, there are several tools to choose from. A clickable or pencil eraser can be used to add highlights along the outside of the eye. Notice the direction of the fur around the eye. If you're looking to draw your own pet or someone else's, make sure you study the highlights and fur direction. When taking a photo for reference, take it outside on an overcast day. An overcast provides diffused light. This will help soften the light and reduce harsh shadows. It can also create a more even exposure across the dog's fur. Experiment with different angles, but always take a photo down at their level to avoid distortion or abnormal poses. As the fur approaches the ear, you will see how the hairs suddenly curve downwards. Along the edge of this area, the clump of fur is more defined, so I'm going to build up more fur on the ends and in between. The black pencil is added to give some contrast. The fur at the front of the pup is much lighter and fluffier. I will create a light tonal area so when I stroke the hairs using a pencil eraser, they can be seen. A clickable eraser will work too. You can see the clump of fur I've created. The fur in this area is coming together at the tip, so I'm curving the fur to meet each other. I add hairs both with a pencil and an eraser as I work on the direction of the fur. I want the fur to appear soft, so I keep the values light and wispy. A couple of longer hairs are added to the top of the eye. The fur at the top of the dog's head will appear light as the light source is casting from the front top location. Now to begin shaping the ear. There's an area between the head and ear where the fur is coming from both directions. I will shade in this strip using a 2B pencil and some added pressure to give it some depth. Drawing fur can be fun once you learn the techniques of placing hairs, learning about growth direction, and the tools involved. The fur direction is quite interesting on a pup's ear, with it sometimes being sporadic. I will first shade a base layer over the entire ear using a 2B pencil. I will blend the darker area with a blending stump and then a tissue over the ear. The ear should appear darker than the rest of the dog's head. The fur will be longer than the hairs on the muzzle. I'm creating some clumped fur areas with more pressure shaping them. I have been using a mechanical pencil to draw light hairs, but now I'm going to add more pressure. The tip of the ear will appear with lighter clumps of fur. The clumps of fur will have the top and bottom ends darker with highlights in between them. Drawing the hairs may seem tedious, but the end result will be well worth it. Anything you want to draw to appear realistic will always take time, so gear up for some patience. Drawing fur will come natural to you, and before long, you will be drawing everything from pets to even wildlife animals. This type of ear can be pretty tricky to draw. The hairs at the top of the ear are squiggly, so be sure to draw them in this way. You will see again how I'm defining clumped areas of fur. The ear can take just as much time as drawing the head. With the development and design of clickable and pencil erasers, it has been a game changer for creating fine details and highlights. And here's when the black pencil can add even more depth and darker fur. Some of the fur on dogs can even be more trickier to draw. Using the eraser means using my soft brush to keep my drawing clean from debris. I never do a drawing without one. Now, shade the top part of the body that we can see next to the ear. The fur will be longer here. I may need to build up areas during these final stages. I'm nearing my completion of drawing this cute golden retriever puppy and I've loved every moment of it. One final thing to add are whiskers. I will often indent lines to create the crisp white whiskers, but I wanted to show you how you can add them using a clickable or pencil eraser too. Added pressure needs to be applied when erasing through the darker fur. To see lighter hairs on the fur, they will show up on a shaded background rather than on white paper. If you have stroked out the whiskers too thick, you can always go back with a pencil or blender to make them narrower. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions, please comment below. A list of the drawing materials can be found in my description with links. Be sure to subscribe to my channel for more free tutorials like this one.