Coloured Pencil Tutorial Draw These Sneakers

Hey folks and welcome to the second in this series of coloured pencil drawings on grey tone paper. This time I'm going to be showing you how to draw a pair of Converse sneakers, or trainers if you're from my part of the world, and I was lucky enough to be asked by a company called Staedtler, so they make art materials, you may well have heard of them, to recreate this image for the cover artwork on a set of their own coloured pencils. And because of this I was finally able to learn how to pronounce their brand name. So it's Staedtler or Staedtler in German, so you know, even if you don't like this video or you don't get anything from the lesson, at least now you know how to pronounce that brand. Now one of the main teaching points in this project is that you don't need to obsess over perfect colour matches, even if you're going for photorealism, and you'll see this as a recurring theme that I talk about in lots of my other lessons. So I've only got a set of 24 pencils and while I recommend maybe a set of 36 if you're buying from new, buying from scratch, you definitely don't need hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of colours. The reference photograph for this lesson is actually a pair of blue cons, and we're then going to recreate them in red, and it's easy to do when you focus on the values. And many of my students who followed along with this in the past, they chose a different colour to follow along with, so they did some in green, light blue, and I think there was a couple in purple if I remember rightly as well. Lastly, I want to try and start a new trend on YouTube, where I ask you to hit the thumbs up if you like the video, or even subscribe if you want to see more. It's never going to catch on, but you never know. Alright, enjoy the lesson, and I hope to see you in the next one. So starting with the tip of the shoe, so let's get some colour in here, and again, I want to look for lightest light and darkest dark, so that doesn't change from the photorealistic style. And then releasing the pressure gradually, as we go into the shadow side, and you can see the marks that I'm making are definitely looser, definitely less careful, so I want lots of pressure in here. So what I don't want, when I haven't got time with this style, is to start picking out individual or kind of drawing in between individual shapes. I've got these diamond shapes and different notches and bumps from the sole of the trainer, definitely haven't got time to be going in between each of those individually. So we've got this really white shape here, really bright white, so as much pressure as I can get away with. Just a little bit of white tone down. I'm not worried about getting rid of the pencil marks either, you know, erasing those. When I get around this area, I might erase, particularly around the shoe lace holes, I might erase some of those back. But for this area, I think we'll be okay. Okay, there we go. So I'm going to switch now to the lighter red. I was about to say blue then, and forgot that we were doing it in red instead of blue. So this side here is lighter, isn't it? So let's start putting some of this red down. And before I do, actually, almost forgot, we need to get these laces in, or these little bits of stitching in. Now the easiest way to do that, to make it so that it's not too fiddly, is just with the point of your pencil, so you want something reasonably sharp, is just to draw a line down where the length of the stitching is, and then another one next to it. A quick sharpen of the pencil, and then while I've got it to hand, let's do this side as well. So this is in the shadow, so it's going to be lighter, but we're going to be able to dull this down with one of the other pencils very shortly when we come onto that area. And there's this edge here, just of the leather, that is catching the light. It won't be white eventually, but we can put that in just, that just reminds me that it's a highlight edge, that I need to keep reasonably light. This one is not catching the light as much, but it does in places here and there, won't do any harm to put this in. Okay, and then switching to the lighter red, I just want to see how this plays on this paper surface, so it goes on really, really well, covers the majority of the grey in the paper surface. If I added some white to that, it would probably increase the vibrancy even more so, but I think the way that it's looking at the moment, it's more than good enough. So when we come to the stitching then, just do this area around here, and I can show you how we're going to create the representation of stitches. Not worried about any creases or folds in the material at this moment in time. I will add some dark areas and lighter areas shortly, but for now I just want to block it in with most of the colour. So let's just fill in between the stitches, and because you've left that gap, the red will go on the same hue as it does either side of it. If you just make one thick line of red, sorry, one thick line of white, what will happen is when you put the red over that, it will be obviously lighter than the red either side of it, and it just spoils the effect a little bit. Okay, so we want these nice and thin, nice and subtle. Don't worry if you completely go over them in places. And then a very simple case of just filling in the gaps, but just pay observation to the angle, so the way that if you cut across the stitch and the angle is like this here, and then as you move down the angle changes. It's a very subtle thing, but it does help to create that sense of form, that sense of perspective. So all I'm doing is just splitting the the lace up and then gradually flattening out that angle as I move down the shoe, and let's just go over it so we don't see any of those joins there, and then same for the other side. Okay, and then just repeating the process on this area of stitching. Okay, so they're nice and bright on this side, which is what we want because they're in the light. You can, if need be, pick out any that have missed the paper surface there, just to make sure they're as bright as possibly can be, and then let's just repeat the process on this side. Now before I put the colour down on there, what I want to do is just test, either to the side of your paper or on a bit of scrap paper, I want to just test what the colours layer like on top of each other. So there's our light red, and then this is the dark red, which is actually called the dark red, and you can see how nicely that goes on top. So I do the dark red first, it gives a different hue than when it's layered. If I do the light red, I think this is going to give us more opportunity to create subsequent layers. So I'm going to put this light red down first on this side of the shoe, just taking the kind of care that I did with this side here, and then I'll come back in and we'll add a darker layer just to bring the value of that up. First and most important thing, sharpen your pencil, keep them nice and sharp, just while you're working around the details on these first layers. Okay, there we go. So in with the darker red then, and let's just start laying an additional layer on top of this. Lots of pressure, just in the same way, just being nice and careful just to cut in and around the shapes, the laces that you've already put in, the stitches, those lace holes as well. So really at this stage it is almost a bit like a colouring process with the outline drawing that you've created for yourself. You're looking at these different shapes. What's going to give it the believability, the impact, hopefully a bit of a wow factor, is when we start to really focus on the lights and darks and the play between the shadows and the highlights. Okay, so that's not really dark enough, certainly not around this area here, but while I've got this pencil in my hand, what I'm going to do is start adding a little bit of detail and work to this area. So I'm just looking for, it's not the darkest areas, I'm just looking for areas that are slightly darker, looking for areas that are really light to reserve those with the red that was put down initially. But I can see just in and around here it's a bit darker here and then there's maybe a little bit of a pattern of dark here, maybe this area is a bit darker than this area, there's a dark shadowy area around here. And don't worry, you don't need to be exact, particularly with this kind of a style, it's just a case of breaking the shape up from that one flat colour. In terms of the pressure that you're using, I'm not using a great deal of pressure here because I know that this dark red pencil goes on very, very nicely, it goes on well as a subsequent layer, so I don't want to obliterate too much of the light red that I've put down already, so I'm just using a moderate pressure. And then again, while I've got a reasonably sharp point, what I want to do is just outline the shadow side of these, I suppose they're lace holes aren't they really, I don't know if they have a name, just with this red pen. So probably not all the way around, although looking at the reference, there is a little bit of shadow tone in there. This is different from outlining things in black, you know, which is going to make things look a little bit too illustrative, maybe even cartoon-like. This is creating a bit more subtlety, you can even do some softening off as well, so you lay the red down and then just blend out the edge. Okay, and then add a little bit of white into the mix as well, so there's a little bit of a highlight round here, you're going to have to press quite hard to get anything to show up, but all you're doing is just looking to just break up that one solid flat tone or flat value, flat hue even of red, just with a little bit of dark and light here and there, it's only subtle, especially on this side that's really in the light. Okay, and then I'm going to go to my grey pencil because I want to bring up the value on this side, this is too light at the moment, this is in heavy shadow. So what I can do is the swatches that I created before, I can see how well that sits on top, on top of that one as well, and it does go on, gives me an extra value, the black though gives me an even stronger one, and that's probably a little bit too strong to go in with straight off, but we will need that in a moment. So again, I can outline these shoe holes, these shoelace holes, lots of pressure around here, this is going to be really, really dark. Okay, I'm going to go in with the black and I want it really nice and dark around here, we'll tidy up that area when we come on to do that other shoe, that's a nice strong value in there, can't get too strong with that. So I'm keeping the shading quite loose as well, the style of the shading, so I'm not trying to cover, particularly with these subsequent layers, I'm not trying to cover every single part of the paper or the layer beneath, I'm trying to let some of the paper show through, some of the underneath layer show through. Okay, I'm going to leave that for now because I want to just judge that by the other values that I put down around it, and I have to come back and lighten, darken I should say the stitching off, that's too light at the moment. So let's get this darker rim in here, I could keep that as blue, but I'm going to go with the black this time, mix it with the white to create some different values within there. The darkest dark I can see where I'm going to use lots of pressure straight onto the paper surface is this shadow area inside here, and then what I'm going to do is just really reduce the pressure here where it's just catching the light, put some white on that in a second, and then back to a stronger value as well again. Okay, so this is moderate pressure around this area, this is going to be as strong as I can press, really, really strong. Okay, and then just with the real sharpest point of the pencil, let's get a nice strong line just on the inside because that's where this is a rounded form, it's a rounded form if that's a cross-section, so this is going to be darker shadow and then it's going to slightly lighten off towards the top, and I'm not really going to be able to give too much of an impression of that, not of this scale, but it will give a subtle hint, especially if we just lighten that top edge off, just gives a subtle hint that it's slightly, you know, slightly rounded form. Let's go to a dark red, get some nice shadow tone in there, so starting with the dark red first before I put the black straight on, I could go with the grey but I'm just going to go straight with the black, and then the white I did say that we just lighten this area off, so this is catching the light here, it's a much lighter colour, just take that into there. Okay, let's do a little bit of work on this part here, so it's going to be darkest over this area, there's a little bit of reflected light that I can see going on but I'm not going to get too caught up in all of that, so this isn't a lot of pressure I'm using just because I can feel the pencil beneath and if I use a lot of pressure it's going to go on too strong, but just look at where the brightest highlight is, how that forms, there is, I don't know if you can see it, you'll be able to see if you print the reference photograph out, but there's just a nice little cast shadow just from this dark piece of rubber here, just being cast onto the white beneath it, it's a nice little detail to get in. Okay, and then I'm just going to go over with the white a little bit, just want to achieve just a slightly smoother texture, just do a couple of layers here, it's not the subtle layers of maybe previous lessons, it's more just to create that smooth rubbery feel, there we go, let's get our red, so this is a really dark shape in here isn't it, so we can put this one down quite quickly at first because I know that this is going to be mainly both the dark red and maybe even some of the dark grey and the black, and you can't really see it on the reference photograph, probably because it's such a dark colour anyway, but if you imagine that this piece here is recessed from these, so these are overlapping this piece, they're going to create shadow, so the light is coming from here, it's hitting this piece here of leather, it's going to cast a small shadow, particularly in the corner there where none of the light can get to, so I can go in with the black pen, I can go in really dark and then just soften that out, probably not as much here because I would imagine the light will get into that area a little bit, but we can just go into the corners there as well just to help define that, right up to the lace, there we go, and then I just want to add a little scuff mark here and there, just roughing this up a little bit, and remember the two colours that I said I'd bring a bit of colour into, so this is the bright yellow, it's only subtle, hint here and there just on the outside of the shoe, maybe on the top, the blue as well, okay so far so good, so let's now deal with what is potentially the tricky area, which is all this detail around here, I'm not interested in putting any of those individual patterns until I've got the overall form, because there's nothing worse than having a really intricate pattern in place that you're really really happy with, but then it just isn't the correct shape, it doesn't have that solid 3D look to it, because you've failed to address the overall form, I'm just putting this in, just a bit of a stronger value than what I'd had it up, I think it was the paper surface down there, I could just get a bit more white in underneath, okay so this area here is in the shadow, we need to make this part of it darker, so this is just the grey, mid grey pencil, I think it's called very warm grey, and look how the shadow sort of creeps up this area here, and then it's quite dark up here, okay now we want a really really sharp pencil, so more than anywhere else on the drawing, this is where you need to take the time just to get a nice sharp point, whether you're using a sharpener or sanding block and a craft knife, so obviously we're not going to be counting individual diamonds or even rows of diamonds or anything like that, the way to approach this is to pick out one, so I can see this one here as being the most dominant, and put that in a little bit more carefully, so just drawing in a diamond shape as best as you can over the layers that are underneath, you won't get it exact and it doesn't need to be, so you put that one in and then just look at the general pattern, so where does the next one fall, so the pattern that I see if I do it to the side, just do it enlarged, is one like that, and this is the pattern that I'm seeing like that, so they're almost in this diagonal row, the next one is here, you only need to get in a few, and the rest of them that are really sort of hit and miss and quite abstract, the viewers eye will interpret those as these little diamond shaped notches, I'm not worried about highlights and shade at the moment, I will refine that a second, particularly on these dominant ones, for now I just want to get in the basic shape, just with a medium pressure, use a little bit more pressure around this side if you want, because it's in shadow, so the overall shape is going to be darker, okay now as I get round here, less pressure until I get round here that the light is so bright that it's almost become a little bit scorched, so it's overexposed the photograph and we can't see as many of those shapes there, so for these little notches, the tiniest impression of a little shadow, really easy to put in, again lighter here, so less pressure here, pay attention to the angle of them as well, so they're starting off on this angle and as you move around they're going to become more vertical, you can use more pressure on this side, on this top here there's a darker shadow being cast, I'm just going to do a little bit of shading just around there for the bottom row, okay and then we've got this top row of so again just pay attention to the angle of those, okay and then with the white pencil I just want to pick out where I think the light will hit these little notches, just in a couple of areas and then with the grey pencil in your other hand you can just strengthen some of the shadow sides, so let me just give you an indication of what I mean, so we've got this one here, this individual notch here, so let's assume it's that one there and I've filled it in with that colour, on this side I'm just going to strengthen the shadow and then if I can, if I can get away with putting a bit of white on top I'll do that, so that's the effect that I'm looking for on each of these or a number of these different shadow shapes, diamond shapes, okay so then with the white pencil, so next up then let's take a look at one of the laces and the lace holes and then perhaps we can look at adjusting some of the values on either side of the upper sole, light layer of white down first because if you look at that, especially if you defocus your eyes, you'll see that that is not a white value, it's not particularly light, it's quite a dark grey, I'm going to go in with the grey in a moment, so just a little bit of light down to begin with, what I do want to do though is use a lot of pressure to get the highlight on these little metal rings here, but don't worry if you can't get it in exactly the place that it needs to be, depends how neat you've been with subsequent layers, I've been deliberately not too neat at all, there we go and then black, so let's get the shadow shape in and just make a note of the way the shape of the lace finishes, so if I just show you this on to the side here, so you've got that area there of the inner ring and then we've got the lace, the end of the lace has got this concave shape to it, so what you might see some people do, they're not observing carefully enough, is that kind of a shape, so it's just a flat edge and that's going to really give this believability that the lace is falling into the actual lace hole rather than just sitting on top of it and it's a small detail but it's one of those details that within a loose study really helps, you know, really helps to bring up that contrast between loose gestural marks and understanding and intelligence, if you like, from the artist that they understand what is going on, nice white highlight there just on that part of the lace, let's get that blue, so the shadow areas within, I'm going to just use some of this blue on there, I know there's no blue on the reference photograph but I think that will add just a nice variation in colour to the shadows that are there, there we go, if you think it's too blue you can tone it down with the grey, you may prefer just to do the grey, that's absolutely fine and then let's add a little bit of shadow tone onto this, so I'm using these horizontal marks but I could use vertical marks, I think that'd be quite nice, try them on subsequent laces, it's a bit of cross hatching there, it's turned into, this is obviously a lot darker down this end, okay back to our black, so again just look at how there's a curvature, convex shape in there and then the D shape almost of the dark part there, okay I'm going to do a couple more of those laces, these two here in the same way, just fill in the gaps with this sort of ready grey value here, fill in the gaps between the laces and then what I want to do is come back in and show you how to make these really stand out, really give it some depth and dimension, really really easy to do but a great effect, so I'll come back in a moment or two when I've done these two laces, okay so I'm just coming to the end of that now and this shape I want to do really really dark, I want to keep that really dark, so the red's gone down first, the dark red and then the black over the top, if you want to add a bit more red back into that you can do, okay so with the grey pencil and the black to hand this is how we're going to make things really punch, so we're going to be looking for shadows that are cast, the first one is on this part of the lace here, so add that with the grey where it's over the other white lace, then with the black I'm going to go over it and around this buckle and then with the red really strengthen the colour in there and just soften that out slightly and then the same on this side, you can maybe use the grey because it's in the light so it's going to be a lighter shadow, that one under there is going to be really really dark, I can use the black there, a nice fine shadow line just on the underside of that, really really thin, okay and then let's look at the next one, so there's a shadow cast by this lace onto this one, we've got our dark area underneath, cast by both, so it's a really strong pressure right next to the lace and then just soften it out slightly, maybe put the dark red under there first, okay and then the same on this one here, so this is dark, this is because it's in the shadow side, we can go in with the black, just reduce the pressure over this little area, so this thin white line here, the shadow cast on that is going to be lighter, so you can either reduce the pressure with your black or go over with the grey pen and it's that play between a really strong dark and then a little bit of a lighter dark back to a really strong dark where this is a lighter value here and this is a darker value here and that's how you create that believable shadow, now this side of the shoe is still a little bit too light, particularly the stitches, they need to really come down in value, so just with the grey pencil, just lightly in at first and then building up the pressure, just take it all over this area here, all over the stitches, you don't want any bright whites for those, now a little finishing touch if you want on the laces, this is a personal choice, you may want to do this, you may feel it's a little bit too much detail, it's just to add in some of the texture of the thread of the material, the actual lace material and I'm just going to do that very simply by doing a crisscross pattern but before I do that, I want to test out what that looks like and you can do it very very simply, the side of your paper, a little bit of white tone down, maybe a little bit of grey just to give a bit more of an accurate representation of what's there, the vertical strokes and then all I'm thinking of doing is just these crisscross marks, just to create these little diamond shapes within and I think that'll work quite well, the key is to use lighter pressure again than you think, nice sharp pencil and you can gradually increase the pressure as you need, don't just go in with really strong pressure and then have these lines that are far too strong, it's got to be very very subtle, it's also best to start in the middle because where it is closest to the light is where they're probably going to be less apparent, okay so just reducing the pressure around there, a bit more hit and miss and then opposite angle, there we go and I think it's a subtle detail but I think it's quite nice, so I'm going to do that on the rest of the laces and then what I'm going to do for this area here, all around here is just the same as what I've done exactly in the same way with the same techniques and the same observations, nice and dark between the laces, dark shadow areas either side of the upper sole, a shadow that is cast from one lace on top of another and then this shadow that is cast from the lace on top of the canvas upper sole here, so exactly the same way and then what I'll do is I'll come back in when we've done all of that bit and we'll move on to the next stage. So let's do a little bit of work on these laces here, I have started them there's not a great deal to them that's any different from working on these but I just thought I'd take you through the process that I would approach these just so you can see it can be maybe look like a fairly complicated shape but really it's quite easy to simplify. So the first thing that I'm doing is I'm looking for the brightest white lights and I'm putting those in with as much pressure as possible, so we've got this area on top of here, I'm going to go over any pencil marks if I can do and then we've got this nice thin strip of light around here, it goes around here, I can see really bright highlights on there, all of this underneath part in light and then there's this nice thin strip so really dig the pencil in, the point of the pencil, you definitely want a sharp pencil for this one, there we go and then with the grey you want to create some contrast behind it so that lace behind it now needs to be quite a bit darker, strengthen that area just in there, just tidy it up slightly so it really gives it some lift and some punch and then carrying on with this part of the lace here, let's get a nice white highlight on the top just at the end of the lace there and this bit I've already put in really really strong as I could and then with the grey let's just create a bit of curvature to this end part of the lace just by putting a little bit of shadow, that's all it needs underneath, there's a little bit of shadow under there and then as this part of the lace it comes into this part here it goes into shadow so let's just put a little bit of white tone down first but not with as much pressure here and then we can go over lightly with the grey get a little bit darker till it goes really dark in there so with the grey I'm going to use as much pressure as I can just to create that shadow this is the one that I'm looking at and then darker here and then gradually softening off out here and then we've got this top part here in the light so I want to create a bit of contrast with the lace behind so I can put a little bit more shadow just on the bottom part of that lace because what I want to do is create this here as a light edge let's get the knot in so the strongest white part on the top of the knot a little bit of light down a little bit of white down then the grey and this is a curved area so this is darkest here and gradually lightens dark around here and then lightens before it goes into the white that's really going to help this light highlight edge show up a bit dark in there and this inner side here let's put a little bit of white down again first it just helps it to show us a darker a darker white rather than a flat grey putting the white down first a really nice strong dark just inside this knot touch your white down just for this curved edge here so we've got the darkest grey I'm going to leave this thin highlight edge and then just for a little bit of continuity let's just put not with the black but with the grey just put a few of the textural marks the crisscross pattern I only need it here and there really that really then is all I need to do on this shoe this one is done in exactly the same way you may want to do this in as much detail as that one or maybe take a more sketchy approach to this one maybe just do the tip of the toe in the detail and then let it fade out compositionally the choice is yours what I do think would be nice to do is to do some of the jeans just to see how that contrast of the blue against the red works I think that'll look quite nice so what I'm going to do is select some colours and it's not really a difficult choice I've got the blue that I picked out originally let's just show this to the side so we've got that light blue that maybe will work for some of the lighter areas I've got this mid blue here which is a reddish helioblue reddish you can see how that one looks and then I've got a really dark blue this is actually only in the set of 36 so you won't have this in the set of 24 if that's all you've got this is the dark indigo but it doesn't matter so much because I think you know we could use the black in combination with this blue and it will create a colour very similar to in fact that's probably what I will try and do but I may use this just in a touch here and there so let's start with the lighter of the blues I'm going to have the white to hand as well because I want to put some of those lights in as we go so just blocking the colour in you can have a look at the different shapes you know just to get your eye trained in on those let's get a little bit of white down there first just for this lighter part of the jean just where it's stonewashed I'm going to get a little bit of colour in there but it is going to be really dark so you can just put that in really quickly so just interchanging just between the blue and the white just to create these highlights or the first start of these highlights there this is the helioblue reddish you can start to look at some of the some of the stronger values now really strong pressure it's a really really nice colour this very staining colour a little bit like windsor blue in watercolours okay light dusting over the top of this this will help create a little bit of texture and then of course we've got the shadow area so just softening that off and then it goes darker as it does with every fold so folds in material if you've not really done them before whatever type of material it is always has the same characteristic to it so let's just imagine that this is the fold here and create that in a 3d form what you'll get is and if the light is coming here you've got the lightest area on top and then obviously it's going to be darker here that's where it will be its darkest so let's just put a little bit of light on there so you can see so it's gradually getting darker and darker till the darkest point is in here but then immediately after this dark point because the light can then hit this again this is a reasonably light area and as long as you've got a soft transition between those values there so your light gradually darker and then back to a mid-tone and then back to a light your lightest light and it's a nice soft transition you'll always be able to create that believable curve so that's all i'm trying to achieve here i'm just thinking about you know where the darkest shadow is so this one here and the light is on the top the lightest areas on the top it's not white it's a still a light blue and it's just a case of going backwards and forwards with the pencils just to get that nice subtle blend between transitions so just using these horizontal strokes just to continue creating that sense of texture let's get this dark stitching in so really digging the pencil in here it's a line and then a bit of an area there with the stitches and then a line really really can't emphasize how strongly i'm pushing into the paper there so i want to follow the contours and the curves of the folds there let's get the black so around here this is where it's really really dark really dark shadow tone in there finally i just want to add a little bit more texture and i just think this area is a little bit too light so just a bit of crisscross texture just to show that it's just to give it a bit more detail really again it's not the texture that's important to this denim it's more just creating a contrasting color i think is going to work hopefully quite nicely with the red of the shoe so hopefully that gives you an impression of the denim jeans obviously not the same detail or the same care taken over the shoe but as i say it's more about the color than it is the texture and it just i think it just adds a nice little bit of a splash of a different color into the composition so what i'm going to do is just spend a little bit of time just working on the other shoe the techniques are exactly the same no difference whatsoever you're just looking for those lights and darks and then what we'll do is we'll come back in and then i'll add some background color and we'll just talk about color choice with regards to that