Drawing photo realistic horses with graphite pencils!

Hi everyone, welcome to a new video. Thanks for tuning in today. So today I have the sped up version of this portrait for you. So last week I uploaded a real-time tutorial of the horse's halter, one of the horse's halter. So you can watch that if you're interested in a real-time piece of this drawing. And today I have the sped up tutorial for you. So this drawing took about 15 hours in total to make, so quite long. And I sped it up into about 19 minutes. So it's quite fast. But I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I'll talk you through the techniques I'm using as well. The whole real-time version of this drawing with narration is available on Patreon for the $7 tier. So if you're interested in following along, recreating this drawing, you can. So feel free to sign up. And I really appreciate your support. It allows me to keep going, keep doing more of these. So let's get on with the materials first. I am using two Pentel mechanical pencils. I have one 0.3 millimeters with a B lead. And then a 0.5 millimeters with a 2B lead. So those are the two mechanical pencils that I use. And then I have some Faber-Castell graphite pencils. I have an 8B. That's the only one I'm using, an 8B. And then I have a Stabilo graphite pencil 2B. But the brand doesn't really matter as long as it's archival if you want to sell the work. But the brands don't really matter. So I'm using a 2B, 8B, and then the two mechanical pencils. Then the paper is Canson 1557, 180 grams. And then for additional materials, I'm using an indenting tool, a blending stump, and then a kneaded eraser and a Tombow Mono Zero eraser. So that's it. Oh, and at the end, I'm also using a bit of black colored pencil. So a black polychromos. Just to hype up the contrast a bit. I like how that looks. So let's get on with the drawing. So I have the sketch already mapped out, as you can see. And then I'm starting off with the left horse. The reference is from Pixabay. It's a royalty-free reference. So if you want to use it too, you can. That's no problem. And on Patreon, I also have the line art available to trace if you want to. So I'm starting off with the left horse's eye. I'm working with the mechanical pencils because it allows me to get into the really small details. The point stays sharp at all times. So I don't need to sharpen the pencils. And they're really suitable for the smallest details. So that's why I like to use the mechanical pencils. So with the mechanical pencil, I map out the basic shades in the eye. Then to darken up the darkest shadows, I use the 8B from Faber-Castell. And the drawing itself is not very large, actually. It's 8 by 10 inches. So the details are very small, especially the eyes. So I try to put as many details in it as possible. Then after that, I started off with the fur on the face. So it's really important to know in which direction the fur is growing. So with the left horse, the perspective is slightly from behind. So you can see the jaw and the bottom of the chin. And you really need to figure out in which direction the fur is growing. That's really important, even with the first layers. It's really important to know in which direction the hairs are growing. And always follow that direction. So I'm starting off with the base layer with the mechanical pencils. And with a very light hand, I'm building up the first layer. I am going in the right direction of the fur growth. But I'm not really drawing each individual hair yet. After the first layer, I do a bit of blending with the blending stump. Still with a very light hand. And then after that, I'm going in with the mechanical pencil again. Add some individual hairs. And then eventually, for the darkest shadows, I go in with the 8B from Faber-Castell. Also, I make sure to outline the halter. Making sure that those lines are very sharp. So the nose is very soft and the hairs on there are very, very short. So for the nose, I use circular motions for the layers. And I'm not really drawing hairs. So I make sure that the texture there is very, very soft. I keep drawing around the halter because I want to save that for last. So first, I'm moving on with the neck. So also on the neck, fur is getting a bit longer. So really look at the reference to see in which direction that's going. Most of the time, it's curving around the neck a bit. So I'm starting off with the base layer again. With the mechanical pencil, I use the 0.3 the most. I really like that one. So after the base layer, I blend a bit to soften up the texture. To get a really soft fur look. Then after that, I'm going to create the contrast. Contrast is very important. Make sure that the darks are dark enough. So I add another layer with the mechanical pencil. Then after that, I'm going over with the 8B to darken up the darkest hairs on the neck. When you're working with normal graphite pencils, make sure to sharpen the pencil often. Make sure the pencil is sharp. Otherwise, you can't really draw those very tiny hairs. That's why I like the mechanical pencil so much. Because I don't need to sharpen it. And then after the neck, I move on with the mane. So also for the mane, very important to know in which direction the hairs are going. And for the mane, I'm not really drawing each hair. But I'm rather looking at the different clumps of hair that I see. And the lights and the darks. And if you get those in the right place, you get the mane right quite easily. So you don't need to focus on drawing each hair when you're drawing mane. Because that's going to look like spaghetti. We don't want spaghetti hair. So work on the lights and the darks. I do that again with the mechanical pencil. Then the 8B. Then at the very end of the drawing, I will be going in with a black polychromos to really darken up that mane. So when you're drawing portraits like this, it's very important to understand the animal that you're drawing. To know the anatomy. To know where the muscles are and in which direction the fur is going. That makes it so much easier to draw these kind of drawings. Then moving on with the halter. It's a leather halter. Starting off with base layers. And it's also very important to look at the contours here. So at some places, the halter is actually lighter than the fur of the horse. And that's mainly because of the sun hitting the halter. Which causes a highlight on the halter. Especially at the top. So I make sure to really keep that in mind. And not draw the halter too dark right away. So I'm starting off with quite light layers and then darkening up if necessary. It's easier to start off light and then darken up. Instead of starting off too dark and having to lighten up. That's more difficult to do. So really build up your graphite work in layers. Trying to draw in all the tiny details on the halters as well. Then moving on with the second horse. Starting off with the eye again. Mapping it out. Using the mechanical pencil mainly. Then after that I move on with the face. So this horse is viewed more from the side. A bit from the front as well. And the left horse you can see more from behind. So the angles are quite different. Which means that the direction of the fur is also a little bit different. As you're viewing it from another angle. So I always like to start off with the bridge of the nose. When I'm drawing fur and then work my way towards the jaw. Most of the time the fur is going in a bit of a horizontal direction. And then curving around the jaw. The more you get towards the nose the fur is going more vertically. Then when you get to the nose the fur is so short that you can't really see the hairs individually. So then I switch to a circular motion with my pencil. So with the first layers I start off quite basic. So I just do a very basic layer. I don't really worry about the veins yet. And after the first layer I do a bit of blending. And after that I'm going to work on the shadows and the veins you can see on the face. Also the mouth area is very important. All the wrinkles you can see on there. It gives the horse more character. So make sure you put those in. And then after the nose I move on with the jaw. Drawing around the halter again. Making sure those lines are very sharp. Also really keep an eye on the color of the fur. So although we're not working in color. It's important that you can still see kind of what color the fur is. Just by the kind of contrast you're using. So the right horse is a bit darker than the left one. So it's important that you can actually see that in the graphite work. So I'm trying to make the right horse a bit darker by adding more layers. So drawing in the ears. The ears are very dark as you can see. It's so dark that you can't really see any detail in it. So I've just drawn in the ears based on what I know. And I made them a bit less dark than they are on the reference. Then moving on to the halter. The halter of this horse is a lot more detailed than the left one. You can find the real-time tutorial of this horse's halter on my channel. That's the video I uploaded last week. So if you're interested in the real-time tutorial of that one. You can go back to the previous video. Or I'll put a little link in the top right of the video. Also with the halter it's very important to work in layers again. And to simplify it a little bit. So you really need to think about it. Drawing is also a lot of thinking. Thinking of strategies and getting to the end result as smart as possible. Then moving on to the neck. So what I first did is outline the edges of the mane. So I've basically drawn around the hairs of the mane. Then after that I moved on with the fur on the neck. The fur is going a bit downwards. And the more you get towards the bottom of the neck. The more the fur is going like downwards and curving around the neck. The fur is quite dark here. So I started off. I still started off with quite a light layer. And then later on I went on with adding the darker shadows as well. Really focused on the contrast here. The contrast is going to create that shine effect on the neck. Then I moved on with the mane. So especially on these mane here. It's very important to focus on clumps of hair. Draw the clumps of hair. The shadows, the highlights. And not really draw every hair. Because that's going to look very ugly. I'm explaining all this in the Patreon tutorial. So if you're interested, please sign up. And yeah, that's how I drew in the mane. I tried to keep it very simple. Then after the mane I moved on with the final details. On the halter of both horses. Also the chains and the ropes. I drew in the rope on the left horse's halter. Just by drawing in the base layer first. And then creating that little texture on the rope. And after that I darkened up the textures and the shadows. And basically that was already enough. Then the chain on the right horse's halter was a bit more difficult. So you really have to draw in all those iron or metal bits of the chain. And then creating the right amount of contrast on it. To make it look like metal. And that was quite difficult. And for super small details like that on the chain. It's very handy to use a mechanical pencil. It will be so much easier than compared to using a normal graphite pencil. So after adding the chain of the right horse's halter. I added some more final details on both horses. I went in with a black polychromos to darken up some of the contrast. I just really like how that looks with graphite. You sometimes get a bit of a shine on the drawing. Which I don't really like. So that's why I like to go in with the black polychromos instead. To darken up the darker shadows. But get rid of that shine as well. But I didn't overdo it with the black polychromos. I just used it on the left horse's halter a bit. And on the mane of the right horse. Inside the nostrils. Just on the most important areas. The very darkest areas. And after that the drawing was finished. So it did take quite a long time to complete. Although it was quite a small drawing. 15 hours. But I really enjoyed it. And I hope you did as well. Let me know what you think of it in the comments below. Also if you recreated this drawing you can always tag me on Instagram. English is very hard. Or on Facebook. And I hope to see you on Patreon. Your support really helps me expand and improve. So thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you think of this drawing below. Then I'll see you in the next video. Bye bye!