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Black and white drawing is a little easier than color, for the simple reason that if you mess up, you can erase. This step is where you add three-d effects of shadow and light. This is what will make your dragon look real. First, pick your light source, or the direction from which your light is shining. I've indicated mine with an arrow. Then, on all the parts of the dragon that are away from the light, draw shadows. You want to use your second darkest pencil, or if you just have an ordinary pencil, color almost as dark as you can. Now, in the color version, I made the stripes a lighter color, but for this one, they're darker. So, use your darkest pencil, or color as dark as you can in those places where the shadows cross the stripes. After that's done, the next thing is to outline your highlight. This is one thing that's harder to do in black and white than in color, because the highlight areas need to be left white, but you have to show where they are, otherwise on the next step you'll probably color over them by accident. You might want to go look at the color version so you can see clearly where your highlights need to go. After you're done with that, you're ready to move on to the next step. |
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The next step is easy, but it's also tedious. You need to put in your midtones. Just start coloring with a medium pencil, making every effort to keep your shading even. You also want to make an effort to keep your hand from smearing across the area that you've already shaded, though you can erase. Be careful not to shade over any of your highlights, that was the whole reason for marking them on the last step. After you've put down your midtones for the main body, go over and put down a slightly darker midtone where the stipes are. You don't want the lines outlining your stripes to be darker than the shading inside them, and you want to watch the highlights on the stripes as well. Once you're done with all that, you're nearly through! |
 | Well, the last step is easy, you just apply your eraser. Clean off the smudges around the dragon, (which I neglected to do) and clean off the places where you've smudged the highlights so that they aren't white anymore. Don't clean the areas where the stripes cross the highlights though. In fact, if your drawing hasnt smudged a little grey over them by now, just rub your finger over them till they aren't quite white anymore. You might also want to rub your finger over the midtone areas if they aren't even. If you need to, you can also darken the shadows, so that they contrast with the midtones more. Put in the shadows on the cresting and the claws, they're fairly simple. The last step, and the one that I think is the most important, is to add the eyes. Start by drawing in the pupil, which is slitted and as black as you can get. Then you draw, very lightly, a small circle near the top part, in the direction the light is comming from. Now, everything outside this circle needs to be shaded, moving from the darkest black you can get near the top where the light is from, to the lightest grey at the bottom. Don't shade in the little circle though, that needs to be kept white. Blend your shades together, and touch up the white with the eraser and (ta da!) you're all done. |
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