Pencilling Techniques for the beginners and intermediates! Welcome welcome! Glad to see you here, if you're looking for some help, pointers, advice, whatever!, on pencilling tips (My preferred medium!) I can give you some! Remember the age old phrase on my page : I ain't a pro, so don't flame me on this! I use only standard black and white wood and mechanical pencils, so don't ask me on charcoal or coloured pencils. I have no inclination to use those (yet). Of course, my aim is to help those of you who are just beginning to draw fan art or would like to see if there's anything you haven't covered before about pencilling for fan art, but the most important thing is this : Practice. Alright, let's get to it! Note - Legend : (Beginner) - Recommended for beginners to read, intermediates may skip. (Intermediate) - Recommended for intermediates, beginners may find it a little tough to practice. (All) - As it says, everyone should be able to understand. Go to the Main body! Email me!

Sections :
Materials preferred by me
Points and Lines Techniques
Usage of lines for effects
Shading and blending

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Just to note....
My preference for Staedtler came from the fact that they sell their pencils in convenient sets, their pencils work beautifully (they come off smooth, not scratchy, and they shave easily!) and even though there's a set that has the full range of pencils, it's too bulky for me. The Technic set is just fine.

For those of you who intend to use blending pencils, you use coarse sandpaper to scrape off the dirty
nib of the pencil. Alternatively, you could use cotton buds and tissues for blending. (Cut your nails!)

Sakura brand mechanical pencils work great because you can stuff them full of lead and they won't jam. (Cost a bomb though) Be careful around 0.3mm pencils though, their leads are thin so they break easily.

Page 1 - Points and Lines technique :
    Right. First off, the first thing any aspiring manga artist (any artist) should learn is the Points and Lines technique. Simply put, this requires that you have something to use as a subject to draw in the first place. That means copying from a favorite picture of yours if you're reading this. (You DID come here with an interest in Japanese Manga, right??)
    Start off with a basic shape. The face should be ideal for this purpose. A simple circle will do here.
Now, look for a landmark feature that you can easily refer to when drawing this pic.(an eye is always good.) Draw this feature, and remember that the paper you're drawing on does have a size, so leave space for the rest of the picture. From that feature, look for the next nearest feature. (I will use the other eye for this) Now comes the tricky part. Look at the space between the two. How far is the second eye from the one you've already drawn? If you can, take a notched pencil (regular notches on the unsharpened end) and measure. If not, a simple finger measurement will do. Now, draw a 'border' where the next feature starts, and work from there. How much higher/lower is the top of this second eye than the first? Is it thinner, thicker? (That's where the notches or finger measurement comes in too. How many notches is the second eye? One? Half?) Work on the face as a practice piece. You should soon get the proportions complete. Now, that was easy. What about the rest of the person?
    A standard human body is roughly 7 times the height of the head (proportion is 1:7, total of 8 units), so if it's a standing character, lucky you. 'Block' out the basic proportions by drawing squares that roughly define the body's proportion. Again, you can measure the height with your notched pencil or your fingers. Once you've roughed out the proportions, begin with your skeleton (if you're unsure) [the skeleton is normally a stickman], then work on the flesh. Remember to consider the body's proportions. The chest level of a male is generally one 'head' (I'll call them Units) below the character's Head. Practice!

Page 2 - Line quality.

    So far, this is one area which I am terminally weak in, but I will do my best.

    The most important aspect of any drawing is that its lines must be clean. When I mean clean, that means no (or as little as possible) unwanted curvy, wobbly lines, no breakages, and above all, the line must convey the sense of mass in the drawing.
    This is where thick and thin lines come in.
 

And when/how to add those cheek lines (I also call them blush lines) you sometimes see on a person's cheeks in some mangas? (In some, they're almost a permanent feature!) Well, lines here generally mean two things : When a cheek is pulled up by a facial expression (smiling, surprised, etc.), or when embarassed. To achieve a proper effect, you should draw the lines with the top tip facing the nose, and depending on their slant, you should put a minimum of 3 lines. If the slope is greater, then add more lines as you see fit but remember to cram them closer. For nose blush lines, draw them with top tip facing right, stack them high and plenty. Of course, there's the total flush where the entire stretch of the face is blushing, just draw them short, thin, packed, facing the right (top tip, as normal) all the way.

3) Shading & Blending (For those who want a little more depth and already know what else to do.)
Shading and blending is actually one of the hardest things to do, since you've got to do it convincingly to make the character look as 3-D and beautifully 'realistic' as possible. (It's for this reason some people shade, anyway.)
I'd like to draw your attention to a certain work of a contributor's first.
 

The basic theory behind shading is that it is to give a sense of roundedness, that what you're looking at isn't totally flat, hard and 2-D, but smooth, and with the correct touches, however real and true to life you want it to be.
Again, looking back at the picture above, look at Shampoo's (the girl in purple) arms. I would say they look quite round, as are her puffy sleeves. By "realizing" the shape of something, you should be able to understand the concept behind shading.

Basic theory No. 1 : Objects have shapes. Contrast and compare.
The drawings we do all the time are known as contour drawings. By tracing the outlines of things, we can create different objects on a 2-D piece of paper. Of course, these things are also all 2-D, which is why they sometimes seem a little flat to us. But no, remember how is it the manga we read don't always appear to have shading? Or do they? Well, doubtless most of you would have noticed by now it's not always the characters who have shading (except for that occasional dramatic effect). Instead, by contrasting a shaded background (easily done by computer and some simple penwork) to a character, we "notice" that they are "shaded". An easy trick to play on the eyes.

But we aren't professionals who specialise in helping make a manga strip look shaded or modifying it according to artist requirements. (Not yet, anyway.) What this section will try to advise on is how to best go about shading what you have. Most people draw only a foreground picture (the characters themselves), so I'll cover that first.

Remember that shading exercise I covered earlier? (use back after clicking on the link if you're interested in seeing what it is/refreshing your memory)
You have to remember that shading is meant to compliment the object's shape, not defy it. And since we're using pencils, (which leave plenty of 'lines' you can see regardless of how soft you may make it) you'll have to remember some important tips.

1) Be smooth - Certain parts of a picture may require a "base" shading (all grey, all dark grey, etc.), so be meticulous in covering each inch of the picture. But be smooth, if you're shading in one stroke direction (say, you're running you pencil diagonally from lower left to upper right, upper right back to lower left), keep to it. Many people forget this and commit the simple mistake of scribbling all over. And remember, do it advancingly. Don't just sketch a line here and back like you're drawing circles, do it so that the area is slowly but surely covered by a fine, progressive layer of graphite lead. Smoothness part 1 achieved.

2) Be 'Base' - If you're doing any base shading with B lead and above, don't. Not yet, anyway. Such soft leads tend to leave a very ugly, rough look to your picture (unless you want it that way) and make for horrible blending and shading afterwards. Instead, 'prepare' the area with H or 4H lead. (Preferably, do it in H, then followed up by 4H or next best alternative) This will allow you to have a smooth base that allows the B  or darker lead to look smoother, and more complete. (Since they leave lots of empty spaces, the 4H/H base can cover them up somewhat) And if you're blending/smoothing, the harder H/4H lead will help blend with the B lead, allowing for smoother shades over the paper. Just remember to apply a little more pressure, since H leads tend to make it harder for B leads to rub off onto the paper.

3) Go with the flow - Depending on the shape of the object and direction of the light source(s), you may have to shade accordingly. Say, a cylinder. It's rounded, so naturally you would (if you tried the shading exercise) draw and shade it from side to side, breadthwise. But, it's alright if you want to do it lengthwise. This is known as "sharp contrast" shading.
 

Observe the "cyclinders" on the left. (No, I used freehand, sitting up, without a solid backing to draw on.) Which one do you thing was shaded using the "with the flow" (I call it smooth) technique and which one was using the "sharp contrast"? Obviously, the one on the left was done using the "smooth" technique, while the one on the right was done using the "sharp contrast" shading. You should be able to see that for the "smooth" shading, everything blends quite well, while "sharp contrast" shows off the distinction between shades even when blended.

4) Being carefree is the best policy - Assuming you just want to shade withouut a thought for these "directional" issues, go ahead! But remember to "be smooth" and "be base" for best results.

By now, if you've looked at the example picture above (the purple and green one by Kupi) after reading all these, you'll notice she has followed these rules. It comes naturally after a while. And notice the hair.
I covered the topic of using lines to give the hair that flowing effect, now I'll show you how it can be done. (In my way, of course.)
 

First off, draw "your" hair. (This is a sample)	Prepare the hair with the desired shade. Leave extra space in between the shine and the shade...	Highlight the shine with a slightly darker shade. I used a much darker one to make it more obvious to you.	You can skip this step, but draw your lines across the shine if you're not sure of your own skills.	Erase the excess and redraw what you need, or if you went directly to this step, draw your lines so that they take up some of the shine space and are obvious.

Most importantly, remember that since the hair is flowing in this direction, the lines flow similarly in long drafts, not short ones. If you draw too much to one side, don't worry, draw another line. If the hair gets too dark, erase some of it and reshade. Don't worry, you can always draw the lines again.
 

~ Knowledge to shade
Of course, knowing the ridges and bumps in an object is also a priority if you want more detail than most.
You'll have to learn most of these through trial and error, but some basic things you should know :

1) Cheeks always stand out just a tiny fraction above the rest of the face, so sometimes the shadow won't cover them. The cheeks themselves may cause shadows. Compensate for this.

2) Noses shouldn't be 2 dimensional affairs. If you draw a nose from the side and want to shade it, leave a small gap between the nose-defining line and the shading. (If you don't have a nose defining line, just use some initiative.)

3) The area around the eyes is often somewhat sunken at the top (underneath the eyebrows) and sides, so make shadows here and there to reflect this.

4) Grown men and teen males have adam's apples, so make some shading at the throat if you can.

5) Always remember the shape of the body you are shading and shade as you would any solid shape. A flat chested, muscular beefcake is worlds apart from a chubby man who can't hold his own belly up with his arms.
 

Remember, if the light  sourcing is from the right to left....

Looking at the picture (contrast darkened for easier identification of the shaded portions) should give us a pretty good idea of what to look out for. Using the lines I mentioned above to mark out creases and details, shade with an eye out for the human (or whatever you're sketching) anatomy with the variable factors notwithstanding. (Such as clothes.) An interesting way of finding out if you got your clothes shading done right is to invert its colour under an image program such as Adobe Photoshop. If it looks convincing enough, you've got it right. (If you've got a scanner in the first place, that is.)

Make sure in inverse it looks like it's coming from the left to right.

Use your imagination a little! If you're shading a character facing an angle that's foreign to you, just use a little initiative and imagine. It shouldn't be too hard to find the right places to shade from there.
Basically, that's all the help I can give in this section.

Blending : The first rule about blending is that you always work with a clean nib. Whenever you start on a new area of shading within any picture, always make sure you're using a clean blending tool. You don't want foreign shades ending up on your nice little piece now, do you? *evil laugh*

Now, remember the pointer I gave about being "smooth" and "base"? It should become second nature to you to use these whenever you consider smoothening and blending shades together.

1) Smooth, and then smooth again. - Before you apply any real shading, alwways smoothen out whatever base shades you already have with the blending tool of your choice. Not only does it look better, it'll be easier to blend and shade later on.

2) Don't cram 'em like sardines. - Do it one shade at a time! If you're ddoing a multi-part shading (progressively darker), do it shade by shade. First apply the lightest shade all the way, smooth it (yes, do it, so the the blending tool can pick up the different variations of lead to make for better blending), next darker shade, smooth, repeat until you've gotten what you want. Not only is it easier to spot any shading mistakes you may have made, but you can have a clearer idea of what you'll end up with eventually.

3) Slice 'em thin, not skinny. - Since blending tends to be a rather wide-based and can cause shades where you don't want them (unless you're using one of those *really* fine blending pencils that can bend and break in your hand), always leave space to allow stray shades to spread out (if you can, make this to your advantage). Like shading hair, you leave the space to let the shades settle naturally as you blend.

Otherwise, blending should be a pretty basic exercise for those already experienced in shading.
If you have any questions, comments, etc., you can fill in the form below and post it to me! I'll be glad to answer anything you have to ask.
(Just remember : A full and proper email is required for replies.)

And as I always tell you to remember, practice is the skeleton key that'll unlock everything in time. So go practice, and lemme see the fruits of your labour! ^_^

Now go and try your hand at art! (And let me look at them when you're done.)
And remember, my page displays only Ranma fan art.
Or......