How to Draw a Skull with Pencil

hey everyone this is way and welcome back now for this video we're going to do a really useful exercise and which is to draw a skull and reason why it's good is because there's a lot of interesting shapes going on here lots of complex forms so it's a really good drawing and shading exercise so let's get started and I'll talk about the process along the way all right so let's draw this skull and the first thing you want to do with something like this is kind of blocking the overall shape and I can see like the cranial is basic basically kind of like a circle let's see if this this is in frame okay and I'm using a uh B pencil so it's going to be pretty much like your regular number two or HP pencil you know those your number two scool pencils all right so let's say that is the the overall you know area of the cranium so I know approximately how big um this whole joint is going to be just for the top part and so if we measure we know that if you look at the eyes the eye sockets it's kind of um let's see right around in the middle there's going to be where the eye one of the eye sock sockets going to be so this is one way of measuring so so you take the overall shape and then find like the midpoint and and then you can compare you know where um where things are so let's say this is one of the ey socket then we can move on to the other socket kind of like this and then keep in mind of the slant uh there is obviously um this thing is symmetrical so there's going to be like overall uh perspective or slant to this so that's going to give you um kind of like the general slant these two lines right here and then we go now I'm going to work from this side since I'm right-handed so I want to see what I'm what I've drawn so I'm going to work work down from the eye socket and then this little cheekbone here comes out and then the nose work toward here opens up here and you can check it like you know this this um this part right here how far is it or it's kind of uh if you go straight up it kind of almost hit hits the uh hits the eye socket okay so we go straight down this is going to be all teeth can see my student frame all right all right so going back up here uh cuz I need to get some measurements down here so we go let's see from the corner of the back of the teeth right here it go straight up kind of hits the eye a little bit so it's going to be right around there and then you have the other cheek right same same line see I'm drawing a this little um mark that I have here I'm going straight this way and I know the cheek's going to be somewhere around here that'll give me that okay right here there's a lot of little details let's just skip that for now going down to the teeth so this whole you know all these teeth right here I mean obviously you don't want to dry right now so a good way to do is just kind of block it in as if it's just like a strip of something you know and then let's see the chin going down you can measure the chin you know from the right here to the middle of the teeth it's almost slightly more than double so my initial area was kind of correct so we go straight up so so this part gets a little bit easier now right cuz now we have all this stuff uh other reference points to check too so that way we can this thing goes up here yeah there's a lot of little things going on here so let's skip that and move on here see the back of the head comes up okay and then this thing's going to go up and I'm going to go back to this side since I don't want to draw this first I want to I want to draw this first and then work on the other side so now we can refine the shape a little bit better this it's not just a sphere so this is a little slant there going up and's kind of a bulge back here like this so you can kind of recognize this bulge here and then this bulge here and you see how my lines are actually going over uh um that way you know you can see the full shape you know cuz this thing is round and those those actually serves as a these are almost like contour lines like if I keep doing this you can see how it's actually contouring as if I'm running along the surface of the skull and it's actually very useful to have those lines because when you shade it um you're going to be able to see that what this is round and it's going to keep reminding you that it's round and you'll be able to shade a little bit better and that's especially true for uh for Life drawing it's a lot of contouring work so okay let's see um we have this thing kind of roughed out so I'm going to start out with the eye socket area I'm going to refine the uh shapes a little bit cuz it's not all round especially at a um we're seeing it at 3/4 view so there's a little bit perspective okay all right so normally actually well if you want to draw something accurate and you want to do all this you know guidelines like what I'm doing here uh you want to use a lighter pencil that's why I'm starting out with a a b um usually you know if you seen my other portrait videos I just go ahead and start with like a 4B and stuff because it's a little bit quicker um this way is a little bit slower but then you know you get to really put in the uh you know the drawing all the guidelines so you your stuff can be a little bit more accurate um there's a lot of stuff going on with the teeth so I I might just skip that for now because I kind of want to show you uh the more important aspect which is you know shading it and how to you know make this look like a give it give it the threedimensional form that's the fun part it's like drawing teeth is not exactly fun all right uh let's see at this point okay I'm just going to keep shading with the with the be for now so I'm going to start here and so we know the eye socket is is uh indented in right and it's going to be darker so I'm just going to you know do the full shape just darker like this and very slight and very loose on your hand when you're doing this kind of shading um you just want to keep it this loose okay just keep it loose and if you want to push it down you get harder and you know just you can start lining it so there's a lot of hand control work and if you're not used to doing this just just keep working at this see if you can get some very nice um you know clean and and solid shape out this because you know without hand control you you know you're always going to be struggling with your drawing because you won't be able to shake correctly but the more you do it you know the more control you're going to get all right so right here uh let's see let's do some of the more refined shading now so we know this Edge is darker so I'm going to go in and and put in a little bit more shading and you can see that I'm doing cross-hatching I'm not going this way again because i' I've already done this already and if I keep doing it um you might end up rubbing the paper too much but by crosshatching it becomes darker real quick because you end up filling in the gaps and then it kind of Fades out right here there's a little bit shading in here okay let's go to this side so this Edge is dark that's what that's why I'm starting off that edge I always like to do the dark Edge first because normally your Strokes at the beginning is a little bit rougher you know that way um you can correct for it as as you're doing it and you know even if you make errors on the on the dark area it won't it won't show up so and then here is in here obviously it's dark okay I'm not going to try to shade too much of the darks with the with the B because it's just not dark enough I me I would like to switch to a darker pencil but I know a lot of you actually just work with like a b or HB pencil so I want to show you how far you can take it just by using this B okay so now here is the um the nose area and again in here is pretty much darker right because it's indented so I'm going to shade this area just give it one quick shade first and this is important because you want to go from the large area first and then the detail right because we know everything is darker so let's say I do that already now I can go in and obviously this Edge right here it's much darker because uh there's more contrast because this is this is white on okay so I'm going to hit that and I know there's another Edge in here so I can actually just outline it a little bit and then start shading and then here there's a lot of stuff going in here too so let's just uh roughen some shapes so you can so just kind of do it in blotches you know like here I know this is [Music] darker and this is darker here this and then in here is even darker so you just kind of go in steps darker darker darker keep going darker darker darker okay so something like that uh I might just leave it at that for now because I can darken it with the uh with a 2B or even the 4B but you know with with this B you can get some really nice um you know soft shading with this okay here there's a little dot here Dot and then right here is slightly darker because it's going under okay see how quickly you can you can do that kind of stuff it's just here's a dark Edge right here and then just keep shading shading it's kind of like a gradation here it's darker okay and then here uh see this tucks in right here so this whole shape is darker okay so I'm just going to rough that in so it's almost like a patch right I'm just doing this patch and then let's say this patch and then in here slightly lighter than this and then there's a line right here okay comes out like this and then this area right here is kind of rough so let's see I'm just going to slightly just kind of trying to follow the line okay now this is actually very important um you see how I'm doing these lines I'm I'm not necessarily just going oh I'm seeing this and then this that right I'm not doing that I'm I'm actually going like this and then like this and then like this and there and you can see there's a big difference in the line quality right this is nice and soft and it's it's also kind of uneven and there's a lot more power to this as opposed to this because this is flat this can be anything like I can actually go in and make certain areas darker and things like that and that will really give um uh you know a lot more realism in this because if you do like a harsh line right here it's just going to kill it it's going to make it look um like a pattern you know and we all know it isn't a pattern in here so so let's see in here there's a lot of stuff going on it's darker here darker darker darker okay so now we can move on to this side let's see there's a little bit of lighting in here I'm just going to ignore that seriously it's just like um so sometimes uh you know if it looks kind of funny in in a photo even though you know it's real um we don't have to draw like that because if you do uh actually it might not look good on your drawing because it looks like an error and I actually learned that when I was working as a model at Rhythm and Hues there's a con concept out this guy and he was showing me like oh look at this thing is like look at this uh background that you know how does it look like you I'm like and I'm like that looks kind of weird and he's like yeah well this actual photo and I'm like well really and it was it was kind of funny he say like and he said that uh you know if I actually painted something like that you know I would have been fire I'm like so it just proves the point you know some sometimes real is not necessarily what you want you know you want something that looks good and convincing right but but sometimes it's real and it's it's odd looking you don't want to replicate that because if you do they're going to think you messed up anyway that's a little bit of a long long story okay uh let's see so shading more cross-hatching cross-hatching and normally I would rotate yeah I could rotate the paper senses okay I just rotate my arm so make sure I don't get in front of the camera okay uh let's see all right let's go down a little bit more the teeth right here I'm kind of hes hesitant to uh start shading this thing cuz so much teeth you might get bored all right so I'm just going to sketch in something like this doesn't need to be uh according to the reference because this is way too much stuff for me to do on at least on camera okay so the chin right here is darker right it sinks in okay and then this Edge right here is darker darker and then there's a middle line here um and this is something you might want to do too um just kind of identify where the the center line is like what what I'm doing right here I mean this gives you a nice again it's kind of it's like Contour right so you know uh where the surface is is how is it moving gives you a better sense of the surface curvature okay like the bottom here is dark so I'm just going to hit it harder and again if I want a um harder line I'm turning my pencil so I get that nice sharp edge okay so again you see my Strokes is is it's more like this okay it's more like this and not not this this is dead there's no life to it you know you don't want to do something like that but if you do something like this there's a lot more life to it and that's that's that's line quality um I think if you see you know the so the more advanced artist you you see that kind of stuff and if you do see these harsh lines they're usually you know may like beginner amateur just just kind of learning I mean nothing wrong with that it's just you just got to go through those stages and eventually you get better okay all right so let's see this is darker in here CU it's behind all right now let's let's talk about um the edge of this overall head now since the background is white if we leave this Edge White you know it's going to get lost and we can see from the reference it isn't right I mean there is a slight shade to it so so this is where the short Strokes um really helps because again you don't want a flat line like that it's just going to make it two dimensional so you just got to have to be a little bit careful um and start shading it because there's a lot of variation now take this let's see let me let me erase some of this out so you can see a little bit better and this is actually quite important so if you look at the the cranium right here it's not a solid line right if if you look at the reference Clos it's not a continuous line it's darker and then there's actually some places where slightly softens up okay I'm going to do this kind of slowly so you can well I'm going to try to do it more accurately so you can see what I'm talking about okay if you look carefully there's actual slightly bulge right here right and that is why you got to shade it slowly and carefully and really be uh observant to what you're seeing because if you end up doing a line you're going to lose that bulge and that's when the shapes don't come through and you're going to wonder why you know it's it's looking kind of funny right the shapes don't come through okay so you see how the shading created this bulge here and that's just basically by careful shading along the edge so it runs all the way along um okay I'm going to turn paper here so I'm going do this little strokes multiple Strokes not one cuz we don't want to line that way you can control it and in here is slightly darker okay this comes in cuz it kind of flans out a little bit here and that's what's going to give this a little bit more of a bulge right so this there's another big bulge here and it flans out right in here I try to do real softly I hope you guys can see this because yeah yeah so I'm using such a soft pencil um it's kind of hard to see on camera sometimes another reason I like to sketch with darker pencils on camera okay so you can see this um this whole top area you know where I paid a little bit more attention you can start feeling the the structure the little bumps and stuff and now I'm really light on my hand just barely doing anything and just kind of let it develop slowly so that you don't going you don't end up going too dark like what I did that on that stroke but never mind that okay so let's see and it comes down here and then this is a very dark Edge right here so I'm going to turn my pencil very dark multiple Strokes fade it out okay so if you do a line let's say you do a line like this okay and you want to fade it out you do this kind of Strokes over it so it's kind of like right and again it's it's all about hand control so you can get a nice gradation okay and then you go back in and now you can make it a little bit darker and then do it again maybe like a a smaller scale all right so that gives you a nice you know curvature of his rounding back and that's exactly what is happening um obviously with this cranium the skull okay so at this point uh let's see well it's you can see things are starting to develop now it's a now it's just a matter of going in and and shading more more and more right now you can see this little all right there's a little indentation here goes in and this white spot right here is actually very important um it really gives you this form that is is it's hooking in the shape and that's why it's darker here so I'm going to make this darker so you see how by making just this Edge darker off some this thing just brightens up right and and then right here there's actually a harder line and again you see my Strokes are not a it's not uh one single line it's more like a rubbing effect so I'm going to rub it in here and why I'm doing this because it is kind of like that on the reference but also I'm trying to enhance this this white area right here so I might actually make this a little bit darker like this and that will by making the surrounding area darker now all of a sudden this thing just pops right up and there's a straight on lighting so that's why you get this Edge and I might actually feather it out a little bit more so okay so I'm going to go out into it fed it out even more more so than than what you see in in in the uh the reference and that's because you know this thing is behind so I just want to really give you the illusion of so I'm not necessarily just drawing what I see I'm I'm trying to enhance it at the same time and you can do that because well we're artists and we get to draw whatever we want right we don't always want to draw exactly what we see although that's a start okay so you can see how this thing is coming up uh it's and then here slightly darker okay so now you know this piece is is coming alive and obviously we continue to do down here okay again this very pretty hard lines down here okay but it's very uh kind of like what is it's very rough and almost like the edges are chiseled okay so you can do like this little block shading like block block so it's coming through see this is even darker so again remember you know what is darker recedes and what is lighter comes forward so it's a very uh important concept for this kind of drawing because there's a lot of things going in and out of each other so so at this point uh as I'm shading more and more you know you're getting more and more realism and the paper is starting to to you know the edges of the the twoot paper is starting to round out it's starting to smooth out so you have to be careful just too much shading is eventually just going to die out going to be so flat that you won't be able to draw much on it okay so at this point uh I'm going to move on to a 2B just so I can get a darker Edge and I kind of checked it a and I can see that this eye is off you know because the slant is off so you know this kind of stuff happens because I was so concentrated into shading this part I didn't re check the accuracy of the drawing first but regardless uh let me still keep working on this area right here just around here with with a 2B that way we can get a little bit you know darker and maybe quicker process um I might finish this off camera cuz a lot of it it's kind of the same thing repeated over and over again it's just a matter of you know being a little bit more uh observant and start seeing more and more and as you shade it you you will see more and more as you shade it um you might not see it now because it's still you know things are just there's nothing on the paper to compare to but once you start laying in some shade you will see those I guarantee you that you're going to see all this little stuff like right here I'm looking inside the eye now there's all these little things going on here so and I am using a 2B now so it's a little bit darker but you can I think you can see it's also a little bit softer too right it's not rubbing into the paper as evenly and that is the tradeoff for a softer pencil you will get more a little bit more texturing so if I push hard into it I know that's how dark I can can get with this thing and I'm just and I think I forgot to mention I'm just I'm just using uh this regular print paper so a lot of time with the the tubs darker pen pencil if I want a darker Edge I actually need to turn my pencil a lot more because I you want that sharp edge you want that slightly Sharper Edge sometime to to really hit those lines like right here like if I don't do it it's just going to be a blunt Edge and it's really hard hard to get a nice you know harder stroke into it all right so so I'm shading here darker and when you're look at the reference at this point um you can squin your eyes a little bit so you can see the overall overall um shading of this like this eye socket like if you screen your eyes at it what do you see well you kind of see this dark area right here and there's another patch right in here and this this lines up right here so I'm just going to concentrate this area so you can see a little bit better yeah maybe finish this area a little bit more so you can see how you how you can finish the rest of the skull so like here's darker I'm making it a little bit darker now dark Ed here some more shading here and as I'm doing I'm kind of mindful of the original direction of the of my hatching so I can you know do the cross-hatching and not keep doing the same hatch lines so this is really dark some detail here you know little blotches uh so like you know if you just hit it couple of Dots here and there or whatever um like these little cracks let's say the cracks you know you can just kind of go in again don't try not to do a continuous line just uh just kind of a little bit wavy because it's not a uh it's not a solid line you know that will give you that'll give you some realism okay so you can see a little cracks like that just helps for the realism and I'm not going for hyperrealism I just kind of want to show you how to shade because hyperrealism is uh it's cool to look at but not a lot of fun to draw it's like painful sometimes rather do something artistic you want something artistic but you also don't want to be just throwing paint on the wall and calling an art and now you're talking about Modern Art and that's a little crazy to me so never got into that all right I'm not going to go into a Rand about Modern Art but all right see here darker here now I'm seeing these little this little Shadow shapes SLE shapes and there's a lot of little markings here so you can actually just go in and may just rough it up put some dots like that and then this Edge right here is pretty hard so I'm going to dig into it a little bit more dig in dig in okay so I'm digging digging my whole arm is moving I'm not you know you want to get this nice curve and why is this now this Edge is important because you see how this Edge is darker than this this Edge right here well that makes it feel like the light's coming from this way and this this right here is darker so it actually um gives it so much uh form because this Edge is darker than that okay so it's like if this Edge were the same as this then now we have a direct flat lighting and you know we we you know we just get a little bit less of the the dimensionality of this it's a little bit brighter here so I'm going to make this darker that way that this Edge little thing can pop up see all the little things I'm seeing now it's just it's kind of maddening sometimes you kind of want to and that's another thing too is just you you got to figure out for yourself you know at what point you need to stop you know you need say okay well you know that's that's enough you know detail realism for this overall thing so then you just kind of set yourself that limit because or else it'll never end because you know whatever um detail level you work at at any one given area you kind of want to you know apply that to the to the whole drawing uh at least you know most of it so that you know things are consistent okay so you see how this Edge right here is darker all right so I think uh let me see how's it looking I'm looking at the camera right now so I can check I mean it's getting there I mean I can see a little bit you know now I can see if I step back I know this all this area actually is a little bit darker so I can do that okay and then because I make this whole area darker well now these edges in here needs to be darker okay all right so I think I hopefully I got my point across on how to shade something like this where it's a lot of stuff going in and out um and basically just starting with the b or HB you know give you the O overall form and then shading it and then shading it again with the 2B slightly harder to give it more depth and realism so I'm going to finish this off camera uh it's a little bit quicker if I'm able to put my head over it so and without speaking so so I'll finish this a little bit more and see how it goes I'll be right back all right so here is the final drawing and I just kind of pushed it a little bit more a little bit more detail overall and a lot darker in some of the areas and I am not drawing those teeth CU it's just kind of nuts so uh you know for what it is I think this is a good skull and it's a really good exercise so just give it a shot see how it goes and I will see you next time

Channel: Art of Wei

Views: 41,273

Keywords: how to draw a skull, how to draw a skull with pencil, how to draw a skull for beginners, how to draw a skull step by step, how to draw with pencil, how to draw and shade a skull, how to shade a skull with pencil, how to draw the head, how to draw the head skull, how to be a better artist, how to draw better, how to draw like a professional, how to draw

Id: 5QNybTaFrKU

Length: 34min 49sec (2089 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 29 2016