WEI TING and QQ

Hello there! Thanks for coming to my blog! Appreciate your visit dearly.

After being absent for more than a year, I finally made it back here. I hope I could continue to post new works, for during the long period of ill health I have not been able to do much. Though I'm a lot better now, I have no confidence of 'staying alive'! Ha ha ha...

During this period of long absence I have tried to draw several pictures, many left unfinished. I tried to do in particular the drawings I promised to make for people I know, and who waited forever to see them done. After falling ill I see how life is so unpredictable and fragile, and tomorrow is never a promise of better health and joy. When my mother became ill as well and I was the only one to look after her, life became even more difficult. I learnt to appreciate every moment available, and I wish to live up to my promises before life takes away everything.

Thus I began to complete the promised drawings, one by one, hoping I'd make it in time and be free to do other works as well.

The first one is this drawing of a wonderful little girl and her lovely doggy QQ who likes to jump on me and lick me every time I show up. Kwa Wei Ting was 10 years old when she posed for me with her QQ while I took her photos to do the drawings. I wish I could do a few pieces more but I could only do 2 for her, including this one, as I have limited energy these days...

I have given the drawings to Wei Ting already and she liked them (Phew...). I shall now post the step by step record of the first accomplishment.

Here's how it usually start for my pencil drawings:

I used only 3 pencils for this drawing. 3B, 4B and 6B. Didn't intend to go too dark and the photo I took wasn't HD either too so it was kinda 'blurry'.

The usual kneadable eraser is a MUST.

The tortillions that blend the shadings.

The A3 size smooth art cards used for drawings.

The Mono Zero eraser to draw fine white lines.

Finally, the tissue to blend the shadings in smooth tone.

The beginning of the drawing is all about getting the proportion right. It takes time and patience. Sometimes I practice quick sketches without all the tedious measuring but for serious works, I have to spend more time with it. I used several methods I learnt from youtube to get it right. There's a wealth of knowledge there and people are so lucky these days to receive them free.

Doing some basic sketches before adjustment.

Developing the full face and further.

Coming to the proportion of the doggy now.

Done, and since I was slow at it, it took about one and a half hour to get here.

At last I could put in a light shading in 3B pencil.

The tissue blending made it look 'realistic' immediately.

Darkening the face further with more 3B and tissue rendition. 

It takes time to come out properly and patience is a necessity.

Then I darkened it further with 4B and 6B pencils. Every bit was drawn slowly.

Blending with tortillion has different effect from tissue. Tortillions make the blending darker, while tissues take away the pencil lead and lighten the shadings.

Working together with tortillion and tissue to achieve the desired effects.

That's the face work for now, will come back later.

Starting on the hair now. Darkening the portion slowly with 3B first.

Here the Mono Zero eraser was used to draw fine white lines as highlights.

Then a darker pencil 4B was used to make the highlight more obvious, drawing around the white lines and darkening more areas at the same time.

The hair developing in 3B and 4B pencils.

Finally 6B was used to darken the hair and features in finishing stages.

Next thing was to work on QQ. A thin layer of 3B was shaded on first.

Blending the 3B shading with tissue.

Additional darkening with the other pencils to bring out the shadowy areas. Dog fur is very complicated and I had a hard time getting all the strands.

Getting the strands included using the kneadable eraser kneaded into a fine point to draw the whites over the grey. The lines drawn were thick and not very defined.

For sharper white lines, had to use Mono Zero eraser.

After that, define the lines further with darker shadings using the pencils.

Here the fine loose strands were drawn in with Mono Zero eraser. 

I couldn't see all the fine strands though, not on the poor photo I took.

I like to see the fur effect. It looked so soft.

Developing the doggy face from left to right.

Adding in some shadings for the background. It helped to bring out the white portions of QQ.

Blending the shading in smooth tone with tissue.

Last bits of the work was to draw in some fine strands of hair and do some final touch ups.

And here's the finished drawing.

The drawing took about 36 hours to finish, it wasn't as detailed as some of the other drawings I spent time on but the work was just as hard.

I was glad to get one done at long last, a promised work.

I would like to thank Wei Ting's parents for allowing me to draw and post the picture of their darling girl and QQ. I would like to thank them for their patience and support in my effort to learn.

I shall post the 2nd drawing of Wei Ting and QQ shortly.

Thanks for looking!