CHAPTER 2 | THE SKIN OF AN ANIMAL
In Chapter 1, you saw that mythical creatures often have different types of skin. In this chapter, I’ll give you some tips for drawing furry fur, plumage, and scaled skin.
The artist of Winnie the Pooh bear beautifully demonstrates how to draw a furry, woolly coat. A woolly outline with fine hatching and shading within it can also be easily achieved with fineliner or pen and ink.
Exercise 1: Try to make this tightly drawn rabbit very woolly.
2. PLUMAGE
I drew a house sparrow with folded wings in three steps: step 1 was the outline (left) with an assisting line. I had to pay special attention to the slanted position and the place of the legs. Step 2 was drawing planes such as the shape of the wing and the planes in the head (center). Step 3 was drawing in the feathers (right). See also the Wings lesson (level 1).
Exercise 2: Draw this great tit in the same way, now with the colors added.
3. SCALY SKIN
Skins of scaly animals such as reptiles have the most amazing structures and colors. It is impossible (at least for me) to draw them exactly, but you can give the suggestion of scales. I’ll show you how I tried this with a lizard (using a photo). I started with the animal’s shape, using guidelines for direction and proportions. I further developed the drawing with scales, spines, and lines that indicate the roundness of the body. I drew the scales both within and around the head, but not very precisely. The light and dark lines enhance a rounded shape.
Many fish have scaly skin, such as carp. I started again with the shape of the fish (using a photo) using assisting lines for the center and the proportions. Without assisting lines I tend to miscalculate these proportions. For the scales I used a structure from the lesson Drawing structures, Chapter 1, Level 1. Finally I made sure that the scales follow the curve of the body a bit.
Beautiful examples of drawn fish can be found in Japanese prints such as these Koi carp by Ohara Koson (1877-1945).
Almost the opposite of a furry coat, spines, feathers or scales is the almost transparent skin of jellyfish. For these astonishing animals you can very well use ovals (see the lesson ‘The versatile oval’, level 2).
And now get away as fast as you can from that fearsome T-Rex predator!
