In the quest to be more proficient with colored pencils, I spent the whole day yesterday just watching awesome artists draw with colored pencils. Not tutorial videos, but just artists drawing - the speed drawing kind. My most favorite would definitely be Ms. Heather Rooney; I managed to watch almost all of her videos.

Good artists will make you either want to be better or just stop altogether.

This is very true! I realized I had been so focused with digital drawings that I have forgotten the basics with traditional. I had only drawn a handful with colored pencils - just four, in fact (all those are here on Steemit) - and while watching all these experienced artists on Youtube, I found that I still had a long, long way to go.

Cue Learn to Draw with Friends Contest by @tonyr.

Ah, this contest brought me wonders. It literally urged me to learn to draw. I thought I already knew how, but doing all the challenges the contest presents? I had to look back at the basics.

First. The contest prompted me to be more acquainted with traditional media, particularly, pencils and/or colored pencils. Before Steemit, the first and last time I seriously used colored pencils was back in February (re: TWICE Momo Fanart).

Second. I just faced my irrational dislike with drawing animals. The last contest theme was Animals, and my sister @arrliinn forced me to draw the lion. 

Now. It made me question my abilities. Hence, it pushes me to do better. It is a contest, and in every contest, there are competitors; and they are all really good.

Doctor Who

For this week, the Learn to Draw with Friends contest's theme is Doctor Who. (On another note, the casting for the Thirteenth Doctor surprised me!)

There are three Doctor Who-related images of different skill level, i.e. beginner, intermediate, and advanced. I chose the advanced one (the Twelfth Doctor), but I might also do the beginner and intermediate ones.

About my entry: The struggle.

To the left, you will see the steps it took for the drawing to be what it would soon look like. I very lightly drew the base sketch, so I had to adjust the lighting for the strokes to be visible.

A skeleton base. I deem this to be one of the most important - at least to me. This would be my basis for the proportion and angles and everything else, which I always suck at. Despite the ugly sketch, it actually took me a lot of time to get them right.

The main features. While watching artists on Youtube, I noticed that they don't simply draw the main features. They made these as accurate and detailed as possible. Only sometimes do I make this sketch detailed; I focus more on the accuracy. The details, I leave for the colors to work on.

Commence, the colors! Yay. I think I mentioned this before, but I almost always begin with the face - specifically with the eyes. I wanted to make sure that the drawing will  look like the reference so if it doesn't, then... scrap the whole thing. 😂

Check. Check. Check. I'll say it again: check. I keep checking if it is still anywhere alike with the reference. I am not yet confident with traditional drawing. That is, I cannot simply edit out mistakes (with digital, you can simply delete layers when there are mistakes). So I keep checking. If it looks good, go on. If it doesn't, make it better.

Done! ...not really. Just because I managed to color the whole thing doesn't mean I'm completely done with it. I thought so at first. It looked good with picture, but would it still look good when scanned? It didn't. It feels unfinished, because it is.

It was unsatisfying. You'd think after hours of working on it, you will be satisfied. Looking at the scanned picture, I realized that there wasn't a sense of satisfaction. There were lots of white spaces. The strokes were clear, uneven, and messy. The colors didn't match. The clothes were too blue. The face was too yellow. These have always been a problem for me.

Add additional layers. Because I only have limited number of colored pencils, I had to mix colors just to get the color I wanted. It was a struggle, but I had to persevere if I wanted to get it to look how I wanted it to be. For the additional layers, I added a couple of peach and brown for the skin, dark blue and grey and purple for the clothes, and more black to add volume. I also layered it with white, although I'm not too sure if it made a difference. The pencils were wax-based after all.

Is it finally worth the hours spent? I'm thinking, yes. I still have a whole lot more to learn, but I'm at least satisfied. The satisfaction makes the end result worth all sweat and headaches.