This is my Entry

For the contest initiated by @sirsensei with the new theme "Lion"

The artwork

🦁title: His and hers, bred for the bullet
🦁 Medium: graphite pencils
🦁 Size: 12 x 16 inches

Work in Progress photos

🦁 Let us start with a sketch of the lion and lioness. Any 2b pencil or mechanical pencil will do.

🦁 Then we start to draw darker lines using 3b and 4b pencils.
Shading lightly using some crosshatching or circular patterns and smudging with a tissue paper.
Defined lines are made for they outlines of the eyes.

🦁Building volume

• Smudge a layer of basetone, just a light filling of shading
• Then make small dashes for the fur

These help build volume and body and make it more realistic.
As you can see this is a heavier layer of shading. The tones i used for this is 4b and 5b graphite pencils.

For the eyes shade lightly and erase highlights using a mechanical eraser. This will create a shining and glossy effect to the eyes.

🦁 Here you can see there are many smudged graphite all over the body. That's totally fine since youre still covering that with fur and details later on.
I work my way up to other parts like ears the nose, whiskers the spots on their faces.
The trick is jist putting dashes for the fur. You can use a kneaded eraser to lightly erase some parts of the shading to create texture and reduce depth.

🦁 Light shade to dark, that is the safest way to create realism.

🦁 I make vertical and curved strokes and darken shadings on the long fur, i also put in small think lines as well.

🦁 The lion's mane will look like this, hair is tricky. Always put the layer of smudged graphite to fill in the volume. Then you can erase to lighten when needed or darken it. This is the natural color.

🦁 I shade and smudge the background with 5b pencil and for the mane, i smudge and erase and define lines as well.

🦁 Darken the shadows and background more. As you can see, the mane isnt so defined yet.

• Just use the sharp end of the mechanical eraser to create defined lines
• Use a 6b or 7b pencil to darken the shadows and outline
• Continue this till youre satisfied with the effect.

Same goes for the lioness' fur, darken the shadows in between the fur by making small dashes.

🦁 Make sure you erase and create highlights cleanly. And done!

Thank you for reading and Inhope you enjoy the art!

Cheers!
🎨 jacinta.sevilla