Step by Step: Tyrion Lannister portrait (pencil realism)

‘Game of Thrones’ is currently my favorite TV series, because I’m a huge fan of fantasy. I love especially incredible landscapes and complicated characters. On my <polish site> I already announced that every character from the ‘GoT’ will be done in different technique. In first ‘GoT’ I’m going to show You my favourite character (and favourite technique as well) – Tyrion Lannister <3  I love his voice, mind and his biting tongue. Here’s my done artwork:

So… lets get started!

For the photography I choose a screen of this scene:

The original photo has a very good quality and it's perfect as a base for a realistic artwork.

Let’s begin with the general tips for this drawing:

• Don’t sharp your pencils and clean the eraser close to the drawing. It takes so much time to complete the detailed artwork and You don’t want to soil it and start again from the beginning. Also clean your erasers before using for the same reason.

• If you want your drawing looks so realistic, choose the rigid and pure paper. I work on the photographic paper (on the second side) because it’s also more waterproof than regular technique paper.

• Additional accessories (like white color pencil) aren’t necessary for the beginners. If you’re just begin with the realistic pencil drawings don’t use it. First try to draw with just pencils and erasers and then – if you achieve some experience – try addictions. For this drawing I used eraser in wood, white jelly ballpoint pen, mechanic pencil, white color pencil and non-wood pencils.

• It’s good to use addictional clean sheet under the hand you use for drawing. You may also use a T-foil or piece of glass like on <this video>.

Sketch

I started with cropping the photo I choose. I wanted to draw Tyrion in the special frame in which we can see details of the face and interesting clothes (a stylists from the set of ‘GoT’ made a very good job!).

This time I don’t have a special photos from the sketching, because my first lines were so fine. You can read more about my sketching technique in the <previous post>.

On the sketch I was working with well sharped 2H pencil. I marked not only obvious parts of the face (like eyes or nose) but also shadows, because they’re very good landmarks. My goal was to copy all of the wrinkles. Thirst of all – they look so good in photorealistic style, second – they make Tyrion look as smart as he really is :)

The site of the head which is on shadow was a little bit problematic to sketch because it’s hard to see the details (they’re almost invisible)…

After sketching this almost invisible lines I refreshed the sketch with softer pencil (2B). Here you can see the result:

Shading eye areas

Before I started to shade I was carefully watching the photo of Tyrion. I tried to see what places are the darkest and the lightest. The base photo is not too contrast so I decided that on my drawing I’ll be try to improve it.

Firstly I shaded the eye parts. 8B pencil was perfect for the darkest places (like pupil and upper eyelid shadow). During pupil darkening passing of the eye flash was so important, because it should be perfectly white (usually this eye flash is the lightest area on the face). Usually the bigger this light is – the cutter the face looks. On this photo Lannister has a very cute gaze ans I really want to copy it perfectly.

The 5B pencil was so useful in shading eye areas. It’s enough soft to achieve the right tone without pressing too much. That combination (gentle pressure + soft pencil) yielded the rough surface  which is similar to this eye area. I drew also wrinkles because they look realistic.

If you can't see the details just scroll down to the end of the post to see finished artwork in good quality.

Starting up with soft pencils I replaced them with harder. Don’t try to achieve a perfectly pure face. All of this wrinkles, beauty marks, blackheads make the face more interesting and wise looking. Try to highlight the contrast between shining iris and matte skin.

Finishing touches I did with the hardest pencils like 2H and HB. It’s very important to shade also the ‘white’ of the eye, because – in fact – it’s not perfectly white. It should be a little bit darker than the flash in the pupil.

Shading Nose

The most important think in the nose shading is to avoid hard looking lines. They make the face looking flat. Especially you have to take care about the ‘smile wrinkles’. Don’t expose them too much. Try to keep it quiet similar to the other parts of the face and blend then a little bit. What’s more – these wrinkles aren’t just two lines – they’re rather a collections of the smaller lines (check it out on the photo close-up).

During shading look at the photo in general and check from time to time how do the shadows look on the whole face and how do they look together. Ask yourself: ‘Is this nose shadow lighter or darker than hair?’, ‘Does the chiaroscuro look similar on the photo and my drawing?'.

Important tip: let see how dark is the nostril. Probably it’s quiet lighter than You expected. Compare this tone with the others on the face.

My method to copy the chiaroscuro is to divide it into pieces. These pieces are kind of puzzles – they fit together perfectly. See how it looks like on the photo: 

Every time I draw I try to look only on this imagined ‘puzzles’ and skip the rest. If the shadows are more complicated try to divide them firstly into bigger pieces and them into smaller and smaller. Like here:

This is the fragment of my tutorial about drawing a scene from 'The Hobbit' movie with color pencils. The post is coming soon :)

This ‘rough’ surface of the nose area I achieved with the eraser in wood. 

That ugly stain close to the up-right corner is only some dirt on ma photo camera. Don't worry :)

 

Shading the part of face in the shadow

Drawing the second eye is always a little bit stressful because we want it to looks the same ad previous one. This time this second eye should be a little bit different (little bit darker), because it’s in the shadow. In the ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ (the book of G. R. R. Martin which the series is based on) Tyrion has different eye colors also.

The skin I made the same way as right site (from the softest pencils to the hardest) but I used a softer combination: 5B (at the beginning), 3B and B. I did many layers to gain that pure surface (it’s much more pure than lighted site, because we cannot see wrinkles)

Drawing hair

I always start to draw hair with the quick sketching of the main hair strands. Beginners so often draw whole hairstyle with the same way and it doesn’t look so good. You don’t have to copy the hair perfectly (hair does not affect the similarity), but it is worth to take some time to precise shading. The coiffure should be as detailed as the face. A nice idea is to shade pure the hair before adding single hair. It makes it look thick and tree-dimensional. When you draw the hair don’t make it with the one chaotic line. Try to use many (many many many) short (yes – short) lines which are so close to each other. Every line can be in a little bit different hue. Places when light is reflecting in the strands you can do the same way but with harder pencil.

I started up with the soft pencils (like 7B) and then added some strokes with 4B, 3B.

At the end I erased this really cute looking light hair on the top of the head with the eraser in wood. That kind of eraser is perfect for this job. I also added several thin hair.

Drawing the clothes

This wear was one of the hardest I ever draw. Tyrion has something which looks like openwork leather and some harsh material with shining thread underneath. But anyway I decided to do this as good as I can.

So… I started with quick sketch of the openwork pattern. I didn’t copy it with precision. My pattern is only a little bit similar to the original but it has some regularity.

 

 

Then I darkened the holes with the 8B pencil.

After that there was a time to shade the rest of the waistcoat as well. The Darkest places are done with 8B, 7B and 5B. Pencil marks I hide using a circular motion.

The lightest areas I refreshed with the eraser, because such soft pencils like 8B really like to smudge. I cleaned a place where the hand of the king brooch is as well.

Here is also the close-up of the metal details of the clothes.

Right site of the waistcoat was more difficult to draw than the left one. It’s because this shining material underneath.  Process of drawing looked pretty similar at the beginning.

But this time I shaded holes with 8B pencil and low pressure, so it looked like worsted material.

The fabrics have so similar tones so I decided to contrast them with different kind of surfaces. As I done the fabric underneath with low pressure, the leather I finished with hard pencils and many layers. I used also a white color pencil as a blender (you can also use a regular blender or wisher).   

At the end I refreshed the whitest areas one more time with diffrent kinds of erasers.

The smudged background

As you can see I changed the background a little bit. I wanted to have all of these interesting fragments on my drawing so I slid it closer to Tyrion. Now it looks more interesting (and more realistic than uniform) in my opinion.

I started with the outline of the column. Then I darkened the surface. As I once sais, Progresso pencils are so good for the smudging.

Quick tip: protect the finished areas of the drawing with clean piece of paper.

After that I choose another Progressos and continued darkening with 6B and HB (Progresso HB is a little bit softer and darker than regular HB pencil).

As on the previous tutorial (check <here>) for smudging I used a cotton pad. Don’t recommend doing this job with fingers! They may be dirty or oily and it can ruin the artwork. Also – try to blend the pencils carefully and not chaotic. For example this column is vertical so my motions were the same.

Usually the first blurry layer doesn’t look so impressive. But don’t worry – just put another one. And another. Simply – as much as you need to receive to obtain the satisfactory result. Between blending and shading find a time to highlight the areas which need it.

Here you can see how it looks in progress:

Final touches

Although I used additional piece of paper to protect the finished parts of the artwork, they smudged. I needed to improve them one more time using hard well-sharpened pencils and Faber-Castell eraser (that one which looks like a pencil). I also used a jelly white ballpoint pen to draw the light sparkling dots on the eyes and jewelry. I protected the drawing using a hairspray as well.

Here’s the finished artwork:

Good luck :)