Sketchbook 033 - Fanart Fridays - Daiki

Hello and happy Finally Friday!

This week, we will be doing something a little bit different. This drawing is a little bit older, and technically drawing a cosplayer would be more like Art-Of-A-Fan-Fanart 😆

I started speaking this epic guy, who goes by either Yesman Daikichi or just Daiki online a few months ago. It is pretty geeky on my part, but most of the people I know are online and somehow related to my favourite fandom.

This doesn't happen very often, but, when I see a photo of a friend that inspires me, I will sometimes ask if they want it converted into a drawing. This was one of those cases, so, after asking for a decent quality reference photo, I was all set to attempt an ink drawing which ended up taking well over 17 hours to complete.

To get started with any ink drawing, I always like to draw a very basic pencil sketch with just a few lines.

It isn't very fancy or impressive as far as techniques go...but here is my basic process:

• Look at the reference, while squinting...this allows you to see the main shape and shade blobs more easily and improves accuracy.
• Draw shape/shade blobs in pencil, try to be as accurate as possible, the eraser is your best friend for this step.
• Add ink detail to your pencil blobs. The basic recipe for this is to squint some more...find the largest areas of black and fully colour them first, very light highlights can be left white or very lightly hatched, mid tones can be done using various levels of hatching.

The hair on this one was torture! I like to add many little lines to the highlight blobs, to make the hair look nice and shiny.

Working in sections, from the head, downwards (just my personal preference) keep doing the Squint - Pencil _ Pen thing. Remember to add some shaky looking lines, in life things aren't often super perfect and straight.

Some of my hatching and shading still needed a lot of work, but I think it has improved a little bit since drawing this.

The detail on his vest and shirt took a long time! I could have possibly left some of it out...but...Obsessing over the little details is fun, and I think it looks pretty cool.

Well, that it, a very basic and simple technique, easy to learn, but not always easy to successfully do. Worth trying though.

Till next time, thank you for your time and keep well!

Credit - Everything in this post belongs to me.
Banner created using Adobe Express.