HOW TO DRAW MIKA - step by step

[Hippieibbie]

 

[Miss.roxy]

 

this

is

so

cool

[STEP___]

So I've been thinking.

there's an explanation in this thread on how to draw Mika or portraits in general. But since I've only been drawing for a year, I know, when you're just starting with drawing portraits, there's a lot more to it then just the big obvious question: how do i draw it?!

And therefor I'm writing this (I hope Lucia doesn't mind,it's just my own view on portrait drawings, which I think is always helpfull, to have more than one way to do things).

 

Getting started

1a) The first and -obvious- thing you need to do, is ofcourse, decide what you want to draw. This is perhaps, if you're a newbie, the most hardest thing of the whole process.There are so many things you need to pay attention to when you choose your picture. You must know what you're capable of, in order to avoid disapointment. So you need to be honest with yourself. Just look closely at your photo of choice: look at the hair, the clothing, the background, the reflection in the eyes, the shadowing on the lips. Every single detail, and then decide for yourself if you think you will be able to pull it off at this point already.

Believe me, I do know, that drawing laughing people, or emotions etc, is far more amusing than just drawing someone who is just sitting there and looking into nothingness (is this a word? ). But if you're new, then this is unfortunately the kind of stuff you need to start with.

 

1b) Another important thing you need to pay attention to is the contrast and amount of shadowing on the photo. There are several sorts of contrasts. To see this, you first need to put your photo in black and white.

 

- High contrast photos: These are photos where there is both a lot of black or extremely dark shadows, and a lot of highlights too. And the transition between both is generally very short. so it's basically from black to white in only a few centimeters.

this is a high contrast photo with the emphasis on the highlights. so there are more light tones than dark.

 

or

 

high contrast with the emphasis on the darker tones. (more black than white)

 

-Low contrast photos: these are the photos where there isn't such a remarkable transition between black and white, the picture is softer and the shadows are subtle, there are more greyish shadows and transition between dark and white is a lot softer.

 

low contrast with light shadowing: generally little difference or contrast in the shadows, but it's overall very light.

 

or

 

low contrast with dark shadwing: again little contrast, but there are more darker shadows on here.

 

So in my eyes, these are the sorts of pictures there are.

Difficulty level (from easy to hard):

*1: High contrast, dark shadows

*2: low contrast dark shadows

*3: low contrast, light shadows

*4: High contrast, light shadows.

 

So as i said already: be realistic with what you're capable of, you don't want to rush things, but draw photos you can handle, you will soon see the result, trust me, I saw result very fast!

Another thing: don't be afraid to push yourself when you got the hang of it. If you notice, that you are doing good with the basic photos (no emotions etc) then don't be afraid to set a new goal for yourself. Mine was a smiling Mika, as my third portrait. And then you work on that till you're pleased with it. and then you set yet another goal.

My goal at this point is smoothness, and better hair. In order to improve the hair skills, I've drawn a wolf. You see, just work on that thing that needs improvement.

 

Tip: use huge photos, of very good quality. You can not expect your drawing to be more detailed than your photo! And make A4 or bigger sized portraits, so you have enough space to be detailed.

 

2) Ofcourse you need the right material. In the beginning you don't need much, but you do need the right pencil to start with (I speak out of experience ). It was a true revelation when I discovered the 2B pencil

So you need a 2B pencil. (some people prefer another pencil as their basic pencil, you'll find out what you prefer the more you draw, but it's best to be a B one, not H, HB or F). What can also be handy is an H pencil for the very light areas. i personally prefer 2H to begin with.

other things you need:

-a clean eraser (no filty black one that smudges your paper instead of erasing things). Try not to erase to much, because this will damage the upper layer of your drawing, so you might never be able to get the same effect on that spot as on other places on your drawing that you didn't touch with an eraser.

-a sharpener

-paper (ofcourse:mf_rosetinted:)

 

Tip: I know many people use paper tissues or earbuds (or however they are called) or their fingers (heartattack!!! do not ever use your fingers, you will leave grease marks on your paper) to soften and mix the different pencil shades.

In my opinion you first need to be able to put the shadows on paper without blending an inch of it, and if you're able to do that properly. Then you can start smudging.

This way you get to know your pencil and you will know exactly how to get that particular shade of grey. So the only reason you will need a blending aid for, is to make it a bit smoother. And not to make your shadows flow into one another, if you know what I mean.

You can always see when people who can't shadow properly yet, are already blending the shadows. The result will look like stains instead of smooth.

 

That's it for this part, i think at least . i'll add things when I think of them. And the actual "how to start drawing" part, will be for later

 

I hope it's helpfull

[Miss.roxy]

Step, it was so long!

But I read it all and basically you said everything that was on my mind but I was too lazy to write it.

 

So, I´m gonna edit the first post so everyone could read it

 

EDIT:

with that contrast. I always use photoshop to edit the contrast, I often exaggerate it because it´s always lighter on the final drawing. And why should I draw something from bad picture when I can edit it?

 

with that size of pictures. IT´S SO DAMN TRUE!

People PLEASE draw only large pictures. Believe me, there´s a huge difference between a drawing drawn from a small picture and froma large picture.

[STEP___]

Step, it was so long!

But I read it all and basically you said everything that was on my mind but I was too lazy to write it.

 

So, I´m gonna edit the first post so everyone could read it

 

EDIT:

with that contrast. I always use photoshop to edit the contrast, I often exaggerate it because it´s always lighter on the final drawing. And why should I draw something from bad picture when I can edit it?

 

with that size of pictures. IT´S SO DAMN TRUE!

People PLEASE draw only large pictures. Believe me, there´s a huge difference between a drawing drawn from a small picture and froma large picture.

yes, you can ofcourse always adjust the contrast yourself, I always do that a little bit aswell. But if you have a drawing with light contrast and dark shadows, you can adjust all you want, but will never be able to turn it into a high contrast drawing without losing some details.

But I love drawing high contrast things, i find that really fun and challenging. But other people might like low contrast more. or find that easier. It really depends, i think.

[Miss.roxy]

yes, you can ofcourse always adjust the contrast yourself, I always do that a little bit aswell. But if you have a drawing with light contrast and dark shadows, you can adjust all you want, but will never be able to turn it into a high contrast drawing without losing some details.

But I love drawing high contrast things, i find that really fun and challenging. But other people might like low contrast more. or find that easier. It really depends, i think.

 

Well, we´re only mentors.

 

First post updated.

[STEP___]

Well, we´re only mentors.

 

First post updated.

 

aauw, how nice

[Miss.roxy]

aauw, how nice

 

pffuu, Now it´s even nicer. I edited it like hundred times until it looks like that

We´re in the thread about art, I needed to add some esthetics on it. And I added your dr.house step by step, and cherol´s coloured pencils one. Hope you both don´t mind.

edit: I should have changed my description from "Da girl who drew too much" to "Da girl who edited too much"

[blacksheep1]

this is great

thanx so much, maybe now I'll be able to draw something that looks vaguely like mika. hmm but then maybe I'm beyond help

[Miss.roxy]

this is great

thanx so much, maybe now I'll be able to draw something that looks vaguely like mika. hmm but then maybe I'm beyond help

 

You´re welcome. Then don´t forget to post your masterpiece!

[STEP___]

Getting started: http://www.mikafanclub.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3548239&postcount=503

 

Pencils at the ready!

Now you know what to draw and with what to do it, it's time for the: How? part!

 

1) A little handy exercise to get to know your pencil before you start is this:

Just take an area on a paper with a length of 5cm. Make the left side black with your pencil (or as dark as possible, do NOT press hard on your pencil, you make it darker by adding layers and slightly adding some pressure. But you don't want to have an uneveness on your paper) then just try to shade the whole 5 cm piece, so you end up with a white right side. The transition between the different shades of grey needs to be smooth, so reapeat this as much as needed

 

2) How to shade?

A lot of people have the tendency to shade using lines, but then you might get this problem:

as you see on the right, you always see the edges of your lines. You can make them disappear, but that takes a lot of time and a lot of layers and erasing before you get the whole area smooth again.

So the best way to avoid these edges are circles!

Make sure you hardly apply any pressure on your pencil, or you'll get "scratches". You need to slowly build up the layers of graphite by drawing little circles in a randomly way. You will get a very smooth result with this technique, though it might take some time to get used to drawing in circles.

 

3)Like Lucia calls them: "The Easy Lines".

This is hard if you're a newbie. Therefor I recommend you for the first portraits to trace some of the lines of the photo. This ofcourse is not the whole drawing, just the basics, some large shadows etc. This way you learn to feel the form of lips, noses, eyes etc.

 

4) once you got the basics on paper, it's time to start the shading. For a great result you need to try to draw even the tiniest shadow. It takes practice to see every shadow, so the more you draw, the morse shadows you'll start to notice on the photo.

for example:

 

there's some really light shadow in the red circles, very easy to forgot. So if you add this kind of details, it'll look a lot better already!

 

Tip: -scan your drawing once in a while (or take a pic) and place your drawing next to the photo on your computer. Chances are you'll immediately notice some mistakes that you didn't see while drawing.

- if you hold a mirror next to your drawing (or if you mirror it on the computer) your drawing should look "correct". if it looks odd mirrored, that means that there is a mistakes somewhere in the basic features: form of the face, eyes, nose, mouth, etc, whatever that looks odd mirrored.

 

5) after your easy lines, you can't draw lines anymore. (except for the iris and pupil of the eye/ eyelashes, eyebrows, facial hair). But you don't draw a nose by drawing the outlines. since a nose does NOT have outlines, it gets it's form because of the shadows around it. So you need to colour areas to create a nose.

 

Tip: if you feel that a certain form isn't working out, that you're always making it too round or too big or something, eg the mouth. Just go over it once on the original paper, so you feel the form in your wrist. it's all in the wrist!

 

6) And then my last remark: draw what you see, not what you think you see

every eye is unique and not 2 pair of lips are ever the same; think of that!

 

 

Good luck I'd say And be patient. Practice makes perfect! Try to work slowly on your drawings aswell. (Ignore the fact that Lucia needs max 2hours, she's an exeption! ) I need a lot more hours to get a good effect

[Miss.roxy]

Steph, (can I call you Steph? I´m not really sure )

once again. You explained perfectly what´s on my mind. I couldn´t say it better. Or I´m too lazy to write. I like to take pics, to show, not to write. Well thank you for an amazing tutorial again, gonna update the first post again. woohoo. You´re amazing.

Oh and.. the last Mika I drew costed me 3 hours not 2!!

So I´m not that fast. Or I´m more precise now.

 

Thank you for doing my job. love you for that.

I´m preparing HAIR tutorial, just to let you know that I will do it

Your words are very welcome here.

[STEP___]

Steph, (can I call you Steph? I´m not really sure )

once again. You explained perfectly what´s on my mind. I couldn´t say it better. Or I´m too lazy to write. I like to take pics, to show, not to write. Well thank you for an amazing tutorial again, gonna update the first post again. woohoo. You´re amazing.

Oh and.. the last Mika I drew costed me 3 hours not 2!!

So I´m not that fast. Or I´m more precise now.

 

Thank you for doing my job. love you for that.

I´m preparing HAIR tutorial, just to let you know that I will do it

Your words are very welcome here.

 

yeah sure you can call me Steph

and good good you're doing a hair tutorial because I still suck at that!

[racinghorse83]

Mika's hard to draw. It's easier to draw stuff like butterflies. and hearts. and emos.

[Miss.roxy]

Mika's hard to draw. It's easier to draw stuff like butterflies. and hearts. and emos.

 

True.

[racinghorse83]

True.

 

I drew this guy.

 

 

Where do I need to improve?

 

 

I drew Mika once, but it was munted.

 

[Miss.roxy]

I drew this guy.

 

 

Where do I need to improve?

 

 

I drew Mika once, but it was munted.

 

 

Wow I think you have potential!

I really like it. It´s very good, I can´t see a lot of mistakes. I would say - maybe you always draw what you think you see, not what you really see. Like mouth, eyes. Read Step´s theory how to draw, you´ll find it in first post She explained it perfectly. you can´t retrace with lines eye or mouth. There aren´t any. you just need to capture the shadows you see perfectly. shadows, not lines.

But I think it´s very good, I can see you spent a lot of time with it. Keep draw, you´re on a good way!

[racinghorse83]

Wow I think you have potential!

I really like it. It´s very good, I can´t see a lot of mistakes. I would say - maybe you always draw what you think you see, not what you really see. Like mouth, eyes. Read Step´s theory how to draw, you´ll find it in first post She explained it perfectly. you can´t retrace with lines eye or mouth. There aren´t any. you just need to capture the shadows you see perfectly. shadows, not lines.

But I think it´s very good, I can see you spent a lot of time with it. Keep draw, you´re on a good way!

 

Hey, true. I never really thought of shadows, not lines..

 

Thanks! I need to do waaay more practice, but I can be really lazy because I get bored quick I did the first one for 15 minutes every day after I walked home from work after school over two weeks to destress, so i guess i did spend alot of time on it

[STEP___]

It's still far from finished

 

 

[Hippieibbie]

It's still far from finished

 

 

 

awww it's great

[Miss.roxy]

It's still far from finished

 

 

 

I love you.

 

It´s perfect.

[Miss.roxy]

Okay, another phototutorial. Let´s start with Mika 24 one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FINAL result:

 

[Miss.roxy]

Phototutorial of Mika´s eye:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Miss.roxy]

And, as I promised, small HAIR phototutorial:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[willywonka]

And, as I promised, small HAIR phototutorial:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is unreal!

 

It's a kind of magic!!!!