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Scout’s head in the barn hunt pose was slow going because it was so important to get his expression just right. I had enough time and energy left the day I finished his face to start putting in the straw around the figure. That goes much more quickly. It’s not necessary to be precise to what is in the reference photo. Now I have a decision to make. Should I fill in the grass next, or the straw…. I will finally be working with colored pencils on my underpainting. You may remem

The expression on Scout’s face will make-or-break the barn hunt pose, the third figure in a triple portrait of Scout. 1 Doing Scout’s forehead. His smooth head that makes you want to kiss it.  The little creases in his white blaze on his forehead are extremely important: tiny details but they show his intense concentration. 2 It took me a while to do those shapes in his white blaze. Very slow and painstaking like doing an eye, with a glance at the reference photo every couple

In my previous post I described how I used the grey paper color, which I had masked off when I made the green and gold underpainting, to give me the right base color for Scout’s black and white coat.  Check out how I use that for Scout’s front leg in this post.  And how I’m starting to utilize the gold underpainting now to make the straw. 1 It took quite a while to do all of Scout’s black coat on his body. There are more pencil colors in a Border collie’s black coat than you

I’m working on Scout's barn-hunt figure, the third depiction of Scout in this triple portrait. In these pics you can see why I masked off the figures to protect the grey paper when I made the underpainting for the grass and straw backgrounds (green, and gold/brown). I wanted to utilize that grey paper in creating Scout’s coat in all three figures.  1 - Starting with Scout’s beautiful big fluffy tail! 2 Scout’s black coat is made up of many shades of grey….very little actual b

I’m not going to add the colored pencil grass details around the Frisbee figure until I finish the barn-hunt figure. The backgrounds of those two scenes - straw and grass - will have to blend together at the edges. Since the portrayals of Scout are the most important thing, I want to finish the barn hunt figure first. Then create both the straw and grass backgrounds around the two action figures. Any background scene I put in has to enhance the figures, not the other way arou