Here's a small update to my portrait of Buster. It's been awhile but I took some time off to rejuvenate myself and to re-dedicate myself to my drawing - and more specifically - to my portraits. I want them to be more realistic and more meaningful. With that said, it's time to get back to work and start bringing Buster to life on paper.
Being left handed, I like working from right to left on the paper. I keep a piece of scrap paper under my drawing hand so that I don't smudge the line drawing underneath and make a mess out of the whole thing. For the eye, I used a 0.5mm Pentel P205 mechanical pencil with a 2B lead. For darkening the pupil and the area around the pupil, I drew tiny tiny overlapping circles (really I just drew in a circular motion as opposed to drawing in actual circles). I blended the area with a medium tortillion and darkened the pupil a bit more. I repeated the blending process and drawing process until I was satisfied - that is the result you see here.
Next, I will be continuing on the area around the eye. The challenge will be how to get realistic texture on a dog that is mostly white???? The answer is with shadows. I hope to manipulate the light and shadow in a way that I can create realistic looking fur/hair on Buster. The area around his eyes and mouth are a pinkish tone in real life so I'm going to keep this area fairly light. I'll be posting an update soon!!!