Hi, everyone.
My name is Kevin Kruse.
I am a freelancer visual development artist working in the animation industry.
For my work, I draw a lot of characters and creatures.
However, one of my favorite things to sketch are vehicles, planes, helicopters, spacecraft,
boats, ships, whatever.
I also really enjoy working with traditional media like pen and markers.
My goal of this video is to share with you the various techniques and methods I use to
draw airplanes and hopefully help you improve your vehicle drawing skills and enjoy the
process along the way.
So, let's get started.
As we get started, I want to begin by asking a question: Why would we want to sketch planes
in the first place?
Well, for one, it's great practice.
It helps us develop our understanding and ability to use perspective while drawing.
Drawing these planes also trains our eye to understands relationships and measurement,
much like figure drawing does and it also gets us prep to sketch from imagination and
design vehicles of our own creation with a lot greater ease.
For every drawing that you do of something, information about that object, what it looks
like and how to draw will it be stored in your memory for future use.
Drawing a variety of different aircraft can also help you develop a much keener sense
of function and design.
Collecting reference images and taking photos to sketch from can also help you a much more
comprehensive image database that you can return to and reference from.
And lastly, a visual library built up from exploring and sketching vehicles can dramatically
improve your ability to create interesting, compelling, and believable designs when it
comes time to invent something that doesn't exist and by being interested in going down
that rabbit hole, you can discover all kinds of unusual and obscure vehicles and aircraft
not typically seen.
This is a great way to introduce more originality and excitement in artwork.
Additionally, sketching from reference gives us the opportunity to create caricatures of
the subject by playing with proportions, right?
Stretching and squashing or exaggerating specific parts of the plane.
This helps us create a stronger sense of personality and mood in our aircraft studies and designs.
Let's talk a little bit about materials.
For this process, any medium will work.
However, I'm going to be focusing on using pens and markers.
Here's what you'll need; first, you're going to a very light drawing tool.
This can be a pencil, a light value marker, or even a light water color.
Really anything that will let you sketch loosely without getting too dark too soon.
I like to use a Value Zero grey marker from Copic.
The next thing you'll need is a fine tipped black pen.
I prefer micron fine liners and small felt tipped pens.
Anything like that is going to work well.
Ballpoint pens are great choice too.
However, if you plan on using markers to render the sketch, just be sure to choose a marker
that isn't alcohol based so as not to reactivate and smudge the ballpoint drawing.
Next, you'll need to grab a brush pen or a Sharpie.
Anything that will allow you to put down pure black value in larger areas than your fine
point pen.
And lastly, you're going to need a middle to light middle value grey marker.
I like using either a number 3 or four value neutral grey marker from Copic.
For most small sketches and thumbnail drawings, markers of other values are pretty much unnecessary
and will only complicate the image.
Sticking to these four simple tools allows us to focus less on complex rendering and
more on developing an extremely clear, simplified value structure with a strong sense of light
and dark.
Now that we've established our materials, let's get into the laying, construction and
perspective of hard drawings.
I want to encourage everyone to look up the artwork of Darren Quach.
He is a concept and an incredible draftsman from which I learned most of everything I'm
going to be talking about in this lesson.
This approach that I'm using to sketching really is best suited for those who already
have a rudimentary understanding of perspective and the vanishing points.
I almost always begin my drawings with a very light sketch using my Value Zero marker.
My goal is to establish the overall shape proportions and placement of the main parts
of the plane without worrying about being too precise or calculated.
Try to stay really loose and work on capturing the big shapes and silhouettes of the vehicle
instead of the small shapes and details.
I'll often start with a single line to act as the central axis of the plane fuselage
and build onto that using more simple lines to denote the position and orientation of
the wings and the fins in space.
One exercise that can make sketching objects with believable perspective much easier is
to draw cubes in various orientations and in different perspective scenarios.
So on some scratch paper, just try drawing cubes at a 3/4 angle from below or above or
may be even tilted on its various axis.
Then try sketching the same cubes in an environment with very close vanishing points or very distant
vanishing points and notice how this affects the intensity of distortion and the illusion
of scale for the cubes.
Every vehicle or object can be placed in a cube or on a grid that represents the perspective
of the scene or photo.
Now, how much of that cube or grid you want to use to help establish the drawing is up
to you.
Another really valuable tool I use when sketching from both life and from photos is comparative
measurement.
Instead of using accurate perspective and building forms and space, I'll treat the object
in front of me as a totally flat shape.
You can imagine like a sticker and simply notice the different angles of the lines that
make up the shapes and silhouette of the vehicle.
If you're familiar with the artist Charles Bargue, this approach is very similar to how
he begins his figure drawings and just like in figure drawing, I'll hold my pen up to
the photo or the plane in front of me and take note of the different angles that make
up the wings, fins, or really any other part of the plane and do my best to replicate that
angle in my drawing.
Really, the same exact concepts you would use for the beginning stages of a figure drawing
are used here as well.
After building up a rough scaffold of the plane, I continue to use my light value marker
to add important components like the landing gear, propeller and noticeable cut lines along
the exterior that show the various panels and divisions of the plane.
I also take time to double check my proportions and placement of features and make any necessary
corrections.
Really, this is the beauty of starting light.
And once I'm satisfied with the lay in, I'm ready to ink.
When it comes to inking these plane sketches, less is often more.
We want to first focus on adding lines where they are necessary and making sure these lines
are clean and simple.
So, where are lines necessary at this stage?
Well, mostly along the perimeter of the major components.
This includes the fuselage, wings, engines, propellers, landing gear, cockpit.
These lines help delineate the shape of the silhouette and clearly separate the information
on the plane from the outside world.
And where should we avoid inking at the stage?
Small details like rivets, cut lines and panels along the wings and fuselage as well as handles,
latches, and other mechanical details.
A great tool you can employ is to look at the reference in front of you while squinting
your eyes.
If the details or information that you feel compelled to draw disappear while squinting,
it's probably best to save those for later or perhaps not even include them at all.
Really, often times, the illusion of realism in drawing is created by choosing to leave
certain things out.
What our eyes see when we focus on specific things may not be an accurate representation
of what the entire object looks like as a whole.
So, for example, even though we can see the lines made by the various panels on the plane's
wings and body, drawing them in would be over descriptive and poorly reflect the way that
the bright light washes out those lines.
Squint at the reference and you'll see that those panel lines disappear into the bright
value of the plane's white paint.
Again, less is more.
When inking these vehicle drawings, I do my best to make sure that my lines are clean
and simple which can be very challenging especially when working with a medium you can't erase.
Well, how do we improve our line quality then?
When drawing lines, work on hinging your arm at the elbow or shoulder instead of the wrist.
This will help a remedy shaky or squiggly lines.
It may feel uncomfortable at first, but with enough practice your lines will become much
sharper and more accurate.
You can also practice the line you're about to draw without immediate committing to drawing
it by ghosting.
To do this, hold your pen just above the paper and move your hand and arm in the way that
you would to draw the desired line.
After a few practice runs, you'll be able to more accurately place the line on the paper.
Another great exercise is to fill a scrap piece of paper with pairs of dots at varying
distances and practice connecting them by drawing with a hinged elbow and ghosting a
few times before taking pen to paper.
It can feel tedious but the pleasure derived from drawing straight lines is incomparable.
Do this enough and you will be unstoppable.
I like to finish up the stage of the drawing by adding in some landmark features on the
plane like the windows, landing gear flaps, wheels and other very obvious shapes like
the air inlets and antenna.
A lot of small details that will add on at the end are the cherry on top.
Not necessary but a very sweet addition.
So now that we've inked our drawing, let's talk about values and rendering.
For me, this is a really fun part of the sketching process where our drawings and thumbnails
can totally come to life.
This approach to rendering is not too complicated and is a very fast and effective way to show
form and lighting.
So, after inking our simple lay-in sketch, we want to develop a strong sense of light
and forms.
The best way to do this is with a clear and unambiguous value structure.
For the purpose of this lecture and demo, we want to stick with three values; the white
of the paper, black ink and our middle value grey marker.
With these three values, we will be able to communicate which areas of the plane are receiving
direct sunlight, which areas are in shadow and which areas are in total darkness or have
a very dark local value.
The first thing I think about is breaking down my sketch into two values; one value
for the lit side and one for the areas in shadow.
If you can clearly show and maintain this distinction between light shadow sides from
beginning to end, your drawing will be graphically strong, easily understandable and communicate
a very clear sense of light and you can do all kinds of two value sketches.
You can do black and white, grey and white, grey and black.
As long as the values of each side don't become too similar, your two value lighting scenario
will work well.
In some of my sketches, you can see that I'll use pure black to denote the shadow areas.
This is a super graphic, high contrast look, a can be fun to experiment with but it prevents
us from adding details or developing any complexity in the shadows.
Because we want to maintain strong contrast in our lit and unlit areas pure black shadows
will work best for values or objects that have a dark local value in direct light.
For a white plane like this one, it's best to use our grey value marker for the shadow
side and save pure black for areas of ambient occlusion and dark local values, like the
air scoop tires, and interior details.
I will, however, almost always use the black to sketch in the cast shadow of the vehicle
on the ground.
This creates some dramatic lighting and helps ground whatever we're drawing to the surface
beneath it.
After massing in the shadows with the grey marker, I'll usually come back in with the
same marker and develop subtle gradients in the shadow areas to show the forms rolling
away from us, like along the underside of the fuselage or add core shadows by lightly
layer the ink in where the light transitions into dark.
Little tweaks and adjustments like these can really go a long way in communicating lighting
and form.
You can even achieve effects like bounced light and atmospheric perspective with some
subtle shifts in value.
I also like to use the grey value as a graphic backdrop to contrast with the white value
of the plane and separate its silhouette from the rest of the paper.
In general, I try to avoid adding any gray values to the lit white portion of the plane.
It might be tempting to render these subtle changes in value in these bright areas but
doing so can get out of hand very quickly and weaken our two value structure by making
the lit areas too similar in value to the shadow areas.
We can again use the squint test to see how all of the minor changes in value in the white
areas almost completely disappear when our vision goes from specific to general.
Another good indicator that even with values, less is often more.
One exception to this rule of adding grey value into the lit areas is in the case of
a local value shift as seen by the dark striped graphics running along the side of this plane.
Here we can use a darker value to show a different coloured paint.
If you can learn to juggle these three values effectively, you can produce some really graphically
pleasing and charming little drawings.
So far, our plane drawings have been small and simple which is great because they don't
require much detail to appear finished and cohesive.
But what if we want to do a longer drawing with more information and more sophisticated
rendering?
Fortunately the exact same method we use for our thumbnail sketches can be used for our
longer drawings too.
Really, the only difference now is that we'll be drawing larger and will need to incorporate
more detail and nuance in both our lines and values in order to reach a more finished state.
In this larger drawing, after I sketch my lay in and add some essential lines, I use
my marker to build up my values a little slower and a little more carefully than before.
Trying to be more sensitive to the various forms on the plane and how we can use both
soft and hard edges to communicate them.
I'm also using a few more grey markers, both lighter and darker than the middle value grey
from before to help create a smoother transition from shadow areas to light areas, more subtle
turning forms and to show more complexity in the shadow areas as well.
But even though I'm using more materials with more gradual steps and value, I'm still remaining
very mindful of the overarching two value structure of the image much like how I would
with the thumbnail sketches.
It can be very easy to get carried away at this point.
Notice, all of the subtle variations and values and as a consequence, over render the drawing.
However, this often results in a muddy looking image with ambiguous lighting in this weird
HDR photo effect.
As I move along in this drawing, it becomes a process of putting down value in one area,
darkening another area, and trying to maintain a realistic impression of light and form by
slowly layering ink and because we can't erase using these materials, it's usually best to
air on the side of two light as we can only go darker.
I find this methodical approach to rendering to be very peaceful and enjoyable.
As up to this point, all of the hard work and major decisions have been made and once
I'm satisfied with my values, I come back into the drawing with a fine point pen and
add in some small details like rivets, panel lines, inlets, and other mechanical features.
When used carefully, these details can be an excellent tool that helps show the volume
of the plane's body and give us that extra level of fidelity that makes the image appear
complete.
So in conclusion, I really hope this demonstration gets you excited to go out and sketch, explore
traditional media, or go down the rabbit hole and discover weird and exciting aircraft to
investigate and draw.
At the end of the day, this approach to drawing vehicles should be enjoyable.
There can be a lot of confusing technical stuff that goes into drawing planes and other
hard surface objects but if we can learn to simplify the technique and follow a few simple
rules around line and value, we will be free to be more spontaneous, creative, and expressive
in our artwork and hopefully, make the process of creation that much sweeter.
And if you have any questions or want to reach out to me in chat, you can find me on Instagram
at KevinKruseart or on Art Station.
Thanks for watching.