The Stripes of a Tiger

Greetings!

Never ever before have I drawn a tiger, nor have I documented my drawing procedure. But in my last drawing, I did both!

I saved some images at relevant points during my process of creating this magnificent beast. It went pretty well I would say. But I aspire to do better.

I started as I usually do, a quick sketch to get an idea of what I want to have drawn. Just too keep me focused on the subject at hand.

I then smudge out the colours I need and get some sort of feeling from the drawing. It is just a flat simple smudge of an image, but it’s a good starting point.

Details! What is not shown here is the quick sketch of details I did as a framework for what I got. But the tiger is starting to take shape.

I’ve never had to do fur before, so this was a new experience for me. Here are my first steps towards fur enhancing the tiger.

More fur details, but still a long way to go!

More fur details! And also some more black stripes for him, thought he needed it seeing that tigers have around 100 black stripes on average.

Confident in my fur details for now, so I jumped on to the grass around him. I can tell you right now, it was a pain in the butt. Once I find a better way to do it I will cry tears of joy.

May seem like a big leap. Tried to get some more atmosphere going and also enhancing the water. Also, added eyes to the beautiful beast!

Even more tweaks in colours around the tiger. Also playing around with the distortion in the water. Getting closer to an end result, but still felt that the feeling of the image wasn’t right.

Now things are happening! Getting a better atmosphere and overall feeling. Now I just felt that there was some small adjustments that were needed.

And so, with some final touches to the tigers shading I feel that I can’t be doing anything more with the knowledge I possess at the moment.

So this was an interesting piece for me to draw. And I enjoyed every minute of it. I will probably be doing more of things like this, just to study my own workflow and try to improve. Thank you for reading!

Have a good one!