“How to draw a cat”

How to draw a cat

A few days ago I finally managed to aquire a Tablet. I was going for the Intuos3, but settled on the Graphire3 for a number of reasons I will outline in another post.

To celebrate this great day, I set out to write my first real tutorial. “How to draw a cat”. This is applicable anywhere really, but was done in Alias Sketchbook Pro and finished in Adobe Photoshop.

In this instance I’ve blocked in the background body, then blocked in the head shape, followed by the ears, cheeks, eyes etc.

Step 1 - Block in the shapes

Assuming you’ve already photographed your subject or scoured the net for reference material, you’re ready to begin. Look for shapes that could be easily painted with your brush. Circles, ovals and other rounded shapes should be picked for blocking in. In this instance I’ve blocked in the background body, then blocked in the head shape, followed by the ears, cheeks, eyes etc.

Preliminary details are added to help define the cat. This is for your own reference, and will largely be replaced/painted over by the end of the painting.

Step 2- Drop in some preliminary details

Having given your eyes a guide as to the form and shape of your cat, begin adding details and light/dark areas to give it volume. The important thing to remember is that you’re not looking at a flat image onto which you are painting, but rather you are looking at a perfect photographic image of a cat which has been obscured by white. It is up to you to look at the perfect image and clarify what already exists behind the white. There shouldn’t be any conscious thoughts going through your mind while painting. You’re simply looking at a cat - smelling it - hearing it. You can even tell that it is looking at you. Atleast it is trying to, but its vision is obscured by something. Help it see!

Using a finer brush, more details are added, defining the eyes and fur. This is all done on separate layers

Step 3 - Finer Details

Further define the details using a finer brush. I generally work in medium tones and then use a lighter tone to bring out the highlights and a darker tone to push back the shadows. Put down some speck strokes in the direction of the fur, and then smudge it along in that direction. Go back over this layer with the soft eraser, leaving only the highlights where the light source strikes the subject. The shadows are done using a similar process. The important thing to remember here is that, despite always using a black pencil on white paper, shadows simply don’t exist. This mightn’t be of much use in this example, but when you are using multiple light sources, objects which are touching or closed environments, you’ll find your shadows are the colour of the ambient light, and not a darker shade of your main light as you might assume.

The Background has been blocked and painted to my satisfaction, with no regard to the foreground. It is then cut back to the shape of the cat.

Step 4- Block in the background

A little backwards perhaps, but at this point I make a new layer and start heavily blocking in the background. I don’t worry about obscuring the cat because I am going to cut this back once I am happy with the details in the background. Duplicate the layer before you cut back so you can move it later if you want.

Smoosh

Step 5 - Get bored with the whole thing

Once you’ve reached this stage, you might choose to get bored with the whole thing and smoosh it around using the smoosher tool. You’ll need to have merged all your layers and saved over all your original files for this to be satisfying. Using the smoosh tool, smoosh up, smoosh down, and then start smooshing in circles. Following this, I’ll generally check my e-mails and go for a walk, or maybe to the beach.

Hey its starting to look a bit like a kinda devil face.

Step 6- Smoosh it around into a kinda Devil shape.

Once you’ve come back from the beach, smoosh the cat around more and more until it begins to look a bit like a kinda satan guy. You might choose to throw down a few more lines here and there and keep smooshing to get closer to the shape the image desires to be in. You have to go where the painting wants to go. Give it some guidance by all means, but you are not in control of this image. Forget everything you’ve learnt and just smoosh. The image will tell you when it decides to become something.

A few details have been layed in as the image has begun to fall into a recognisable form. Again, this linework is for your own reference, and will end up being painted over.

Step 7- Add some defining details

Further define your devil head by adding another layer and drawing and shading onto the shape, and then smooshing it a little bit so that the details don’t define the shape too early on. You want to keep the shape loose until you begin to get an idea as to how the image wants to manifest.

Having blocked in the colours and cut back to reveal the base coat of Satan’s face, a better form is starting to become visible

Step 8- Block in and Cut Back

Block in and cut back the shape to lessen up the harsh shadows which were arrived at in the shape defining steps previous. The blocking in is a fairly neutral colour so as to not too strongly lock in the form and lose the freedom to go darker or lighter later on. The head shape is also changed slightly to better reflect Satan’s face.

Highlights are easy. Messy strokes on a separate layer which are then smooshed and soft erased can add alot of dimension to a painting

Step 9- Add highlights layer

This is a step you will take repeatedly throughout the process. Scribble in the white sections of the face where the highlights would appear, and lightly smudge them

Cruel decorative scaring can often scar a lot further than just skin deep.

Step 10- Tribal Scarring Details

Satan tells me that as a child he was subjected to cruel decorative scarring in order to allow him passage into adulthood. This detail spontaneously manifested itself on the image of Satan’s face through a process of white brush lines which were then smooshed around ever so slightly and then selectively soft erased back to only appear at the highlights. There was then another layer added to show the shadow side of the scaring.

A clean manifestation for an immortal.

Step 11- Further defining the details of Satan’s face.

Continue to add detail, shadow and highlight to Satan’s face. If you’re unsure as to where to add the details on Satan, ask him. For example, I was always raised to believe his horns were on his skull. Turns out his horns are on his jaw. who knew? He also mentioned that he likes to comb his ear fur into his hair and slick it back so it always looks like he’s in some demonic searing wind tunnel. The other thing which quite suprised me about the old chap is the way his face manifested itself quite cleanly. There were no degenerative marks or anything else to indicate an aging creature, or one in decay. It began to make sense because he’s been around so long that if he was exposed to risks like skin cancer and other conditions mere mortals are exposed to, he would have died long ago.

A million burning souls is the only thing which illuminates Satan’s palace. Destined to such a cruel fate, can one truly blame him for his decadence?

Step 12- Add the light of a million burning souls

Understanding that souls burn green, add a second light of the colour “green” to the side of Satan’s face. This process is identical to the standard highlight adding process. Light is additive, so adding new light sources is easy so long as you remember that, or so long as your hand is being guided by the almighty father of fire and light. The million burning souls is several strokes of green, yellow and white at its core, smooshed upward and outward in a radial manner and then soft erased back.

A more mortal appearance to scare the shit out of regular day to day humans. “Well It gets the punters shitting emselves” - Satan

Step 13- Hair/Spots/Final Details

Satan was quite suprised when I mentioned that people weren’t intimidated by his immortal perfection and shining complexion, but rather were scared by silly things like gross spots, age marks, wrinkles and moles. He conceded that this lack of understanding of the simplistic introspective nature of humans may have been one of the reasons he didn’t get the job of “God”. Anyway, the conclusion to this line of discussion came in the form of Satan manifesting spots, sores and age marks through the willing vessel of my tablet weilding arm. Despite this, his vanity still demanded his hair be smooth and shiny. This was manifested by a series of brush strokes in the direction of hair flow. These strokes were various shades of green and black.

Smoosh, erase, rinse, repeat. Finally the highlights were added using white in a nearly identical process.

“Satan - A Self Portrait” ©2005 - Satan

Step 14- Final Modifications in Photoshop

Its not kosher I know, but I took the final image into Photoshop, adjusted the colours and used the Liquify tool to completely change the shape of the face. Satan’s complaint was that he looked too much like Roger Waters and not enough like David Gilmour. He is Satan after all. Click on the image to the right to view the full sized image of my cat.

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