Viking study in colour pencil

I’ve been enjoying doing the Viking and Saxon drawings, so decided to do a Viking study in colour pencil.

This drawing is am bit bigger than my previous Viking/Saxon studies. Drawn on Daler Rowney 3 Assorted Whites Pastel Paper. This paper worked quite well with the combination of Derwent Drawing, Derwent Artist and Faber Castell colour pencils. The image size is 20x23cm (8x9inch).

The drawing is based on a reference from Deviant Art by (https://www.deviantart.com/random-acts-stock/art/Vikings-2011-stock-6-199969745)

The good, the bad and the ugly!

The Good

I’m actually very pleased with the rendering I did on his helmet. I feel I managed to capture the different metals and textures that make up the helmet. Mostly done using the Derwent Artists colour pencils. They are quite hard, so very good for building layers.

Also very happy and surprised at how well I got the skin tones and face shape done using the colour pencils. I have to admit that the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer pencils helped vastly with this part of the drawing. Especially for the basic skin tones.

The bad

The eyes! They look ok, but are wonky. Lesson learned, double check your base drawing before adding any colour pencil. However, saying that, the right eye (his left), I quite like. The left eye isn’t bad, just does not line up correctly with the other eye.

The ugly

For someone who draws animals, I didn’t do a very good job on the hair. Again, it looks acceptable, but it did not come out as well as I would have hoped.

Conclusion

To be fair to myself, It’s not actually too bad considering drawing people is still quite new to me. Overall, there is more to be pleased about with this drawing than to be disappointed with.