Hello there and welcome back to my YouTube channel. Today I'm going to be sharing some of the process of my double link drawing. This piece was created with soft pastels and pastel pencils on 70 by 95cm pastel matte paper. For any information regarding my materials please check those out in the description. This is also a sped up version of the full real-time videos and tutorials now available on my Patreon channel. You may also find the link to that in the description if you would like to learn my methods and techniques in much more detail. As you can see here I've started with the sky. I'm using a mixture of Unison and Shimeke soft pastels sticks to get down an accurate base colour layer. Using colours such as purple and black for the darker shadowy areas and then light yellows, peaches, pinks and white for the highlighted areas. I'm using a sponge tool to blend out the pigment to make everything appear more soft. This area definitely took a lot of patience but I'm really happy with the end result. After the base layer I could then refine some of the subtle details with a pastel pencil simply for the extra control that pencils can offer. Once the sky area was mainly rendered into place I could then shift my attention to the confusing tree bark section. For me this was definitely the hardest part of the drawing and it's the area I spend the most amount of hours on. Nevertheless I was pleasantly surprised by the end result and I believe that all my hours I spent on it was worth it. This section has an intense amount of detail as there is a lot going on. My method was mainly just to break up the area into smaller areas and focus on one bit at a time. Once the base layer was in place I then took to my pastel pencils to start rendering in the details. I started in the top corner and began to work my way down the tree trunk. There were a lot of grey highlights for this area and the details darkened as I worked my way down towards the bottom. As you can hopefully see there were hints of green and purple showing through which I found really fun to incorporate in. The whole area was very confusing to me while drawing so I had to step back multiple times to look at the piece as a hole just to make sense of it. When tackling a drawing whether it's a pet portrait or this tree trunk here I like to map out various areas before committing to the details. For example I like to place in the dark cracked lines that you can see. This will then allow me to reference with the other details and aspects of the drawing art to go in relation to it. So now that my tree trunks are nicely rendered into place I can then start working on my favourite part of the drawing which is the animal portrait of the links itself. This portrait formed a nearly seven hour two part voiced over tutorial on my Patreon which is now available. I made sure to really cram in as much information as I possibly could throughout so if you would like to learn more about drawing realistic animal eyes, nose, fair details etc please feel free to check that out by clicking the link to my Patreon in the description. As well as my tips and tricks throughout the tutorial also includes the reference photo on the video as well as a full list of the soft pastels sticks and pencils used so that you're not left guessing what you need to get started. What's more is that this isn't the only lesson available once you subscribe for a small monthly fee. There aren't many others to learn from and enjoy as soon as you sign up. All of the past lessons will instantly become available to you and you can cancel your subscription at any time that suits you. Okay so back to the drawing now and this is where the base layer is blended out, ready for the pencil details. Again I'm using a sponge tool for this making sure not to accidentally transfer any of the wrong pigment to various areas. I will again use pencils for the extra control here just to refine some of the tones to this base layer before any of the details go on top. Next I will further map out the darkest areas with a black pencil before moving on to my highlighted areas such as underneath the eye here. The tone of grey pencil chosen is really important for a realistic outcome. I like to use cooler grays which have more of a blue tint for the darker areas and then I like to use warmer grays for the more highlighted areas. I absolutely loved drawing the mid face nose area here. This was probably my favourite part of the whole links. Using a sharp pencil it's really enjoyable to map out the direction of the highlighted fear and watch the 3D shape of the face appear from the flat base layer. When rendering in the details for the mouth area it was important to increase the level of highlight around the nose and then darken as we travel down towards the mouth. This ensured that the area also looked realistic and 3D. Now moving on to the second eye and I start by fixing some of the brown tones and then mapping out the highlighted fear around the eyes. For this I use a mixture of light peach and grays. Again the direction of the fur is really important here along with the length of each of the hairs. I generally save white pencils for the very last details. So now moving on to the upper head section I first want to map out where the highlighted areas are with a light warm grey. I will do this with the Fabercastle pastel pencil as they are less opaque than other brands. Then once I have established where those areas are I can then go over those details with a more vibrant and opaque pencil brand such as the current dash. Even though Fabercastles are less opaque they are perfect for subtle fine details such as these so they are definitely some benefits to being less vibrant. If you would like to know more about pastel pencil brands with their pros and cons I have recently created a beginner's guide to soft pastles and pastel pencils that explains many of these questions in detail. You can check that video out by clicking the card in the corner or the link in the description. So now moving on to the body area I again put down a base layer of pastel followed by the mapping out of fear and then the refining of those details. And for the last section of this artwork moving on to the pores I again map out the darkest areas and details with a black pastel pencil and I also use a brown pencil to map out some of the colour areas before moving on to adding in the base colour layer with my sticks. This is then blended out with my sponge before moving on to the pencil for details. For the hairs on the coloured parts of the fur I mainly use a light pink. When paired with a brown base layer it helps to form a light orange colour. As the base layer slightly blends in with the pastel pencil details to combine their colours I aim to use this to my advantage wherever I can. For the wider tips of the poor pads I use a mixture of light grey and white while also using a black to fill in and darken some of the gaps. More darker gaps between hairs will translate to the fur being less dense in this area. Now zooming out from this area once the poor section is complete I can now incorporate the lower part of the face in with this area overlapping fur details into the darker areas. Now it's time to draw in the whiskers once the fur is complete. I like to lay my drawing flat on a table and use an opaque pencil that will give me a nice strong line. For more information on how to achieve this please feel free to check out this real-time tutorial lesson on my Patreon for the full rundown. Thank you so much for watching this all the way through if you have done please also feel free to check out any relevant links in the description. It was very fun for me to create this original artwork and share the creation process with you so I do hope you like it as well as this video. If you did enjoy please consider liking this video and subscribing. If you are new to pastels check out my free introduction art guide which goes into incredible detail including the pros and cons of brands sharpening paper, staying safe storage methods and techniques and much more.