How to Draw a Elegant Design

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This tutorial shows you how to draw a detailed and elegant bird with a pencil and color pencils. It may look complicated at first, however it's based on simple shapes with further refinement. With just bit of patience, you can do it yourself. Pencils to the ready... let's go!

Tools

Mechanical Pencil
Faber Castell Classic Color Pencils No: 309, 314, 341, 343, 349, 357, 361, 362, 367, 370
Eraser
Paper type: Double A

Although I am using Faber Castell color pencils, you can use your own branded pencils. I've mentioned the colors I'll be using through out the coloring portion of this tutorial.

1. Draw the Bird

Step 1

Draw two ellipses for its head and body. One side of the small ellipses is tapered, egg shaped, because we will draw his beak on that side. The space from the small circle and the big circle isn't too far or too short. It's better be around a quarter of the big ellipse.

The sketching stage should always be drawn with light lines to make it easier to remove, so avoid pressing too firmly on the pencil.

Step 2

Draw basic lines for the beak, three lines for the neck (the middle line will be used as detail later). Sketch out other lines for wings. Try to let your lines flow, try to avoid stiff lines as these are to be flowing, elegant looking wings. Smooth curves will work very well here.

Step 3

Draw three lines for the bird's crest (feathers on the head). Try to have they curves to make they look more "real". Draw curve lines for the tail feathers too. You can have the tail's length as you want but because we are drawing fantasy bird, the longer tail will be the nicer it is.

Add smaller details and curves by drawing the eye and nose. Drawing other curve lines to close the wing shapes.

Step 4

Add basic curved triangles for the bottoms of the tail feathers.

Step 5

Start to add little details for the head feather, wings and main tail. For the wings, draw the bottom row of feathers using your sketched lines as a guide. Try to draw the tail with curved small lines so it will create the look of delicate feathers.

Step 6

Draw another row/layer of feather just same as what you did before for the wings. Draw another layer of pencil on the head, beak, and a bit of the stomach. These will be thicker and more confident lines.

Step 7

Add the lines towards the end of the wings. Please make sure the ending feather is pointed and has a bit of curve. This will add to it's elegance.

Step 8

Start to working on the chest of the bird by giving random curve lines to give the impression of feathers.

Step 9

Work on another layer of feathers for the wings, to help build them up. Try and match the same style for both wings so it looks balanced.

Step 10

Finish the end of wing with pointed feather like you did on the left wing. Don't be afraid to erase any sketch lines you no longer require.

Step 11

Now let's begin adding further detailing to the body of the bird. I've added further curved lines to the side of the stomach.

Step 12

Add four curved triangles as you did at the tail, but this time for stomach. As we mention above, don't press the pencil so hard. This time, the stomach needs to be lightly drawn, otherwise it will lose it's soft feather look.

Step 13

I've added small lines at the ends of the triangles on the stomach. This will create a delicate look to them.

Step 14

Draw details between two lines on the neck. Make them look like scales as apposed to feathers. Also, add more details on all the triangle feathers.

I'm going to add further detailing to the eyes, including a pupil. Our bird is beginning to come to life!

Step 15

I'm going to add curves and swirls to the detailing of the wings. This will add to the elegant style. We're aiming for a fantasy bird, so these additions are part of our artistic license. As long as the core structure of the bird is drawn realistically, the detailing can be as elaborate as you wish.

Step 16

Touch up more of the details of the left wing.

Step 17

The left wing still feel a bit of empty, so we should add one more little detail in the empty space. On the right wing, we add three more feathers. You can imagine you are drawing leaves on the tips of these. This is the shape we're aiming for here.

Add details on the neck and add more shadow to the eye to make it stronger.

Step 18

Add more feathers to the stomach.

Step 19

Add more lines to make the stomach look more full of feathers. Start to draw a few long lines down from stomach

Step 20

Add details to the right wing.

We will start working on the tail now. Add some soft curved lines to give the appearance the long feathers are moving in the wind.

Step 21

Draw extra feathers to the opening of the right wing. It will help create a less stiff shape. Remember we want our bird to be elegant and flowing in the wind, so loose curves are the direction we're wanting to go in.

Step 22

Create further lines and curves to push the elegant stance of the bird. This will also help balance the composition.

Step 22

Repeat step above for left wing. With these extra feathers, draw them smaller compared to other wing because this wing is slightly closed.

Step 23

Let's finish of the pencil line work of the bird. Add more extra feathers to the tail. I also add a big triangle feather at the end of feather.