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I want to not have a line here, because even if I started out with a line, if I leave that,
it's going to show through this fur. Because I have light and dark and light and dark and
in between values, and it almost impossible to get rid of that outline. So as soon as
I can, I start coming in and I use a stroke that is my tapered stroke, but this is where
I do something a little bit different. Let's go ahead and get this little worksheet here.
Maybe I can make it a little larger. It speeds it up, it helps me to have something other
than something very specific like rows. We don't want to do that. We don't want to hit
the pavement and go kerplunk. We still want our tapered stroke, but it's always harder
at the beginning to have that tapered stroke. And so I like to not just have rows, because
I get down to the next one, I'm going to be doing this, and then I'm going to get-- and
this is what we have a tendency to do when we're filling in spaces. So I want it to be
a little bit more random, although I know that we have darker patterns in here, and
we want to be able to capture those. But there's a wonderful randomness, just enough to help
it break it up. We can see that there's obviously different coloration stripes, but there are
also variations in it that help us realize that it's not solid, and that it is, you know,
with fur. So this is what I do, and I just am saying
this because I don't want you to say, 'Well, okay; this is the stroke that Darrel does.'
I do a tapered stroke, but when I'm sketching, I don't always do this compass stroke. This
compass stroke is great for precision, for being able to build gradations, to be able
to have that precise placement of your pencil, but-- and so then I have control over the
amount of time I'm lingering, and also the pressure, because there's a maximum pressure
that I use. I don't want to have a line leading the way, so I'm going to be careful to gradually
fade it away from that leading edge, because I want it to be a contour, something that's
going around and out of our sight, instead of being a coloring book version, where we
have that dark line dominating everything. So this is good-- with that compass stroke,
we can accomplish so much. And when you're working towards the highlight, and you're
creating contour and gradations, and getting close to an edge, and fading it away, this
is just a wonderful stroke to use. But I still can accomplish the tapered stroke for some
other purposes, that's a little bit more random and natural, like for fur. I wouldn't do it,
probably, on hair for a human. I can see where there might be some exceptions. But I do a
rocking motion sometimes, and this means that sometimes I can change the direction. If I
was going to do my normal tapered stroke, I would land softly, have a taper-- I don't
know whether you can see that; I hope you can. I'll try to do it larger. Sometimes it's
hard to convert it over, just for the sake of showing. But I still want my taper. But
I might have to change directions. So I want to be able to practise that I have hair going
a number of directions. I want to be able to still land in a way that helps me to have
something other than that blunt end. I don't want this kerplunk, or I'm never going to
be able to suggest that it's really that thinner edge, that pointed edge, that is so-- you
know, it's-- at least the way it appears, to the end of each hair. When I'm doing eyebrows
or eyelashes or any of those things, too, I want to make sure that I have a tapered
end; it just comes across a lot better. But I'm going to vary the directions. So you'll
see that, in this case, I'm going to go both directions, so that I am actually going up
and I'm tapering it away, and I have a chance to rock, and I go different directions. I
want there to be some uniformity, and something that makes sense and it works, but I hope
you can kind of see how I'm able now - if this was reduced down - to create that hairy
edge of the fur. This is what I want to be able to do with something like this. So I
want to position this thing, still, in a way that I can have more of a natural flow, but
I'm going to come in here and I'm possibly going to be going like this, as well as this,
and some of them straight, and I don't want it to be chaos. Think of it, again, with a
flow, with something that has that flow and grace to it. Otherwise you can get locked
into just doing-- you know, we don't want to do Xs; we want to have something that looks
quite a bit nicer and more graceful and flowing than that. Something that's natural, that
comes on a live animal. And so these are opportunities for us not to still use a taper. So this is
the practice; if you can come in there and still see the taper, the lighter of each end,
and the more intense part in the middle. It's not that you have to try too hard to make
that intense part, but it helps give that range of value that helps it fade away at
the other end, just like our normal tapered stroke. We have two thin ends. And it will
help you adapt, and it will give the illusion of many of the things we're trying to achieve.