making of a teen clone // pencil

Okay. Here we go.

   My first step by step (or making of) a drawing.

   This is a teenaged clone from the Clone Wars, a child produced and raised on the planet Kamino to fight and die in a war that hasn't even begun yet. One of the thousands of genetically identical clone of Jango Fett, the Mandalorian (actually he's from Concord Dawn, but that's another story) bounty hunter.

   Oddly enough, I've had a curiosity about clone since we saw the Star Wars film Attack of the Clones, and even more from our fist episode of the Clone Wars TV series. I've wondered how they grew up, if they received any parental love at all as boys.

   I can totally picture teenaged clones making friendly competitions with their brothers, and doing their best to stand straight and tall in their awkward stage of life, like real, fully grown troopers.

   Anyway, that's sort of what prompted me to do this. Also, I thought it'd be fun to show you how my process of drawing works.

Here we go!

Though we did get to see teen Boba Fett in the Clone Wars episode Bounty, other than that there aren't many references. Because of that, I made (a rather poor quality) print of a digital art drawing that jasjuliet on deviantart did of what she thinks a teen clone would look like (check out the original here! It looks really great). Though it isn't exactly how Boba looked in the episode, I like this one better because... well... Boba kind of looked like a little punk. Annoying, thinking he's so professional... tell me I'm not the only one who thinks he would have a more matured voice by then.

Anyway, I printed it out and used it as a reference for my re-draw (don't know why my colored pencils are in this photo, I don't use them in this drawing).

I'm imagining this is teen Cody, btw.

I didn't get photos of my first steps, since this is a making of an not a tutorial. These photos are pretty spaced out from each other.

I started with a circle (as usual), then refined it with his basic face-shape, using a lightly drawn cross to line up the facial features. Here I'm at the beginning of shading is face. 

Oh, and here's a tip for people who are just starting out with drawing: it starts out looking very not good (see above). You'll get frustrated at why it doesn't look like the real thing. But you've just got to keep at it, keep working it 'till the whole face is filled in. You'll get there, and don't be afraid of the shadows. The darkness is your friend.

A lesson that took me a while to learn, at first. But that's a story for another post.

Now I've filled in his face and started on his hair.

His face still isn't where I want it to be, the shadows and his eyes aren't dark enough yet.

When I draw, usually I do the entire figure roughly first off (or in a portrait I do the shoulders), then move immediately to the face. Once that has been refined, I move on to the rest. Some people think it's better to bounce around and not do too much in one place, and I get that. I guess it's personal preference.

Now I've basically finished his face, neck, and hair. I've also done a little bit of shading around where his collar will be.

With his hair, I kind of didn't know how to draw it, since in the animated version it's just sort of... flat on the top. And hair doesn't really do that. Also, from the reference I was using, his hair was completely black, so there wasn't much to go off of. I sort of winged it, which didn't turn out too well. I have no idea what his hair is doing in the front. It looks kind of like Tintin's hair flip up. Either way, this is not my finest hair moment.

His face was less detailed than I normally like it, and I'm not sure what kind of expression that is. Determined with a slight smile? Also, his right eye is too big.

After I was done shading his face, I sat back and immediately thought he looked too old. Too grown up. This is suppose to be slightly after the awkward-stage teenage boy, not grown up soldier-man. It took a few minutes for me to figure out what was wrong, but I finally found that if I erased some of the finer details (dark smile creases, sharp cheekbones, defined jaw and chin) he looked younger. See, the older you get, the more defined features you have. The younger you are, the smoother (and less defined) your skin is. The photo above was taken after I fixed all that and youngafied him.

Filled in the shirt and sleeves...

I had to think a minute about the shade of his shirt (which is a light blue) and his skin. Which would be darker in black and white? And shading a light shirt like that without over powering it took a few tries (and my kneadable eraser got lots of use). Also, his red undershirt had to be pretty dark.

The finished product! Whew, that was a mouthful. It took me a few hours to finish it, and I drew it back in January.

   Well, I hope you enjoyed that little (forget little, that was pretty long!) walk through of how I draw profiles. If there's a trick you think I'd like to know, pop a comment down bellow :)

Thanks for reading, guys!

Sincerely,
Darrion