Blue Bird & Little Duckie 💙🪶🐤 (Step-by-step guide - Week 24) (Patreon)

Hi everyone!! 🤗

For this week, we will draw a blue bird & a little Duckie, two very different kind of birds! ✨

You will find my tips, step by step instructions and final illustrations below, together with the materials I used!

Tips

Here are some tips I also shared in last week in the step-by-step post:

Start with a sketch first: Don't skip the sketching stage! A light pencil sketch helps you place the head, body, and features before adding color and details.

Focus on the biggest shapes first: Look at the overall body shape before drawing eyes, wings, feathers, or tiny details.

Cute animals are often round: Softer, rounder shapes can make animals feel more friendly and adorable.

Suggest textures instead of drawing everything: A few pencil strokes and scribbles are enough to create the feeling of feathers.

Practice is more important than perfection: Don't be afraid to make mistakes and experiment! 🥰

Trust the process: When drawing the base layer with brush pens, the drawing can look a bit weird. Even I sometimes doubt if it will be alright in the end. But when I add the pencil layer the whole illustration comes together.

Blue Bird

For the sketch of the bird, I used Faber-Castell 120 (Ultramarine), but you can also use another light blue pencil or dark indigo. For the branch, I used Faber-Castell 188 (Sanguine). I always try to use a color that fits the colors of the illustration. When I finish the sketch, I erase the sketch lines lightly with a kneadable eraser!

I used the following Brush pens as a base layer:

Tombow 451 (Sky Blue) or 491 (Glacier Blue)

Tombow 553 (Mist purple)

Ecoline 374 (Pink Beige)

Using Sky Blue or Glacier blue for the lighter feathers and Mist Purple for the darker feathers of the bird. Pink beige is only for the branch he's sitting on.

For the second layer, I used the following Pencils:

Faber-Castell 157 (Dark Indigo)

Faber-Castell 120 (Ultramarine)

Faber-Castell 283 (Burnt Siena)

For the second layer we will use ultramarine first to draw some feathers on his body, trace the outlines with a variation of light and darker scribbles. Look closely where the feathers are lighter and where they are darker. Use Dark Indigo for the darker parts, his tail, wing, the feathers around his eye and his beak. We will use burnt siena for the branch. Trace the outlines of the branch and create some shading at the right side and under the body of the bird.

Little Duckie

For the sketch I used Faber-Castell 108 (Dark Cadmium Yellow).

As you can see I first drew an oval for his head and a bigger oval for his body. To make him cute, make sure to draw a bigger head and a smaller body than when you would draw an adult duck. This is one of the things that makes him cute.

I used the following Brush pens as a base layer:

Tombow 553 (Mist purple)

Tombow 991 (Light Ocre)

Tombow 020 (Peach)

For this little Duckie, we will only use Peach for his body & head, Light Ocre for his beak and Mist Purple for his eye.

PS. I forgot to make a picture of the base layer, so this is a screenshot of a video I made... Here's the link to that video on instagram: Duckie Tutorial

For the second layer, I used the following Pencils:

Faber-Castell 108 (Dark Cadmium Yellow)

Faber-Castell 188 (Sanguine)

Faber-Castell 157 (Dark Indigo)

For the second layer we will use dark cadmium yellow for the feathers/fur and we will add some extra details with Sanguine. Dark indigo will only be used for the eye.

I wish you all lots of fun with this week's reference, and don't hesitate to ask me any questions or show your illustrations in the group chat 🤗

Celyn 🌸