Five sketches - Never underestimate the power of a ballpoint pen

Five sketches - Never underestimate the power of a ballpoint pen




I don't only enjoy complex digital art with 2121613 layers and textures. Sometimes, it's good to go back to basics and to just use a simple ballpoint pen to sketch a bit. No, no don't laugh, you can do very great portraits with a ballpoint pen. In fact, ballpoint pens are like R2D2 in Starwars: they don't seem very interesting at first but end up being awesome when you know them better.

Here are some of the sketches I drew in the past month.

I'm sorry, no scans but mainly photos because of 1) the spiral binding of my sketchbooks makes the scanning difficult and 2) because I often sketch late at night and I am too lazy to scan the picture properly. The following day, I forget and I sketch something else without scanning my previous sketches...


1) Castiel in 7x17 -  1

I LOVED Emmanuel Castiel in 7x17. My Flist was full of awesome posts with thousands of reference pictures only a few minutes after the end of the episode (the spn fandom! ). I couldn't resist a close-up picture where Misha's eyes where particularly beautiful.





2) Castiel in 7x17 - 2

Misha again. He was definitely perfect in this episode (Huh, no: everybody was perfect in that ep ). I loved his eyes in the very last scene where he appears alone and lost in the hospital room.




3) S6!Sam

A prompt from hils who simply requested a Season 6!Sam. I find Jared easier to draw than Misha (or even Jensen) even if "Sammy" from the first seasons is definitely less difficult compared to today's Jared. His jaw and the lower part of his face are pretty hard to render.





4) S5!Sam

A training for a postcard for dauntdraws who requested a S5!Sam.



The saddest thing is that the postcard apparently never arrived (I keep my fingers crossed but basically: ). It was quite different from the sketch above. All that's left is the photo below that I took right before putting the drawing in the envelope.



5) Jared at Paley Fest

A prompt from quickreaver. The prompt was for an artist meme and Question 25 was simply, "Draw something!". I drew Jared at last year's Paley Festival. I think it's one of my favorite photos of him.



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Random Questions

What pen do you use?

A BIC ballpoint pen and a BIC Atlantis pen. The second one is a bit thicker. I use it for shadowing. For construction lines, I use a watercolor pencil (Stabilo CarbOthello 1400/400 - Blue)

What paper do you use?

To be really honest, I don’t use a particular kind of paper. I mean, I use what I have near me, on my desk. Sometimes, I draw in a sketchbook with a very ordinary paper (“Soft White Paper - 100g / 65lb, 21,6cm x 28cm”). Sometimes, I draw at the back of a handout (like the Jared at Paley Fest sketch). Long story short, nothing sophisticated :) . I work in a A4 format most of the time.

I don’t think that the paper is really important even if I don’t like very thick papers like watercolor paper (it makes the pen more difficult to use).

Ballpoint pen: Assets and drawbacks

- Assets: Pleasant to use - beautiful blue color - quick rendering - precision - not expensive - easy to find and to bring everywhere
- Drawbacks: No fail allowed (impossible to erase) - Sometimes, the ink smears, sticks, or globs up.

Voilà!! I hope you enjoyed this post!
See you soon (I think it's for spn_redemptionwith some Dean/Castiel art)