Help me to achieve extra dark in portrait drawing

[unbhaskar]

Professionally I'm a mechanical Engineer but I love sketching and drawing. I tried to draw portrait of reference image on Canson 100lbs paper. my output is image 2. I used Cretacolor HB, 2B and 4B pencils to draw it.

Though result is good but I am not very happy with my blacks. I tried hard to achieve extra dark, but could not get it.

Please help me to achieve extra dark result. Any suggestions regarding drawing technique or material is welcomed.

[kennychaffin]

Well done. The ultra darks are just simply hard with graphite. The best way it to build up with multiple layers. Be careful though because it can result in "graphite shine." Also the type of paper is going to make a difference. The smoother the paper the harder to make true darks/blacks. The more tooth a paper has the more graphite it can hold and thus can be darker. The other options is to go with charcoal or carbon or a mix of the above. J.D. Hillberry has a ton of information about this on his website and in his book.

I recently discovered the Kimberly 9xxB pencil (due to Hillberry) which appears to be a mix of carbon/charcoal/graphite? I'm trying it out on my current WIP. It will go very dark and mixes well with graphite or charcoal. It might be worth a look.

[felipumz]

I personally use charcoal to achieve ultra blacks. I love the primo elite grande 5000 pencil. That will give you the blackest blacks ever. This pencil is actually recommended by J.D. Hillberry as well.

[kennychaffin]

Originally Posted by felipumz

I personally use charcoal to achieve ultra blacks. I love the primo elite grande 5000 pencil. That will give you the blackest blacks ever. This pencil is actually recommended by J.D. Hillberry as well.

Where did you get it?

[kennychaffin]

Originally Posted by kennychaffin

Where did you get it?

Never mind. I see they have it at Amazon. I could never find it when he first mentioned it.

[RickDArt]

Agree with above comments...but if you're insistant on staying with graphite, your 4B should've netted you darker blacks than what I'm seeing.

For instance: The teeth are rendered beautifully, but aren't accented enough by dark tones, so it makes the entire mouth look "flat". Just an example, if you look on the viewers right side of the mouth, the tongue and back tooth should be DARK, but they're not. The mouth creases from the smile has lots of dark, but they're rendered VERY light in comparison. That 4B will do the trick, just don't be afraid to use it more. Also (even though some may say otherwise), if I need a dark line, then dangit I'll push that pencil hard enough to give me the desired tone.

You have FANTASTIC accuracy, the placement of everything looks great...I'd just push that 4b in, blend, 4b, blend....until you mesh it in with everything else.

[SparrowHawk7]

I agree that the accuracy is excellent and that charcoal is the best way to get the REALLY dark darks. But I also agree with Rick that your darks ought to have been blacker. And that leads me to conclude that it must be in your application technique in that you aren't using enough layers. I am only just now experimenting with charcoal and graphite but I've had pretty good dark results with just graphite using a 4B. From the look of things you have a light touch which is a good thing BTW .. you aren't likely to damage the tooth. But take a scrap of paper and put some value to it as you normally do. But instead of stopping when you feel you should, keep going - gently. When you do get things dark enough to satisfy, you may also find that a few layers of something lighter - such as 2H - will even things out and blend things in effect.

Another thing that can help might be to try a smaller pencil. It's hard not to be pretty dark using a .7mm or smaller refill of 4B. A drawing uses a LOT of refills but for smaller areas it might be worth considering anyway.

Matching values is easier when working from a B&W image ...

[unbhaskar]

Thanks guys for your valuable suggestions. Actually I was always afraid of using charcoal and graphite together. Now I will try to use them in combination.

@RickDArt
Thanks for pointing gradients required for teeth and mouth & techniques to get it corrected.

thank you again guys.

[kennychaffin]

Originally Posted by unbhaskar

Thanks guys for your valuable suggestions. Actually I was always afraid of using charcoal and graphite together. Now I will try to use them in combination.

@RickDArt
Thanks for pointing gradients required for teeth and mouth & techniques to get it corrected.

thank you again guys.

Excellent, be sure you take a bit of care and learn techniques. You can put graphite on top of charcoal, but not vice-versa. J.D. Hillberry has much info about blending charcoal, carbon and graphite.

[lookin]

Nice portrait of Tendulkar. BTW your mole is in the wrong place