This took longer to draw, not because I lavished extra detail on it, but because I screwed up. I sized the reference photo down way too small, so I ended up with a micro-sketch of an extremely tiny towhee. It did not scale up gracefully, being made of pixels and all, so I basically drew a proper-sized one over top of it. I didn’t really notice my goof-up until I had pretty much finished the original drawing.
But now I’ll know for next time!
Eyes that pierce the soul, fluffy round bodies that are fluffy and round.
Mallards may be common, but when in full breeding colours, they are very pretty.
The outline is black!
For a change of pace, I used a squirrel as reference:
A goose, with opinions.
I spent way more time than I should have trying to figure out what to do with the water. A simple, flat colour? Add ripples? Make it look semi-realistic? Bright? Dark? Medium? Hot pink?
In the end, I settled for a slightly layered look using darker blues and a flat paint brush.
If I had tried to capture the feet of this magnificent birb in full detail, this drawing would have taken me 500 million hours. I also would have had nightmares about them for just as long.
A female cowbird, just like the title says.
I tried to come up with a clever title and failed. This is, in fact, a Steller’s jay.
The robin in the reference photo for this was standing in tall grass (for a robin), hiding its feet. I thought about filling them in, but in the end just cropped off the bottom of the drawing. I felt a little Liefeld at the time.
Pigeon line art. Coo, coo.
