Some sketches drawn at the auto shop waiting room

While waiting for a couple of hours at the auto shop, managed to complete this set of assorted characters with a Sakura Pigma Sensei 0.6 mm pen. Then continued drawing on paper and card stock just to keep busy. Remember grasshoppers always carry your sketching kits with you, so you can make the most of time spent in waiting rooms practicing your drawing skills.
For the most part I used a few leadholders to sketch fantasy subjects and some of the other customers in the waiting room.





Spending a bit more time and practicing some shading on these imaginary objects. Remember doodle and sketch whenever you can: it will help you ward off boredom while improving your sketching skills.

Staedtler Mars Lumograph drawing tin of 12 graphite pencils

While the readily available regular No. 2 or HB pencils are fine for general drawing purposes allowing artists to create a few different tones simply by varying the hand pressure applied to the same pencil tip, a set of drawing pencils of a few different graphite hardness grades can be pretty useful for more efficient drawing and shading of grayscale graphite drawings. The harder H pencils are best suited for drafting and technical drawings since they keep their sharp points longer, and the softer B pencils tend to be preferred by artists for sketching and drawing since they glide more quickly and smoothly on the paper surfaces.
The Staedtler Mars Lumograph Drawing-sketching tin set of 12 pencils, ranging from 2H to 8B, is one of the easiest to find in the drafting sections of local office supplies stores while Derwent Graphic pencils is the brand commonly found in Arts & Crafts stores. The comparison chart below shows the different range of tones that can be rendered with each pencil grade using the same drawing pressure.
This Staedtler set is a fair set of pre-sharpened drawing pencils. Despite the card label claim that their "quality lead will not crumble or create dust", this new set started a bit messy with some stray graphite powder on the pencil tips and the inside holding tray. Fresh out of a new tin box, the softer B grade pencils initially left rather dry marks and felt a tad scratchy on the paper like charcoal pencils tend to do. They also smudged easily, crumbled, and left a few loose graphite particles on the paper surface. Fixing might be required when using the softest grades (6B-8B). Their performance did improved once re-sharpened, for they glided fairly smoothly on the paper afterwards. The softest 8B lead point was still prone to breaking a little with my regular hand drawing pressure.
The 2H pencil has a rather scratchy feel on the paper while H through 4B pencils are reasonably smooth and neat with no crumbling. The softer leads are suitable for quickly laying down shadows and felt even smoother on the paper after a first sharpening with a Faber Castell 3-Way Sharpener. For preliminary drawings and construction lines, start with the H, F, or HB pencils. The F lead has the hardness of an H lead with the darkness of an HB lead, so it retains its sharp point longer while producing fairly nice dark lines. Satisfactory results can be obtained starting with any of these middle grade pencils and then gradually moving to the softer grades to render contour shapes and shadows while keeping in mind the support characteristics and the handling limitations of the pencils in the extremes of the grade scale: the softest B leads tend to smudge and are more difficult to erase on rougher papers while the hardest H leads sharp points might scratch and dig into thinner delicate papers. For a skillful demonstration and a few how-to-draw tips with the Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils check out this short video from architect Doug Patt.
Graphite grade scales are not consistent among different brands, for example these Caran D'Ache Grafwood and Technalo pencil sample swatches tend to be lighter than the same grades in other brands. These graphite leads are very uniform and free of rough spots or defects within their cores, so they feel incredibly smooth on this Xerox 67# Ivory vellum cover support. They are very strong and clean to use, for they absolutely do not crumble under normal drawing pressure. They are both premium graphite lead lines made in Switzerland that are typically only available through online vendors and specialty stores.

"Fantasy Cartooning" study sketch

"Action! Cartooning" and "Fantasy Cartooning" are two of my favorite reference books that I keep in the permanent library next to my drawing table. I enjoy the content and teaching style of Ben Caldwell's Cartooning books a lot, and even submitted short reviews for both of them at Amazon. I feel they are quite accessible to young budding artists for their easy-to-follow sequential layouts filled with quick targeted pointers on character and monsters' design. Ben Caldwell's model drawings are rendered in a simple and attractive classic American animation style with some Disney influences.
At the library courtyard, I did this study sketch after the Amazons lesson on page 31 of "Fantasy Cartooning". The character stance was changed slightly, added a background, and even included a couple of lizards that were sunbathing by the fountain. If compared to the original model, it would be clear that they look somewhat different. Beginner Artist Tip: When studying any reference books do not obsess over trying to copy the original exactly (if the object of the exercise was a to make a perfect copy, one might as well use a digital camera or Xerox machine), you would be better off focusing on one or two issues you are trying to improve in your own drawing technique and enjoying the sketching process. As you practice how to achieve certain effects or create an specific look, your accuracy and likeness rendering skills will develop naturally at your own pace.

Robot coloring page

I was asked to draw a robot for a 6 year old, and this humanoid robot pencil sketch was the first to come up. Started drawing the head, torso and limbs, and then added the floor and surrounding cityscape. Then went back to the robot and thicken its outlines to make it pop up towards the viewer. Whole thing might have taken about 15 minutes and done freehand. Point of the exercise was to just loosen up and practice my pencil strokes with my Caran D'Ache Museum Fixpencil 4 mm leadholder loaded with 3B Technalo watersoluble graphite lead. The composition was kind of spontaneous, probably inspired by a Clone Wars Animated elevator sequence.