MATS SJÖGREN
FUN BEE DRAWING

In this tutorial Mats Sjögren, an Industrial Design student at HDK Sweden, will guide us through a technique he uses to produce concept sketches and ideas. Read about Mats below, then go on to enjoy his tutorial.

 

Name: Mats Sjögren
Age: 26
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Education: One year from a master in design at HDK, university of Gothenburg.
Working field: My main focus is industrial design, but I also freelance as a graphic designer.
I work in a holistic manner and try to cover as many aspects as possible.
Inspiration: Bio-mech creatures, robots, comics, music, animation and design in general.
Skills: Adobe CS, Alias Studiotools 12, Imagestudio 2, MS Office, Painter, Adobe Premiere
And Macromedia Flash 8


 

For this tutorial I have used coloured paper which provides a good grounding since it gives you the mid tones in the sketch for free. I have also used Copic marker pens, coloured pencils (Caran d' Ache), an ink pen (Pilot g-tech-c 0.4) and some gouache (Winsor & Newton).
I begin by drawing a basic figure using only a light grey copic marker (N2), and work freely, not taking to much notice of mistakes or flaws.

Next I begin to define the details of the fly using an ink pen. The rough drawing that I produced with the Copic markers provides a good basis for this, providing shapes and intersections that I can emphasise. At this stage, if the drawing has ellipses it is a good idea to use a set of ellipse guides as at this stage the idea is to tighten up the drawing.
 

Now it is time to start adding highlights and shadows to the image. I usually begin this by seeking out the areas that will be cast in shadow, and define these using a dark Copic marker (N4). The important thing to remember at this stage is to define a light source and direction. In this drawing for instance, the light source is in the upper left corner of the page. Continuing with a white pencil I then begin to add the highlights and reflections. The reflections are drawn in hard and sharp with the pencil since I want the fly to appear made out of metal. The white pencil is also used to create the transparent material for the wings. Here the pencil work is much softer.