Speed Doodles: Birdies

Hey everyone! I have been sketching a lot of birds lately as preparation for my upcoming "Bird on Gold" series; I thought I would drop a little sketching time-lapse here before I show you what I am working on.

Those are really quick sketches done in 3 -4 minutes with a photo reference to inspire myself for the main pose and general proportions, then I fully improvise. There are mistakes but I don´t care too much about doing a perfect drawing at this stage of production. Everything goes and I try not to judge myself as I draw and let everything flow on the page.

Here is the time-lapse:

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Tip of the day:

Blocking up the birds wing

Birds are fun to draw. Even if you play around with their proportions and improvise; they usually end up looking believable as long as you respect a few of key elements. One of these elements is the structure of a bird´s wings.

Birds wings might look complicated to draw; but they are actually all structured the same way. Once you understand their structure it becomes easier to "decode" and draw them. They are composed of 3 feather groups: primary secondary, and the alula. Every bird´s wings are built the same way, they just vary in size and proportions.

This is my technique to draw them:

1.Blocking in the general shape of the wing
2.Dividing the wing in primary & secondary groups
3.Breaking down the secondary group into smaller groups
4.Finding the 3 top feathers of the secondary group (important landmark)
5.Adding the alula feathers
6.Fluffing it up

Here is a little gif to illustrate my process: