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Hi everybody, and welcome to a new NIL-Tech drawing tutorial: "Flamingo". Flamingos are familiar even to those that have never seen one in the real world. The tropical wading birds have long legs with backward-bending knees, long curved necks, and they are pink.
1. Flamingos feed by stirring up mud with their feet. After that, they reach down and scoop up a beakful of mud and water. Their beaks are designed to strain animals out of the dirt, and the water is expelled. This occurs as the flamingo's head is bottom-side-up.
2. The color pink comes from beta-carotene in the crustaceans and plankton that flamingos eat. Zoo flamingos will turn white if their diet is not supplemented with live shrimp or flamingo chow containing carotenoid pigments.
3. The male and female of a mating pair build a nest together. Also, they both sit on the egg while it incubates for about a month.
4. Some flamingos think it less complicated to steal a nest that's already been built, so mating sets should protect a nest from other flamingos along with killers.
5. When a flamingo hatches, both mom and dad take turns feeding it: first with an exceptional fluid baby food they make in their throats called crop milk, then they start giving a regular food as the baby ages.
In this tutorial, we used the following supplies:
Step 1. Sketch the shape of the flamingo's head (HB pencil). Then outline the bird's beak, its shape is slightly curved downwards, and the long line of the neck in the "s" shape.
Step 2. Outline the form of the flamingo's body; it looks similar to a drop that lyes on the side.
Step 3. Outline the first leg, marking the ankle with an oval. Then add the second one to create a one-leg standing pose of the flamingo.
Step 4. Draw a tiny eye and, after that, outline the contours of the drawing.
Step 5. Draw the contours of the bird's wing. The feathers in the top part of the body draw with a softer pressure. You can divide the bird's body into parts (or layers) to make the process of drawing the feathers easier.
Step 6. Draw the contours of the flamingo's neck, connecting the head and the body. Draw the leg, the sketch from the previous steps is the base. Add the contours of the visible part of the tucked leg.
Step 7. Refine the contour of the wing, noting the feathers. Then create an illusion of soft feathers in the top part of the body. The direction of the pencil lines accentuates the contours of the flamingo's body.
Step 8. Draw the longer feathers. They can be much more fluffed up and lay in different directions or come together at the end of the tail.
Step 9. Hatch the flamingo to create more volume (HB pencil). Accent the bottom part of the bird's body as well as the areas in between the long feathers. Also, add more shadows on the bird's neck as well as legs.
Then add the drop shadow - it will make the bird's silhouette steadier.
Step 10. Add more comparison to the illustration (3B pencil). Flamingos have black flight feathers under their wings, so create a hint at them.
To make the artwork much more expressive, darken the tip of the beak and the area around the eye. Use a sharp tip of the eraser or a blending tool to add small highlights on the feathers and develop a soft transition in between the shorter and longer feathers (blending stump).
As a last touch, add some graphite dots to the drop shadow under the flamingo to create a grainy sand texture.
Step 11. Hatch the bird near the contour (bright pink pencil).
Step 12. Hatch the inner part of the bird's body and near the beak, but leave some the blank space (light pink pencil).
Step 13. Hatch the blank spaces on the bird's body and near the beak, and the legs (light orange pencil). Use a blending tool to smooth the transition (blending stump).
