Rendering wood grain

Prep 5

Now that you have completed your design work you are ready to render the design to communicate the effect of wood grain and resin. To do that you should follow some simple rules of rendering that makes your work look effective.

The simple rule to follow is that All Edges Are Always Dark (5 word phrase). This means that on the edges you always press harder with your coloured pencil (or if using markers you go over the edge two or three times). You then blend that darker edge so that it gradually fades to become lighter - think of a haircut that gradually fades from skin to hair.

To render a wood grain requires two coloured pencils - 1 light and 1 dark. Ideally it should be two shades of brown however I have seen it done with Yellow and Black to communicate the effect, although it does not look as real as using brown tones.

The first YouTube video shows me adding the wood grain firstly with a pencil; then adding a darker brown pencil shade over the top. The second YouTube video (Part 2) demonstrates me adding a lighter brown colour over the top of the wood grain which smudges / blurs the grain to give a more realistic effect. Remember... All Edges Are Always Dark!

How to:

Step 1

Sketch out your design work lightly in blue pencil (or pencil). Use Google images to find a photograph of wood grain that you like. Try to copy the style of grain to your sketch.

step 2

Add black fine line pen to the outside of the sketch to make it stand out.

step 3

Using a sharp dark brown coloured pencil go over your feint pencil lines with different weights of pressure (dark & light) and add a rough shading to the line by quickly moving the pencil on the line.

step 4

Then, using a sharp light brown pencil, apply the rendering rule - 'All Edges Are Always Dark'. Then fade your darker edges over the top of the wood grain. This will help to 'blur' your grain and give a more realistic effect