Step-by-step instruction - How to draw the Paperwarrior

A good exercise If you want to learn drawing is to draw spatially kniked letterings. It trains your spatial imagination and you can learn the drawing of perspective. This means that the paperwarrior is a great example :-).

I now start to colourate the shaded drawing. To do so, I draw at first the signs and logos on the gorilla. Therefor I'm planing previously where the writings and other objects should be placed on the folded gorilla. At difficult folded parts of the gorilla I fold the original beverage carton in the same way (as good as possible) as the gorilla is folded and draw it.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - Complex spatial foldings - a very good exercise to learn to draw

For areas which are not so complicated to draw in, I put the beverage carton simply on to the table to draw it. Please pay attention when you are drawing e.g. the borders of the yellow lettering, as you can't draw over your drawing afterwards. That means everything that should be yellow later has to stay white till you draw the yellow colour on it. If blue color gets in this area (what you actually can never prevent completely) you'll get green color.
Possibly it is better if you draw the yellow borders first and the blue color around it after that. I have not done so and that's why I get some green spots into my drawing.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - The original beverage carton serves to draw from it

Now I'm drawing already the logos but I replace the brand name with the word "gorilla". Just a little gag in the picture.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - Close-up of the Paperwarrior

Now everything that has to be blue is now filled with a blue colour with a cloured pencil. Below the word 'Eis" begins a colour gradient into a light blue hue. That has to be kept in mind.

Now when you draw over the gorilla with the blue pencil, you might get the feeling that you would destroy the previous work of shading. Indeed, it is the case that some of the previously drawn shadows a later barely perceivable. Really dark shadows have to be re-drawn with a black pencil when the coloration is finished.
Beware of very bright areas! This should not draw to strong with the coloured pencil, but initially only weak. Afterwards you should draw over thos areas with a white coloured pencil. With the white color pencil you can now firmly imprint, to seal the area and to get a smooth, seamless color area.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - The drawing is shaded with a blue crayon

Step-by-step instruction - How to draw the Paperwarrior

First the entire leg is coloured completely. The yellow borders of the letters have to be drawn somewhat careful that no (or as little as possible) blue color gets in the yellow areas. If they do, you will get green spots in the outlines of the letters.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - The leg of the warrior completely colored

Now comes the head of origami gorilla. You have to draw now a colour gradient from dark blue to light blue to draw.
To draw colour gradients with crayons you can learn at best in my little guidance "learn to draw with coloured pencils".

Here I show again three steps of drawing a gradient using my Paperwarrior:

a) I will start with the darkest blue hue. In the area of the far left, which is a little shady, I draw with a color pencil putting firmly pressure on the pen. Thus I'm mixing the black color of the shadow (as previously subscribed) with the blue color. While I continue to draw to the right, I always put less and less pressure on to the pencil to let the hue phase out. The red arrows in the image show the direction in which I draw and the point where I stop drawing.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - Learn to draw a gradient - step a)

b) At the point where I reduced the preasure of the crayon in step a) I go on drawing the gradient with the lighter blue hue. The red dot at the red arrow (see the figure below) shows that. With the lighter blue hue I follow in the same pattern.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - Drawing a colour gradient with crayons - step b)

c) Now follows the brightest blue hue in the gradient. The location where you have to go on drawing with the next crayon drawing yocan see also on the small whithe spots in the blue color space. Here is the drawing ground not completely covered with paint. With the bright blue crayon I draw till to a line that I have previously marked. This line is the border of a box with a product description or something like that.

Drawing the Paperwarrior - Drawing a colour gradient with crayons - step c)

The color gradient is finished. Now you have to draw the box with the text inside. Honestly I'm not keen to draw/write the whole text, so I just draw a scribbling that looks like text. That should be enough and looks actually pretty good. The buckling of the text lines I marked earlier with thin lines (but draw carefully - the lines should not been seen afterwards).

Now the finished upper part of the head of the Paperwarriors:

Drawing the Paperwarrior - The upper part of the head finished

I am afraid I made a smal mistake when I draw the spatial buckling :-(. But I think it can hardly be seen. Can you finds the error :-) ?

The lower part of the head is also draw with a colour gradient. In the area of the jaw are some ice cubes shown on the beverage carton.
Also about drawing the upper arm I don't have to lose many words. It's allways the same procedure. If you want to add some reflections and other bright areas afterwards, you have to remove some color with a hard eraser pen.