How to paint a realistic cute hamster

Cute animals. who doesn't like?! In this tutorial, I would like to show how I draw and paint cute animal, a hamster, in this case.

 

I started by drawing different cute animals from reference and ended up picking the hamster on far left . There is a lot of surface details on cute animmals.. It would be the fuffy hair, the think fat skin or simply the high contrast color pattern. These details can obstruct and distract us for understanding the structure of the subject. So the first step to draw and paint a realistic animal is to understand the structure. Hamster has a relatively simple surface details . However it has different area of fuffy details and the tiny little feet is hidden in its belly.. so it was a bit of a challenge to get that across.

Sketches

I picked a pencil, adjusted to the right size. that u are comfortable sketching with and keep it loose and light, like u are scrupting the form of the creature. Start with big form and shape before committing yourself to the details like the little nostrils and pupil. I keep it rough all along. The important thing is to capture the overall gesture and pose of the subject.

Base color

Base color is important, it let you built up your color pallete. usually I would pick a middle tone color from my reference. Then your back it up and I usually would build my shadow and highlight in the same layer. I would also lock the transparency so when u paint , you dont' need to worry about going outside the boundary.

Highlight and Shading

At this stage, I color picked from the reference and see where the shadow and highlight is in the picture. Cute animal is tricky as the fur/ hair has it's own color and would hide the skin color underneath, This is why I separated the fur/ hair layer from the skin. I took the liberty of placing the shadows and highlight to where I see right . in this case, it's at the top.

Fur

The fuffy hair is then kept on a separate layer. Pay close attention to how thick and thin, how long and short the hair is. Also Don't paint every strain of hair. well.. unless u are going for photo realistic. This is a painting overall. so I would pick and choose area where hair in shadow then it is less identifiable and paint as a mass. in area like the contour, it's fuffy but it's a bit far away so it's blurry too. As you can see in this hair layer.. there is a lot of color changes, blending/ smudging , soft erasing. I constantly turn this layer on and off to see if the hair come thru natural in the area.

Different body parts= different ways to paint.

Ears👂

1. sketch and base color 2. shadow and the red tint in the ear is prominent. that's important to differentiate from the other body parts. 3. start adding hair and ear is an ara where the hair is long is can be seen clearly. make sure to keep it visibe and tone down on the blending. Added rim light on the ear. in 4 and 5, I add hair at the bottom of the ear and finetune the shape of the ear

Contour and back

1. I color picked from the reference where the highblihts and shadows are .

2. Started adding fur and see how it blends in. I kept the fur on a separate layer so it would be easier to change the value and color later

3. Started blending in the fur and see where should the actual fur "disappear" I kept an eye on leaving the fuffy look of the fur on the contour

4. Paid attention from reference s where the structure of the creature tranisition: back leg , belly and front arm. These are the parts where the fur shows thru.

5. make the contour more puffy. Build up the volume of his back . refine the details

Knee and belly

1. color pick from the reference like the other steps. Rough in color

2. Started blending the color, adjusted size of the feet , pay attention to the proportion.

3. Continue refining proportion, The rear leg is closely blend with the belly, as supposed to being so distinct.

4. Work on the shading to make the knee more stands out, define the feet and toes better, pay attention to area where the red tones come thru.

5.combine fuffy fur and tone down shading, keep going back to reference to refine the form

Hand n chest

1. This another area where u the contour of the fur would come thru. \

2.Rough in the fur, pay attention to how the fur look on the contour

3. further refine the little hand and which part is the finges and how it connects to the arm

4.Refer to reference to see how the fur look, it appears fuller, adjust accordingly

5. Refine the hand further and add fur on the wrist area. Blend the tweak the proportion using the liquify tool.

Below is an example to show how the fur is worked in to the belly

Eyes👀

1.Rough in where the eye is

2. Make the eye bigger as it looks more appealing with bigger eyes, rough in highlight

3.Added reflection on the right, , Refined the edge of the eye

4, Defined the form where the eyeball sits , The result is the eyes stand out more. Make sure the edge of the eye is consistent all around.

5, Added and blend fur in around the eye.

The brush I used

I use mainly 3 different brushes for this painting.

1. This is my favourite, go to brush by default. It blends with the color underneath, it this case, it works well as we already have a Base color. Another advantage of this is it has a sharp edge. This is important as we like to define a shap like the eye, you can use the same brush to define the edges, as supposed to switching to another brush, and may not even blend well with the one u used.

This brush compliments what the first brush missing, It still blends with the adjacent color but one attribute this is different is it preserve the color of the color picker and this is important when u color pick, you would want to pick the actual color from the reference.

This is the brush for painting the fur. You may adjust the density, width, and even add texture to this. you can rotate the hair strains to the direction you want,

Here is the time lapse video of the painting. enjoy.. I also found the liquify tool very handy to adjust proportion and tweak area, move things area . Hope you enjoy and be inspired to paint cute animals too!