Hello Folks!

I usually draw portraits or large images, I rarely dare to draw something small where you have to make many details.

Today I wanted to draw a Samurai.
I really like these characters, they were very strong and respected, their visuals are impressive and their combat skills were exceptional.

The word Samurai is generally used to designate a great variety of warriors of ancient Japan, although its true meaning is "the one who serves" a military elite that ruled the country for hundreds of years.

Historically the image of a samurai was more related to that of an archer on horseback than with that of a swordsman, and it was not until a relative peace reigned that the sword acquired the importance with which it is currently related; the fantasy and reality of the samurai has been intermingled and idealized and their stories have served as the basis for both novels, films and comics.

The samurai used different weapons, Arches, Katanas, Tachi Etc ....

Normally we visualize a samurai with a sword, I wanted to illustrate this with a different weapon: "Naginata"

It is the most cited weapon in the samurai chronicles. It consisted of a curved blade mounted on a wooden handle and its appearance resembled that of Chinese halberds. The naginata was an extremely versatile weapon, since with it they could hit or stab the enemy.

The Tools:

This illustration was done in charcoal, but as always the following tools did Magic:

Mechanical Pencil.
HB Mines 2mm.
Charcoal Pencil.
Charcoal bar.
Moldable Eraser.
Diffuser.
Brush.
A4 Opaline 180G.

The Process:

What I wanted to do was to make the HB pencil sketch, this is a hard mine and it gives us a lighter stroke and easier to erase.
With the charcoal pencil I began to illustrate the head, it is something very small and with charcoal it is complicated. The charcoal loses sharpening very quickly so highlighting the details is complicated, means sharpening the tip at every moment.

To illustrate the chest and shoulders is also complicated, however, help me with the HB pencil to highlight every detail then to give shadows with the charcoal, the moldable eraser helps to illuminate, I wanted to make very little light because in the end I wanted to place all the light on your back and the effect this causes is that the subject looks darker.

Illustrate the arm and part of the weapon, every detail was necessary to highlight it with the eraser, although I did not want to make so much light needed to highlight the details of the armor and this is the only way .

Degrade the tones with the diffuser, all the illustration was done with this tool, being small details the diffuser does the job very well!

Illustrate the skulls with the diffuser, use it as if you were painting with it. This image will make it bigger, so you can see how illustrious it is with the diffuser, the same for almost all the illustration.

I love the Naginata! this weapon is great!, illustrate your weapon and with the moldable eraser I gave it the feeling of having a sharp edge, using a technique that I almost always use, and it is to erase to make light and on the edge to make a darker path, this gives an effect great.

Illustrating the leg is already taking shape, and we know that it is mounted on something and it is the turn to illustrate the horse.

The skulls look amazing! Now to illustrate the muscles of the horse. It is a black horse but because of the effect of light in the background it will have the clearest edges, this is the sensation and the effect that the lateral light gives.

Almost finished looks great! I really wanted to leave it that way, but I needed to make the idea I had from the beginning.