If you want to draw soft fur that you can practically sink your fingers into, but are finding it difficult, then these coloured pencil tips and techniques will help. Learn how a Tombow Mono Eraser and a Slice Tool can help you create beautifully soft, textured fur on drafting film as I talk you through some of my processes from one of my focus tutorials.

When working on drafting film, I put my line art on a separate piece of white paper behind the film meaning I can then slide a plain piece of paper between which allows me to see my drawing without the line art being there. This can be really useful to see if your values are looking right correct without the distraction of the line art.

There are two really great tools for creating texture and highlights and they are a Slice tool and a Tombow Mono Eraser, which I’m going to focus on in this blog.

Looking at the drawing of the cats above, you can see that they look extremely soft and I achieve this by first laying down some gentle light layers to get the values and tones in. You can keep layering and add some of the shadows and darker tones in as well. You don’t need to worry about your pencil being too sharp here as you don’t necessarily want to see any distinct lines. You should avoid drawing every individual strand of fur as this can often lead to your fur looking really defined and not that beautiful soft fur we’re aiming for. 

The Tombow is going to be a really useful tool to add some soft highlights into your drawing because, with this type of fur, it’s really important to avoid any harsh lines or textures. It can seem a bit daunting at first but it’s important to try your best to stay positive and realise that if you take too much away with the eraser, it’s ok and you can correct it. There is always a solution.

Now the Slice Tool is typically great for creating texture and adding fine highlights to your coloured pencil drawings, and I know you’re probably thinking “Bonny, you’ve just said it’s important to try and avoid texture”, but for this piece, the Slice Tool was excellent for creating some of the longer wispy hairs in the cat’s ears and around its eyes. I very gently use the edge of the blade, on an angle, to scrape away some of the pencil and bring in some of the little hairs.

To hear me talk you through everything in more detail, and see a visual representation of what I’m talking about, make sure to watch the video at the top of this page. If you’re interested in the materials I have mentioned, you can find them listed in my Materials Guide here.