so here is a little bit of the process. Anyone that's taken a drawing class (still life, figure, etc) will be familiar with this. There is nothing special about it, but being empathetic and having been new to it all at one time, I am more than happy to share what I have learned up to this point. There are a mulititude of ways, and in this one I begin with a big shape. This part alone, one can spend hours on depending on what you're drawing. (proportions) I have worked with the human figure much, so laying down a big shape like this is based on familiarity of repetiously doing it so much. From there I set in the shadow shapes. So it is going from the outside, to the inside. Again, these shapes are also based on familiarity. Using a live model, or a photo the process would be the same. Obviously the only difference would be that there are shapes to be analyzed/transferred from a source rather than entirely imagined. Thirdly, I set the conrast. Light and shadow, by blocking in the shadows with an even tone. Make it dark enough (not too dark) so that the drawing looks graphic. Dark and light. From here it is time to build form. I can do this in either the lightside, or the shadows. I prefer the core shadw area, whcih is the border where shadow becomes light, and vice versa. Since this is a transition of shadow/light, it should be soft. Whereas the shadow from the object itself, creates a cast (such as a person's shadow on the ground). Cast shadows have a harder edge. I won't go to in depth with light/shadow, but it is a science in itself and important for the purpose of creating form. On the lightside, I look for highlights and shape these with the midtone. Just like the shadow block in, i make a light midtone leaving the white of the paper for the highlight. I feel the hard part are the midtones, and it is important to slow down when creating form on the lightside relating to this. This is because you don't want to go as dark as the shadow side with midtones, you need to go dark enough to create higlights, and all the subtleties of the form lay in the midtone. It is easy to create too much form here. So compare the drawing in this blog with the previous and love this life comrades!! for the love of drawing