Drawing bare trees takes a lot of patience. And you can't do it fast or you'll screw it up. I had to redraw quite a few of them in KENT STATE because I wanted to move on to other things, and they looked like hell.
Done beautifully here. This is how you do it, kids.
Done beautifully here. This is how you do it, kids.
https://twitter.com/Susan16Park/status/1470648032290959362
The trick is to stick to the proper sequence. You start with the main trunk and major branches, which gives you the basic shape of the tree. Ash, Oak, maple etc all have different shapes. Then you draw the smaller branches, then smaller still 
But too many branches, especially for trees in the distance, and the visual gets clogged up. I'm right on the edge of that here, especially those trees dead center.
I used a .05 pen for the big branches, then a .o3, and finally the .01. Can't get any finer than that!
I used a .05 pen for the big branches, then a .o3, and finally the .01. Can't get any finer than that!
Bare trees at night are a different challenge. Trees in the foreground you can see sky through the branches, but in the background they're more of an impenetrable mass, except along the edge. Took some experimenting to figure out how to draw this.
Patience, patience, patience. try to shortcut it, and it looks like shit and you'll scrap it and start again. SO you might as well take your time. This panel alone took a full day, but I knew it would going in.
Aerial perspective is tricky to pull off, too. Things in the distance are fuzzier than in the foreground. The trucks and the soldiers are the important things in this panel, then a couple well-defined trees. But the background, too much detail there are & it'll be a mess of lines
The challenge is putting in enough branches to create the effect of a bare tree and get the shape right, but not so many branches that it looks like a solid blob of ink. I'd just do one tree at a time and adjust as I went. Ok, this area has enough lines, then move on.
This panel was super tough, because again I had layers of foliage extending into the distance. I started with the foreground trees, than drew each receding layer of trees, getting a little less detailed with each layer.
Next time I'll discuss drawing crowd scenes. The biggest frustration of all!
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