Last week our homework for nature sketching was to research and draw a ‘large mammal’. During the class we studied from miniature models, subjects ranging from the great Canadian moose to the giant African elephant… while I love our national symbol to bits, the moose is quite the fuzzy animal, and I wanted to try something a little different… hence, the Indian Rhino. As armored as an armadillo, as warty as a toad. Perfect.

The picture above is the final product, in which I used a base of Promarkers followed by some Indian ink brush-tipped pens. Final highlights were done with white gel pen (a necessity in almost ANY marker sketch I do now!). I had never done any textures save for fur and smooth surfaces with these pens, so trying out wrinkles and warts was a fun experiment. Save for perhaps the need for a bit more contrast, I think it worked out quite well! Below are a few preliminary research sketches done in pencil.

Anatomy & texture research

Quick pencil sketch

Thanks for reading, have a good weekend! :)