Today I’ll show you how to draw a sphinx cat head. We’ll explore the beautiful textures and learn how to convey this velvety wrinkly effect with ink liners. 🙂 Let’s begin! 
For this drawing, I use ink liners number 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 for a paper of A4 size. Plus a pencil – and an eraser, if necessary 🙂
The process of drawing:
- I start with a pencil sketch as my under-drawing.
- I outline the general contour of the head, using the 0.3 ink liner. The closer to the bottom of the drawing I get, the more broken the line becomes.
- With the 0.1 liner I add smaller details, accenting the skin folds. At this step, we should draw the artwork in general, without paying attention to one particular place.
- Where are the darkest places in your drawing? Add thin hatches there. I use the thinnest 0.05 ink liner for this purpose. At this step, I also refine the ears.
- With the 0.2 liner I add dots to the places that I consider the darkest in my drawing.
- I add smaller dots (created with the 0.1 liner) to make a more uniform velvety texture.
- With rounded thin hatches of 0.05 liner I refine the eyes.
- With the 0.05 ink liner, I refine the skin texture, paying attention to the ears, the side of the nose and lower part of the face. For this step both hatching and dots are great.
- With the 0.05 thin hatching, I add value to the shady areas. It creates volume.
- With the 0.05 liner, I add crosshatching (it’s when you place hatches of different angle and direction one above another). The accent on the shadow under the cheekbone, the neck, and small wrinkles.
- With the 0.2 liner, I strengthen the main contour to make the drawing more expressive. I also refine the nose with a delicate dotwork.
- I add dots and hatches with the 0.1 liner to make the texture more uniform and smooth.
And the drawing is complete! Congratulations 🙂
As you can see, it’s that simple. I hope you enjoyed the process. 🙂 If you are interested in examining the process scans of a bigger size in close-up, you can download the archive – let these images make your learning easier!
If you liked this tutorial, please share it in the social media and send to your friends — drawing together is always more fun.
I would also appreciate any feedback — questions and new themes proposals. What is your struggle in the ink drawing? 🙂
