The Stalker

A stalking African leopard

This is an image of an African leopard stalking its prey and has been sketched in the medium of Pastel on PastelMat paper whilst using a beautiful reference photograph courtesy of wonderful wildlife photographer Steve Roos.

Below are a sequence of images showing how I sketched the above crouching leopard

I started the image by lightly sketching in an outline detail of the leopard

This is the first layer of the background before I started working on the tail of the leopard

I've then moved to the head, neck ruff and then onto its shoulders

Here I'm adding the spots to the neck and shoulder whilst working at my main easel

I've added the leading paw and supporting leg, then the stomach scraping on the ground

Here I've also added more spots to the shoulder, flank and then the remainder of its stomach

I'm adding some highlights to the stomach of the leopard

I've added a little more richness to the leopard and then put in some light foreground

Beautifully scanned and framed by Framers Gallery