Graphite Realism Tips Part Two : Which pencils to use where..

Mechanical 2H 0.5mm pencil :
- Best grade around for realistic art, can be used to complete 85% of the drawing.
- Can be erased easily [if pressure < medium pressure]
- Its the finest mechanical pencil lead, so can be used to create very fine long hair.
- Is very light, so can be used to make some fine shades on the body.
- Can be used as a very good base for skin, since it creates a smooth base layer when used on skin in either straight line pattern [female faces] or crosshatched pattern [male faces]. Smudging should be followed by tissue paper for female faces after this method. For male faces, you can leave it unsmudged or smudge using a brush, which removes texture out of the paper very lightly. Will discuss smudging in detail later on.
- For making fine black hair base. If you want real fine black hair, create a base layer with this [make fine hair, with hair strokes in a lock of hair following parallel paths]. By base, I mean an initial setup for making fine shining black hair. You can leave some spaces where there's shine but no problem if you make the entire hair base and later erase out some regions using the fine edge of an eraser.
- For making very light details on lips [used in circular pattern for lips, although using circulism using 2H mech pencil can be very tough at first. Use low pressure for circulism.
- For making very fine hair, use this pencil at a 80-90 degree angle to the paper, and apply high pressure, but be careful as if you make a wrong stroke, it will make its permanent impression over the drawing even if you remove it.


Mechanical 2B 0.5mm pencil :
- Very important grade when you are making black hair, deep eyes, gap between teeth and tongue, etc.. If you're making a dark background, its a bad idea to use this, since it becomes very tedious.
- This grade should be avoided to make very fine hair, since its very rough and it will destroy the quality of fineness.

To be continued...

Please Note :
-The above tutorial was written by me by what I understood by experimenting with different stationery and observing many great works and trying to decipher how they've been done. I may use some self-defined terms coz they work for me. If you want to put up these tutorials elsewhere, plz give due credit to me! [:D] and link me to that site.
-My methods of drawing keep on changing, so I will try to write the methods which have consistently given me good results.
-Feedback : Please give me feedback about this and tell me if you are unable to understand anything. I'll clarify.
- Tips are provided "as is" and the author is not responsible for any damages done to your drawing or your methods :D
Thats all. All the best!!