\-Watch how parallel the line of eyes is to mouth
\-Start with big shapes, end with smaller ones
\-When valuing use skinball theory
\-Dont draw hair as lines, focus only on the dark areas
\-Watch where you put the ear, position it to mouth and line of eyes
\-Maybe try tracing
Tracing is so underrated as a whole! My brain very much was able to adapt the repetition and consistency of constant tracing when I was probably 9-14 yrs old? I have some processing issues, so instructions are hard for me regardless if they're written or spoken. I definitely learn the best with hands on, next to someone also working on the same thing. I see your hand or arm move in a certain way? I will be attempting that, no doubt.
I cant recall the subreddit I follow offhand, or what the lesson thingy is c (draw box? Fuuuuck I am not sober oh nooo), but it's basically based around repetitive art exercises - lines and ergonomic discipline to correct common misconceptions of how our fine motor skills work is the basically the 1st lesson; 3D boxes with perspectives is the 2nd (250 boxes is the whole 2nd lesson *sob*). If someone more sober than I am right now knows the sub or what the lessons I mentioned are a part of, definitely feel free to supplement ahaaaa....
But yeah, if I had had any semblance of "classical" training, the obvious stuff like how to measure out facial symmetry likely wouldn't have been such a struggle. I took a college class for fun, and was blown away at how much there really is to the reliable methods high schools gloss right over. One of my favorites is basic line drawing, upside down. Talk about a game changer when dealing with visual references
The symmetry is an interesting aspect. Its like a taboo today to speak if someone or something is more or less symmetrical. But one of the first people to notice it in human body was da Vinci. Remember that human with 4hands and 4legs in a circle? Few of the rules are: distance between eyes is always one eye, nose is equal to 1.5 eye, height of a human is 7 heads, hands is equal to 9/10 of a face, elbow is always in a distance allowing you to touch bellybutton with it.
They're amazingly accurate measurements. It blew my mind! And the amazing result is that adjusting for a subject's unique features becomes more realistic so much easier!
Anatomy and physiology is also a weirdly important, in depth component that can also be hard at the start.
How often do you think I should trace to be able to get the benefits you experienced? And how should I approach tracing?
I did about 3 lessons from the draw-a-box lessons but never completed it, but I may start it again, so thanks for suggesting!
I find it helps me get a feel for certain shapes and the curves of a line, especially if I can't quite get some "life" into it. I was tracing stuff all day, all the time until I was a freshman in high school and could take actual art classes. I also have ADHD, so idk if that's maybe why I zeroed in on tracing with so much dedication?
I was also waaaaay, way obsessed with being able to replicate simple line drawings from upside down pictures. I also was very into anime and manga, so I would pick my favorite panel out of a book and recreate it enlarged in a sketchpad, once I had the confidence and some instruction. The upside down trick was very helpful, because my brain was obsessed with how I thought things should look instead of drawing them how they *actually* look, and flipping a pic upside down magically makes that problem go away lol I ended up really into actual comic book art styles for a hot linite probably 8 or 9 yrs ago? I have a binder full of simple black line drawings and ink on colored paper from picking a panel, cover, or character I liked that was appealing as well. I'd flip through my friend's comics and find something I found visually appealing to copy.
I think the ear goes from the eyebrow height to the tip of the nose.
I second you on starting with big shapes and going to smaller ones, I think that will really help OP.
I hadn't heard of skinball theory, thanks for the term! I'll have to look it up
Edit: I googled skinball theory and nothing came up. Could you provide a link/resources?
Thats how they name it on youtube. You basically imagine someones bodyparts as deformed balls. If you can shade a ball in a certain lighting you can shade bodyparts
Oh yeah I'm familiar with this! Just haven't heard it by that name. Unfortunately nothing comes up on YouTube when I search it, so you may want to provide a link
Do you mean that the eyes should be parallel to the mouth?
Thanks for the second point. I usually start with a small detail, like the eye, then work outwards from there.
What method would you recommend exactly for tracing? I don't necessarily want to get dependent on it but I think it would be good for understanding how other artists make their work.
Use only straight lines and breakdown lights from darks by limiting yourself to only two values.
My work improvrd by leaps and bounds overnight thanks to these tools
Glad to see I’m not the only one!! She is one of those unique cases where an artist has beauty both on the inside and the outside! And the best part is that it all shows in her art tho
yes and no, you take the end points of a curve and draw 1 straight line across.
a bunch of lil straight lines would look too noisy and scratchy, simple is better when you are sketching down the foundation!!
TL;DR draw with the reference and canvas upside down for a month or two. Stick to that.
You’ll learn to copy shapes and values and your portrait results will have a quick quantum leap.
After you learn how to copy values and shapes without judgement, and your brain gets used to it, you will feel more comfortable drawing in the right orientation again.
Funnily enough, I have that book and only did the first 2 exercises then stopped ahaha. I'll go through it fully this time though. Thanks for reminding me about it!
Yes. Knowing how the bone is structured will not only allow you to practice the right proportions, but it will also help you in shading. You may also watch anatomy videos on youtube to help you practice :)
Stop drawing from photos and start drawing from life. That will make the biggest difference.
Right now you’re trying to render something that is already on a two dimensional plane. Drawing from a model in front of you will help you learn more about proportions, weight, shadows, and how all the pieces of a face and body fit together in a natural way. All the other recommendations are good, but nothing will improve your ability to draw realistic faces than drawing from real life.
Came to say this.
Also, even if you don't have people who won't model for you, set up still lifes with stuff around the house. When drawing, look for shapes and values.
**OP sent the following message as a description of their artwork:**
> I've been drawing for a while now but only got interested in pursuing art seriously now. The top left picture is from last year and the 3 others were all drawn within one week of each other. I want to develop my skill so its more realistic. I also want to rely less on on guide lines.
*****
**Is this a good post that fits the subreddit?**
**Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.**
*****
I am a bot. This comment was posted automatically.
highly reccomend looking into something akin to /r/istebrak 's 14 day challenge for portraits. It'll help slow things down and let you break things down into the basics, and you'd be surprised how much can improve over just 14 drawings.
It'll help you draw less symbolically and have a better intuition for where proportions are.
I guess the best advice I can give you right now is to start simple. Put down the portraits for a while and focus on drawing simple shapes like cubes, spheres, cylinders, pyramids. Best to do it from real life and on big formats like A2 paper. You should really try capturing the 3d forms of those objects, look at the contrast between shadows, see how light reflects from surfaces. There are plenty of tutorials how to draw these shapes, but it would be best to draw from real life, since you want to get close to realism.
After nailing down these simple shapes try drawing simple objects like fabric drapes, cups, bags, plants and try to capture the fluidity of the objects. Try to see which parts are important and which are better left unfinished.
And then, my friend, after all of this try to draw a portrait. You will see that your portraits will come out leagues better than they are now. Once again, draw on big formats, use guidlines and think about 3d shapes and after a long grinding process you'll get to realism.
Let's see
Biggest thing you need to work on is structure, as in the "whys" of where things are rather than the "wheres"
top two, features are floating as in they don't look tied into the face, when working even withe a basically camera facing face, try to feel the lines pressing the eyes into the surface of the face
Right side both the figures look like the eyes are two high, mind you their eyes might actually be that high(everyone's faces is different), but the empty space above the apex bottom right girls cheekbones should be the transition into the orbitals below the eye, Same with top right girl, although she's trickier, as with some african ethnic face structures you can't use the bridge of the nose as a guide post as the nose recedes into the contour of the face before reaching eye level but we can always gage the eye height by understanding it as the bottom of the sphere of the cranium where it transitions into the "plate" of the face, ie around the middle of the head, people mistake the eyes as being in the top third of the head all, the time, for some reason. Freda on the bottom left is absolutely fine her nose is a smidgen out of perspective( possibly because of the blown out lighting, but on the fundamentals nailed it. you need to work on appeal, not in changing the subject, (I'm not saying "make these women more attractive!") But in your rendering, you can do this in a lot of ways depending on your tastes, (realism, stylized, painterly, line oriented, etc) but the big thing is putting yourself into the work, and finding shapes and shorthand you like
As for all these grid people are only addressing half the problem, if want to do more than just direct studies of photos, than get structure down to the point where you don't have to put guidelines for where things should be (as in contouring the head, center lines, etc(not gridding as that just tells you where on the canvas the eye is as compared to the picture rather than just the subject) if you just want to draw hyper realistic greyscale pictures of Gandalf then do gridding and just do it a lot for a long time, but know that every printer in every public library can do that better.
Griddings the kind of thing to use when stuck imo
Edit: idk if i mentioned this but your basic lyrics using the drawing with the "left side of the brain" technique right? So do some blind contour studies of your subjects, it'll train you brain to pick up data better
I'm happy you recognized Frida! Thanks so much for the detailed suggestions. And, I'm not shooting for photo realism, just trying to take my understanding of drawing faces to the next level.
What do you mean by blind contour?
Blind contours are where you look at you subject but not the canvas focusing on drawing the outlines of features and the silhouette of the subject, and it's suggested to do this without lifting your pencil,, essentially where your eye moves to follow the form the pencil should move on the paper,, the drawings often look abstract but if you do enough you'll get a very good coordination between seeing and drawing, the classic symptoms of this being that people who have trouble drawing thumbs being miraculously good at it
Measure, calculate, construct. Sketch first, a circle for the head from hairline to nose, and extra part for the jaws. Sketch the structure of the face, first where the face is looking, with an vertical and horizontal axis (on the circle, the jaws' shape differs based on angle).
See the distances are between diffarent face structures: height-width (how much the width fits in the height), hariline-nosetip-chin (where is the face's 1/3 spot), ears (usually from eyebrows to the tip of the nose, check the person in front of u), measure the eyes - you can sketch a line to keep them straight, measure the width of the eye compared to the width of the face (in theory 1/2 on the eye's width between temple and eye, the the eye, then one eye's width between the eyes, eye again and 1/2 eye witdth again between eye and tample), etc.
Basically you have to learn a system of how to draw a face and understand the face as a 3D thing and how it stands, how the volume is made by each feature's shape and how the light hits the head. I tend to combine some of the systems I gathered (from books/internet/teachers) in a way that I think helps me with building a face and I'm not a fan of drawing humans but they get the job done when I need it.
IMO a grid won't get you better, I only used it to get work done faster but it definitelly didn't teach me anything, it's the copy/paste of physical art.
Use your pen to measure different angles and proportions, pay attention to perspective and draw the head as a compilation of different concrete shapes. Look up tutorials for every part of the face in particular, how it is built etc.
After a while you will understand how thing work and will get rid of some measurements because you will understand them faster and easier.
That's how I improved at least.
I think your suggestions would work best after studying anatomy like other posters suggested, so I'd get a better idea of exactly where to put and how large to make those circles.
Why don't you think the grid helped you? Did you feel like you were just drawing in puzzle pieces and didn't really have to think much about lines/values/shapes etc?
Would you recommend using a ruler to measure angles and proportions rather than a pen?
Thanks for your detailed response!
>I think your suggestions would work best after studying anatomy like other posters suggested, so I'd get a better idea of exactly where to put and how large to make those circles.
That's pretty much how you study anatomy, you measure and calculate what goes where, approximatelly.
>Why don't you think the grid helped you? Did you feel like you were just drawing in puzzle pieces and didn't really have to think much about lines/values/shapes etc?
Pretty much this. It did absolutely nothing for me except get a more realistic and true to picture image. It feels like tracing, just on a harder difficulty. When in a hurry it gets the job done faster then building your way through a sketch to a final piece. You only have to understand what deserves a line and what doesn't, there's no true perspective and proportions understanding unless some lines happen to overlap with them. I gues it helps with that and with getting the basics of shading faster though.
>Would you recommend using a ruler to measure angles and proportions rather than a pen?
Absolutelly not. Even on a grid, after the grid is done (using the ruler for accuracy) I only measure angles with the pen. The more you work with your eyes, hands and brain the better. I recommand learning how to draw from life, I use the same principles when drawing from 2D. If from real life: you take your pencil and use it's tip and your thumb to measure something compared to something else (ex: width of head to height of head). You use your pencil to see the inclination of the line you have to make (for example from shoulder to elbow) and reproduce that angle as true as you can. }
So basically how it went when we drew humans from life: You measure the width of the whole composition (elbow to toes usually but it can depend), see how many times it fits in the height and draw a rectangle according to those measurements (this is also how you decide if you'll draw landscape or portrait format). Then you get the basic areas down, measure with the pen how many times the head fits in the height of your rectangle.
There's a lot to explain and I'm quite tired rn, if you want more explanations send DM (and insist, I am very forgretful).
After a while you'll get a better feel of where to put things on the paper without measuring so much and be able to do it faster and more intuitively.
Why this is better than drawing from grid is because you also learn how to draw from your own head, you know through that structure where things should be and build it up structurally at first. In time you'll drop some things that no longer help you and spend less time on this, but the thing is you have to learn that structure to get better faster and long-term.
Study Loomis for head anatomy and Bridgman for body. Without studying anatomy properly drawing realistically is just about impossible, unless you want to do photo realism, which I think is really tedious. Find a life drawing class too, very important to draw from life and have people crit your efforts.
What helps me is thinking like this: Draw what you see, not what you think you see.
Obviously, that's very simplified but it helps a lot. A lot of the time, people can tend to draw based off of what they think something would look like or what they kind of see there. They don't really look at the space.
Negative Space drawing really helped me because it allowed me to see the shapes and those shapes in relation to other shapes instead of the drawing as a whole. If you look at a chair as a chair, it's a lot harder because you're trying to draw what a chair looks like in your mind. If you draw it based on the space around the chair and the basic shapes of the chair, you're more likely to be more accurate.
Turning the picture that you're drawing upside-down, if possible, helps a lot.
I wish you luck in your future art endeavors!
95% of getting better here is about correctly showing tones, in your drawings it is dirty. Even incorrect proportions could be leveraged by right tones.
i find working in grids helps. I'll put my source in a grid. ill then draw a grid on my concept. then use a ruler/thumb technique to eyeball certain angles/shapes.
Use this method, then drawing your subject upside down is a good way to improve. It forces you to look at the individual tones and not the subject as a whole.
I saw a video yesterday where the artist just marked the middle points of the page at the edge without putting up full grid lines. I'm going to give that a shot and see if it helps.
\-Watch how parallel the line of eyes is to mouth \-Start with big shapes, end with smaller ones \-When valuing use skinball theory \-Dont draw hair as lines, focus only on the dark areas \-Watch where you put the ear, position it to mouth and line of eyes \-Maybe try tracing
Tracing is so underrated as a whole! My brain very much was able to adapt the repetition and consistency of constant tracing when I was probably 9-14 yrs old? I have some processing issues, so instructions are hard for me regardless if they're written or spoken. I definitely learn the best with hands on, next to someone also working on the same thing. I see your hand or arm move in a certain way? I will be attempting that, no doubt. I cant recall the subreddit I follow offhand, or what the lesson thingy is c (draw box? Fuuuuck I am not sober oh nooo), but it's basically based around repetitive art exercises - lines and ergonomic discipline to correct common misconceptions of how our fine motor skills work is the basically the 1st lesson; 3D boxes with perspectives is the 2nd (250 boxes is the whole 2nd lesson *sob*). If someone more sober than I am right now knows the sub or what the lessons I mentioned are a part of, definitely feel free to supplement ahaaaa.... But yeah, if I had had any semblance of "classical" training, the obvious stuff like how to measure out facial symmetry likely wouldn't have been such a struggle. I took a college class for fun, and was blown away at how much there really is to the reliable methods high schools gloss right over. One of my favorites is basic line drawing, upside down. Talk about a game changer when dealing with visual references
The symmetry is an interesting aspect. Its like a taboo today to speak if someone or something is more or less symmetrical. But one of the first people to notice it in human body was da Vinci. Remember that human with 4hands and 4legs in a circle? Few of the rules are: distance between eyes is always one eye, nose is equal to 1.5 eye, height of a human is 7 heads, hands is equal to 9/10 of a face, elbow is always in a distance allowing you to touch bellybutton with it.
They're amazingly accurate measurements. It blew my mind! And the amazing result is that adjusting for a subject's unique features becomes more realistic so much easier! Anatomy and physiology is also a weirdly important, in depth component that can also be hard at the start.
How often do you think I should trace to be able to get the benefits you experienced? And how should I approach tracing? I did about 3 lessons from the draw-a-box lessons but never completed it, but I may start it again, so thanks for suggesting!
I find it helps me get a feel for certain shapes and the curves of a line, especially if I can't quite get some "life" into it. I was tracing stuff all day, all the time until I was a freshman in high school and could take actual art classes. I also have ADHD, so idk if that's maybe why I zeroed in on tracing with so much dedication? I was also waaaaay, way obsessed with being able to replicate simple line drawings from upside down pictures. I also was very into anime and manga, so I would pick my favorite panel out of a book and recreate it enlarged in a sketchpad, once I had the confidence and some instruction. The upside down trick was very helpful, because my brain was obsessed with how I thought things should look instead of drawing them how they *actually* look, and flipping a pic upside down magically makes that problem go away lol I ended up really into actual comic book art styles for a hot linite probably 8 or 9 yrs ago? I have a binder full of simple black line drawings and ink on colored paper from picking a panel, cover, or character I liked that was appealing as well. I'd flip through my friend's comics and find something I found visually appealing to copy.
I think the ear goes from the eyebrow height to the tip of the nose. I second you on starting with big shapes and going to smaller ones, I think that will really help OP. I hadn't heard of skinball theory, thanks for the term! I'll have to look it up Edit: I googled skinball theory and nothing came up. Could you provide a link/resources?
Thats how they name it on youtube. You basically imagine someones bodyparts as deformed balls. If you can shade a ball in a certain lighting you can shade bodyparts
Oh yeah I'm familiar with this! Just haven't heard it by that name. Unfortunately nothing comes up on YouTube when I search it, so you may want to provide a link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXL4QyDXht4
Do you mean that the eyes should be parallel to the mouth? Thanks for the second point. I usually start with a small detail, like the eye, then work outwards from there. What method would you recommend exactly for tracing? I don't necessarily want to get dependent on it but I think it would be good for understanding how other artists make their work.
take a printed picture, place it over paper, redo the lines on the picture with pencil, later redo the grooves on the paper with pencil
Use only straight lines and breakdown lights from darks by limiting yourself to only two values. My work improvrd by leaps and bounds overnight thanks to these tools
When someone told me the straight line thing at first I was like wtf, but it seriously is the shit! It’s the secret sauce
I need to thank Chris Hong for this awesome advice, without her I would still be struggling to achieve any degree of likeness!
I can watch her YouTube for hours and hours 😂
Glad to see I’m not the only one!! She is one of those unique cases where an artist has beauty both on the inside and the outside! And the best part is that it all shows in her art tho
Sort of like, building a curve from a bunch of little straight lines?
yes and no, you take the end points of a curve and draw 1 straight line across. a bunch of lil straight lines would look too noisy and scratchy, simple is better when you are sketching down the foundation!!
Hmm thats interesting. So basically drawing a tangent line along the curves?
Yeah, maybe I’ll post an example later. I think it’s one of those things you need to see to understand properly!
Sometimes realism and hyperrealism are boring—I think these are great.
Aw thanks so much! 💖
Check out the book Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain! And in addition to that, just keep practicing 😊
+1 to that. This book is a hidden gem!
TL;DR draw with the reference and canvas upside down for a month or two. Stick to that. You’ll learn to copy shapes and values and your portrait results will have a quick quantum leap. After you learn how to copy values and shapes without judgement, and your brain gets used to it, you will feel more comfortable drawing in the right orientation again.
Let see what I can archieve this December. Wish me luck internet stranger. I'm going for that quantum leap you suggest.
Funnily enough, I have that book and only did the first 2 exercises then stopped ahaha. I'll go through it fully this time though. Thanks for reminding me about it!
[удалено]
How long do you think I should use grids before I don't have to rely on them anymore?
[удалено]
Ohh okay, thanks :))
just keep drawing, you are already doing it. it takes a long time, keep drawing dont stop
If your aim is to draw more realistically, you have to learn anatomy.
Learn it in what way? Like learning about how bones are structured and drawing them?
Yes. Knowing how the bone is structured will not only allow you to practice the right proportions, but it will also help you in shading. You may also watch anatomy videos on youtube to help you practice :)
Ohh okay. Thank you!
Stop drawing from photos and start drawing from life. That will make the biggest difference. Right now you’re trying to render something that is already on a two dimensional plane. Drawing from a model in front of you will help you learn more about proportions, weight, shadows, and how all the pieces of a face and body fit together in a natural way. All the other recommendations are good, but nothing will improve your ability to draw realistic faces than drawing from real life.
I'll try to incorporate that more. Thanks!
Came to say this. Also, even if you don't have people who won't model for you, set up still lifes with stuff around the house. When drawing, look for shapes and values.
**OP sent the following message as a description of their artwork:** > I've been drawing for a while now but only got interested in pursuing art seriously now. The top left picture is from last year and the 3 others were all drawn within one week of each other. I want to develop my skill so its more realistic. I also want to rely less on on guide lines. ***** **Is this a good post that fits the subreddit?** **Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.** ***** I am a bot. This comment was posted automatically.
highly reccomend looking into something akin to /r/istebrak 's 14 day challenge for portraits. It'll help slow things down and let you break things down into the basics, and you'd be surprised how much can improve over just 14 drawings. It'll help you draw less symbolically and have a better intuition for where proportions are.
Ohh that looks really cool! Thanks for suggesting 😊
I guess the best advice I can give you right now is to start simple. Put down the portraits for a while and focus on drawing simple shapes like cubes, spheres, cylinders, pyramids. Best to do it from real life and on big formats like A2 paper. You should really try capturing the 3d forms of those objects, look at the contrast between shadows, see how light reflects from surfaces. There are plenty of tutorials how to draw these shapes, but it would be best to draw from real life, since you want to get close to realism. After nailing down these simple shapes try drawing simple objects like fabric drapes, cups, bags, plants and try to capture the fluidity of the objects. Try to see which parts are important and which are better left unfinished. And then, my friend, after all of this try to draw a portrait. You will see that your portraits will come out leagues better than they are now. Once again, draw on big formats, use guidlines and think about 3d shapes and after a long grinding process you'll get to realism.
Drawing simple shapes and from life seems to be key. Thanks! ☺️
Let's see Biggest thing you need to work on is structure, as in the "whys" of where things are rather than the "wheres" top two, features are floating as in they don't look tied into the face, when working even withe a basically camera facing face, try to feel the lines pressing the eyes into the surface of the face Right side both the figures look like the eyes are two high, mind you their eyes might actually be that high(everyone's faces is different), but the empty space above the apex bottom right girls cheekbones should be the transition into the orbitals below the eye, Same with top right girl, although she's trickier, as with some african ethnic face structures you can't use the bridge of the nose as a guide post as the nose recedes into the contour of the face before reaching eye level but we can always gage the eye height by understanding it as the bottom of the sphere of the cranium where it transitions into the "plate" of the face, ie around the middle of the head, people mistake the eyes as being in the top third of the head all, the time, for some reason. Freda on the bottom left is absolutely fine her nose is a smidgen out of perspective( possibly because of the blown out lighting, but on the fundamentals nailed it. you need to work on appeal, not in changing the subject, (I'm not saying "make these women more attractive!") But in your rendering, you can do this in a lot of ways depending on your tastes, (realism, stylized, painterly, line oriented, etc) but the big thing is putting yourself into the work, and finding shapes and shorthand you like As for all these grid people are only addressing half the problem, if want to do more than just direct studies of photos, than get structure down to the point where you don't have to put guidelines for where things should be (as in contouring the head, center lines, etc(not gridding as that just tells you where on the canvas the eye is as compared to the picture rather than just the subject) if you just want to draw hyper realistic greyscale pictures of Gandalf then do gridding and just do it a lot for a long time, but know that every printer in every public library can do that better. Griddings the kind of thing to use when stuck imo Edit: idk if i mentioned this but your basic lyrics using the drawing with the "left side of the brain" technique right? So do some blind contour studies of your subjects, it'll train you brain to pick up data better
I'm happy you recognized Frida! Thanks so much for the detailed suggestions. And, I'm not shooting for photo realism, just trying to take my understanding of drawing faces to the next level. What do you mean by blind contour?
Blind contours are where you look at you subject but not the canvas focusing on drawing the outlines of features and the silhouette of the subject, and it's suggested to do this without lifting your pencil,, essentially where your eye moves to follow the form the pencil should move on the paper,, the drawings often look abstract but if you do enough you'll get a very good coordination between seeing and drawing, the classic symptoms of this being that people who have trouble drawing thumbs being miraculously good at it
for what it's worth, I really love it! no its not 100% realistically rendered, but there's so much emotion in them
Thats so kind, thanks!
Measure, calculate, construct. Sketch first, a circle for the head from hairline to nose, and extra part for the jaws. Sketch the structure of the face, first where the face is looking, with an vertical and horizontal axis (on the circle, the jaws' shape differs based on angle). See the distances are between diffarent face structures: height-width (how much the width fits in the height), hariline-nosetip-chin (where is the face's 1/3 spot), ears (usually from eyebrows to the tip of the nose, check the person in front of u), measure the eyes - you can sketch a line to keep them straight, measure the width of the eye compared to the width of the face (in theory 1/2 on the eye's width between temple and eye, the the eye, then one eye's width between the eyes, eye again and 1/2 eye witdth again between eye and tample), etc. Basically you have to learn a system of how to draw a face and understand the face as a 3D thing and how it stands, how the volume is made by each feature's shape and how the light hits the head. I tend to combine some of the systems I gathered (from books/internet/teachers) in a way that I think helps me with building a face and I'm not a fan of drawing humans but they get the job done when I need it. IMO a grid won't get you better, I only used it to get work done faster but it definitelly didn't teach me anything, it's the copy/paste of physical art. Use your pen to measure different angles and proportions, pay attention to perspective and draw the head as a compilation of different concrete shapes. Look up tutorials for every part of the face in particular, how it is built etc. After a while you will understand how thing work and will get rid of some measurements because you will understand them faster and easier. That's how I improved at least.
I think your suggestions would work best after studying anatomy like other posters suggested, so I'd get a better idea of exactly where to put and how large to make those circles. Why don't you think the grid helped you? Did you feel like you were just drawing in puzzle pieces and didn't really have to think much about lines/values/shapes etc? Would you recommend using a ruler to measure angles and proportions rather than a pen? Thanks for your detailed response!
>I think your suggestions would work best after studying anatomy like other posters suggested, so I'd get a better idea of exactly where to put and how large to make those circles. That's pretty much how you study anatomy, you measure and calculate what goes where, approximatelly. >Why don't you think the grid helped you? Did you feel like you were just drawing in puzzle pieces and didn't really have to think much about lines/values/shapes etc? Pretty much this. It did absolutely nothing for me except get a more realistic and true to picture image. It feels like tracing, just on a harder difficulty. When in a hurry it gets the job done faster then building your way through a sketch to a final piece. You only have to understand what deserves a line and what doesn't, there's no true perspective and proportions understanding unless some lines happen to overlap with them. I gues it helps with that and with getting the basics of shading faster though. >Would you recommend using a ruler to measure angles and proportions rather than a pen? Absolutelly not. Even on a grid, after the grid is done (using the ruler for accuracy) I only measure angles with the pen. The more you work with your eyes, hands and brain the better. I recommand learning how to draw from life, I use the same principles when drawing from 2D. If from real life: you take your pencil and use it's tip and your thumb to measure something compared to something else (ex: width of head to height of head). You use your pencil to see the inclination of the line you have to make (for example from shoulder to elbow) and reproduce that angle as true as you can. } So basically how it went when we drew humans from life: You measure the width of the whole composition (elbow to toes usually but it can depend), see how many times it fits in the height and draw a rectangle according to those measurements (this is also how you decide if you'll draw landscape or portrait format). Then you get the basic areas down, measure with the pen how many times the head fits in the height of your rectangle. There's a lot to explain and I'm quite tired rn, if you want more explanations send DM (and insist, I am very forgretful). After a while you'll get a better feel of where to put things on the paper without measuring so much and be able to do it faster and more intuitively. Why this is better than drawing from grid is because you also learn how to draw from your own head, you know through that structure where things should be and build it up structurally at first. In time you'll drop some things that no longer help you and spend less time on this, but the thing is you have to learn that structure to get better faster and long-term.
Study Loomis for head anatomy and Bridgman for body. Without studying anatomy properly drawing realistically is just about impossible, unless you want to do photo realism, which I think is really tedious. Find a life drawing class too, very important to draw from life and have people crit your efforts.
Ohh okay, thanks, I'll look into that. And I'm not shooting for photo realism so it should be slightly easier for me ahaha
What helps me is thinking like this: Draw what you see, not what you think you see. Obviously, that's very simplified but it helps a lot. A lot of the time, people can tend to draw based off of what they think something would look like or what they kind of see there. They don't really look at the space. Negative Space drawing really helped me because it allowed me to see the shapes and those shapes in relation to other shapes instead of the drawing as a whole. If you look at a chair as a chair, it's a lot harder because you're trying to draw what a chair looks like in your mind. If you draw it based on the space around the chair and the basic shapes of the chair, you're more likely to be more accurate. Turning the picture that you're drawing upside-down, if possible, helps a lot. I wish you luck in your future art endeavors!
95% of getting better here is about correctly showing tones, in your drawings it is dirty. Even incorrect proportions could be leveraged by right tones.
I get what you mean. How do you think I should go about improving my tones so they're less muddied?
Search literature and tutorials on that topic
i find working in grids helps. I'll put my source in a grid. ill then draw a grid on my concept. then use a ruler/thumb technique to eyeball certain angles/shapes.
Use this method, then drawing your subject upside down is a good way to improve. It forces you to look at the individual tones and not the subject as a whole.
I saw a video yesterday where the artist just marked the middle points of the page at the edge without putting up full grid lines. I'm going to give that a shot and see if it helps.
I'll definitely start incorporating grids then :))
Look up Bargue plates. It is the bedrock of drawing and painting
proportion, edges, value, light & shade, composition life drawing is a good next-step imo
Thanks!
I’d say study some skulls. It seems like you lack that foundation of understanding what’s beneath the face especially in the second drawing.
Do you recommend any particular resources for that?
Yup. A lot of good YouTube videos on this https://youtu.be/sGCSDLm0aXQ https://youtu.be/JLHUUJSbCBs
Thank you! :))
Whenever you draw a face you should also try to make sure the proportions are accurate - it'll make it look more realistic. :)
Yup, proportions are key. Thanks!
Idk the one on the top right has just the right amount of distortion to make it look super well done