KellyC

So...I was browsing at another forum and I saw these guys who are really talented in portrait and they inspired me to draw portraits. So I pick up a mechanical pencil, an eraser and started to draw. As you can see, I'm a beginner (this is like my 4th picture), thus, the piss poor product. I'm not satisfied with it and I want to improve, so if any of my fellow TFPers who has a keen eye for art or is a professional artist who would like to give me some tips on how to improve, I would very much appreciate it.

Well, here it is. I originally started to draw the lips only and then shade the areas around it and it doesn't seem right, so I added the nose and again it doesn't look right. So I fiddle with it some more until I got to the eyes part is where I ran out of room.


For comparison, the orginal pic.

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Matt Arden

I like it.

I used to draw a lot. I'm better than most people but far from a professional artist.

If I was you I would draw in the hair. Without it, her right eye looks a little funny. I'm not sure that in real life you would be able to see that much of the edge of it. Because of her hair its hard to make out the eyelashes that would be there. Also drawing her hair would make a dark background and would make her face pop out of the picture more.

I think her cheek could be rouned off a little more. To make it "rounder."

I'm not entirel sure if this would make the pic look better, but maybe draw the irises in her eyes. I know you can't see them too well in the pic. But maybe that would make her eyes look more real.

I would recomend picking up the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It's a very good book that helps you to understand how to better draw what your eye sees.

I like how you drew her teeth. Most people would try to draw each individual tooth.

This is good for a begginer. Very good for only your fourth drawing. Keep it up.

KellyC

Well...I would draw the hair, but the thing is I can't draw hair for crap. I've done it with the first 3 and it looks terrible. If anything, it ruins the picture because of the hair, so I put off the hair and just do the face for now. I figure once start to get the hang of the face first, then I'll practice on the hair.

As for the irises, I can't really see it so I can't do anything about it...Oh, and the teeth, my first attempt is to draw the teeth individually, too, but it got crooked and pisses me off so I just draw the outline of it and shade the gum...turns out better than I expected.

Thanks for the tip mate.

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Matt Arden

I don't think the hair in this pic would be that hard since it's black. I wouldn't even try to draw any texture to it at all. I would just make it solid black. What might help you is, don't try drawing the hair, try drawing the negative space between the hair.

KellyC

So how would you go about drawing the hair properly? My way is to just do repetetive lines and obvious it doesn't look right so there must be another way of doing the hair. Also, I'm using a mechanical pencil to draw the hair, I figure that's one of the problem why the hair doesn't look right. So can you actually draw the hair with a mechanical pencil or it's all in the technique? If I need another pencil, what kind should I get?

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kramus

Check this site out - the "classroom" threads will be of real interest to you

http://wetcanvas.com/forums/channels...&channel_id=25

And for pure drawing with all kinds of specific tips and exercises - the Basic 101 series of threads is a good one

http://wetcanvas.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=227

The key I notice here is that you need to pay more attention to the actual shapes you are looking at instead of what is in your minds eye - a specific would be the line ofthe lip - you have drawn it going up to the right and it curves down, which changes the entire flow of the mouth/teeth/nose. Learn by doing - that is what you are doing here and it is still the best for drawing skill.

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KellyC

Nice find Kramus, thanks!

And yeah, I've been told to draw what's actually on the picture instead of what's on my mind before...easier said than done. But I'm tryin'...

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Matt Arden

A good way to try and do that is to turn the picture upside down and draw it that way. It sounds wacky but it does help.

cinnles

It'd a way of abstracting what you're seeing down to basic shapes, and not a-thing-that-you-think-should-look-like-this, wouldn't it?

Michelangelo's babies always looked muscular because he drew what should be there in a developed human instead of what would be more commonplace in a baby's muscular structure. I suppose biological development wasn't taught too much back then though.

I'd be mindful of which way the facial features are "facing" as you draw them. You see a lot of faces drawn and the mouth is rotated one way, both eyes another, etc. It has all the features of a face, but it's kind of like someone has shifted them around a bit.

Also, don't be afraid to ruin drawings, you're never going to learn if you're too scared to make mistakes!

As far as pencils go, buy and try a few different types. I'd try H, 2B, and 6B and see how they feel, then fill in the range of pencils as you get a better feel for them.

It's just practice really, things are looking good so far. :up:

Matt Arden

This is great piece of advice.

frogza

You could always take it back to the abosolute basics, draw a grid on the picture you are drawing from and a corresponding grid on your drawing paper. Then simply draw what is inside the squares, ignoring the whole. This will help you see the real shapes better.

For hair always treat it as larger shapes, don't try and draw individual hair. Approach it the same way you would if you were sculpting.

dobster

Overall I thnk you have the shapes just about right. My only observation is that the different sections would seem to be slighlty wrong dimensions. The most obvious example being the right (or farther) cheek. If the right eye came out from the nose a little less than it does now I think you would be happier with the results. It’s a question of acknowledging the curvature of the face. The farthersideof the face will be less visible so should be smaller, the correct size of the right eye will then follow.

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KellyC

Right, thanks for a great peice of advice everyone. I'll be posting another one sometime this weekend to show my improvement (if any) based on the tips.

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Dizzet

Okay i would give the advice to take some pictures of people and begin drawing them it will give you the overall know how of the different shapes in the human head. This will help you alot when you begin on actually portrait drawings... Its the only crit i have the shapes, the shadows and textures is nicly done

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KellyC

K...another one..this one is more complete, so to speak. I decided to do a lighter shading on this one to give her a softer skin tone/look.

How's the hair? Is it convincing enough?

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doodlebird

much better!
and the hair is really good.

if i HAVE to pick out something wrong,
i'd say her right eye doesn't seem quite right.
maybe it's a bit too big?

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Johnny Pyro

Those are awesome. Ten times better then I could do. For a beginner that is really good. I know people who draw just as good as you that have been at it for years. Good job.

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agent79

when i do a portrait i always start with the nose. from there you can dictate spatial distances between the eyes, lips, chin, cheeks, forhead, etc. some other advice would be to tone down the eyes. you may think you are replicating how big the eyes are in the picture, but its from my experience that if you draw the eyes smaller than you think they are they actually come out right. make your delineations between features softer. look at real lips and eyes, they dont have hard lines surrounding them. you did a good job with the hair.

KellyC

hmm...i suppose the eyes are a bit exaggerated. I tried to not screw up on the eyes so I gave it extra attention but I guess I over did it. As for the lips, she's wearing lip stick so the contrast between the lips and the face is quite noticable...that's what I'm trying to do there.

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OhFuchsia

Try starting with the eyes, I always find that to be most helpful. Keep in mind as well that the eyes lie in the center of your head and in most cases the eyes line up with the ears. Just some things to keep in mind.

Sweetpea

I just would like to say wow! kellyC, you've got some real talent!

Sweetpea

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optik_nerve

Of course they do...

Did you mean eyes line up with the ears?

OhFuchsia

Yes that is what I meant. Thank you.

kramus

Your second drawing has a lovely line from the brow on down the nose to the lip.

I can't resist sharing this site if you haven't yet seen it. The man is so clear in his tools and tips - and such an amazing pencil artist - that anyone should find some value in his site. btw blue tack rules!

http://www.sibleyfineart.com/

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FngKestrel

Holy crap, that is a phenomenal site.

little_tippler

this 2nd drawing is a definite improvement in relation to your first. In the first drawing your shading I think is too hard/angular, maybe a softer pencil would help you make a softer drawing. The 2nd drawing you haven't done such a marked shading and it makes the skin look more realistic. Your proportions seem a lot better in this one too. My only comment on the 2nd one now is that you need more fine detail to make it look human. You know, the glint in the eyes, the flick of a few eyelashes, a stray hair on the eyebrow, that sort of thing. The iris is the coloured part of the eye, I think what someone meant before is that since you don't accent the pupil (the little dark bit/hole)of the eye it looses a little of the detail. Eyes can really make a drawing and if you take some extra time to look really carefully at an eye then you'll see there is a lot more to it than you're drawing at the moment. Good luck, you're on the right track!

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shesus

I wish that my first sketches were that good. I did CK ad a few years back and it looked nothing like the picture.
I think you are on your way to being a good drawer!

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mr sticky

Kelly- one tip I didn't see mentioned was the type of picture you are drawing from. Modern development uses its own little filtering/smudging affect. So, automatically,you are losing detail that you need as an artist. Try using hi-res digital pics if you can. Also, if you have a Xerox machine handy, copy the pic both darker and lighter so you can get an exaggeration of the light and dark values. These two tips will help immensely!

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Rand007

Hey KellyC, here are a few tips for drawing portraits with pencil. First, as with most art a finished piece is a comibination of many layers.

Your first layer is an accurate line drawing of your subject. This is critical to a good finished product. Start with this and don't begin shading until you're satisfied it's right. To help you get the the facial proportions right there are a number of techniques you can use, but start with this one because it will help you get the most accurate line drawing until you get a feel for facial proportions (you should also pick up a book on human anatomy for the artist). Draw a one inch by one inch grid on your drawing paper with very light pencil strokes. At the store you should be able to find transparency sheets, draw a half inch by half inch grid on it using a permenant marker. Now the picture you want to draw to the back of the transparency. You'll be able to see a grid over your picture now. Since you have a one inch by one inch grid on your drawing paper you now have a guide to help you translate proportions of your subjects face with your line drawing. Using this technique you'll get a drawing that is twice the size of the picture you're using to draw from, you can adjust the proportions to your needs.

Ok now you have a very accurate line drawing of you subject, its time to begin layering on the shading. Your mechanical pencil will work great for this because you're not going to use it for blending (mechanical pencils suck for blending). From your local hobbie or art store pick up two essential tools, first a couple packs of tortillions (blending stumps) and a kneaded rubber eraser or two. You're gonna use the blending stumps to do all your blending and your kneaded eraser to "draw" or "pull" highlights. Now look at the picture that's you're drawing from and pick the lightest area on it, that's going to be the color of your paper with no pencil shading. Everything else is going to have some shading on it. You're not going to avoid shading those areas rather your going to lift the highlights out with that cool new eraser you bought. Ok now find the darkest area of the picture, this is going to be darkest shade your pencil can make, everything else on your drawing will be lighter then it. I find it helps to pick about 5 to 8 shades I'm going to lay down on my picture with my pencil and put those shades on the top corner of my paper so I can look at them and pick which one I want for different areas of the drawing. These aren't the only shades that will come out on the drawing, they are just the shades you'll make with your pencil. You'll use the blending stumps to create all the subtle shades inbetween.

You're ready to start shading now. Remember you're not going to use the pencil to blend your shades together that's what the tortillions are for. Start laying down your shades, meaning; use pencil strokes (just lines or cross hatch or whatever you prefer) to get a shade somewhere between your darkest and your lightest pencil mark according to the pic. Don't blend yet, just start by laying down shading strokes. When you've defined some shaded areas, take out your tortillions and begin to blend the areas together (those things are cheap so use new ones when moving from a very dark area and areas that have more subtle tones). Don't try to avoid the very light areas, just blend over them as you'll pull the highlights with the eraser. Keep doing this until you have the shading how you like it.

Now with hair....Hair requires a number of layers. You've done a great job with just one. Try this with the second picture you made. Take your tortillions and blend that together (some times you'll want to use the tortillions very lightly), then add another layer very similar to what you had to begin with. Blend that layer and repeat. This will begin to add layer upon layer of detail and softness into the hair. Remember to use long smooth stokes of the pencil for hair and build those on top of each other for dark areas (again you did a great job with that second pic just blend and repeat that). Then when your satisfied pull out the highlights with your kneaded eraser.

Give those techniques a shot, you're off to a great start!!!

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KellyC

It's been a while since I last draw portraits....back in 2005, actually Any way, I got bored one day and decided to draw portraits again and Mr. Julius Caesar seemed like a fine candidate, or at least his bust is. My....5th or 6th attempt at portraits...

This is the result:
Note the actual drawing is a bit darker than this and way less grainy.

Model picture:



Now this one is a little different. I chose him, or his bust, because it has really defined facial features that's really helpful with the drawing. Plus his eyes are easier to draw It's mostly done as far as I'm concerned. I'm leaving the hair alone because I have no idea how to draw/shade statue hair so if any one have any suggestions on that, I would appreciate it very much.

Comments and (harsh) criticisms are welcomed as usual.

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bermuDa

save for the images in the last post, I'm getting placeholder "image not found" for all the previous files

As for the bust portrait, I think you have a fine eye, KellyC. Nice shading, and a good balance of detail. Please keep drawing!

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MexicanOnABike

great proportions but the shading needs some work. get it darker where its darker. under his chin, it's almost black. and his hair needs work. look at the reference picture again: you made his hair too tall or not flat enough. maybe it's just because theres no shading. keep at it!

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