Advice wanted from competent portrait artists

Inigo Montoya · Post by **Inigo Montoya** » January 25th, 2007, 3:23 am

This isn't directly game-related, but I can't attach images in OT.
Recently I've been teaching myself to draw. This particular sketch is an experiment in drawing a face without using any kind of visual reference (just the mathematical guides - eyes at the vertical halfway point, etc).

Basically, I drew the eyes, then looked at how they turned out and tried to make the rest of the features 'fit' with them. It doesn't look right, but I can't seem to improve it noticeably, so I'm wondering if anybody can tell me what exactly is wrong?

Note that the dress hasn't been drawn yet because (A) it's not a particularly major part of the image, and (B) I'm not sure how it should look.

Thanks in advance!

romnajin · Post by **romnajin** » January 25th, 2007, 3:26 am

One thing that pops out at me is the space between her nose and upper lip; It appears as if the lower part of her face is "melting", I think it would look a lot better if you were to raise that part up.

TheLost1 · Post by **TheLost1** » January 25th, 2007, 4:29 am

her face and neck are too long.

Post by **Thrawn** » January 25th, 2007, 4:54 am

I would say beginning with the eyes isn't the best way to start, but I guess if you base the proportions of the eyes it makes sense.

In that case
1. The eyes should be 1 eyewidth apart. I think you do that
2. The nose should really only be around one eyewidth down from the eyes.
3. It is generally one/onehalf eyelength from the side of eye to where ear begins.

I think drawing with the eyes first lead to the somewhat long and thin face...

Also:
The jawlines aren't symmetrical, which makes the lips look uncentered

The nose is much too flattened.. the little lines under the nose shouldn't flow (?) into it... there should be a clear tip to the nose.

The lips seem too low, compared to the nose

The hair. The hair you are drawing seems nice and frizzy. However, the top of the hair is at the exact top of the skull. When drawing hair, you need to remember that it puffs up and out a bit, unless pulled back, and thus needs more volume that just the top of the skull.
-->furthermore: although trying to get the texture of the hair is a nice touch, I'd go for more realistic strands of hair, not just things that first look like scribbles

Yay for decentness! and a quick hack to demonstrate, for NO extra fee

Inigo Montoya · Post by **Inigo Montoya** » January 25th, 2007, 5:01 am

Redrew the lower half of the face, it looks a lot better now to me.

Obviously I haven't done anything yet with the neck, it's now even longer than before (I'm not going to redraw the shoulders and body until the chin is in the right place, so try to ignore the neck for now

)

It's now more obvious that one of the eyes (I think her left) is in the wrong place, but in spite of this she's a lot prettier now!

Any more thoughts?

Post by **Thrawn** » January 25th, 2007, 5:11 am

better, but still:

now is a good time to reshape the nose/ make is a tad shorter.

The eye is wrong for several things:

1. The brow is at an odd angle not reflected by the other (our right, I speak of)

2. Needs to be lowered, and brought to the left a *tad*

3. The top hair needs more volume..Not just the tip top (makes her look like egghead, but rather the sides as well.
HINT: lightly draw the top of the skull. Then, make another line, for the top of the hair. Make sure that this line is not skewed in regards to the skull line...it should be the same distance away at every point

Sorry if I come across as brusque... I need sleep and had a not-too-decent day.
This second draft is already a vast improvement. Now you just need to fix the things you see are wrong.

[ot] I still like using pencil more than the computer...I can actually call myself a competent pencil user, if not a competent artist

[/ot]

BloodIssyl · Post by **BloodIssyl** » January 25th, 2007, 9:51 pm

The neck is too thick, and as you said too long. The left eye seems raised more than the right one (her left and right, not ours)

Great though.

Inigo Montoya · Post by **Inigo Montoya** » January 25th, 2007, 10:42 pm

Thanks!
I'm still working on this, I can't get the left (her left) eye to look right but it's getting there. When I've fixed that and made the neck thinner, I'll post the changed version, and no doubt somebody will spot more flaws with it (I hope so, I know they must be there!)

Post by **irrevenant** » January 28th, 2007, 6:09 am

Inigo Montoya wrote:This isn't directly game-related, but I can't attach images in OT.

FYI, to post piccies in Off-Topic (or anywhere else in the forums), you can host them offsite and use an

Code: Select all

[img]http://irrevenant.customer.netspace.net.au/trollfist3-60.png[/img]

battlestar · Post by **battlestar** » January 28th, 2007, 7:48 am

Don't know if anyone mentioned it: From top of the face (mostly refering to starting under the hair roots-top of forehead) to bottom of chin-> the eyes are half way in between (a tiny bit higher than 1/2 way, eyes define if the face has long face or short face). Half way from eyes to bottom of chin -> nose. Half way from bottom of nose to bottom of chin -> about where the mouth is.

For a man, the shoulder is 3 head wide, womens' are shorter than that i think. Neck is about as long as 1/2 the height of the head.

Post by **Kestenvarn** » January 28th, 2007, 10:59 am

Try using less shading when first starting out. Still looks like you're stuck with a bit of symbolism, too - for example, the eyes and lips.

Inigo Montoya · Post by **Inigo Montoya** » January 29th, 2007, 6:47 pm

Lol I forgot about this, I've been busy for the last few days.
Thanks for all the advice!

The shading actually isn't that heavy on paper, my scanner did something strange to it though. And as for the eyes and lips, I realise they're not wholly realistic - because, as mentioned, I drew this from imagination, without any visual reference, and my mental image of (say) a mouth doesn't necessarily adhere to reality.

That said, thanks for pointing it out!

Post by **Sgt. Groovy** » January 30th, 2007, 2:29 pm

When you're learning to draw the face, it's not actually a good idea to start with frontal views. You might think it's easier but it's not. The face is a three-dimensional surface, and when you're drawing, that is what have to think as. But the cues for the topography are least apparent from direactly ahead, so this is actually maybe the most difficult angle to draw a face well. Your problem here is that your thinking the face as a flat surface. If you were drawing it from and angle, or as a profile, you would be forced to think it as a 3-d object.

So start from scratch, this time from 45 degree angle, or if that is too intimidating, a profile.

Post by **irrevenant** » February 3rd, 2007, 1:26 am

Sgt. Groovy wrote:When you're learning to draw the face, it's not actually a good idea to start with frontal views. You might think it's easier but it's not. The face is a three-dimensional surface, and when you're drawing, that is what have to think as. But the cues for the topography are least apparent from direactly ahead, so this is actually maybe the most difficult angle to draw a face well. Your problem here is that your thinking the face as a flat surface. If you were drawing it from and angle, or as a profile, you would be forced to think it as a 3-d object.

So start from scratch, this time from 45 degree angle, or if that is too intimidating, a profile.

Wow, that is great advice, Sgt. Groovy! I'd not thought about it that way at all. (It would probably help with the problems I have drawing noses, too). That advice would be really useful in a tute on the wiki, IMO...

Post by **Jetrel** » February 3rd, 2007, 9:38 pm

Groovy's advice is good.

Kestenvarn wrote:Still looks like you're stuck with a bit of symbolism, too - for example, the eyes and lips.

Yes. What does this mean?

Eyes and lips do not look like what you drew. They're actually only vaguely shaped like that. What you are drawing, is "symbols" of those objects that you learned when you were younger; for example, an eye being an "ellipse with a pointy corner, with a dark circle in it".

You must unlearn what you have learned.

Assume we have taken a photograph of the subject, and are drawing a copy of that photo (drawing directly from life should mentally be done like this).

Lines go where there are "edges". "Edges" are points of major contrast in this photo. Places where a shadow ends, and light begins. These can be hard to see when you simply look at the photo, but are much easier to see if you "distill" certain information out of the photo. Great ways to do this are: 1] Make it grayscale, get all that distracting color out of the way. 2] run photoshop's "find edges" filter. 3] Use the threshold filter, and slide the slider around until you see some good edges.

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Advice wanted from competent portrait artists

Advice wanted from competent portrait artists

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