Samuel L Jackson portrait, WIP

[Grieverjoe]

This is what I’ve been working on the last couple days. This is my fifth attempt, I think. I haven’t been saving the ones I didn’t like.
Still working on it. I don’t think it looks much like him at this stage. What do you guys think?
Critique, if it pleases you.

[EduardoGaray]

Hi Griever! when doing portraits, careful observation is fundamental.
See carefully the differences between your work and the photo reference and try to spot your mistakes.
Watch the eyes and the form of the cranium and the jaw.
Hope this helps!

[Grieverjoe]

Thanks, brother.
This is where the portrait is tonight.

Still needs some work, but I think it's getting there.

[NickHuddleston]

Thanks, brother.
This is where the portrait is tonight.

Still needs some work, but I think it's getting there.

It's coming along, just make sure to keep the distance of things and proportions in check, right now the hairline seems off and the bottom lip looks to go down too far and needs to be a bit thivker and perhaps make the eyes slightly smaller, but I know you'll probally see that as you go along with the painting :) keep up the work

[Grieverjoe]

Thanks, dudes and dudettes.
Here's where it is. I think it's almost done.

Any tips on how to draw Jheri curls?

[NickHuddleston]

Hey man, so I went back and tried to help you out showing all the corrections which needed to be done, first thing was hard edges vs soft, you had to many soft edges, and it makes the piece look airbrushed, if you're gonna do portraits, gotta have those hard edges on the parts of the face that come closer to the audience. I also fixed the left nostril, and the eyes, and some color. I went back for you and redid the hair, and fixed it, the secret to doing the curls is to just do them, and have a rly good fur brush, now having the brush doesn't mean you can do it, you have to know how to apply it, and apply the colors, all I did was started off with the hard round 100% opacity, built up some basic lines to follow, then went in with the fur brush and applied the hairs, ereased, added more, added shadows, it's a back and fourth process, there's no easy way around it lol. I also went in and corrected some colors for you, and put in the specularity in the face, and around the eyes (places where pores and highlights catch the light). I went even further and re cropped the picture to match the frame as the actual reference pic, I added the slits in the lips which were missing too. I hope this helps you out :)

[Grieverjoe]

Wow, man, that is badass. Thanks so much for that.
I actually finished the portrait, though nowhere near as good as yours, but forgot to post it here.
Here is where it's at.

[NickHuddleston]

Yeah I saw it on deviantart, if you want to, I can do a skype session showing you how I made it look more like the pic :)

[Grieverjoe]

Yeah I saw it on deviantart, if you want to, I can do a skype session showing you how I made it look more like the pic :)

That'd be badass. Just let me know whenever you have time.

[NickHuddleston]

Yeah I saw it on deviantart, if you want to, I can do a skype session showing you how I made it look more like the pic :)

That'd be badass. Just let me know whenever you have time.

will do man