The Last of Us - Ellie portrait

[Rios]

My usual art consists mostly of animals so I don't get much practice drawing humans and even less painting since I tend to cel shade in general when doing digital and use graphite only when traditional. So, I'd like some thoughts on this. I was going for semi realistic this time. So far I've been told it looks too dark, especially her neck.

[Madzia]

Hi Rios! As a first approach to drawing humans it's going pretty well. This picture have some problems mostly because you picked camera from above her head but parts of her face are drawn from front. Take a mirror and observe your own face what's happening in look from above. Tip of nose cover nostrils, you see less of upper lip, eyebrows are closer to eyes and so on. Her ear is really unnatural, study some reference photo. I don't think she looks to dark it's actually the other way around her face isn't shaded enough. Pick a light source, is it diffused light or direct light and stick to it :)

[Angel_Intheuk]

Hello

nice lines on this piece, I like the simple way you've approached it. I don't think the neck is too dark, in fact you could push the values a little bit more, especially on the face and hair and then reassess the neck and you might have to go a bit darker (also try using a dark purple instead of brown).

A good rule of thumb is to squint and think about where your light source is hitting the face like the forehead, the nose, top of the eyebrow and cheek, make those bits a bit brighter, that along with the darker shadows will help make it 'pop'. I hope that helps. :)

Edit: also what Madzia said

[Rios]

Thanks so much guys this was exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for and needed. I'm going to try it.