Federclown's Somewhat Realistic Portraits Sketchbook

[Federclown]

Moin Moin, 

basically the only thing I ever draw are black and white portraits with pencils. In the beginning, I really had a headstart thanks to some random tutorial online, but from then on my improvement slowed down drastically. That's why I signed up to this forum to hopefully get some honest and helpful critique. 

One of my biggest issue is probably skin. I already tried to bring some more contrast to it, but it still seems that something's missing or not properly done. So if anyone got any idea on what to improve (especially regarding the Ellie picture I'm currently working on, the others are very delayed projects except for Daenerys haha), I'd be glad to receive some feedback. I also have big trouble with hair as you can see in the Daenerys picture. 

Thanks in advance and happy drawing

[ThereIsNoJustice]

Hello Federclown!

I think you have some idea of where your work needs improvement. If you're having trouble with hair, do some studies of hair. Get a bunch of ref and see if you can figure out how to draw it in a way that satisfies you. In particular it can help to use the same ref image and use different strategies to tackle it. 

To suggest a couple, here's Proko's take on hair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHewz3JbKrQ
And here is James Gurney's thoughts: http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2008/0...g-mop.html

Also, there's no way around it, that you must do some measuring and checking to get faces looking right. Looking closely at the eyes, for example, on the bottom images, they are not similar enough in their angles. The cheek comes too far out. The curve of the nose isn't right. These all have the same cause, not measuring relative sizes, positions, and not measuring angles. There's no skipping this step. People who have been doing this stuff for a while eventually do it in their head or by eye, but you have to do it externally first with your pencil. 

Using triangulation with angles you can get quite far if your angles are precise but always check with measuring. This image is from the book Drawing in the Digital Age. 


Check these links out sometime:
http://www.dorian-iten.com/accuracy/
http://www.dorian-iten.com/howtodraw/

[Jackeloop]

Hey Federclown,
I really like your Emilia Clarke/ Daenerys Targaryen portrait. I think you really captured the likeness on that one.
I agree with ThereIsNoJustice, the angle of the face in the Ellie portrait is slightly off. Make sure to do lots of measuring.
Keep going! :)

[Federclown]

Hey ThereIsNoJustice,

first, thank you very much for taking the time to give me such detailed feedback, I really appreciate it and will take everything into consideration!
The tutorials I've watched before about drawing hair weren't too helpful, but Proko's video looks really good. It sure will help me a lot finishing my work, thanks for the recommendation!

I actually did measure the photo before (I printed out the reference and drew a dozen lines on the face to get an idea of the proportions) but maybe I should draw that grid on the canvas before and not do it just with my eyes, yes :D And you're right about the cheekbones and the nose, I was wondering why the face looks so old and those are probably the reason. 

Also thanks for recommending Dorian to me! I never thought about going from big lines to small lines. 

Have a nice day

[Federclown]

Hey Jackeloop,
thank you very much for your compliment. I definitely will do more measuring beforehands from now on :) 

Have a good one!

[Federclown]

Some of my first digital drawings and my first tries at something with color ever

[Federclown]

Better. Used Krita this time