In your face...or someone's face

[Twoplus]

I'm trying to improve my people rendering skills because, frankly, they suck. So starting with the basics, just drawing faces until it all gets better. Loong way to go.

As you can see, just drawing out of magazines at the moment. I can almost, almost get a likeness going. But my chiaroscuro just looks like she rubbed her face in the dirt...

If anyone has helpful advice, please fire away.

Thanks,
2+.

[Niva.]

Welcome to CA!

The photo studies are a definite step in the right direction. You're getting the head down pretty well as a whole which is hard for most beginners. I think you need to work on the lips the most as in both drawings they're not well matched to their photo hosts.

[JFierce]

One thing I notice is you tend to make eyes larger than they are
That might be why your last drawing (one on the left) looks like she's missing most of her forehead

But yeah drawing from real life always helps

[Twoplus]

Wow, I wasn't expecting a reply so fast. N1va, thank you for the nice welcome :) I'll work harder on lips. JFierce, I see what you mean - eyes too big, or maybe face too small, since I tend to draw the eyes first :)

Thanks,
2+

[SSChan]

Great work; I especially like the 1st photo study (gal with the bob). Love the shading. With the second one, the likeness isn't quite there - right off I noticed that the angle of her nose (or perhaps the length?) was different.

Have you tried doing portraits from magazines upside down? My dad got me a book that says that can help when drawing portraits. See, you're less likely to draw what you think a nose or eye or whatever looks like and more likely to see the relationships between features.

PS: The man's mustache makes me giggle. X3

[DeKal]

thanks for the comment man. try to focus more on organic forms and lines..a lot of your lines and marks are more angular and geometric. organic lines flow a lot more and have subtle variations and shapes. and watch line weight also. to be believable, a line probly wont be the same weight or thickness all the way through. hopefully that helps. later.

[lewisaurus]

It looks like you've got a solid start on basic anatomy. Something that helped me when I first started was isolating different body parts, like start today and just draw ears, noses, elbows or whatever for a week and I guarantee your last one will be better than your first.
I also agree with the comments above your basic rendering is good but anatomy is as much about proportion and placement as it is rendering of specific body parts, no matter how good you can render an ear if it's not the right proportion or in the wrong place it throws everything else way off.
I guess what I'm saying is just draw alot!

You should definately finish that angel sketch, find some pics of real wings for ref and finish fleshing them out with some shading.

Hope this was helpfull !

BTW thanks for vote in CHOW 108

DRAW!

[HankTol]

This is a great start, and welcome to CA once again.

You've got a good grip on facial features, but you need to work on the form of the skull underneath. Once you nail that you'll be amazed how easy it is to place features on a head in any position in space. Also keep in mind that eyelids are wrapping around a sphere.

I'm liking you figures. You seem to have a pretty good handle on the great hips thing, something I struggled with for a while.

Keep it up!

[Twoplus]

SSChan - my partner says that is a pron star moustache! It is ridiculous, and I love it :)

DeKal - organic, ok. I will try to be a bit more flowy :)

Lewis - Good suggestion, I'll do that. Starting now!

Hank - I think I'm better at bodies than faces. Bodies are easier!

I went away and draw a page of eyes - I think they came out ok. Better than the eyes in the previous pics. Tomorrow, noses :)

This was actually fun, and I learned a lot about the little fiddly bits that make up the eye.

What do you know, fashion magazines actually have a use...