Dilated Daily self potraits

[Dilated]

At the moment I'm 16 turning 17 in a month, like everyone else I'm very keen too improve to be the best.
At the moment I feel that my skills are lacking especially when it comes to doing imagination stuff but I intend to change this, so I began daily self portraits too try to improve as quick as I can.
So far I've done 12 and hopefully many, many, many more to come. :D
Thanks for watching.

[Exon-Ion]

I see improvement in proportion from those drawings, keep it up, but remember don't rush art, you will be amazed by how much better your pencil control is when slowed down.
I'd suggest you go and buy some proper graded art pencils it will really help creating those contrast between light and shadow. And dont push your self to draw from imagination, just draw what you see, people, objects, scenery etc. Expand your visual memory stock and just keep on practicing.

[Dilated]

The Exon Thanks man but first i want to improve my skills with an fine mechanical pencil, and also I need to draw from imagination I spent a lot of my time just drawing from observation and it got me no where I fell on my ass when I attempted to draw stuff from mind, there needs to be a balance.

Alright I pushed the values more but it looks like poo.

[Dilated]

I was angry/exhausted when I drew this so it was really rushed.

[Dilated]

Self portrait 15 :o

Need to draw bigger and try some different mediums.

Thanks for watching

[polipol]

whoah!... theres some great likeness to these, good sense of rendering :)... but i'd watch some of details, highlights and light sources... ... keep it up man :D

[Dilated]

polipol cheers buddy

Sigh for some reason it took me ages to get the structure and still isn't that great. Need to do MOAR

[Dilated]

17... :^^:

[kikindaface]

Hey buddy, i'm back from london ! I see a lot of improvment ! keep working, and remember that the background have values too ! Try to use soften leads, don't let white areas, white value doesn't exist in real life , As i allready said to you, just open a photo of you in photoshop, and set the color mode in greyscale, you'll understand how values work ! Anyway, keep working on it, i'll do my (new) own thread Monday ! Cheers mate

[Dilated]

Walid D Thanks man I'll do the photoshop thing probably tomorrow

Wow I'm so frustrated the past few days its been extremely hard for me to draw structure, I'm rubbing out a lot even in my study's its harder than before.
hopefully it will pass.

sp 18- something a bit different.

[Dilated]

Sp-19

MOAR

[Dilated]

self portrait 20 already, times flying.

[Dilated]

Really rushed this one, its late
This was my face after I saw intuos 4 leaked photos because I ordered my intuos 3 a few days before haha.

[Dilated]

22
I've finally drawn a bit bigger than I usually do but still not good enoughhhh.
My tablet comes tomorrow :D

[Dilated]

Jesus Christ I drew sp 22 nose wayyyyyyy to big.
23 :D
The paper is ridiculously rough, need to get different SB.

[Dilated]

24
Lol, I've realised a lot of my self portraits look like as if i got caught looking at porn.

My hand is becoming shaky again need to get that line confidence again.

ughh stuffed up the nose again

[Dilated]

charcoal failure :D

[Dilated]

YAY finally got to use my new intuos 3 6 11, it is now officially the love of my life.
I just wanted to warm up so I just did a photo study of myself, but I will use a mirror because photo ref sp's are much easier.

should push it more but no time.

[polipol]

great to see you've been keeping this up mate :D.....it was good to see that charcoal study, hehe i'll probably hit up some charcoal too :)... hehe congrats on the intuos! it'll be a ton of fun!

[Dilated]

polipol Cheers man, great to see another aussie on the forums :D

Alright I'm making a big SP piece which I'm going to print on canvas etc so I'll be working on it for awhile.

shouldn't be using photo ref but I do it better this way and it will give me a better chance for the competition.

[Dilated]

wooow initial WIP looks horrible

Heres an update on the wip, hopefully next update this should look horrible lol.

[Dilated]

ughhh having trouble with this don't know why

[Dilated]

Getting there, still a WIP though
I really should of done thumbnails to decide on the design, but yeah lets see were this one goes.
Main loops hip hop portraits helped to inspire me quite a bit for the design

[Dilated]

still going......

[amianna]

Good job with the painting so far but watch you eye in the shadow. It seems to me that it might be too sunken in compared to the eye in the light.
Keep it up:]

[Dilated]

amianna ooh good observation, I noticed that it curved in almost like it had an edge thanks. :D

Alright nearly there.

[Dilated]

Pretty much finished
When the dead lines comes ill really do those little shitty details.
time to start daily self portraits again.

[amianna]

Awesome work so far!

The lighting is nice and the background is really cool. The under eye area still doesn't look right to me, I can see you softened up the edge but it's still giving the impression that it's much too hollow. I threw it into painter and evened out the shading and it seems to be where the problem was.

I think what mainly gave that impression was the highlight on the edge.

Hope this helps and you're not upset with me for painting on your sp D:/

[Dilated]

amianna Thanks a lot I really appreciate it, I'll definitely do something along the lines of that when the deadlines approaches and I have to print it out.

28

So finally kicked my ass and scaled my drawing to take up the full a4 page. Shading is rushed -_- and Ugh its so hard for me to scale I erased so much T_T oh well no point in avoiding it.

[P]

The last digi is great man and 26 too. I see your pencils are geting better, watch the values on it, start shading the darkest spots first, then lighter and lighter. and try only shade the darkest spots and those lighter and lightest ones leave white, so make some experimenting with contrasts.
i dont know what to suggest more
Keep it up!
:)

[Dilated]

pijus Cheers man, most of the time with the values its my bad understanding how to make values with a mechanical pencil, though it is no excuse, I'll try to push it more.

FUUUUUUUUCK This scaling shit is pissing me off, I feel like I'm drawing blind, guessing were to put features and what size to draw them, though like I said if I don't try I will never overcome it. If anyone read's this, any tips how to scale?

This sp just got me to frustrated so its severly unfinished.

17 today :D it only makes me want to get better for my age though haha.

[amianna]

You shouldn't guess where you need to put your features. Study your skull structure, see where the eyesockets begin and end, cheekbones, teeth, chin, feel your face and get a good idea about where everything is.
Then when you look at your face in the mirror, find your most predominant feature and draw it up first. If you must, take a photo of yourself and draw a grid on it and see how everything lines up.

It should help ^^

Keep at it :)

[Dilated]

amianna Thanks, Yeah I'll keep that stuff in mind.

Slowly but surely grasping the concept of scaling, practice MOAR.

30

[kikindaface]

Hey buddy, nice improvment ! For the last one, i sthink you should be carreful, you're hatchings look weird in the jaw/chin area, it looks there are no volumes, so try to stop your hatching with a line, or do it clearly, but it creates so much variation of shapes it looks weird ! anyway, you're better at features ! keep working, it's paying !

[Dilated]

Walid D Yeah I really want to get good at hatching though, anyway thanks man :D

31

[Dilated]

new sketchbook :D

[Dilated]

ow my eyes are bleeding from drawing from this angle

[Dilated]

I know I say this a lot, but rushed so I can get some sleep

[Dilated]

Just some work on the competition sp, is the waterfall thing a better direction?

[Dilated]

Just mucking around with the sp, is it looking better?

anyway I'm sorry for not doing real sp's I'm really getting shitted on with my time.

[Dilated]

I've got to go back to basics, structure etc and shade with much more delicacy.

[Dilated]

WTF IS THIS SHIT
going back to bad habits gehh need to do some more study's.

[Dilated]

37

sorry I missed one day, I was painting my school project and completely forgot about it.

[amianna]

Keep it up, the softer lines are working for you! Your irises look a bit squashed right now, make sure you draw the sphere of the eye and then the iris as a circle. Also I notice that you leave the area above near the eyelid almost white, usually there's a shadow there from the lid so make sure you darken that area up.

[Dilated]

amianna cheers ill keep it in mind

ugh was sick all week and last week of term rolled me, so now holidays for two weeks should make up for the last couple of days.

Just some features to warm up after awhile, such a short time not drawing and it shows....

[Dilated]

0____0 yeah I drew the eyes to far apart lol, not on purpose of course.

And heres the final for that for that painted sp, printed on 12x16 canvas, I should find out in may if I win the comp.

[Dilated]

39....

[Dilated]

wow sp 40
went back to basics today, made it a lot easier to draw this sp.
I m such an idiot for ignoring the basics before. derp

buggered eye o_0

[Dilated]

Heres the two sp's for the past two days because I had to bail quickly yesterday after I finished sp so didnt post it.

Soooo tired :yawn: could barely see my paper lol

Goddammit making face's too wide again.

[F3E]

Hi Dilated,

Your Selfportraits are quite nice, but they are all a bit spoiled. Your pencil lines are all very sketchy, but a bit unkind. Your digital work with the erm...waterfall tongue is much better then the rest, maybe you post a weekle selfportrait instead of a daylie and put more work in it (like in the digital painting). I'm shure the Portraits would look much better.

[Dilated]

F3E Yeah thanks, good suggestion, but what I'm trying to do is increase my speed/quality ratio while learning too use this shading technique.

43

[*ViRuS*]

learn to apply the correct values before even thinking about speed. you'll learn a lot more and get faster with time. there's no rush to learning art. slow down and do a longer study? keep it up.

[Dilated]

*ViRuS* Yeah I'll do a long study very soon, thanks man

sorry missed a few days again :/ been working on my oil painting that I will post soon

need to learn how to control my lines

this face is charming I know

[Dilated]

----45

[Dilated]

Dammit its starting to get cold again, notice the jumper.

[Dilated]

Hmm can someone give me some tips on my hatching, after this whole time i still don't know how too control it. Would be really appreciated.

[Dilated]

2 Sp's from the past two days
Experimenting with 2b pencil and 2b refill
something a little different.

[Dilated]

50
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zz

[Dilated]

wow I'm pretty shit at this angle need to do some more head construction

[Dilated]

...... 2b getting to grainy too easily

[Dilated]

need to get Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

[Dilated]

evidence you shouldn't do sp's at midnight

[Dilated]

Yeah physics sucks balls.......

anyway I need to apply more delicacy to my shading, or just get better in general.

[Dilated]

,....................................

[Dilated]

Wow this angle is extremely hard, my neck is buggered, but I learnt quite a lot.

[Dilated]

I think I might take a break from these sp's and do some other drawings for awhile to get another perspective. I feel I'm running in circles a bit so yeah/

[kikindaface]

Hey buddy, don't give up ! Keep your sps up ! go go go go !