Natalie.

[Octave13]

This is my 2nd painting ever. Digital paint on 101010100110101101 canvas. ;) Too bad I failed to accurately capture Natalie Portman's likeness. Oh well. Try try again... and again.

and again.

http://nostr3m.homestead.com/files/natalie02.JPG

and again.

[linK]

might be the nose..

[Octave13]

Heh... actually, I'm thinkin' the whole damn face is the problem area. :)

[jrr]

hey there, i hope you didn't draw this from the starwars dvd, it's mad small! (i noticed that when i was doing the paint over)
here's my crit, her face is too long and her eyebrows are too close to the eyes. when you're drawing something like this, treat it like you're actually building the figure, sculpting it rather. this way you can compare the shapes on the face, with the size and relationships.
here's what i mean.

http://www.sleepisevil.com/~jrtistic/forum/nataliepaintover.jpg
hope that helped. (actually natalie is fun to draw mu hahaha)

[Octave13]

sweet! Geez, that's much better than my pitiful attempt. Oh yeah... and I DID draw it from the DVD cover and yes, it is small. :) Thank you so much, jrr. This type of feedback is extremely helpful! I'll keep trying.

[MindCandyMan]

Nice job Octave...I really like the lighting scheme and the background. Those little wispy things around her chin are really cool too. Capturing a likeness is so hard. I have looked at my face every day for 22 years and I still can't draw my own dumb face. Keep up the good work. Could you elaborate a little more on that method jrr? I'm sorry I don't quite understand what you mean. Sorry :( Ok back to work for real this time hehe.

[I.was.ink]

hey did u guys do this in photoshop or painter? and what tool?airbrush, or paintbrush, if done in ps?

[Octave13]

I did this in painter 7. I don't know what jrr did his version in, but Painter seems to be pretty popular around these parts, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's what he used, too. I used the detail airbrush tool, combined with the "just add water" and cover pencil tools.

[amphex]

Jrr pointed out the problems to you perfectly..that was extremely helpful of him =)
But next time, maybe you should try to find your own mistakes. I mean, you obviously could tell that your painting looked nothing like natalie portman, and for future reference, keep in mind that you can gain nothing but wisdom from really trying to search for your own mistakes and fix them.
You have the reference in front of you so just compare the two and think to yourself.."what distinct facial features am I missing? Where did I go wrong? Is the forehead too long? Is the nose too pointy? etc.."
Im not trying to like..scold you or anything =P
Just giving you a suggestion.
Also, maybe give natalie portman another shot? See what you can do know that you know where you strayed =)

[Octave13]

Yeah, your words do have merit, there and it is something I could easily have done, myself. My first instinct is to just try painting another person's face, but I think I will try this same picture, one more time. I'm still trying to grow accustomed to the wacom tablet and painting on the computer. This was only the 2nd time I've ever even tried anything like this. If you wanna see my first attempt, look no further:

http://nostr3m.homestead.com/files/paint.jpg

Obviously no photo reference and it was just a speed paint anyway, but still pretty pathetic. I have leaps and bounds ahead of me. Thanks for the help, amphex. I really appreciate it. :)

[jrr]

i used photoshop too, the brush tool.

[MindCandyMan]

I really like this one. I think it's good. I especially liked your rendering of the hair. Good to see you painting and drawing a lot! ;)

[Octave13]

Thanks Mindcandyman. That last one's old.

Once more into the breach... My 3rd attempt at digital painting and my 2nd attempt at painting Natalie. I'm getting warmer, methinks.

http://nostr3m.homestead.com/files/natalie03.jpg

[MindCandyMan]

Definitely getting warmer...it's so hard to draw women's features. Seegmiller is a master at it...that would take a while to get to that point sheesh.

[Avetice]

ok i don't have the picture you were working off of :(..... so i just used the paintover jrr did incase it was the same reference. anyway it's the idea i want to get across... i'm gonna post both of yours and i added structure lines so you can see where your proportions are off.

http://www.avetice.netfirms.com/images/nataliepaintover.jpg
http://www.avetice.netfirms.com/images/natalie03.jpg

ok what you need to do is learn to see angles better, learning to see what i added to yours and jrr's pictures.
Do with the reference picture you worked off of what I did to jrr's picture and added to yours. I would recommend when doing any drawing not from the imagination to draw those lines lightly at the beginning of you drawing/painting/whatever untill you can very very accurately draw those angles page after page after page after page after page of of observations. Those lines can be used to get the outline of the object your working on as well even with curves, curves are just those structure lines broken down into many smaller ones but you can get the general direction of a curve using those and just the general placement of the major points on the object. When looking for those lines look for those lines to connect 2 or more major points like those I dotted but the lines are to be straight all the time.

hope that helped a little bit.

[Octave13]

Thanks for the pointers, Avetice! I've been drawing portraits from reference, on and off, for years, now and I have it down, when I do this with pencil on paper, but I guess I'm having a time of it, getting used to the wacom tablet. I'm not used to painting, either. I'll deffinitely use your advice, the next time I try this. I'm thinking I may try doing the same image one last time. I think I concentrated a little too much on negative space, when I did the portrait, the 2nd time. Thanks again, I really appreciate your feedback. :)

[MindCandyMan]

I have found the same thing octave...it's easier for me to capture my likeness when doing my self portraits with a pencil as well. I wonder why that is. Using the wacom for my self portraits is really hard for some reason. Anyone have any ideas?