portrait of my gf's sister

[Setherial]

Another attempt at a portrait using pencils (HB, 4B, 5B and 6B + kneaded eraser). Trying crosshatching and trying to focus on contrast and consistent value.

http://users.skynet.be/david.opdebeeck/temp/yiska.jpg

comments and tips are well appreciated

best regards

David

[stoph]

i think you may have under-pronounced her chin and mouth.. that and her eyes are bulging quite a lot. do you have photo ref? its really hard to crit without cause, after all everyone looks different. nice application of cross hatching tho :)

[runtosaurus]

As for structure and everything it looks good... the only thing I noticed right away is that it needs contrast... push those blacks and try to get some white in there for the highlights and whatnot. It looks a little greyed out... other than that... good!

[Jedmo]

Definitely agree that the values are really hanging around the middle. Remember when you are starting a drawing, one of the first steps in rendering is to "key" your values. That is, finding the lightest light and the darkest dark and applying them in the drawing. This gives you a good reference to base all your other values on. Try it, I think you might find it helpful. You also might want to work on establishing more solid edges. Right now, a lot of your edges are a little bit shaky (see the line between the chin and the dark shoulder and where the jaw meets the neck). I would also say slow down and try to control your hatching a bit more. Right now it looks a little bit like you rushed it. All in all, not a bad drawing but there is definitely room for improvement. Keep it up, hatching is definitely a skill that takes a lot of practice to develop.

[Setherial]

thanks a lot guys, I defenatly agree whit what's been said. I do rush it although I try not to and I should pay more attention to contrast although I'm really still trying to figur out how some people do it that well. Sometimes I can't beliefe how doark they can get with a pencil (I have a less difficulty with values using photoshop where it's easy to use the entire scale from white to the blackest black). I guess paper choice plays a part, reflected light as well and placing whites next to blacks for contrast.

I think I'll try the same portrait again, take my time on proportions and value and post again in lets say a week from now.

PS1: I can't post the foto before asking permission and it was already hard to get her on photo let alone on the internet :)

PS2: I would really welcome some tips (maybe illustrated with a quick photoshop image or something) on creating contrasts (what to do, what not to do). All my work ends up rather grey as was mentioned.

cheers

David