Portrait Practice #1

It's intimidating trying to choose what fundamental of art to practice. You get paralyzed by the sheer number of choices. But you gotta start somewhere. Even if that somewhere is actually familiar. ...like really familiar. Like I draw this thing like 20 times a day familiar. What else is there to learn about that thing? You would be surprised. 

And so I'm trying to learn something or another about portraits. Because I think, despite drawing a shitload of them, I certainly still suck at them. 

Under the cut are notes and studies and some processes.

My aim in all of this is to get a better handle of the form of the head. Also the form of the nose and lips. (Those buggers are mystifying). Also how perspective affects the head. I want to get better at drawing heads from different angles especially extreme ones. 

I'm not worrying too much about shading and painting but I feel like they'll help me understand the forms of the head better than line alone and hey some practice improving my sense of values wouldn't hurt (It's also something I struggle with). So for my current studies I'll probably keep to grayscale.

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I'm using Proko's playlists on drawing heads from any angle and his playlist on facial features. I should probably watch them again haha. Repetition helps cement ideas. ..I think. In the future I think I'll use other resources to supplement my studies. Like...books. Gross. Just kidding. 

These are studies done after watching Proko's videos on drawing heads from different angles. I hadn't really kept guidelines about proportions in mind when drawing heads because I'm a lazyass but I think it's a habit I'll keep in mind from now on. It does help to have a set of rules in mind rather than thinking "yeah I guess it looks sorta ok. I think? Oh wait nope, that nose is fucked." 

Again I'm a lazyass, and these rules felt hard for me to keep in mind in the past ...for some reason. But now I don't know if my brain has finally grown into a big boy brain but it feels easier to keep them in mind. Weird.

Of course, not every face is the same. There's a lot of variation in the human race. But for now I wanna try learning the rules before breaking them.

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I took some notes ....yeah. A lot of notes. 

 Notes of Eye structure and Eye demo.

Nose notes of Nose anatomy and structure. Some spelling mistakes lol. 

 Lip notes anatomy and structure. And notes of his lips demo.

 Notes for Ear anatomy/structure and ear demo.

Notes on hair. 

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These are some portraits. Source of left is here. Right is from imagination using the Loomis sets of rules presented in Proko vids. It honestly does help. Wow. Amazing. Who knew.

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Painted some lady. Source here. Here's the process. Painting in Clip studio Paint is hard. I think I'll do my next portrait in photoshop to see if it's just me.

Started by mapping out structures and measuring stuff out. Trying to get proportions right.

 Mapping out values.

 Despite all that I found that the eyes were a little too far apart and wow lips are hard.

The final. I felt like I could have been neater. I had trouble with the nose and lips. And values. Uh.