Seeing The Head As A Box

Seeing The Head As A Box

by | Oct 29, 2019 | The Blog, Video Critiques

Arjun consistently uploads his work for a critique every week. In this week’s critique, I help out Arjun with seeing how to fit a box to a head. You might ask, why even bother with this technique, what’s the point?

I think what Arjun is practicing is super important. He is trying to understand how to see and decipher the surface planes of the head. Placing a portrait within a box is the most primitive way to see the surface planes. It’s the most macro, front and side.

There is a multitude of surface planes on the head. With portraits, it’s important to know where the big surface plane shifts occur. They occur at the temple and cheekbone, otherwise known as the Zygomaticofacial foramen. I know, anatomical terms, ugh.

Understanding where to see and place the big surface planes will most certainly help you to improve the way you draw a three-dimensional portrait. It’s even better when you light the portrait whereas the front planes catch the light, and the side planes are in shadow.

Lastly, trying to place a perfectly geometric box around an organic head just does not compute for a lot of artists. That is why I suggest drawing curved edged, organic boxes instead of right-angled boxes.

The human body is not synthetic, it’s super curvy. In other words, round all of your corners.

 

 

Thank you so much for checking out Arjun’s critique. You can check out his Instagram page @AKTracer.

 

Five Tips For Drawing A Portrait Likeness

Five Tips For Drawing A Portrait Likeness

by | Oct 22, 2019 | The Blog, Video Critiques | 1 comment

I recently completed a critique of Arjun’s portrait drawing. Arjun is a member of Drawing Tutorials Online. He is a super hard worker and is improving immensely as of late.

Here are five tips to help you capture a likeness the next time you work on a portrait drawing.

First, you will want to pay attention to the centerline of the head. This will help you tremendously in terms of measuring both sides of the face. It will aid you in getting the correct angle of the head.

Second, do your best to look out for the three angles that make up the lower jaw bone. The mandible is an important structure. It acts as a frame for the lower half of the head. Do not overlook the jawline.

Third, avoid using high-contrast value shifts within the model’s face. Especially when drawing from photo-reference that has soft lighting. Extreme value shifts within the light will make your drawing look too patchy.

Fourth, tilts will most certainly help you capture the model’s likeness. I like to look at the tilt of the eyes. You can also use the tilt of the mouth from corner to corner. This is often overlooked.

Fifth, see the whites of the eyes as shapes that you must draw accurately. Yes, easier said than done, I understand. Take some time to study the shapes of the whites of the eyes. This will help you capture the model’s likeness.

 

 

I want to thank Arjun for uploading his work to Drawing Tutorials Online‘s member critique gallery on a regular basis. His hard work is really paying off.

Check out Arjun’s instagram @aktracer.