Week 20 - face construction
·
This
week, I was tasked with structuring a portrait correctly using both lectures
and video content teaching the basic facial structure, and different techniques
for measurements.
References and quick sketches:
·
To begin,
I chose a strong reference with contrast and interesting shapes. I thought that
her hair would be fun to draw to get the texture, and she had a flowing stance
with her shoulders and neck area.
·
The quick
sketches helped me establish roughly how to construct her face and what ratios
I was working with. It also helped me create a composition with the hair size
on the page. I also was interested in how the skin rendering would be different,
since I am used to drawing usually pale people and the local value of this woman’s
skin is darker.
·
I chose
to not include the necklace in this piece, which I think I could have done if I
dedicated more time to this piece, but I thought it might be quite distracting
composition wise.
|
reference |
|
Quick sketches |
Initial version before critique:
·
This was
my initial version of the portrait before a critique session. I was aware of a
few issues with the piece before, like the hair value and the general face
shape not being correct, however I think I have got the general proportions correct
for the rest of the face (eyes, mouth and nose).
·
I am happy
with the direction this is going, and I am also happy I am now able to see the
issues with the piece before receiving official critique. I need to learn to
not use only one pencil for pieces, since I stayed with a 4b pencil for most of
the piece. The only exception was a black HB charcoal pencil for the eyes and
the nostrils.
·
If I were
to do this again, I would have tried the necklace since it would be a good
representation of a bright white highlight for contrast.
|
Initial version before critique |
Final Version:
·
After
critique, it was mentioned that I could have benefitted from establishing the
circular cranium of the head and building the jaw off that, since then it would
have fixed the facial structure overall. I struggled with the initial structure
because of the fact the hair was obscuring crucial facial landmarks like the
ears, so I could have benefited from examining the Loomis and Reilly construction
lines of the face.
·
I knew
that the bottom left jaw of the face was the wrong shape, so I had to carefully
erase sections of the dark hair to account for the jaw. I also had to lower the
left shoulder to make the pose the same flowy nature, so that was a lot of erasing
too. For the sake of a final piece, I edited in post the eraser shadow of that
shoulder out since it was quite distracting.
·
I also
then used a black pastel to create the consistent dark colour for the hair,
since I did not have any charcoal. I made sure to blend the centre to remove
most of the white spots in the hair but kept the edges rough with the paper
texture.
·
I also
needed to soften the shading around the nose and make the local value of the
face darker too so that there were no bright white highlights. I also softened
the nostril shape and kept the eyes as dark as possible, which helped a lot to
make the face have the same expression as the reference.
·
I am
overall really happy with the final version of this portrait – it isn’t a photocopy,
but I think the likeness overall is there and I think I am finally getting the
hang of value with edits afterwards.
|
Final Version |
Final Conclusions:
·
I am
really happy with this piece now – it took some extra edits like removing the
shadow from the eraser, but overall I think the reference I chose was strong
and the composition was strong as a result.
·
If I were
to do this again, I would have added the necklace from the reference, but I
wouldn’t try changing much else at this point.
No comments:
Post a Comment