Week Four: Faces Suck

I spent the entire week drawing the exact same face. Unfortunately, none of my drawings look alike. Face suck. Let me show you:

I have to turn the contrast up so we can see the scan properly, and that causes some residual background dust and the stuff on the opposite side to appear. Fortunately, all of these faces suck so it's not like it wrecked anything.

Each face is the identical boy. At least, it's the identical boy model in the book Amazing Faces. I would like to upload said face, but I worry that would be subject to copyright. It doesn't really matter: no non-demonoid looks like anything here. I think the nose is my new least favourite bodypart.

Something that should concern me is the lack of improvement. You can't really say that any one face is significantly better than any other; I think the very first attempt may be the best overall. I never got the basic shape right either. I blame the book here, as it says, “Draw an oval,” yet her final version of the face has been altered to allow for cheeks and the chin. The last few days I tried to free-draw the basic head shape, with fairly unpromising results. Note also that the hair is supposed to be a buzzcut, very short, but I generally make it look like an afro.

I can take away two happy notes, though: one, I won't be drawing a face again for a long time. That thrills me. Two, my final picture actually shows a good pair of ears. That's good; ears used to give me fits. These ones here have just enough suggestive shading to make it lifelike. One positive to take away from a rather agonizing week.

I now know why the manga/anime style of drawing cartoons is so popular: it makes faces very simple (noses are often just triangles; good idea!). In a couple of weeks I'll come back and try some more faces, but for now I kinda hope I never see another face again. Oh well, I can only improve, right?

Week Three: The Value of Tutorials

Another week, another week of improvement.  Let's get right down to it.

The first four images are again from Draw 50 Animals.  All four have varying degrees of success.  All three images with legs, I'm not happy with the legs.  They are thin and, well, look wrong, lacking the muscular power a big cat should have.  The two lions are the best of the bunch.  I'm now done with that book; it's helpful, but I don't think I can learn what I really want to learn from it.

Here's Simba from the cover of the TLK: OST CD (wow, that's a lot of capitals!).  It turned out wonderful!  The size, the proportions, the overall shape, it all looks good.  The mane was ridiculously tough to draw, but it didn't look too bad at the end.  I originally intended to shade in the rock he stands on, but after 2+ hours of shading Simba himself, I didn't have it in me.  As I get better, hopefully I can cut that time in half.

I didn't know what to draw, and I had limited time, so I just sketched my scissors.  I misjudged my proportions (surprise) and it got cut off by the page, but I was happy with it.

Looking around online, I found this tutorial by FinalProdigy, a skilled pencil artist.  I followed his steps and produced a fairly mean eye.  I didn't have different grades of pencil, so my shading shows less degree in tonal value, but I still couldn't be more thrilled.  At the time I thought it amazing.  Now, I can see that the overall shape is slightly weird (the SW corner juts in), but that can easily be fixed next time.

Die-hard videogame fans will recognize the middle image of Bahamut from FFX.  Again, I followed FinalProdigy's tutorial here.  Our two images are remarkable similar, given the skill gap between us.  His shading is superior, but it's clearly the same image; I'm not sure if this is testament to my improving skill or the quality of his tutorial.  My only sour spot is the chin area: I must have erased it 15 times and still didn't end up happy with it.  Regardless, a success.

Lastly we have my first attempt at a face, from the children's book (ha!) Amazing Faces.  As a kid, I always tried to draw people and failed.  Now, 20 years later, I still failed.  The scan mercifully hides most of it.  It's supposed to be a young girl, for the record.  I've made some wonderful strides these past weeks, but this was a stark reminder of how far I still need to go.


A huge thank you to FinalProdigy and everyone else out there who post art tutorials online, free for any patzer like me to come and use.  It's helped enormously.  If I ever become good enough where I can return the favour, I will.