I took a schoolism course on portraits. Next week is the last week, so I'll write a review then. All of these were completed within their assigned week, so week 5 gave me the most time to dedicate to one face.
Heres all the stuff I did so far, in order:
Week one was just quick sketches, I did a few different things to warm up,
Week two and three were eyes, noses, ears and mouths, in isolation. So all the videos and studies were about the particular feature.
Week four was a Greyscale and a color portrait.
Week 5 was hair. Just had to pick someone with hair. So I painted jesus, just kidding, its danny from gamegumps
Week 6 will be "style" but I don't know if the assignment will just be one more portrait, or what.
@Sublimus Thanks! The class forces you to slow way down, and not stop just because you are bored of observing. I usually get things to "good enough" and just attempt to polish, and the smallest inaccuracies really ruin likeness.
Wow, this stuff is awesome! I'm especially loving your hair rendering.
I wanted to point out something I'm noticing about your colors. Looks like you tend to skew much too cool in your tones overall, without enough of a temperature shift.
In this portrait, for example, I'm noticing a lot of cool, saturated reds and pinks, both in the light and in the shadow. A good rule of thumb that helps me for painting skin is to keep the majority of those saturated reds in the mid-tones. And definitely warm up the light side with some oranges and yellows, to get that warm/cool contrast going. Without the temperature shift your portrait starts to flatten out somewhat, and look a bit cold overall.
That Arin one came out especially pink, and the teacher mentioned that as well (I took the critiqued session, so all of these got suitably ripped apart). Its something that I how to pay more attention to as I go on.
I also think my yiynova might have some skewed colors, I'm not really sure if there's much I can do to calibrate it, though.
When you're working do you have your reference open on a different monitor, or is it on your Yiynova?
My two monitors have slightly different gamma calibrations and the oranges and reds display differently, as well. In order to do a proper colour study, I have to have the file open on the monitor that I am actually painting with.
Ah that's a good call. I usually have it open on my other screen for space real estate. I have the ref open right next to the painting at first for measuring, but after I get the structure down I scoot it away. Usually I use such wild colors that its not h huge deal, but for these it was a bit more apparent that I may have some color deficient displays.
I think those portraits all look really good. I like that one nose one of the girl with the black hair. The shading style where you use lines for the brightest parts reminds of the X-Force comics that Dean White colored awhile ago. I really like that style. The Dave Chapelle looks like it should it have some cooler colors on the forehead and around the mouth. The values look good to me too except the ear stands out b/c of the highlights and I think the subsurface scattering.
Nice, lots of work in here. Good job capturing a likeness in all of these! This might be a stylistic preference, but I feel like the details in several of these paintings, particularly the hair, could be grouped a little more in to masses of tone, particularly the hair. The detail distracts a little from the focal point of the image.
Mostly just letting loose. I'm going to try and think more about value/color in a critical way going forward. You get to download your crits from the class to keep forever, so I'll probably watch my crits again when I'm further away from those paintings to try and absorb the information more thoroughly.
Good work with those portraits! Are you content with the course?
One tip I would give is, I see you make horizontal lines to help judge distances from time to time, which is a super way to check things. But I would suggest also making vertical lines (even if only in your head) to see where things line up, A great one is a vertical at the edge of the nose bridge, tells you how far out the mouth goes, where the eye starts etc.. A couple millimetres to the left or the right and you have a different face or lost likeness, all so critical when it comes to portraits. That last portrait you did is also really good,
@tapeslinger If I can facilitate that some how (if you need it bigger or something) just let me know. Its a vector. I made it for this threadless contest on a whim: https://www.threadless.com/designs/rudolph-muted but the nature of threadless is that it'll get a 2.01 or something and not go anywhere. It'd be cool to see someone wearing it, anyway!
oh, no, I can translate what you have into a knitting pattern pretty easily, actually! just a matter of figuring out what gauge would look good. It'll be a while, but it'd be fun to do!
@squidbunny Good to see your face, man! Thanks. I kinda wish I had any patience or dexterity with string so I could make that sweater real.
Trying to keep up the faces and loosen up with them. I'm going to try and start streaming at night too, as its a good excuse to get something small done everyday. I'll probably mostly do studies like these, to keep things simple.
Stream results.
I'm trying not to go crazy on these and just settle on a doodle for a session or two, and not polish them like crazy. Its more fun than I would have thought! Also gives me a reasonable excuse to draw fan art and tackle some different things. There are some wonky things from the sketch that I didn't take the time to really fix, but I'm going to try and do more correcting early on next time around.
Don't recognize the character (I'm guessing it's Overwatch because that's what the kids are into these days?) but that sketch is really fun and expressive. I love it. Those heads up there are also looking great... that head drawing class really paid off.
that Roadhog is delightful, Iruka! I love the color scheme you used on that!
And I really like the idea of using streaming as your time to just do fanart, etc., it feels like a natural way to open up and experiment and frees you up to not have to do a ton of concept work in front of it since the character already exists, etc.
Posts
Heres all the stuff I did so far, in order:
Week one was just quick sketches, I did a few different things to warm up,
Week two and three were eyes, noses, ears and mouths, in isolation. So all the videos and studies were about the particular feature.
Week four was a Greyscale and a color portrait.
Week 5 was hair. Just had to pick someone with hair. So I painted jesus, just kidding, its danny from gamegumps
Week 6 will be "style" but I don't know if the assignment will just be one more portrait, or what.
You're eye studies put mine to shame!
I think you've done a really good job of catching likeness in these.
I wanted to point out something I'm noticing about your colors. Looks like you tend to skew much too cool in your tones overall, without enough of a temperature shift.
In this portrait, for example, I'm noticing a lot of cool, saturated reds and pinks, both in the light and in the shadow. A good rule of thumb that helps me for painting skin is to keep the majority of those saturated reds in the mid-tones. And definitely warm up the light side with some oranges and yellows, to get that warm/cool contrast going. Without the temperature shift your portrait starts to flatten out somewhat, and look a bit cold overall.
I also think my yiynova might have some skewed colors, I'm not really sure if there's much I can do to calibrate it, though.
My two monitors have slightly different gamma calibrations and the oranges and reds display differently, as well. In order to do a proper colour study, I have to have the file open on the monitor that I am actually painting with.
I should probably replace my secondary monitor.
Anyways looking forward to your review!
Anyway, doodled this today to unwind after all that studying:
One tip I would give is, I see you make horizontal lines to help judge distances from time to time, which is a super way to check things. But I would suggest also making vertical lines (even if only in your head) to see where things line up, A great one is a vertical at the edge of the nose bridge, tells you how far out the mouth goes, where the eye starts etc.. A couple millimetres to the left or the right and you have a different face or lost likeness, all so critical when it comes to portraits. That last portrait you did is also really good,
Overall, I think the course was really worthwhile for me.
@Golem Are you talking about my weeks for portraits, or something further back in the thread?
@LegacyGame Thanks man!
Doodle dump:
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
great update overall! i really like the dog with the flowers.
Hope you come back to it soon!
Trying to keep up the faces and loosen up with them. I'm going to try and start streaming at night too, as its a good excuse to get something small done everyday. I'll probably mostly do studies like these, to keep things simple.
Thanks squid!
This was the last pass on it. If anyone wants to chill with me while I'm streaming, I'm going to try doing it on weekdays over here:
I'm trying not to go crazy on these and just settle on a doodle for a session or two, and not polish them like crazy. Its more fun than I would have thought! Also gives me a reasonable excuse to draw fan art and tackle some different things. There are some wonky things from the sketch that I didn't take the time to really fix, but I'm going to try and do more correcting early on next time around.
And I really like the idea of using streaming as your time to just do fanart, etc., it feels like a natural way to open up and experiment and frees you up to not have to do a ton of concept work in front of it since the character already exists, etc.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Have some ink doodles.