hellooo! i have been studying how you draw different faces. i am really, really obsessed with how diverse and specific you make facial structures! you’ve clearly spent a very long time studying anatomy. the way you draw is so clean and simplified but the understanding of form beneath is just, mwah mwah 🧑🍳 😘
on that note, is there anything specific you did to learn this? was it just studies/figure drawings? are there any resources you used for it?
hi!! thank you so much for the kind words! :))
yes you're right it was lots of hours! and art degree for ~4 years. but an important remark is i've studied design mostly, not anatomy or academical art, even though our professor is a professional. but like, in academy id be judged much more strict and we'd have to spend more time too, paying attention and memorizing the muscles and body parts
the resources are literally any academic art books, Morpho's series is amazing, Uldis Zarins's books too. but also look up Bammes and other classic artists! i really like Alexander Ryzhkin's videos on YT too
so i'll mostly talk about the philosophy behind it all
i used to have lots of OCs and wanted each of them to have unique traits, so i often took pics of some people/model photoshoots, like 2-3 photos, put them on a canvas and take traits i deemed fitting the said OC the most. whether it's wide jaw or long hooked nose or big forehead. gotta play with shapes and stuff but stay more or less in realistic proportions
2019 pic
it was always like that i think, the wish to make people unique, the idea of it and the goal you go with
2020 pic
so it became the same when i moved into fanarts! i always loved artists' lineups of some originally stylized and similar to e/o characters (mlp, homestuck, etc) but with unique designs and facial traits. it's super inspiring
your hands are untied when it comes to templated anime characters, like in hoyo games. play with shapes, play with colors, eyes, make them emote and etc etc. it's just fun!
( im also a little bit face blind so i have to memorize little details (wrinkles, moles) to 100% tell apart some people, at least when it's about someone i've never seen irl 😭
my advice would be studying skulls of course, and simplify faces and be obsessed with your idea, trying to combine different features. draw people of different gender, age, race, circumstances (office worker vs showbusiness star, etc). perhaps just try to catch their character in every detail. our professor often said that even ears mirror the person's soul, and it's important to get it right too haha. good luck with that!!
some of my uni works below. could to better but overall it was a great push for me and my understanding of basics