#drawing a face

[dorkamuranyi]

One trick to improve a pencil portrait - drawing Elon Musk

So I’ve tried drawing a pencil portrait of Elon Musk.

And I failed my first attempt. Badly. I could not leave it at that.

Let me share one important trick that helped me improve this drawing. 

To start off, I want to say that I think half of the success of a portrait drawing is to find a good, clean reference picture. I used a still frame from National Geographic's behind the scenes film footage of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch in 2018. I loved Elon's expression here, but I would say the picture itself is not a good one to use for drawing reference because his face is almost completely in shadow, without much contrast. 

...but I'm not saying that I can blame my disappointing first result on the quality of the reference picture. Anyway, let's see how I failed the first version of the drawing. 

After finishing the initial sketch, I began working on the details, and this is where it all started to go wrong. I got lost in refining each detail like his eyes, his mouth, his teeth, the outlines of the face etc. It seems to me like the individual details didn't look that bad when viewed separately - however, they did not work together, and I ended up with this monster of a caricature. 

It needed to be redone.

The problem with the first version was that I got lost in focusing on isolated parts of the face, kind of losing sight of the whole picture. 

It's very important what I did after realizing this. 

I zoomed out of my reference image. 

Looking at it in small size helped me understand the general shape and proportions of the face much better. I tried to see the right position, angle and size of his facial features compared to each other, before going in on the details again. As I progressed with the drawing, I still messed up some parts so I had to go back and forth correcting them a few times. 

In the end, I think that my drawing does not look perfectly similar to the reference, but I feel like it does resemble Elon Musk - somewhat, at least :) Anyway, this has just shown me again that I still have a lot to improve...

You can see the whole progress in a short timelapse video on my YouTube channel:

[mllelamarin]

COMMENT DESSINER UN VISAGE ? (Suite) - Lamarin

[dazzleuk]

Harry Potter portrait

[calendulafitz]

Muse manifesta

I made rather a mess of my muse but that’s just what I’d be like if I wore lipstick!

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[coolnessgraphed]

[christopherjames010]

Drawing a Face

How to Draw a Face?

  1. Make a subtle outline of a face. Heads are oval shaped, like an egg. So sketch an oval outline that narrows down at the bottom.

  2. Add dividing lines. The simplest way to start is to use dividing lines to map out the proportions of the face. First of all, draw a line at the bottom centre of the oval. Next cut the oval in half again, this time horizontally.

  3. Add the nose

  Split the lower half again with another horizontal line. Sketch out the base of the nose and a nostril either side.

  4. Add the mouth

  Divide the bottom quarter in half again. Draw a line for where the lips meet and then draw the top lip. And then fill in the bottom of the lip.

  5. Add the eyes

  6. The shading under the eyes

  Add a little shading underneath the eye and where the eye meets to identify the socket. For a tired look, add shading and pounce lines at a more acute angle to the lower eyelid.

  7. Add the ears. The base of the ear should be drawn in line with the lower part of the nose and the top of the ear in line with the eyebrows. Do not forget that the ears should be flat against the side of the head.

  8. Add the hair. Remember to draw the hair from parting outwards.

  9. Draw the neck.

  10. Add some details. Add a little shading under the nose and emphasize the chin part. Put expression lines around the mouth, and shading in the corners of it. Next, outline the edge of the nose. You face will look older, if you make these features prominently.

  11. You may want to draw clothes if you like.

  12. Clean your drawing. Use an eraser to remove any guidelines.