Facial sketch of the missus

[Mike-3DT]

Hey all. As I mentioned in another thread, I'm currently trying to improve my 2d skills. To that end I'm planning a big illustrative piece, which at the moment is still in the research & concept stage. I decided to do some life drawing of my girlfriend to get an idea of the lighting & facial pose etc. It's not meant to be a perfect portrait, but rather a detailed comic-style piece, which as I said was for drawing practice & reference for the final piece. Anyway, I thought I'd put it up - constructive crits & comments are of course welcome, which I will keep in mind for the final piece. The main problem areas at the moment are her eyes, especially the left one as you look at it. Overall I'm pretty happy with it though.

[EvEr666]

i may not be an expert on drawings ...but u have a lot towork on it...:D:D:D

i like it thou...what's her name?:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Mike-3DT]

Her name is Heather. Just out of curiosity, what do you think needs work?

[Black_Robe]

I mean NO offense whatsoever but the way that you've shaded the eyes and eyebrows she looks kinda scary. Im sure shes a lovely lady in real life but in this one she reminds me of the little girl out of 'The Ring' :eek: I like the shading on the neck and the hair is pretty good, MAybe make a few adjustments to the shading on the face and she'll look perfect :D

[evil_radish]

i think its excellent, but as has been said earlier, she looks kinda scary... (which isnt a bad thing)
the only thing i can notice is the mouth being a little off on one side, and the nose being crocked, but i think this just adds to the scary look, hehe, which i like :D

[goat]

Hey mike nice drawing. Here are some crits.

the creases around the mouth from nose to corner of mouth are way off. It dosn't read as an expression.

I would say some of the drawing looks like it is in a slight perspective but differant parts have differant perspectives.the mouth eyes and nose don't seem to come together.

Push your darks. the line you have above her eyebrow is too hard. It reads as a unibrow more than a shadow unless it is of course. also darken the eyebrows. Also the top eye lids can have a stronger dark shadow where it meets the eye it will help give a little depth.

the bottom left part of the mouth(her left) could use more definition. mabey the bottom part of the lip having a little light hitting it. lips look a bit flat.

push the highlights in the eyes

I do like the way your using your light.

well I guess thats it. It is a good drawing. Reminds me that I have to start doing more drawinging instead of sketches. Hope to see more like this. It's refreshing to see this kinda art instead of forest creatures, giants, robots and the like. Nice.

[Dan-3DT]

hmmm...wouldn't want to be on her bad side..she looks angry.:D

Nice sketch Mike. The proportions of the face looks off ie her eyes look hugh (don't know if you were going for realism or not...it's cool to exagerate certain features). Were you drawing with the tablet flat on a table or vertical? The only reason I ask is when a person draws something flat on a table and the holds it vertical the image can appear distorted due to the angle it was drawn at...however when you draw verticle that distortion doesn't happen...


All in all it is very nice work

[Mike-3DT]

Thanks for the comments guys. Yeah she looks a little scary but thats my fault really. I had her pose like that as this sketch forms part of some work I'm doing towards a final illustrative piece, (& possible 3d piece afterwards.) I wanted the 'racoon eyes' type of shadows in my final piece, so I set up a spotlight above her & posed her.
As for her nose being crooked - now I look at it, yeah it is, but I said that & she said "but I do have a crooked nose & mouth!" so I'm not sure. ;) (I think that's her feminine modesty though - I like her nose. :D)
goat - the creases around the mouth from nose to corner of mouth are way off. It dosn't read as an expression. not exactly sure what you mean by this. She was watching tv at the time so I told her to relax her face & that's pretty much how she looked. As I mentioned, I did have a pretty strong spotlight on just above her head so that might have made certain elements more prominent.
Regards the perspective, she had her head tilted slightly down, but looking up, which is the pose I want for the final image. The mouth eyes & nose - well the eyes are a definate problem area & it looks like I broke her nose a little...:eek:
The line above her eyebrow was a bugger to try & get right. I tried to push the shades in that area as the transition between light & dark was pretty tight but like you said it came out looking odd. I couldn't really see much of her brows though when she was sitting & there was some reflected light from underneath (a table I think,) so thats why the underside of the brows had a slight highlight. The highlights in the eyes did get a little lost though through smudges etc.
All in all I agree with pretty much everything you've said, so please don't think I'm dismissing your crits, I'm just trying to explain better what I was going for & the situation I was drawing in. There's definately a lot of places I could improve on, so I'll keep that in mind for next time.
Dan - I was going for more of a comic feel, but even so, yes the eyes are too big. Maybe it was to do with the fact that her head was tilted down slightly, meaning the eyes were closer to me than normal, or maybe its just the fact that I ALWAYS draw my eyes too damn bug & its a really annoying habit I can't seem to break. Small eyes next time, small eyes next time...
Ok I've got it. ;)
As for how I was drawing it, I had a drawing board on my knee because that's all I've got. So it was probably about 45 degrees or so. Not ideal really, I should try & invest in an easel or something.

[Murc XIII]

it looks pretty good to me. much much better than i could do.

as for the shading, i actually really like the shadows around the eyes, i dont know why but it looks really cool to me.

[Tom-3DT]

I like it a lot, it might also look cool in paint with some mad bold colours. . .maybe. .

Tom