OP nice post. It's always random thread posts like this I stumble on which makes me try new things.

I'm not a drawer but tried to speed draw the Rachel Cook girl. It took about 3 minutes to draw everything and 12 minutes for the hair. Any more detail and I'll probably fuck it up and make her look 75 yrs old with harsh lines.



Any tips for immediate improvement?

Surprisingly, holding the pencil higher up made drawing feel much easier... more relaxed.

I used to draw when I was 8-11 yrs old; typically Dragon Ball Z guys. By 11, I could draw pretty close to spot on Dragon Ball Z characters, but I haven't drawn since then.

Could never draw making shapes and what not to define the face beforehand; actually I find it next to impossible that way. Also, could never draw real people.

And drawing without looking at something is virtually impossible... comes out like stick figures.

In an ideal world it would be great to be able to draw really realistic people and then go on to painting/drawing hyper-detailed close up faces and scenery on large canvas.

Your proportions are decent and its a surprising amount of info in 3 minutes. However to improve immediately, try working on a larger size. The bigger the paper the more you can use your shoulder, which stabilizes the pencil. This allows more fluid lines. Slow down your movement and see what happens. You might want to try drawing something with less hair. Hair is a beast to do and will distract you from learning the face. Although you could always do hair only studies!

The lines that age a character are eye bag lines that are heavy, and nasal labial fold lines (clear line from nose to around mouth at a 45 angle). Also wrinkles around forehead and eyes can age a character if done heavy in a relaxed expression. Even a young teenage women's forehead will wrinkle in certain expressions. Drawing the teeth individually will make them look dirty.

Try using a center line to divide the face vertically. Your nose and mouth is a touch crooked because of not having it. It allows for easier finding of where to put the nose and mouth.

Long term if you want to keep doing this, you should study individual parts of the face and body. The eye is not an almond but more of a sphere with eyelids that form a distinct shape almost like a diamond. Sometimes just drawing an eyelid line helps a lot. Without it the eye looks like a its pasted on.

Looking on Youtube at some drawers; it looks like I should have stuck with drawing at 8: https://www.patreon.com/kirstypartridge

Prior to Patreon becoming socially acceptable, you'd either have to create a course and hope others would sell it for you or create a blog like Roosh and spend years amassing a following, ranking in Google, and trust with your audience to then eventually sell them a, say, drawing course.

Nowadays, you can make some videos, and if Youtubers like it and you create a Patreon, a proportion of the audience will invariably seem to donate. This girl is able to do what she likes and trickle out videos of her doing it for nearly 5 figures a month.

It is odd how the hobbies often discouraged/lack of encouragement by parents are what help people earn big bucks now, while much of what was learned in school and enforced by our parents to excel at hasn't helped much at all... at least that is my experience.

I think you do better if your a hot women. Even mediocre artist get huge followings and money if hot. For a guy you have to get to an exceptional level, and able to explain how to do what your doing. Think several hours or more a day of drawing and probably need to have work in galleries.

I'm calling this finished. Wood graining is the most obvious change but its more accurate now. Pretty happy with the results. This is David by Michelangelo, a cast sculpt of his eye. I am thinking of doing a female celebrity cast sculpt next and eventually Trump. I will try to get more accuracy in the future. I used Krita which is free and a old wacom tablet which was probably 200 bucks at the time. You can get them for about 100 if you go smaller.

These are plaster cast of famous celebrities. I think this is a great way to study the subtle shading in a women's face. The challenge unfortunately is that there looks like there is 3 light sources and they used a wide angle lens which isn't flattering. Which do you think would be best. Weirdly closed eyelids seems to make there eyes look further apart. Which is your favorite. Hair is best understood after the skull shape is understood.

First is Michelle Phfier (sic), Jennifer Connely and Natalie Portman.

What about Benjamin Franklin?



Or this guy?



Or that character Himmler, a smug fucker even in death.

Napoleon looks the best out of those, but what happened to his ear? I refuse to draw Himmler. Ben Franklin is probably better to draw from his sculptures. And they are involved!

Finished up my drawing of Rachel.



Gotta say it doesn't really look like her at this point. Her eyes are way too big and low on the face and I figured it was too late to redraw them. I tried to adjust the jaw but it was too little too late. For some reason as I finished the drawing I started to see the flaws and they were glaring yet as I initially did them they seemed relatively minor. I think part of the reason I was drawing her proportions all wrong was I didn't use enough space on my page so it was harder to position and view things in perspective- my drawing was 18cm tall yet the page was 30cm tall.

That being said I like what I see, in terms of how good it looks. Tits look grabbable, hair looks messy but I wished it had more volume and looked proper messy like it did in the photo- also wish I was able to draw the hair looking more realistic. Maybe I could put in more work with the shirt, but it felt like too much work for such a minor detail. I like her innocent looking vibe and blush and smile. Could imagine just grabbing her hair and tits.

Edit: the worst/most difficult thing about drawing hair, is I really want to draw the individual highlights, but I know using my pencil to draw them makes them look darker.

Quote: (01-04-2019 10:35 AM)kbell Wrote:  

Your proportions are decent and its a surprising amount of info in 3 minutes. However to improve immediately, try working on a larger size. The bigger the paper the more you can use your shoulder, which stabilizes the pencil. This allows more fluid lines. Slow down your movement and see what happens. You might want to try drawing something with less hair. Hair is a beast to do and will distract you from learning the face. Although you could always do hair only studies!

The lines that age a character are eye bag lines that are heavy, and nasal labial fold lines (clear line from nose to around mouth at a 45 angle). Also wrinkles around forehead and eyes can age a character if done heavy in a relaxed expression. Even a young teenage women's forehead will wrinkle in certain expressions. Drawing the teeth individually will make them look dirty.

Try using a center line to divide the face vertically. Your nose and mouth is a touch crooked because of not having it. It allows for easier finding of where to put the nose and mouth.

Long term if you want to keep doing this, you should study individual parts of the face and body. The eye is not an almond but more of a sphere with eyelids that form a distinct shape almost like a diamond. Sometimes just drawing an eyelid line helps a lot. Without it the eye looks like a its pasted on.

Here's attempt #2. This time around I tried drawing a new girl. I spent more time on this one and kept the tips you mentioned in mind.





Made the face bigger by taking up more of the paper. Drew the vertical and horizontal lines across the face to get better proportions.

Third attempt I will do on a desk, as I've been drawing on a keyboard tray with shoulders flared into the air and unsupported, which seems to make it harder to be accurate.

I've gotten to a point in this drawing where any further and I'll probably make it look worse, because I really can't draw strands of hair or shade properly.

@Beefstew Huge improvement. This would be ready to shade, if you took a picture of it and shaded it with a wacom tablet on your computer. THat way the original lines are preserved. However you will have to destroy future drawings at some point figuring out shading. I'd start with the classic shadow egg.










Consider investing in a cheap 15 buck table easel. Some have wings which are nice. They will be nice on your neck and you can get better perspective. The drawing will have to be placed at a similar angle though. I haven't figured out how to fight perspective distortion when working no a drawing at 45 degrees and the image laying flat. Her hair also has clear areas of shadow too. Try drawing with a thin line where the core shadows go.

@The Catalyst- much better. Your steadily improving. Yep proportions are done first. Also sometimes you even have to figure out the size of the image and convert that to what the paper is. So say your image is a square and your drawing on a normal sheet of paper which is a rectangle. You would have to draw a square on the paper first before drawing! Ideally with a straightedge. Usually its more of a different proportions of the rectangle though.

Consider using a kneaded eraser and pencil eraser for hair highlights. You could easily take out the eyes with an eraser but you only get a few shots before the paper is destroyed. But I would just go onto the next drawing. You improved the jaw a lot.

The pencil tool is interesting. When you erase with it it doesn't fully erase the line like a really eraser. Kind of interesting results.

This was the Napoleon deathmask. Quite difficult due to the nose and weird ear. Will take it to the level of that eye I did.



Open to criticism and comments.

There are chinese knock-offs wacom tablets which look to be better than my current ancient tablet. Some are 60 bucks which would be great for a new artist. Digital art is drastically cheaper in terms of paint cost. Would be a great way to learn color theory! Never underestimate the cost of paints and quality paper. In art school it wouldn't be unusual to spend close to 400 bucks a month in supplies. However with digital art, pro level software and equipment would cost a fortune. It pays for itself quickly if your in demand. But there are more affordable options than before.

My computer is back from the shop. I'm researching a graphic tablet for drawing on to replace my monitor. Drawing on a screen is more like drawing on paper since you see where the line is exactly. Its kind of odd drawing a tablet since your not looking and what your drawing directly, so more of a learning curve. There are 200-300 usd mini tablet for the computer that look decent but the size is on 12-13" area. I can't see well at that size, but you might.

Started to try to draw this girl. I did the outline.





I hope I'm not making any big mistakes so far before I then go on to do the details! I did a bit of a mini-grid to try to minimise proportion errors.

And yes my lines weren't as light as ideal, it's a hard habit to break for me.

If you want a paintover could you take a more direct view of the image? The picture looks like its tilted away from the phone rather than parallel. So some distortion is there. Biggest issue is the head is to small and the shoulder is too large. Lips have a v shape taken out of the middle upper lip. Tits I think are larger. Nose is a more difficult shape to describe.

I think the best thing for future pictures is use a grid method on both a printed copy of the picture and on your drawing. What's the models name?

Won't have time tonight though.

I don't know her name for sure, I got the pic off Krauser's blog. I believe she's Daniela Lanio, from the reverse image search.

I'll upload a better pic later.

I hope this pic isn't as distorted. I'm not that good at holding my phone steady. I changed it a little since last time, but not much.

That's a better shot. I cropped it a bit and started working on it. I'm not too far along since I have been busy this week but the biggest change is that the nose is too short and the lips to close to the nose. The whole face is longer. This angle is hard to work from you have to rotate the paper and the reference picture. Also the lighting isn't the best.


I think future pictures I would stick to just a head and neck. Ideally from front on or profile. Get comfortable drawing the features.



She honestly doesn't take good picture but this was the best I think for you I saw of them. Her rear shots are decent doe. Overall her images are washed out, no clear shadows and tilts her head a lot. The hand will be a challenge in this image. But her head is more straight on. Her mom is a milf.

I'm trying this new program which is faster and easier to use. However I can't get pressure sensitivity to work right so the lines all seem the same. The proportions are longer. Try breaking the nose down into planes. The grey lines are yours.

Kbell is all about competence and putting your time in and really learning something.

This is the opposite of that.

Is that basically tracing?

Quote: (01-27-2019 02:45 PM)The Catalyst Wrote:  

Is that basically tracing?

If Degas can use grids, we can trace.

That add made me die a little inside. Skip proportions and perspective?!?! Can't have a drawing be a failure for snowflakes! Failure is how you learn.

Tracing is good for checking proportions and difficult curves. And you could make a line break down of the drawing too. I think plexiglass or tracing paper is a lot cheaper though. Its also how you would transfer an image from a scrap piece of paper to say a canvas for a painting.

Quote: (01-27-2019 04:05 PM)kbell Wrote:  

That add made me die a little inside. Skip proportions and perspective?!?! Can't have a drawing be a failure for snowflakes! Failure is how you learn.

Tracing is good for checking proportions and difficult curves. And you could make a line break down of the drawing too. I think plexiglass or tracing paper is a lot cheaper though. Its also how you would transfer an image from a scrap piece of paper to say a canvas for a painting.

I know. Just jerking your chain.

So it's been a while but it's finished/nearly-finished. I was so frustrated with how I was off on the face/jaw proportions/look so I redid it many times but finally I got it to a point where I made do. As I started to complete it it started coming together, I was scared the end product wouldn't look like her at all. In particular I'm off on the eyes, nose and lips- for some reason although in the photo she looks "vacantly playful"- in my drawing she looks a bit mad. There's probably room for improvement but I don't feel like redoing all over again especially when there's a "disconnect" as to how I feel I can actually draw it better.

I might do some finishing touches before I move on. If there's anything glaringly missing I'd appreciate it if you let me know, ha.

Edit: looking at the computer, the jaw and eyes are way off. I wonder why I can't see this on paper?

Planning on my next drawing. Spoiled for choice on what girl/picture to use. I want to draw all of them right now, however it takes a lot of time and effort for me right now to get them anywhere near a standard I'd like. (Sorry iop... but I like these girls who happen to have dark roots!)

Lindsay Brewer:



Gwen Cox:





Madi Teeuws:



Or my fav again, Rachel Cook:





I have a low attention span and work slowly, so while I plan on doing them all I'll probably only do a few. Maybe I'll find pics I like even better. Potentially the best option is to pick a photo that I won't fuck up that badly.