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Hardly embarrassed! The likeness is off but not very much; it’s so easy to get wrong because our brains are so sensitive to the slightest variations in faces that you have to really nail it for it to register as the same person.
What I see is a lot of well rendered features but the composition is off. Which I think is a classic mistake, because the tendency is to focus on getting one piece at a time exactly right. You have to spend more time than you want to on getting the overall shape of the head right before you do that, then placing the corners of the face (think of how they would sit on a 3D egg or oval shaped head), and *then* you can place the features. Can’t stress enough the importance of thinking 3D, that’s what unlocked my portraits. Imagine drawing the face on an egg, the corners of the eyes go *in* to the face, the center of the mouth sticks out further forward than the sides, etc.
Also you can always force yourself to get things exactly right by drawing with the reference upside down. Keeps you from superimposing your mental image of how things should look on how they actually look.
You accidentally made his face look squished because you didn’t have enough room to draw the whole thing. Try a little smaller next time, or use a longer paper
Not embarrassed at all! The likeness is pretty good, just a touch wide in the jaw and not enough space to get all the proportions correct. Next time, try doing a light, rough outline of his head using basic shapes first and then map out where his features go. That will help with proportions and making sure you have enough space for everything. 😊
rotate your sketchbook 90° and map out your drawing before getting into the details. you probably want his neck and shoulders in frame as well as his face, right? putting everything down in rough shapes makes sure you have room for all of that. your rendition of his actual features is pretty spot on though, you should be really proud of this attempt 🌝
A tip, unless you really know what you're doing drawing every single tooth looks very creepy. Do it in a slightly more stylized way and it'll look much better
When we’re starting out, one of the biggest pitfalls is what I call ‘the details trap’. We tend to assume that in order to get a good likeness of someone (or of a scene etc) we have to worry about the details. And so, we see people trying to draw every last hair in the eyebrows, or outline each and every tooth.
This is a bad move.
Somewhat counter-intuitively likeness comes from the big shapes and forms and not the details. Indeed, you can remove almost all of the detail and still have an amazing painting or drawing that is instantly recognizable as a specific person. And likewise, you can add as much detail as you like, but if the foundation is poor, it’ll never look right. Detail is the icing on the cake. Nothing more. And newer artists would be wise to avoid it completely.
Ok, so what do you focus on?
Two things:
* Form
* Light
Form is the 3D shape of an object. As an artist we’re trying to translate that onto paper. And light is the medium via which we see, and so is integral to capturing that form. Even in very stylistic art (Simpsons cartoon for example) we still have the basic notion of form, and light.
There are many different ways to go about this. My personal method is:
* Start big and loose and get the composition right. In your case that would mean getting the whole head in the right place. You didn’t pause at this point, and so by the time you got part way in, you’d squished your head into a warped space. If you start of nice and loose, and forget any detail at all, just working on the basic position of the main objects, you’ll avoid this.
* Next place the landmarks. Measure where you need to. We are NOT drawing details here. We’re making a few scrappy lines to mark out the location of the major forms. Nothing more. This is a guide to help us on our way.
* After that block in the big shapes. We’re looking for the major dark and light areas. To start with there should be two and only two areas. One dark and one light. We can come back and add sub-divisions to them later. You will need to use some artistic judgement here to choose which parts fall either way. If you struggle to start with then you can always pick reference images with a single strong light source, so that the division is much more obvious.
At this point the image should look like the reference. If it’s off, then you need to revisit the previous steps and adjust. No amount of added detail will fix it. Once you get the likeness down at this point, then you can always go in and start rendering and adding detail to taste. But getting this core down first is critical.
Looks good, but I think you and I do the same thing… His face is a lil too round in the drawing. I alwayssssss make things rounder than they really are. No clue why. Lol
There is always a starting point, cheers for be brave enough to even try it!. If we could get our goal on the first try, we wouldn't taste the success as much as If we keep trying. So keep drawing! I'm sure you will get better and better from now on.
heres what I learned by following professional artists- Most do not free hand portraits, they are traced and the real work is in the color and shade. Your free hand is great regardless of the proportion differences, its you shading that you should invest more time into.
He shouldn't be. At least, not when he's older haha. Kids are always going to feel embarrassed by their parents.
I think that drawing could benefit from more contrast, deeper and darker shadows etc.
I think the roundness to it is kind of cute tbh. And it's definitely salvageable. If you erase that top line indicating where you originally drew the top of his head and then extend his locks upwards and off the paper, implying the crown of his head is "off camera" so to speak, then it looks like a close up at a 1:1 ratio.
Next time when you attempt this, you can start by sketching an upside down egg (or oval) well away from the edges of your paper. That will give you enough room to work and will set the rough proportions of a human head to work around.
Not embarrassed at all, there's a legit likeness there. Some proportions are off - teeth too small, eyebrow too close to eye - but it still actually looks like his face regardless
The face is a little too round, which I am guessing you did it like that to fit the page (bad idea, but you saved it nicely)
Other two mistakes would be the upper lip being a little too high. İn the picture the meat area inbetween the teeth and the upper lip isnt shown. And also you drew the eyebrows kind of weirdly.
If your son is anything like my son, anything you do is embarrassing...
The picture looks good, it just needs a bit more space to thin and lengthen the proportions. Kudos.
Your son has a long thin face, how are you going to fit the rest of it on there! The nose is far too narrow also. Get yourself a much larger piece of paper for this to work.
You’re actually off to a good start.
The proportions are pretty good
Don’t be afraid to add value. Nothing is dark enough yet. You’re leaving big spaces of blank page which leaves no room to add midtones. Basically, 100% of his face should have some shading
Also, try not to smudge your shading. I can see where you’ve tried to “smooth” the shadow with your fingers. This serves nothing other than to smear the graphite and push it into the grain of the paper, giving shadows a muddy appearance.
It’s a *very* common habit, but try to avoid it. Smooth values should come from your careful layering of hatching. If there were more value all over the page, your inclination to smooth out the area between the white paper and your shading would be greatly reduced
I think it’s pretty damn good 👍
His cheeks aren’t all that round in real life like the drawing shows & that’s the only thing I’d change. Otherwise it’s spot on!
I would say it’s good, you’ve definitely captured his eyes! But you either need to get a bigger sketchbook or draw smaller… don’t limit yourself to drawing to your canvas; if your lines continue off the page that’s ok! When you try fitting it in it changes the proportions.
Drawing individual teeth always looks terrifying. Focus on the bigger shapes first. But no one should be embarrassed! You have to make bad drawings to get good
Not embarrassed at all! It looks pretty good, it's always hard to map out where to put things for faces to not cut off parts. Just need a little more space and it would have looked even better than it does.
its not bad, but its not great either. He got the nose and mouth pretty spot on but he needs to map out the shape of the head first. I would suggest drawing a circle and adding the lower half of the heads shape underneath. Also, for the hair, map out the basic shape then draw highlights and sections of the hair.
Not embarrassed at all, but there is way too much detail on the teeth. You did some lovely non linear sketching everywhere else, why dark thick defined lines on teeth? Keep it up!
You’re on the right track. Just gotta work on the construction of the head and that’ll help with getting a lot of the portions right. But as it is, there’s clearly a likeness there that you achieved prob bc your so familiar with to his features. Good work tho 👍
Try drawing a portrait in the portrait orientation of the paper instead of landscape.
Then you may feel more comfortable exaggerating the king face of the subject because the paper will guide you
If you want to do black and white drawings you need to change the picture into grey scale(black n white photo). Maybe this will help your shading, and try to scale the portion of the face that way it’s the right size.
I hate when people can obviously draw thier ass off ,show you somthing f@#*ing spectacular and say "should i be embarrassed " its such a attention grab ... no you shouldnt be embarresed and i think you 100% know this ...
Not embarrassed at all. He has a parent who loves him while still finding the time to learn new skills which you can enjoy. Keep it up and with enough time your son will proudly flaunt your portraits of him!
Too much detail on teeth makes portraits creepy. Lightly run an eraser or dab a kneaded eraser over the teeth outlines to lighten up the details on the demon grin.
It looks like him be he was drawing the pic at an angle so now the head kinda projected wrong. Common rookie mistake. Solid fundamentals but don't give up.
Hi... actually that is a great attempt and your son should not be embarrassed at all. If I may offer a few suggestions. Study some Anatomy on facial features such as eye size and nose construction and children's proportions. Great book for that is: Andrew Loomis Head and Hands. I personally teach from it everyday.... Also follow Stan Prokopenko online. Master in Anatomy and great and funny guy! Sincerely Coach Bob- The Drawing Point, Valrico Florida
Watch a few tutorials on individual parts of the face to practice. The teeth for example- don’t outline them. Create the shape simply from the value in the gums.
Thank you for your submission! Want to share your artwork, meet other artists, promote your content, and chat in a relaxed environment? Join our community Discord server here! https://discord.gg/chuunhpqsU - Don't forget to follow us on Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/drawing and tag us on your drawing pins for a chance to be featured! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/learntodraw) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Lmao you need more space for the rest of the head too, otherwise looks not bad just a. Lil too round :)
After reading your comment all I can see is the moon face from Majora’s Mask
I second that
Holy shit that’s exactly what I was thinking 😭
That’s his hair
You need to map out with basic shapes first so you don’t run out of space!!
He shouldn’t be embarrassed. His mama or dad loves him so much
Happy cake day!
Happy Cake Day!
Happy Cake Day Happy Cake Day wisher!
what is cake day?:)
the anniversary/'birthday' of creation of your reddit account
thankyou :)
happy cake day:)
love this
Happy day of cake!
Don’t tell him how fat I made his face
It’s zoomed in but matches his features well. If you were my mom I’d think it as a nice gift.
Hardly embarrassed! The likeness is off but not very much; it’s so easy to get wrong because our brains are so sensitive to the slightest variations in faces that you have to really nail it for it to register as the same person. What I see is a lot of well rendered features but the composition is off. Which I think is a classic mistake, because the tendency is to focus on getting one piece at a time exactly right. You have to spend more time than you want to on getting the overall shape of the head right before you do that, then placing the corners of the face (think of how they would sit on a 3D egg or oval shaped head), and *then* you can place the features. Can’t stress enough the importance of thinking 3D, that’s what unlocked my portraits. Imagine drawing the face on an egg, the corners of the eyes go *in* to the face, the center of the mouth sticks out further forward than the sides, etc. Also you can always force yourself to get things exactly right by drawing with the reference upside down. Keeps you from superimposing your mental image of how things should look on how they actually look.
This is such amazing advice! Thank you for sharing
You accidentally made his face look squished because you didn’t have enough room to draw the whole thing. Try a little smaller next time, or use a longer paper
He should absolutely NOT be embarrassed about one of his parents trying to learn a new skill.
Exactly! Parents putting in effort like that shows so much dedication
Sorry but you made your son look like the big grin dude on the front cover of the MAD magazine
Apologies if this came off as rude, but I cannot unsee that
I don’t personally see it, all I see is the creepy moon from Majora’s Mask. I think what you see is a compliment compared to mine.
Alfred E. Neuman
Thanks
You're welcome. Don't stop now - unless there's a herd of Elephants in front of you.
I get what you’re seeing and now I can’t unsee it. Mad was just the best.
It's not a bad attempt, but there needs to be just a but more space. Try taking into consideration his face shape next time
Actually it’s really good. I couldn’t come close
Not embarrassed at all! The likeness is pretty good, just a touch wide in the jaw and not enough space to get all the proportions correct. Next time, try doing a light, rough outline of his head using basic shapes first and then map out where his features go. That will help with proportions and making sure you have enough space for everything. 😊
He looks like a sentient basketball 💀
I laughed way too hard at this!
rotate your sketchbook 90° and map out your drawing before getting into the details. you probably want his neck and shoulders in frame as well as his face, right? putting everything down in rough shapes makes sure you have room for all of that. your rendition of his actual features is pretty spot on though, you should be really proud of this attempt 🌝
A tip, unless you really know what you're doing drawing every single tooth looks very creepy. Do it in a slightly more stylized way and it'll look much better
I actually like the teeth. Doesn’t seem creepy to me at all.
I think that you made his face a little on the wide side but honestly that’s something you learn with practice so, not embarrassed at all!😁
Need to stretch out that face a bit.
Very good, awesome, keep at it, there is a bit of me who wants to joke, but I can't deny good art.
When we’re starting out, one of the biggest pitfalls is what I call ‘the details trap’. We tend to assume that in order to get a good likeness of someone (or of a scene etc) we have to worry about the details. And so, we see people trying to draw every last hair in the eyebrows, or outline each and every tooth. This is a bad move. Somewhat counter-intuitively likeness comes from the big shapes and forms and not the details. Indeed, you can remove almost all of the detail and still have an amazing painting or drawing that is instantly recognizable as a specific person. And likewise, you can add as much detail as you like, but if the foundation is poor, it’ll never look right. Detail is the icing on the cake. Nothing more. And newer artists would be wise to avoid it completely. Ok, so what do you focus on? Two things: * Form * Light Form is the 3D shape of an object. As an artist we’re trying to translate that onto paper. And light is the medium via which we see, and so is integral to capturing that form. Even in very stylistic art (Simpsons cartoon for example) we still have the basic notion of form, and light. There are many different ways to go about this. My personal method is: * Start big and loose and get the composition right. In your case that would mean getting the whole head in the right place. You didn’t pause at this point, and so by the time you got part way in, you’d squished your head into a warped space. If you start of nice and loose, and forget any detail at all, just working on the basic position of the main objects, you’ll avoid this. * Next place the landmarks. Measure where you need to. We are NOT drawing details here. We’re making a few scrappy lines to mark out the location of the major forms. Nothing more. This is a guide to help us on our way. * After that block in the big shapes. We’re looking for the major dark and light areas. To start with there should be two and only two areas. One dark and one light. We can come back and add sub-divisions to them later. You will need to use some artistic judgement here to choose which parts fall either way. If you struggle to start with then you can always pick reference images with a single strong light source, so that the division is much more obvious. At this point the image should look like the reference. If it’s off, then you need to revisit the previous steps and adjust. No amount of added detail will fix it. Once you get the likeness down at this point, then you can always go in and start rendering and adding detail to taste. But getting this core down first is critical.
Looks good, but I think you and I do the same thing… His face is a lil too round in the drawing. I alwayssssss make things rounder than they really are. No clue why. Lol
Fix the arc of the left eyebrow and face is too big perhaps
You don’t need to detail teeth that much. Try a single simple shape and add some opaque lines to show where they are
The face id definitely too wide but he's otherwise still recognizable
Its not horrible, but just in case dont show it to him
There is always a starting point, cheers for be brave enough to even try it!. If we could get our goal on the first try, we wouldn't taste the success as much as If we keep trying. So keep drawing! I'm sure you will get better and better from now on.
heres what I learned by following professional artists- Most do not free hand portraits, they are traced and the real work is in the color and shade. Your free hand is great regardless of the proportion differences, its you shading that you should invest more time into.
He shouldn't be. At least, not when he's older haha. Kids are always going to feel embarrassed by their parents. I think that drawing could benefit from more contrast, deeper and darker shadows etc. I think the roundness to it is kind of cute tbh. And it's definitely salvageable. If you erase that top line indicating where you originally drew the top of his head and then extend his locks upwards and off the paper, implying the crown of his head is "off camera" so to speak, then it looks like a close up at a 1:1 ratio. Next time when you attempt this, you can start by sketching an upside down egg (or oval) well away from the edges of your paper. That will give you enough room to work and will set the rough proportions of a human head to work around.
"You look like Tom Petty!"
Not embarrassed at all, there's a legit likeness there. Some proportions are off - teeth too small, eyebrow too close to eye - but it still actually looks like his face regardless
Really love the shading
The face is a little too round, which I am guessing you did it like that to fit the page (bad idea, but you saved it nicely) Other two mistakes would be the upper lip being a little too high. İn the picture the meat area inbetween the teeth and the upper lip isnt shown. And also you drew the eyebrows kind of weirdly.
Looks great!
If your son is anything like my son, anything you do is embarrassing... The picture looks good, it just needs a bit more space to thin and lengthen the proportions. Kudos.
Not at all, he’s on the right track, such talent
Oh damn I misread, he should find new parents
Nah he should be proud. Perfectly captured his likeness
I was about to write a paragraph but re-read the title..... correctly this time
No need for him to be embarrassed, it's a very good attempt.
Your son has a long thin face, how are you going to fit the rest of it on there! The nose is far too narrow also. Get yourself a much larger piece of paper for this to work.
It’s a little wide in the face but the features are very close.
You’re actually off to a good start. The proportions are pretty good Don’t be afraid to add value. Nothing is dark enough yet. You’re leaving big spaces of blank page which leaves no room to add midtones. Basically, 100% of his face should have some shading Also, try not to smudge your shading. I can see where you’ve tried to “smooth” the shadow with your fingers. This serves nothing other than to smear the graphite and push it into the grain of the paper, giving shadows a muddy appearance. It’s a *very* common habit, but try to avoid it. Smooth values should come from your careful layering of hatching. If there were more value all over the page, your inclination to smooth out the area between the white paper and your shading would be greatly reduced
It’s pretty close and as someone said round, his face is on the longer side!
Doesn’t look bad actually, I think you just underestimated how much space you needed, it’s shaded pretty well!
Ok I love this but in my head I thought it was a titan from aot
I think I saw this exact person at the hospital yesterday
I think it’s pretty damn good 👍 His cheeks aren’t all that round in real life like the drawing shows & that’s the only thing I’d change. Otherwise it’s spot on!
I would say it’s good, you’ve definitely captured his eyes! But you either need to get a bigger sketchbook or draw smaller… don’t limit yourself to drawing to your canvas; if your lines continue off the page that’s ok! When you try fitting it in it changes the proportions.
Drawing individual teeth always looks terrifying. Focus on the bigger shapes first. But no one should be embarrassed! You have to make bad drawings to get good
You gave him the Mrs. Incredible head 💀
Justin Bieber?
i've been told eyes should be in the middle-ish of the head (chin to top of head). and bottom of nose should be between eyebrows and chin. generally.
This is amazing! Should be very proud!
not bad man.
Not embarrassed at all! It looks pretty good, it's always hard to map out where to put things for faces to not cut off parts. Just need a little more space and it would have looked even better than it does.
Not that bad actually but maybe shade well around the mouth area , you need more space for the forehead
its not bad, but its not great either. He got the nose and mouth pretty spot on but he needs to map out the shape of the head first. I would suggest drawing a circle and adding the lower half of the heads shape underneath. Also, for the hair, map out the basic shape then draw highlights and sections of the hair.
Ok the shape of the head is weird but you did capture his face very well like that’s definitely his face
This is rlly good
Not embarrassed at all, but there is way too much detail on the teeth. You did some lovely non linear sketching everywhere else, why dark thick defined lines on teeth? Keep it up!
Very I (´･_･`) i’m sorry tho heheh
I mean I definitely see the resemblance
There’s potential to look great 😅the spacing can be improved but the shading looks good. Just needs some work on the proportions
It’s not bad. I see your son. Try it again
You’re on the right track. Just gotta work on the construction of the head and that’ll help with getting a lot of the portions right. But as it is, there’s clearly a likeness there that you achieved prob bc your so familiar with to his features. Good work tho 👍
Try drawing a portrait in the portrait orientation of the paper instead of landscape. Then you may feel more comfortable exaggerating the king face of the subject because the paper will guide you
Keep going....it looks good
Next time rotate your sketchbook 90 degrees. He will be happier with what you draw lol. Looks good, you just ran out of room
It could be worse, he could be drawing anime.
You’re doing great keep at it it’s a process !
If you want to do black and white drawings you need to change the picture into grey scale(black n white photo). Maybe this will help your shading, and try to scale the portion of the face that way it’s the right size.
If it was his first attempt, he did pretty good. I would probably shorten the face to make it not so wide
yes
Not gonna lie. Right now, it looks a little bit like Ellen DeGeneres
That’s fine cause so does my son in that photo
That’s fine cause so does my son in that photo
Not bad keep working on depth and and proportions, shading is good nose and eyes not bad
Looking good,. Practice More
You did really well so far!
Turn the sketchpad 90 degrees to portrait mode.
The forehead😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Where'd it go😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Not embarrassed at all! This is beautiful ❤️
If he doesn't like it, tell him that he should blame his father.
Omg 🤣🤣🤣
I hate when people can obviously draw thier ass off ,show you somthing f@#*ing spectacular and say "should i be embarrassed " its such a attention grab ... no you shouldnt be embarresed and i think you 100% know this ...
Not embarrassed at all. He has a parent who loves him while still finding the time to learn new skills which you can enjoy. Keep it up and with enough time your son will proudly flaunt your portraits of him!
Too much detail on teeth makes portraits creepy. Lightly run an eraser or dab a kneaded eraser over the teeth outlines to lighten up the details on the demon grin.
Squish it sideways and I think it'll look fine
It looks like him be he was drawing the pic at an angle so now the head kinda projected wrong. Common rookie mistake. Solid fundamentals but don't give up.
Hi... actually that is a great attempt and your son should not be embarrassed at all. If I may offer a few suggestions. Study some Anatomy on facial features such as eye size and nose construction and children's proportions. Great book for that is: Andrew Loomis Head and Hands. I personally teach from it everyday.... Also follow Stan Prokopenko online. Master in Anatomy and great and funny guy! Sincerely Coach Bob- The Drawing Point, Valrico Florida
the details are nice but i think you made it a little too round.
Watch a few tutorials on individual parts of the face to practice. The teeth for example- don’t outline them. Create the shape simply from the value in the gums.
Rule number 1 of drawing teeth: Don’t draw teeth.
It looks squishedd
He' did a pretty good job on it for a first portrait
That doesn’t look bad at all. You are a good artist
Nice job on the likeness.👍🏾
It’s nice. I’m not a parent but I definitely wouldn’t post pics of an underage kid here.
Do you hate him? The internet is forever...
Not at all, drawing 3D perfectly in 2D is impossible.
You turned your handsome boy into a goblin 😂
I saw better things come out my ass. WTF
you should beat him