[Fred Flick Stone]

Hello yall. This is getting put up on the forum now, due to the fact that some people might be getting antsy to tackle something else. I don�t want to get to far ahead, and I also don�t wish to neglect anyone. So we are still going same pace with the other tutorial, but I wanted to get this started as well. Anyone who thinks they are beyond the step one in the tutorial though is kidding themselves, myself included. No matter how good you may be, if you don�t get the basics it will come back to bite you. These exercises are standard at any art school in the basics academic art program. Our dilemma here is that I don�t have all the time in the world, neither does spooge, and we aren�t an official school. So we must go at web pace, till other factors dictate otherwise.





So, with that said, here is the first installment of the official head drawing tutorial. There will be an assigned task, if any of you should like to practice this and post it. I can�t guarantee a swift review, but then I can�t guarantee getting to all the other tutorial crits on a timely fashion either.


Step 1. This is the biggy. This step dictates the entire head drawing, and or pose for that matter if you are attaching an entire body to this. Start with a ball, freehand will do, so long as it reads as a ball. We are going to divide the ball into halves, then fourths. There will be 8 sections total if you think of this as a 3d sphere, which you should do anyway, because what you draw will ultimately be 3 dimensional. Once the ball has bee evenly divided we are going to find the golden cross section that dictates and determines the size, shape, tilt, character, and proportions of the head to be drawn. The cross section determines where the brow line begins, and divides our face plane in half with a centerline. These divisions also help determine where the ear will sit on the side of the head. Amazing how it all comes down to a simple cross section, isn�t it?


Our centerline of the face is derived from our cross section. Note that the centerline of the head doesn�t continue to follow the form of the ball once we have established the cross section. Why? The chin extends away from the sphere shape. If our chin was still a part of this sphere, we would have a pretty darn round face. This centerline is drawn next. It doesn�t have to be any particular length at this point, it is just there to establish our two main divisions of the head, or divides the head into an even left and right half. With a minimal degree of shifting of one feature or another, all faces are fairly symmetrical. I say minimal degree of shifting of features, meaning not everyone�s eyes are perfectly even across the face laterally, not everyone�s ears are laterally even, etc. Shannon Daugherty for example, really asymmetrical. But her face still is evenly divided, and she has all the components required to call hers a head.

Once we know the tilt, found our cross section, and laid in the centerline of the head, our next step is to shave to two side of our ball, on either side of the cross section. This will help us begin forming the side planes of the head. Why shave them? Well, the skull isn�t actually round like a ball, but flattened on all sides with a fairly round top for the skullcap. Keeping those round side planes would actually be deceiving to keep, and the skull drawn would end up a little too wide, awkward looking, and the ears would be mounted on these little tiny ends, with no real cohesive attachment to the whole�


Step 2-Once we have our cross section established, the next thing we will be doing is dividing the head into thirds. This is the golden division to which you will be laying in all the feature elements on the skull, i.e., the eyes, nose lips, ears, and so on� The primary, or stock look for the average human is even divisions between these thirds. But once understood, these divisions will be your guide to drawing charactures, character types for stories, or whatever. These third divisions are as important as the golden cross section to begin all this. The upper third is what we start with. This establishes the divisional units of the skull, i.e. it creates the volume to which the other 2/3rds will be measured. The upper 1/3rd is from the hairline to the brow line. The 2nd division establishes the location for the nose, ears, and eyes. The divisions go between the top of the brow, to the base, or bottom of the nose. The lower 3rd sets up where our mouth goes, and finishes the skull with locating the bottom of the chin. Thus, this 3rd goes from the bottom of the nose to the bottom of the chin. These divisions of thirds wrap entirely around the skull. So for the middle 3rd division, remember, when you find the nose, you have also found the ears. They also follow the top of the nose, or brow ridge, and the bottom of the nose division evenly with just about everyone. Knowing this will help out with so many drawings/paintings I see where the ears look like they were pasted to the skull after the fact because no understanding of proper proportion, or placement were privy. These divisions remain evenly proportioned no matter what the tilt of the head is. So if the head is looking straight up, all the divisions will be shrunk down to little segments, bit still even in their division. This is soooo important in placing all the features on the head. The side division of the head helps place the ear in its correct placement, to the left of the vertical division line for the right ear, and to the right of the vert line on the left side of the head. This vertical division also tells you where the jaw begins, since it attaches to the skull just in front of the ears.
When it is all said and done, and this golden division of thirds is well understood, and heavily practiced to the point of intuitive understanding, the rules of proper thirds can be broken. This is where character types are created. They don�t necessarily follow proper spacing and placing, but rather take on their own divisions. I will cover this a bit more in the next tutorial. Valuable info for spacing and placing the features on the face. Can�t stress this stuff enough. I see many a drawing/painting that just didn�t quite work because these basic principals just weren�t known. Remember it well, and forever draw a properly divided, and proportioned head drawing, or head attached to a figure in a drawing�


Step 3-Here I basically summed up what it all means when it is said and done. This head took about 3 minutes to draw because I knew the principals of drawing a good well done head, and I practiced them repeatedly, and still do for years and years. I also had an idea of what I was after for a finish. This guy could easily be refined many times over, but I am not bashing or critiquing, merely demonstrating what good understanding of the basics can get you quickly. I have also included a couple pages of head drawings I accumulated from a number of my sketchbooks, and two pages of head concepts for a game character from a while back. They are third generation copies, sorry for their crude depiction. Just wanted to show more examples of how understanding the basics will get you semi legible results like I think these are, but I could be wrong. You be the judge of that�


So ends the first ramblings of Fred�s Head Tutorial. Part two will be posted in about ten days, if I find a house by then.

In the mean time here is an assignment if you so choose. If you do this assignment, I DON�T WANT ONE DRAWING AT A TIME POSTED!!! I want entire pages of at least a dozen drawings on the page, so I know you guys are really trying this, and are repeatedly doing it. Repetition is the KEY to successful drawing, can�t stress that enough. Come to my studio some time and I will show you the dozens upon dozens of pads filled front to back of studies. Good, Bad, Horrid, Eye Wrenching, etc. but done no less. Mileage is the hamburger helper to the basic principals, trust me. Doing a hundred cubes before understanding how they work is great, so long as by the time you have done them all, you understand volume and value to so logical degree. Drawing the cubes repeatedly over and over again is boring to only those who refuse to learn, interesting to those who are curious, and fascinating to those who need to know.
So the assignment is to do dozens of these wire frames, attach the chin, find the ear and the nose, like the one in step two. Different tilts, and different angles. I want to see proper division. No guess work, you have the rules in front of you, follow them closely, and I guarantee you next time you draw some figure in a scene or in a pose of some sort, that head is going to look well constructed from a proportion stand point, because you took the time to learn those principals of head division and will never stop using them until you stop producing art�I hope this helps you guys out a bit, the next step is going to cover tweaking these divisions, and then going into fine tuning the eye socket and the nose. Plus, understanding the divisions between these features. Good luck and enjoy.

I am going to be correcting cubes now. So go away and draw faces for a while, or go help other posts just let me gleam the cube for a while�hopefully I will have some corrections posted for you all tomorrow late in the afternoon, Sunday California time. I have a painting class early in the morning, but afterward I will be spanking hands. I will also be posting the results on a new thread for all you to find quickly. The other thread is just getting so dang long, it takes a good while to load for me�

[Foz]

jesus christ dood
your really good
ive read tha tutorial its good it helped me alot it just wasnt clear on the actual steps on how to do it like where do u put tha chin bity thing in and when i did it my faces we way to long i not sure wat i did wrong.
anywayz thankx

[freddy flicks stones]

Actually Foz, it is explained, but I will help clerify it. Once you have found the cross section in the head, next find your brow ridge. This is, and I forgot to put this in, and thank you for bringing this up,the brow ridge, about half way between the cross section, and the very top of the ball. This will vary with character types, and just from one person to the next. The half way point I speak of is an average, not the final destination for everyone. Once though, this is found, you now have one third of the proportions for the facial plane. The other two thirds are even segments of the first one you have already found. Thus, you now have proper volume to begin carving the features in the face.
Step three is merely a quick summary of what we did in the first steps, and a quick drawing of what can be acheived from the lines and sphere I created. Thanks for the feedback. Anyone else see any holes in the summary, please respond and I will quickly try to repair the damage...

[Muzman]

Onya fred. (it's nose perspective that slays me the most. I'm keen to see if this helps)

-edit-(*ahem* no doubt it will help no end. i'm just isolating my trouble spots.)

[This message has been edited by Muzman (edited June 04, 2000).]

[n8]

ok....question....how do you go about making a face look innocent??....like sweet, attractive and innocent??...ive tried and tried but cant git it!!...

[AliasMoze]

Fred,
"Divided Ball and Plane" from Loomis, right? If so, then great; Loomis is my favorite art teacher.

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AliasMoze
:) :) :) :)
"That activates my hilarity unit."

[Hurri-cane]

hey....some faces...didnt have time for more



kill me with critique



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-H-U-R-R-I-C-A-N-E-
[email protected]
http://www.geocities.com/hurri_cane_1999/
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[Spiritwolf]

Wow, these lessons are amazing fred. Are you planning on posting all of these lessons somewhere else so that they are not lost, or are you going to publish your own drawing book with them?

I think this board has an archive feature, but only forum admins can create the archive and move the posts there. This kind of stuff just shouldn't be lost!

-Spiritwolf

[ElectroTechno]

ok, here is pic from loomis tutorials. I hope it helps you much as it helped me.



What I'd like to see is tutorial to draw nose, eyes, lips and ears. Maybe you could include them to this tutorial. Basic shapes are much more easy than all those details.

E/T

[Foxfire]

Thank you thank you thank you fred !!!!!!!!

[Hurri-cane]

from a book of John Bonsib - charicatyre art (its a swedish version nad its hard to spell charicatyre) :/





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-H-U-R-R-I-C-A-N-E-
[email protected]
http://www.geocities.com/hurri_cane_1999/
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[HumanClay]

Fred, you are my personal god. I bow to you. I just hope I don't have to go to church to worship you.. I hate those places.

[AliasMoze]

Fred, I hope you don't mind my posting this. The reason is that Loomis shows a slower progression through the steps. This image is from "Fun With a Pencil."

BTW, I see allot of Mort Drucker influence in your heads, Fred. Am I right?

I made these Loomis images links instead of images, for the consideration of others.
http://www.moserbrothers.com/daf/loomis_heads_1.jpg
http://www.moserbrothers.com/daf/loomis_heads_2.jpg

Both images are from the book "Fun With A Pencil" by Andrew Loomis.
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AliasMoze

"That activates my hilarity unit."

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited June 04, 2000).]

[Lange_Pisang]

AARGH! All this pics are hard to download! This is bloody slow!! Can't you make links instead of posting them straight on the MB?

[ozenzo]

Now we're cookin'!!

[Lange_Pisang]

Aah well...

Who am I to "command" the "Die Hards"...

BTW, nice tutorial, I print all the tutorials and put them in my archive, they're very handy!!

[Fred Flick Stone]

I was delirious last night when I finally finished this head tutorial thing. I forgot to put in a few things that I had ready to go�here they are. These should be a part of the above head tutorial. Thanks you guys for posting the loomis stuff. I will be covering that stuff later on, more in depth. But I think he shows too much to soon with little explanation for things. I want to walk you guys through this stuff so all of it is fairly understood. AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT TO DOWNLOAD THIS STUFF FOR YOUR OWN, GO TO www.anticz.com ,in a section called Learn, where my good friend Mike Brown has recreated these tutorials, for the download of it. These will also be at 3D Pallette once they are back up and running, and will be at www.digitizedesign.com/artcamp/ Something Zapman is hosting, it looks quite promising...you all should go check it out if it is up right now...for the rest of you draw draw draw...

Here are a couple of things I forgot to mention. When beginning your divisions, the first one usually identified is the nose division. But since this can become very character oriented, I have started our divisions by finding the hairline first, and making this the control, to which the other 2/3rds are correctly recognized.

Something else to recognize, when you shave off the two sides of the sphere, you have the beginnings of the side panes of the head. The sideplane attaches to the new flat radial plane we just cut, and extends down to attach to the chin. See the assignment I did attached to this new post. I did a brief version of the assignment , with a prisma color pencil, in about five minutes. I have the side plane of the head shaded, to recognize the volume of my skull. I located the head tilt, found the crosssection, found my division of thirds, found where the ears and nose attach, and also found the direction the head is looking. This is ALL I want you guys to do for now. No taking these to a finish. All I want to see is if you can denote the basic structure of the head for now. Once I know this is feasible by most of you, then we will start to articulate the head, and chisel out the smaller features of the head. For now though, BASIC, BASIC, BASIC!!!

I also brought back our Indian friend, to show the basic construction related to this photo. As you can see, he has a pretty asymmetrical face, nose crooked, eyes slightly tilted, etc. But note how our basic theory of head construction still applies. Get this scan from spooges earlier post on painting the head, and make this chart overlay, and see for yourself that these divisions, when done correctly, do apply to any head, especially our Indian man�






[This message has been edited by Fred Flick Stone (edited June 04, 2000).]

[Plop]

Here is my try. I did about 20 of those on two pages but most of them didn't come out too well so i only scanned the better ones.



Fred, what type of pencil or chalk did you use to draw those larger faces?

[Nex]

I guess its a failure, you put details in

(looks pretty nice)

[Foxfire]

Fred first I want to say thank you, very much. I have been following this tutorial. I know there is more; but I have a question. I am having a little problem with finding the correct slope of the chin male/femal are differnt. I know you know ha ha but anyway. when I do the single circle method things come out a little distorted. I know this is me. However I have a question? What is your opinion on the two circle method?? this seams to work good but is more complicated. I know you wanted to keep things simple. I understand that compleatly. Is there any problem with the two circle or is it just not practical?? Thx for your time.

[nori]

oh hi

I think I have trouble knowing where to put the chin.. or like the prespective on the chin.

--
nori

[tanis]

I had to break from Mozeman's life drawing stuff.. (not because I wanted, but because I got too much work to do and I can't get out from the office to sketch during daytime).
So here's the first of my pages with attempts at heads' drawing.

[Plop]

Gah, I need to read more closely.

[Nex]

First of all thanks FFS for taking the time and patience to make those tutorials. I really found some improvements in my doodles through that.

This is not what you wanted to see but anyway here are some heads that I could not resist adding some detail to.

* ngrrr.. photoshop f***d up when it converted my heads.. I guess it didn't like my stuff *gigh* .. will update ASAP

http://unet.univie.ac.at/~a9627269/heads.gif

I will post some "concept 3d heads too as soon as I can"

Thx again for your efforts, I guess you would have other things to do too.



[This message has been edited by Nex (edited June 06, 2000).]

[Plop]

Nex: that picture comes up in strange colors, can barely make out anything.

Nori: I hope I don't mess with Freds lesson but here is a scan from Hogarths Dynamic Anatomy maybe it can help you a bit.

[Gimbal]

Here's some stuff I did during break at work today. I started thinking that I was making the cut-off circles to small so I started to think about how the size of those circles would affect the way the head looks. So then I started thinking anotomically about it and figured that the circles would basically delineate the orbital bones on the side (don't know if that is the name for it) and mostly the temporal side of the head. That's why the skull stuff is there. Thanks for posting Hogarth's stuff Plop - it gave me a better idea of how those cut-off circles will affect the head.

I forgot to draw all my division lines though. Oops.

[Mozeman]

Here's a couple o' heads.



Not many, but I'm workin' on some mo'.

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Mozeman
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[email protected]
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"If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?"

[Nex]

I don't know why but PS does strange things if you save a greyscale picture as gif.. at least withe me.

So here it is as jpg.. its a bit big sorry.

http://unet.univie.ac.at/~a9627269/heads.jpg

I find it rather hard to find a good jawline.. you see it on the left face where she has a "i drew 1000 lines and none would fit"-beard.

[geelimp]

hi. I had some fun drawing this. Image below is my first go, I know I will improve after this.

[Joachim]

some crappy ones from me. . This is a very good exercize...it's hard to build them up with lines and circles and still try to keep some spark in the faces.
Oh well, I need to make a lot more of these.





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Joachim
web: http://home.sol.no/~jbarrum/