[Yuri]

My sketch

Original Pix

Hi there, it has been some time since I made my 1st post in here. ><;;

Anyway this isn't very good 'cos it isn't entirely finished yet and also 'cos I can't do shading, yet.

The ears and eyes and possibly the head are off. But, my problem is the face-line. I know it should be more crooked but what the hell... I've been trying to correct it but I'm stumped. I'm not sure how to alter his face to make it look more slanted, without erasing the whole thing or without starting on a new sketch. :/

Thx for reading... -__-;;

[Drew]

You can easily rotate the face in Photoshop if you need to. Another tool that helps you see errors is the Flip function. Sometimes things get a bit skewed and it's hard to tell if you've been looking at it for a long time. It may help you a bit to trace the picture and look at the lines you made to help you see the shapes, but make sure that your final drawing is freehand. Just tracing the image won't help you improve.

Keep drawing every day and you'll improve quickly. Good luck!

[Harmony Steel]

You seem to already understand the concept of splitting a face up into it's parts before adding the features so that's a good start! When I draw faces I tend to start with a big ball for the head, and then add the lines and shape of the actual face... I did a quick sketch for you so you can see what I mean.



Now I haven't done the poor guy justice since this was just a quick 10 min sketch, but I hope it can show you what I mean by creating the ball for the head and then adding the face lines, and finally the features.

Try and 'build' the head before adding the features, because if you can get the head to look real your features (mouth/eyes/nose etc) will look natural. I would highly recommend you check out 'Drawing the Head and Hands' by Loomis, it's invaluable advice from a master and is actually online free here.

I hope that helps .
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[Yuri]

Actually, I do know about the books by Andrew Loomis. except that I started on "fun drawing with a pencil" and now I gotta say that I wasted my time printing out the entire book.

Perhaps I'll just skim through the front sections 'cos if I have to keep drawing more funny faces, I'll faint.

And thanks all for the tips. :>

Will try them out. XD

Btw, shading. Any online references for a beginner? Or do I just go through the Andrew Loomis books and then attempt to do shading, later on?

[Novacaptain]

I suggest you get "drawing on the right side of the brain" from your local library. I believe it to be far more helpful than loomis' books.
It seems that you're not really seeing what's in the image...instead you're using some of your own pre-established descriptions for the facial features. You could also try drawing yourself using a mirror to avoid working from 2d reference.
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It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice - Scooter

[Yuri]

Actually, I have that book and I do draw my pieces upside down. -__-;; Except that parts of the book are very difficult to understand and I'm already lost despite working on the chapters for quite some time.

Anyway, I used to break up the original photo into shapes like triangles, circles, etc. until someone told me that was wrong and then I stopped. :/
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I am asexual. Neither male nor female.

[Novacaptain]

Just work on seeing what is there and drawing what you see...not what you know is there. Forget all you know about the appearance of noses, eyes, lips, ears, and draw things the way you see them. I guess that's what i try to do when working from reference.
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It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice - Scooter