Portrait Drawing For Beginners.

[laureato di arte]

looks pretty cool from here . Thanx allot!

[XYZRGB]

Thank you. I learned from this.


What would you advise for someone that wants to do a cartoon of someone, but does not want to offend them ?
( For instance, if someone has a huge nose, crooked teeth, or large ears )

How can you draw these features exaggerated, but non-offensively ?

Thanks !

[Bracer]

It's Nice To Feel That You Have Benefited Someone, So Thank You "laureato di arte" And "Vegan".

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What would you advise for someone that wants to do a cartoon of someone, but does not want to offend them ?
( For instance, if someone has a huge nose, crooked teeth, or large ears )

How can you draw these features exaggerated, but non-offensively ?

Thanks !
=======================================================
Wah.....I Don't Think I Can Answer That Question, Because It Seems....It Have Nothing To Do With Drawing Capability Or The Way You Express It But Everything To Do With The Person You Are Drawing, Can He/She Take The Joke ? Can He/She "Tolerate" Your "Artistic" Interpretations ?
Basically, You Must Know Whether You Can Joke With Him/Her Or Not. heh

Try.....Try This, Draw A Big Oval, Then Draw Two Small Circle Inside Then Show Them And Say "This Is How Your Nose Looked Like".

If Their Respond Is A Smile, Then You Need To Guess Whether They Really OK With It Or Am Planning To Destroy Your House With An AT Bomb Later.

Or If They Go Mad And Push You To The Floor And Start Kicking You Again And Again Until The Camera Don't Even Want To Show You Being Kick And Just Merely Shot The Upper Part Of Your Friends Torso Moving And Kicking You Endlessly With His Angry Expression Then You Better Don't Try.

So Basically, It's Up To His/Her Character.

[nafa]

If you are tempted to do a second tutorial, or write any artictle, try not to capitalize the first alphabet of every word. It makes for very difficult reading.

[LoTekK]

Nice likeness on that, and a good set of guidelines. I'll second nafa's suggestion about capitalization, though. It seems like a small thing, but it really makes it rather headache-inducing to read.

Vegan: Caricatures can be a touchy subject, but if someone asks for a caricature, take it as if they're asking for it. :) If they haven't asked, then figure out how well you know the person, and as Bracer said, figure out if they'll be okay with it. I've generally found that caricatures tend to be well-received, though, for the simple reason that they take effort and time. I find female caricatures a lot tougher to pull off, though.

[Bracer]

Nice Drawings To "LoTekK", Maybe We Can Exchange Pointers In Person Someday, Same Country. Ha Ha Ha.

[Vitala]

Great tutorial bracer, thanks. Hope to see more from you soon.
Very well explained.

[Bracer]

Thank You Vitala.

[Bracer]

http://www.bracercom.com/Gallery/Drawing/29_files/MyPortrait00.jpg
This Is The Full Blown Image :D
The Entire Portrait Was Drawn Using Mechanical Pencil, 2B, Single Value.

[LoTekK]

I can't get over the feeling that the guy in your portrait looks really familiar somehow. :D Yeah, a meetup should be fun, I haven't met all that many artists around here since I've been back. :)

[endseason]

very nice tutorial, good job:)

[Bracer]

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EndSeason:
good job
=====================

Thank You EndSeason.
Most Importantly, I Hope It Benefited You.

[FosseCS2]

This was rather simple but an excellent tutorial.

I'm currently learning how to do portrait (I've drawn comics and cartooncharacters for too many years now) and I find it very difficult.

I have a picture of my son and in my oppinion it should be very easy to draw. But I seem to find myself in a deadend street if you know what I mean...

I'm using what I've learned from drawing comics and cartoon, and at the beginning it looks allright. But when I'm working on the details like the eyes, mouth and the nose (oh, how I hate doing the nose) I just don't seem to succeed.

I know doing portrait might take some time and here's another problem. Because I'm used to draw cartooncharacters I normally don't use more than 15-20 min on a scetch.

So, do any of you got any advice for me on how to overcome some of my problems? Even though I can SEE how the mouth and the nose are shaped I have the bad habit of drawing them too cartoony or simply drawing them wrong.

[LoTekK]

I take it you're using a photo of your son as reference? If that's the case (and this is going to sound stupid, but bear with me), flip the photo upside down, and then draw what you see. The issue you've described is a pretty common one to people who haven't really trained their eyes, as well as people who have been drawing comic-style, for example, whereby we draw what we think we see, rather than what we actually see (a natural progression of the symbolic drawing we do as toddlers, where heads are circles, eyes are ovals, noses are triangles, etc).

What flipping the reference does is remove those preconceptions. All of a sudden, you're not so much looking at a photo of a face, but rather a collection of strange lines and shapes.

If I might recommend a book, take a look at Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0874774241?v=glance). One of its main goals is to teach the brain to throw out those preconceptions when we draw. It certainly helped me when I was starting out. :thumbsup:

[FosseCS2]

Thanks!

It does sound logical flipping the photo upside down. Although it does seem strange I do in fact understand the meaning of doing so.

I'll try it out and see what I'll come up with.

Thanks a lot for your help. You've just thaught me to see things in a new perspective :)

[Bracer]

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Fosses-ill.net:

I'm currently learning how to do portrait (I've drawn comics and cartooncharacters for too many years now) and I find it very difficult.
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hmm, That Depends, Your Cartoon/Comic Is "Radically" Different From Real Life ?

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Fosses-ill.net:
I'm using what I've learned from drawing comics and cartoon, and at the beginning it looks allright. But when I'm working on the details like the eyes, mouth and the nose (oh, how I hate doing the nose) I just don't seem to succeed.
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Dare I Say Something ? Honest.
The Number One Problem, NUMBER ONE. Is The Lack Of Observation, I Know I Know You Want To Hit Me Now, But Seriously, As I Have Stated Very Clearly In My Tutorial.
That Is Why The Camera Are So Good At Capturing The Likeness, They Don't Think, They Just Copy Down EXACTLY What They See.

I Will Assume 100% That You Are Sure About What You're Talking Is 100% Correct, If That's The Case, Here's My Analysis.

You Say That At The Beginning, It Looked OK.
Very Well I'll Take It As That, That Would Mean I Believe 100% That You Have Observe To The Best of Your Observation[Not Knowledge], The Facial Feature Placement, Their Corresponding Size, Placement/ Their Relative Ratio With One Another/ The Overall Shape/ Connection Lines And Their Angle Observed To The Best Of Your Observation.

As I Have Stated Very Clearly In My Tutorial, Step 2 Is Not To Be Rushed, Never To Be Rushed. If Your Current Skill Level Dictates That You Need More Time To Correct The Ratio, Too Bad, You Have To. No Way,.....No Way Around It.

"But I Use To Draw Comic And I Took Only XXX Minutes To Do It"
That's Because You Are Drawing A Comic And Now You Drawing A Portrait.
Show That Piece Of Paper Your Patient And Soon Your Patient Will Be Printed In That Paper In All It Glory :D No Choice, I Have To State It Again, Repeat Step 2, Rub, Rub, Rub, Correct, Rub And Rub And Draw Over And Correct And Rub~~~~~~ Until You Get It.

I'am Sorry, There's No Short Cut, There Never Had Been, Unless Of Course You Trace....But Please Don't Let Me Know. Ha Ha Ha.

Step 2 Step 2 :D

No Choice, I'am Sorry. I'am Trying To Help You Here, I Don't Know How To Make It Sound Any Better Than The Truth Here :D

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Fosses-ill.net:
So, do any of you got any advice for me on how to overcome some of my problems? Even though I can SEE how the mouth and the nose are shaped I have the bad habit of drawing them too cartoony or simply drawing them wrong.
==========================================================
Then You Need To Overcome The Bad Habit :D
Tell Yourself You Are Not Going To Shade A Single Area Of That Paper Unless You Shade What You See, If It's There It's There, If It's Not There, It's Not There.
Theoratically, How "Wrong" Can A Portrait Get When You Observe And Not Draw Because In Cartoon You Draw Like That :D

Can You Show Me Some Of Your Drawings, We Might Be Facing Some Even More Fundamental Challenges Here, It Seems. :D
I'am Willing To Help You, Please let Me Know Your Current Level:D


LoTekK Offered Execellent Suggestions Here, The "Turn The Portrait Upsidedown" Is Classic, And It Works :D Try It
:D

I Don't Think You Need To Get "Books" Before You Go Back To Your Portrait Thou, Cameras Don't Read Yet They Copied So Well, And In This Case You're Not Drawing From Imagination[Which Requires Basic Anatomical Knowledge], You Are Trying From A Photograph, If That's The Case, If You JUST DRAW WHAT YOU SEE, You Couldn't Possibly Go Too Wrong, try Again, Don't Give Up :D

[sick-osiris]

great tutorial mate, thanks for sharing

[Bracer]

Thanks sick-osiris :D

[Bracer]

This One Is Drawn Using The "Grid" Technique.
I WAS Actually Thinking Of Creating Another Portrait Tutorial On Using The Grid Technique.
But I Really Don't Think It So Complicated That It Requires Extensive Comprehension...

Basically, You Lay A Transparent Grid Over Your Photo To Be Drawn, Make The Square Smaller If The Details Inside The Square Are Still Too Complicated For You.

But If The Square Gets To Many, It Starts To Look Daunting, So Basically You Regulate,
Kind Of A Give And Take Situation, Increase The Size Of The Square When You're Able To Handle More Details In A Square, Eventually, You'll Do Without The Square, Which Is What My Tutorial Teaches Right At The Beginning Of The Thread.

Instead Of Laying A Physical "Transparent Grid", You Can Just Lay That Grid In Photoshop, Hence You Can Adjust The Square To Suit Your Skill Level Interactively.

I Actually Wanted To Say That Using The Grid Technique Might As Well Be Tracing, But I Can't, The Fact Is, It's Very Useful For Beginners And Yet In It's Essence, It Actually FORCE The Beginner To Look At Shapes Instead Of "It's A Human Head" Kind Of Thinking Because Inside Each Square Is Simply A Line Or Shape.

That Alone, Helps A Lot In Learning To Draw What You See.

http://www.bracercom.com/Gallery/Drawing/30_files/Portrait%20Female%2000.jpg

Does Anybody Actually NEEDs me To Visualize The Grid Technique Or No It's Not Really Required ? :D

[paperclip]

I enjoyed reading your tutorial there- it helped refresh some points in my mind that I'd forgotten. Thanks!

One thing...you don't need to put a capital letter at the beginning of every word. Like This. You Know What I Mean. Capitals are only needed at the beginning of a sentence and for peoples' names and place names. That would make your writing much easier to read!

Cheers!
'clippy.

[Bracer]

Thanks paperclip For The Compliments.
But In All Honesty, You Should Be The One That Teach Me How To Paint !
Ha Ha Ha

I Like Your "Tourists" Painting, I LOVE The Look Of The One Holding The Camera !

AS For The Caps....erm...I've Been Typing Like This For Years, Very Hard To Change...OK Ok Maybe I DON'T Want To Change. Ha Ha Ha. Bad Bad..... I'll Hold A Meeting With Myself Regarding This :D

Sorry For Any Inconvenient Caused.

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