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I’m finally going to commit to this challenge! I’m still fairly beginner, so you’ll have to bear with me, but I have been drawing everyday and striving to improve and learn for something like 2 years. I’m still pretty uncomfortable drawing heads and faces, I.e. I don’t know the planes and proportions of the skull and features very well. Hopefully this challenge will keep me accountable to drawing everyday in a more purposeful, focused way. And help get me some good face mileage.
Please any critiques/guidance/thoughts would be very much appreciated! My daily goal is to fill at least a page with faces, more or less. And to try and vary my approach when it comes to sizes, mediums, and angles.
Day 2: still have to build up some momentum. I have a hard time with hair, haha. Need to work on more of the lessons! Right now I’m on Charles Hu, need to keep at it! I find it difficult finding the balance between devoting time to learning, and actually drawing. I don’t want to be fostering bad habits, I’m sure there are plenty here…
Day 3: Alright, I drew for quite awhile today, please know that the 1st picture is artwork I drew from Pinterest, it isn’t mine haha. Just having some fun, I gotta mix it up to keep myself fresh. I don’t think I would necessarily call them “studies” but I always try to avoid mindlessly copying. We don’t copy! And sorry if the pics are low quality, it was dark out, I tried my best!
I made an attempt at some value on pic 2. I’m very intimidated by value honestly, I’ve learned a few things from Steve Houston in his head course on it, but I haven’t really studied it. Since i don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing, that itself will Probably kill it, So I usually just give up which is no good either. But, I need to know planes and form properly before I can really tackle value, hence this Challenge!
I’ve noticed all my heads are basically the same scale. So I tried going bigger, and the results were very revealing to say the least!! So I made a lot of bad drawings, they aren’t posted here. But then I studied some great sculptures and structural drawings on Pinterest, and I think that really helped.
one last thing! I think I have a bad habit of pressing too hard, making too many lines. If you made it this far thanks for reading!
I also tried tracing out the forms on a few of these awesome sculptures in procreate, this was real fun and eye opening! But I don’t know what I was thinking on the first ones neck… whoops. I don’t know much about how to use procreate, so I definitely want to get a course sometime. And I’ve found it to be pretty difficult to make lines with my arm on here due to the size of my iPad, and the glass.
Yes, great idea! I am going to try this as well, but with tracing paper over printed images.
Day 4: Keep on keepin on. Not the best today. Definitely don’t like the more rendered head. The nose is wrong, and the eyes are too close, the brow isn’t right either. Ill probably work on more individual features. Looking in the mirror or flipping the canvas is really beneficial.
Day 5: I think I can already feel some improvement, and it’s only day 5! Here’s a few figures, not very happy with them. Once again I think I’m being too sloppy and pressing way too hard too early. When I should just be quickly ghosting around with the shoulder to get a better sense for what I’m doing, I instead keep pressing harder and harder. Need to be lighter, more careful, not necessarily slower but more thoughtful. The lines with the pen get really bad. 😬 But please any thoughts on things I’m missing or things I need to work on, let me know! And sorry about this image quality… I’ll try to work on it.
Day 6: I guess I just wasn’t feeling it with this first page. ಠ_ಠ But thankfully i had some fun with the yoda page, certainly happier with the way it turned out. I need to learn to loosen up and just enjoy the process.
Day 7: one week! Got kinda frustrated… Started late, feels like I never got past the warmup… probably will try again some point tonight.
Hi Mattias,
This journal like and pretty reflective kind of writing is pretty useful isn’t it? 😅
I already had some things to suggest in mind like trying to draw in different scales not just small but you already had the same thought 👍
Even if I don’t know if that’s intended or the direction you are aiming for but I really like your stylized looking head sketches. They do look really loose and expressive and I really like this guide or rhythm lines you are using.
I can’t say what you should focus on but I would suggest picking something you don’t like about your work and then trying to figure out how to work on it.
For example if you think your shading isn’t good try to figure out why. So if you for example think it’s because your application of tone isn’t clean and even enough you could throw in a few days where you warm up with simple 2d shapes that you then try to fill with tone as even as possible.
I think you are doing a great job 👍👋
Thanks Christopher! I really appreciate it, hearing someone else’s thoughts is really helpful and motivational. And I thank you verily for the support! 🙏 The “style” or whatever it is isn’t really intentional I think? It just happens haha. Maybe it’s the result of my simplification attempts, but it’s probably due to my lack of knowledge, or some deeper issue. My aim is to solidify the real 3D forms and planes best I can, trying to get it right by correct understanding, but not necessarily perfect photo-realism per se.
I think my eyes In particular get real inaccurate, need to work on it. I just don’t want to excuse myself from fixing my mistakes because “its my style” lol. And I am trying to be more loose, but I need to make sure that doesn’t mean being careless.
Also, I appreciate the wise advice in trying to focus on one thing to work on. Maybe I’ll work on whats wrong with my eyes! Figuring out how the lid wraps around the far eye can be very difficult! Or really just wrapping the lids around the eyes in general!
Anyway much thanks, I’ll keep trying, and I agree posting and writing on here is really helpful self examination!
Day 8: things got real. I tried verily to draw bigger, and it has revealed how I use drawing small as a crutch, to hide mistakes. And The sad part is that they aren’t even that much bigger!! why! It probably isn’t good that I’ve drawn even smaller for a long time. Have to break the bad habit! Keep trying even though it’s uncomfortable! I figured I should post them all So here are the resulting attempts. Please send help. Lol, I think I can get inside my own head, which can be demoralizing and counter productive.
Thankfully though, I started watching some lessons from Charles hu on the skull and a bit of Steve Houston on the eye socket and that helped get my mind Somewhat better on track. This is a wake up call that I have to really devote the time to these courses, it feels like sometimes I have forgotten everything! It’s just hard to get started…
Day 9: started a new sketchbook! But I am once again struggling. The proportions on most of these are awful abominations, I have to relearn how to draw heads that aren’t tiny. I commonly find myself confused, lost, and disoriented trying to draw bigger. But I guess I just have to work through the extreme discomfort.
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