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Thank you Gordon. I know your intention was to share your experience and to potentially prevent me from falling into the same trap, so don’t worry.
Day 77
Since most of the time I feel like ruining my skulls as soon as I start rendering anyway, I thought today I would just make a mess and went out of control with using the graphite almost like charcoal in terms of going over the whole drawing and then using paper stumps and a kneaded eraser.
I can’t say I’m happy with the result but since there are still hundreds of bad drawings waiting ahead I thought why not.
What I still don’t understand is why I feel so lost if trying to render something. In terms of the skulls I first thought it was my lack of knowledge about the structure/planes but after I practised that and gathered some anatomical knowledge I still feel lost in the same way.
So know I wonder if it’s my lack of experience/mileage if talking about rendering, even if I know and understand basic lighting principles and terms like core, cast and occlusion shadow.
But as soon as I look at a reference or object I got no clue how and in which order to approach it besides separating the light from the shadow, filling in the shadow area with one value and then looking for what is form and what is a cast shadow (which I’m not good at). After that everything I do feels kind of random 😅
Christopher, the harder and more important part is the structure rather the rendering. That said, rendering is also difficult! You just need practice with it. You’re set up for better results that someone who is forced to simply copy but there is quite a bit of skill and finesse to be learned in how to make the forms read.
First of all thank you again!
If I got you right I’m not doing anything wrong with the way I was approaching it until now. The reason I’m clueless and need to rely on copying shadow shapes is because my structural skills/knowledge aren’t developed enough to answer my own questions + the rendering should be seen as it’s own technical skill that needs to be developed.
In other words continuing with my structural and anatomical studies of the head in addition to more rendering mileage (for example through simple geometric form still lifes) in combination with some patience should lead to some improvement.
Day 78
Today was a busy day so I just did some skull quick sketches. Haven’t paid that much attention to the time but the whole page should have taken between 20/30 minutes.
Day 79
I find it quite difficult to study certain aspects like proportions if different resources say different things. Because of that I did a paige of profile views with some of those measurements to see what feels right to me. I think I like 4 width to 5 height the most but the cranium looks not “long” enough in my opinion. Either the mandible shouldn’t start in the middle or the width/height relation should be more like 4,5 to 5 …
Oh and sorry for the photo quality. Worked at evening again 😅
You’ll be able to draw skulls in your sleep!! Glenn Vilpuu says a ratio of 4 (width) : 5 (height) in profile, although that includes the nose. Ratio from front he says 3:4. The mandible angle leading up to the ear needs to slope backwards I think – it isn’t a vertical. The shapes of cranium and mandible seem to vary a lot between individuals, so I’d say most of your ratios are in the realm of reality. All that said, you have a far more solid grasp on this than I do. Your notes are really helpful 🙂.
Hi Deborah,
The thing about drawing them while asleep is actually one reason why I still grind them because Glenn Vilppu also said you should be able to draw them from imagination at any angle and I’m far from being able to do that 😅
Day 80
Since I don’t have a tablet or graphic tablet I actually put some paper on the screen of my laptop and traced other some skulls in profile. After that I drew 2 equal squares, one with a 5 to 6 ratio and the other one 4 to 5, on a new paige and then applied what I know proportions wise to them.
I can’t say what I prefer but after doing that I kind of disagree with how many people start with a square or circle and then add to it downwards. I think the opposite makes much more sense since the chin is the bottom of the face and part of the eyebrow line, nose and chin thirds so starting with that and then add the remaining part of cranium (which can vary) on top makes much more sense to me.
Some process experiments/studies. I plan to do those for the front and 3/4 view too so that I have a clear lay in process I can follow while working from reference.
I already kind of did that but since I’m also not the biggest fan of using a circle for the cranium like in the loomis method (because it has the tendency to shorten the cranium) I never really settled on an alternative because none of them has the same consistency as the loomis method, which in my opinion is it’s biggest strength if working from imagination since every lay in looks the same.
Oh and if it’s of interest I want to give some insight into my thoughts for the case it might be difficult to see the purpose of what I’m doing.
If it’s about portraiture I currently focus on two things, first I want to learn the bony and muscular anatomy of the head and neck in addition to a planar and rhythmical system. Since those are in my opinion things that first and foremost need to be memorized, I repeat and will keep to repeat those until they are second nature which in my opinion takes a long time.
Secondly I aim to find or develop a process based on these informations I can follow either while working from reference or imagination. That’s why I grind so much because I want to be able to consistently execute a accurate or “true” enough lay in from different angles to work from. If I for example got the basic proportions down I just need to look how a reference deviates from those average measurements or decide how to exaggerate/bend them if working from imagination.
Hi Christopher. I love your approach to your work. How comfortable do you feel now, drawing the skull from imagination? Are you taking your proportions from any particular reference source? I would be interested to know which features vary between individuals and which stay constant. I my first challenge, I copied head profile outlines from several models (female) and laid them over the top of each other. I only did five heads though and didn’t take it any further. I would be interested to do more of this and potentially apply a grid to it to understand proportions and where to place things like you’re doing. Having this kind of structured approach helps to make a very organic form more understandable.
Hi Deborah,
The thing about proportions, from what I read in my anatomy books is that even if those might be solid “rules” to guide you, they are still a generalization meaning almost every individual will deviate in some way from them.
I think that’s the reason why it’s so hard to find any informations besides the usual basics like the thirds (eyebrow line, nose base and chin).
That can get kind of frustrating if you know there’s more to it but you can’t find it. So in my case it’s gathered from alot of different resources, meaning videos, books and so on.
The NMA videos are a good example since most of the teachers have their own little golden nuggets of information that they aren’t necessarily teaching, rather they mentioned it on the side.
That’s the kind of information I’m looking for since it seems to be really difficult to find them in more general resources.
The idea with the overlays (I used three different profile view skulls) was to apply the gathered proportion knowledge on them to see which works best for me since generally they are true to the real thing but they still deviate from each other as for example the 5 to 6 and 4 to 5 ratios. So it was kind of a check up to see with which of them I agree more.
About imagination: Besides the few bigger skulls I did, where I tried to be more true and careful to the reference, everything I did the last weeks is based on reference but I use them more as a visual note to go back to, to see how it should look aswell as how to orientate my drawing. So I think it’s somewhere in between but I assume if it’s about a more abstract construction like what I did today I would feel confident with that. To make them look more real I feel like I need to draw a lot more real or finished skulls to get a sense of the nuances, I think that’s what’s meant by visual library.
I should try to draw some from imagination soon, just to see were I am right now.
Day 81
On the first page I concentrated more on constructing. On the second page I tried an Idea of how I want to approach my lay ins. It’s not the most beautiful block in but it’s simple, shape driven and relays strongly on perspective. All things I lean towards to.
Day 82
Since I wrote down the names of the muscles while I did the lecture of Mark Westermoe’s course, I ran out of space to add the neck muscles and bones.
So I drew three new skulls on one page in order to finish the first chapter.
Day 83
Finally finished the first chapter of Mark Westermoe’s Reilly/Head drawing course.
I can’t say that I feel “ready” to tackle the abstraction since all this anatomical knowledge can’t be expected to be memorized after one go but I got exposed to it and additionally I found the way it was done with the tracing paper to be a good excercise. I’ll definitely use that again in the future.
If it’s about the Anatomy of the head and neck I’ll probably jump around alot between redoing this first chapter, the Russian academic course and Rey Bustos lectures. This three seem to be the most in depth courses about head and neck anatomy.
If you should look at the notes don’t wonder if you get confused. Mark Westermoe was just explaining the abstraction in the video but I traced it beforehand and paused the video to take notes of what he was explaining.
I didn’t even knew of Mark Westermoe before NMA and now I’m on one hand really sad after realizing he already passed away but on the other hand I’m really honoured and thankful for the opportunity to learn from him. So a big thank you to NMA!
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