Practicing Protraits

While working on a pretty big commission (don’t worry, I’ll tell you about it later), I have been taking breaks by quick drawing portraits. One of the most challenging things in character drawing is making your characters distinct from one another. When one is first starting to draw, there are certain patterns to follow. These patterns help an artist learn how to properly proportion the the face. This means where the eyes and ears go as well as all of the other parts of the face. The problem is its very easy to use these learning tools as a crutch. In this case, all of the faces that one draws ends up being “same-y”. This is something that I hope not to fall into and so I’ve been working on my faces alongside my journey to coloring.

My biggest thing is male faces right now. I want to be able to distinguish young vs old and so forth. So I have tried many portraits of many different inspirations to get a feel. The art that I have posted here are just rough sketches because the point is to exercise, not create finished products. I’m going to try to make it a better habit post more rough exercise sketches vs just finished sketches.

Also I am practicing at more emotion and expression as well. There is quite the range of emotion out there. Pretty much all of my art has had the “fashion model” look and I’m looking to do things a little more natural.

I’m working on distinguished face with more emotional impact. SO far it’s a slow process, but what isn’t when it comes to art. My goal ultimately is to post some good finished work here. But for now, I hope that this suffices. Hope to see you all again soon!