SamuraiSingh - Art School Journey

[SamuraiSingh]

16.1.26

[Nosnibor]

Your portraits are definitely improving, great work!

Just trying to work on my dexterity by tracing a loomis head.

This is hard to tell from just looking at your drawing so I am mostly guessing/assuming here but it looks like when you are tracing you are drawing your lines quite tentatively and slowly which is resulting in "wiggly" lines. It could be good for you to try this exercise again but this time, before you draw each line. Think about it in your head, "ghost" the action a few times over the page and then try to draw the line confidently on the page from your shoulder and elbow - quick but not too quick where it is makes it hard to dictate where the line ends. Now I am just a beginner too so take everything I say with a grain of salt but this approach has helped me a lot in improving both my line confidence and linework.

Let me know if I have completely missed the mark here. Great to see you still consistently posting : )

[SamuraiSingh]

19.1.26

[SamuraiSingh]

That is good advice. I just need to remember to get my flow of the lines right.
I looked at the drawabox exercises for line control, I know that alot of problem is to get the right speed of the line. Too slow is shaky and too fast is inaccurate.

[SamuraiSingh]

20.1.26

[SamuraiSingh]

21.1.26

[Nosnibor]

Im always impressed by how consistently you upload here, your linework is definitely improving keep it up!

I have never really posted something like this before as I have been nervous as I am a beginner myself, so please let me know if you dont want something like this on your page and I will remove it.

I think if you spent a little but more time on your construction, before putting down linework, it would help your studies improve . I have had some decent success following the method Marc teaches in Term 2 - Anatomy 1.

It seems like you mainly just draw the construction for the circle with a centre line and stop there. Whereas I think if you take it further, adding construction for the jaw, eyes, nose and mouth, it would help greatly with accuracy, proportions and linework.

I understand that doing this is quite tedious as I just want to draw heads without any construction but I think if we do this lots over time we will internalise it which would make it easier down the line to draw with less and less construction.

I posted an example below of the type of construction I am talking about.

Let me know what you think, if you agree or disagree, I am looking forward to seeing more of your work and progress!

[SamuraiSingh]

I never realised that did that. This is really helpful. Looking back at my old work I can see that my faces tend to drift away from the construction

[SamuraiSingh]

22.1.26
I know I made alot of mistakes on this but actually doing the construction properly really helps. The form and proportions feel like they make more sense to me

[SamuraiSingh]

23.1.26

[snakker]

Sup, nice to see you still at it. I notice you are trying to work a lot on the portrait work, while I think construction helps a lot both to draw from imagination, to better understand the framework and what we are looking at, you could also add some direct - 2D, simple lines to help with proportions, before or after construction. You could also do more iterations of the same portrait after analyzing what can improve.

When thinking just 2D, note for example, the angle of the nose vs brow line, and vs upper lip. the lines you need to define if you aim for accuracy, well, need to be accurate and inform your hand afterwards. you have some lines in this last sketch, like the one above the brow, or the midline, that dont seem to inform your drawing of the brows or the nose

Just my mumblings, cheers!

[SamuraiSingh]

Thanks, I see what you mean. Thinking in 2d focusing on measurements
Like blocking in or using plumb lines

In terms of iterating on the same piece to focus on improvements I haven't posted it but I have been redrawing the same reference daily trying to analyse and try different approaches to see what helps.
I have ran into so many issues. When I was simply drawing then checking my mistakes and fixing them, the next day I would have the same mistakes.

Sticking to the same reference and iterating has been a great diagnostic tool to find mistakes
but I have not yet found a way to actually fix my reoccurring mistakes

[SamuraiSingh]

26.1.26

[SamuraiSingh]

27.1.26

[SamuraiSingh]

28.1.26
Explaining my current plan to improve
Recently I tried redrawing the exact same reference daily, sometimes multiples times. My goal was to focus on deliberate practice, isolating and fixing mistakes. The issue was no matter how many times I would fix a mistake I kept repeating it when I redrew.

So now I am trying to stick to one model instead of one reference, see if that yields any results.

If it does not there are 2 things I can focus on, changing the way I draw from observation completely forgetting construction and using measuring or something. The other thing I can do is do alot of blind contour drawing to train my eye better.

My goal currently is to be able to draw the reference accurately. Feel like I have been stuck with not being able to draw what see this whole time

[SamuraiSingh]

29.1.26
unexpected progress! I followed along a video on how to draw the face then applied that to these portraits. Think I will do Marc's 30 day learn to draw the head challenge. I thought those videos were clickbait surprised to see they actually help

Now I just need a more general practice to improve overall

[SamuraiSingh]

30.1.26
traced then freehand loomis heads

[Nosnibor]

These are very good, what video did you watch as it made you improve very quick! I found combining my portrait studies with some of Marc Brunets primitive drawing exercises super helpful as it helped me understand 3D form a lot more. I though I would mention it.

Always great seeing you keeping up with the fun grind : )

[snakker]

Nice, seeing those gains mate

Cheers!

[SamuraiSingh]

Sorry for the late response I have had a flu for the past few days.
@Nosnibor I think it was a combination of two things that helped me. First was you pointing out how I only partially drew the loomis head, that really helped me get a more complete looking head. Second was this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqysfuKMQbM
It shows how to construct different facial features.
Seeing the improvement from both of these has made me focus more on construction.
Its clear to me that it makes a big difference.