Studies of the Face

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

For the last few days I've been studying the structures of the face, rather than doing quick paints. I believe today I'll start doing both anatomical studies and a quick paint. Every day.

In fact, I'm trying to set up a plan/schedule for my studies. I'm starting with the face and head, and will then continue to the various limbs and section of the body. The goal is to study the entire human body in detail, to where I know what muscles/ligaments/bones are where, and how they move.

A few days ago, I studied noses. I looked up a few references for the planes of the nose, and tried using them a couple of times. They didn't turn out very well, and I imagine you can probably pick them out from the rest (hint: they're towards the center of the page.) I decided it would be better to deconstruct some noses from the many pictures of people I have at my disposal. Not surprisingly, my understanding solidified quite a bit by using this technique. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm getting there.

Three days ago, I studied eyes.

I got carried away with one and ended up doing a whole face (and yes, that guy's brow really does stick out that much. Cool, huh?)


Two days ago, I studied the mouth. I found the mouth to be a bit frustrating, because I was having a hard time picking out the basic structure of the lips. I ended up looking around for some clues into the situation, and found some great help in a Loomis book, in which he describes the lips as five small masses (three on top, two on bottom). I'll see if I can't post an example later.


And yesterday, I studied the head as a whole. This ended up being a real struggle for me, as I had a hard time finding a system that allowed me to draw the head from any angle and gave me consistent results. I ended up using a mixture of Loomis, How to Draw the Marvel Way and an online tutorial by Ron Lemen. I'm showing all the pages, so hopefully there's a noticeable progression. The sketchbook is about learning, not making pretty pictures.


Today, I think I'll study the ears.

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