Looks amazing. I'm a newbie and stuff like this is very inspiring.

Hi Marco! Nice work so far :) I think something you can focus on next time in your practice sessions would be volume, especially of the cheek/jaw area for Elsa. When it comes to expressions, emphasizing the volume as it moves around can really add liveliness and believability to the character. Something to keep in mind is the squash and stretch, so whether the jaw is clenching, the mouth is open, the eyebrows are frowning inwards or excited upwards, etc. will all affect the distribution of the form.

You're welcome, @Marco Sordi, I'm glad I could help! Keep up the good work!!

Really najs! I'm not a painting expert, but you might want to clarify the structure, with planes. Think of it like you're building a sculpture. Simple but well designed planes. Like a low poly 3d model. This might help you be more decisive about how you design your forms. Then you may soften these planes, if you'd like to develop the painting further. I attached a little paintover. I focused on clarifying the structure of the head. I was unsure at what angle we viewed it at. I assumed, slightly from above, and tried to add some to the front plane to clarify this. I also adjusted the values to more clearly communicate the light direction, thinking of the head's simple geometry. When you paint, it might help to think that you're drawing, only this time with a different medium. So you try to describe the forms (constructing and such), but with paint, that is put down as shapes of value and color, as your tool. Try to communicate the subject to the viewer. For a face, the eyes are important, but I don't really feel the spherical form of the eye-ball in your painting. This is something you might want to clarify. At the end of the gif is an example of what a start of the painting might have looked like in the early stages. I also attached some of the oil painting I've done, so you know where I'm at and what of my advice to take with a bigger grain of salt. ( The paintings are about the size of a hand and were done in about 2 hours each, from photos ) I hope this helps :)

Pretty cool, @Marco Sordi! This is a challenging and effective exercise on character design. Overall, I think you did really well in maintaining the character’s traits consistent across the different drawings. When looking at your work, I had some ideas and noticed a few possible adjustments, so I painted over your drawings with suggestions for you to consider what might work for you. Here’s what’s mainly on my mind regarding the paint-overs: Expression 1 - This is an expression of surprise, so you might open her eyes some more (hide the upper lid, make the bottom edge more rounded, show more of the eyeballs around the irises) and give her mouth a bit more of an “O” shape. In the photo reference, the model has a somewhat incredulous mood to her surprised expression, so, I’d say the crooked eyebrows work well for that! In case you want the character to have a more “naive” surprise look, you might push the character’s brows upward and make them a simpler arc. Expression 2 - I love this one! For a very gentle tweak to make her look a bit more keen, I’d just squeeze her mouth towards one side. I also like the idea of making her have a subtly disguised smile, so I’d also push the corners of the mouth slightly upward - but if what you’re going for is a more annoyed look, which is what the photo reference shows, then you could keep the corners of the mouth as they are. Expression 3 - This one is a clearly terrorized face, so you may not want to be subtle in making her mouth open very wide in all directions. Perhaps even show less of the tongue (as if she’s contracting her tongue because she’s screaming) and let the bottom teeth appear. To emphasize the fearful look, the eyes should open as much as possible, completely hiding the lids - and, personally, I even like the idea of making her irises smaller so that there seems to be even more negative space at the eyeball areas. You might also wanna emphasize some tension on the brows. Expression 4 - Your drawing shows a happy smile that works perfectly fine, although I notice a few subtleties in the photo reference which I think could be nice to capture. In the paint-over, I chose to show both set of teeth, tilt her eyes a tiny bit outward (so that it looks a bit more like they’re smiling from the cheeks) and tilt the eyebrows upward a little - overall, I think this gives a slightly more sheepish touch to the smile, which is what I'm getting from the reference. Of course, all these changes depend on if you want this kind of quality to the character's expression. Please notice that these are merely suggestions! Let me know in case you have any thoughts or questions. Hope this helps!

Yeah, that looks much better now. Nice work!

This looks very nice to me! I have a couple thoughts. On the profile view I am not sure that her muzzle fits the three fourths view. When I look at the three fourths view I don’t picture that protruding forward as much as you have in the profile view. I don’t know that I am right, that is just my impression. Another thing that I notice on her profile view is that her eye seems like it is in a, non-relaxed, wide open expressing of surprise. It’s a very intense look. In the other views her eyes look casual. I see why it’s like this, because of how you shaped the eyes, so I don’t know if you have to redesign the eyes so that on the far sides they don’t look wide open, or if you just fudge the profile view so that you are not seeing the full iris. I like how they look in the other two views. I hope that helps.

Love the shape design on the fourth one, especially the ears.

Hey nice! Another thing you could use for caricature is looking at the distribution of 'thirds' for the face. Going back to the loomis model, the face plane is divided into perfect thirds for the average proportion guide, but typically people's individual proportions will deviate from that guide. Taking a look at how it changes can be another assessment when drawing someone's caricature in order to exaggerate that relationship and design the shape of the face.

Hey, cool exercise! I definitely see the resemblance with a slight exaggeration on these. Just a quick tip for caricature, it can help to think of exaggeration as moving around a lump of clay, so when you push the clay towards one area, then there will be a displacement left behind. Like in the glasses guy example, I see you noticed his eyes are close together, but if you push them slightly inwards, then his temple area can also be pushed inwards to keep that same relationship and proportion. This will help keep the likeness and also give you some more areas to exaggerate as you continue to up the levels for this exercise.

Very nice! A quick note would be to watch out for the accidental tangent created between her jaw and neck. It could also be a fun opportunity to push the stylization--maybe a long, thin neck to go with the angular design and long face shape. Also, maybe some more angles in her hair, such as exaggerating the peaks at the top of her head. There's an interesting dynamic with curves vs angles here that you could further explore, or use for future characters.

Looks great! Apologies for the wall of text, I'd format if it weren't so late. Your drawing has a great feeling and style to it overall. I have many thoughts which you can take or leave, I like trying to critique people to improve my eye/teaching skills, so feel free to ignore me :) I'd say the mohawk looks a bit too far left from the centerline. The ear anatomy looks a bit odd, especially how the hollow area is right up against the jaw. I also fee like the upper portion of the sternocleidomastoid could be indicated a slight overlap just below the ear, leading us toward the lower portion of it and giving the neck a bit more dimension on the right side.The shapes of the eyes are too similar, which would be perfect in a front view, but don't take into account the roundness of the head, which causes the far eye to be a bit more turned away from us. I'd also look into mouth anatomy a bit. The teeth feel like they are tilting with the mouth, instead of the lips moving around the teeth. If you try to move your teeth into the same position as your character's I think you'll see what I mean- it feels like I'd have to break my jaw to make that happen, considering how the line between the upper and lower teeth is at such an angle. The lower lip and chin indication both look like they are "floating" which suggest either a lack of anatomical knowledge or not knowing how to how to simplify that knowledge into lines. learning about the origins and insertions of the orbicularis oris will help you place the line on the outside of the mouth, for instance, instead of just having a floating c-curve. Hope that isn't too much all at once!!!

Cool! Anything in particular that you feel like you have to work on, when it comes to shading?

Cool work! Just an opinion, I think you could incorporate more balance into it, by either adding more volume to the back of her head to feel more anatomically accurate or, more stylistically, push the shape and go towards a more exaggerated face and/or hair design (particularly making the upper half more angular/uplifted). Still, very cool design :)