Head Proportions Made Easy
Head Proportions Made Easy
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13:59

Head Drawing and Construction

Head Construction and Invention

Head Proportions Made Easy

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Head Proportions Made Easy

1.1K
Michael Hampton
Learn how to break down head proportions using key landmarks and simple measurements, enhancing the accuracy and character of your head drawings.
Newest
M. Kay
22d
When dividing the head in half between the brow ridge and the chin to place the nose. Do you measure from the top of the brow ridge or the bottom of the brow ridge? The marks on the photograph and the markings on the sketch for brow area don't look the same to me. Thanks.
Michael Hampton
I guess the middle. An average of the area.
@joshhrnnd
4mo
@veryartthing
I have to admit I'm starting to feel frustrated with this course. I feel like I'm being bombarded with a ton of information and a lot of it isn't super relevant to what I'm trying to study at the moment. I don't get why you go on so many tangents about gender differences when I'm just trying to digest averages in this video. I don't need to know all that right now, I need to focus on these basics first. It makes it really hard to figure out what I should actually be taking note of and zeroing in on.
doaflamingo
@veryartthing bro, dont get frustated. Michael is one of very few artists who are also excellent teachers! I truly understand your issue, i was there too, and the solution isnt pleasant to hear. You lack fundamentals, no matter how much you think you know, if you cannot grasp what a master like michael is saying, you do not have clear understanding of fundamentals needed to understand the course. One day you'll look back on this comment and laugh at it for making such a newbie mistake, believe me, most of the artists go through the same thing.
Marcela Pacheco
Dont get frustrated! This is a very complete course and it will be yours to keep. Right now dont try to follow and learn everything, set your own pace and advance on the lessons once you feel comfortable to do so. After a year or so review the course again and you’ll see you will grasp some more things, and if you keep on coming to the course each time you will be learning and improving your skills. I have made lots of courses all over the different platforms and Michael style of teaching is awesome! Is the esasiest and with good results if you practice. But learning to draw portraits is one of the most difficult things! So don’t be discouraged, you will see that with time all of this stuff will be like second natura to you.
@michaelkopa007
I like your landmark summary
@michaelkopa007
@ejsilapas
4mo
Follow along attempt, looking forward to approaching this much more systematically in subsequent lessons!
@lieseldraws
Hi everyone, I attempted one of the photos from the critique, trying to get it closer to the reference. It was a struggle to make the ellipse equatorial without warping it. Also used my best guesses to place the jaw and underplane ...But I'm still lost as ever about where exactly the jaw is in relation to the cranial mass. I'm always asking, how close should the jaw be to that circle? A little further down? Or actually inside the circle? Hope intuition for placement improves with practice 😭 The end result didn't quite match the original so I moved up the chine like in the third photo. Any advice or critique would be appreciated. Thanks :)
@meeho
4mo
Hi! The jaw should be about 1/3 of the head. If you draw a cranial mass and divide it in two to find the brow level, adding one more part will help you locate the jawline. I recommend rewatching the first video of this course, where Michael explains really good how to find the jawline. Later in that video, when he discusses perspective, he draws a head that has a tilt angle very close to the photo you used as a reference. Maybe that would help. Also it seems there might be a misunderstanding about the purpose of the gesture of the cranial mass, the "circle." I had similar difficulties in the past. During the construction stage, the cranial mass isn't actually the head, as the head is not a sphere. The cranial mass is a form that suggests where the head should be. At this stage, it’s best not to attach ears, eyes, and nose to it, as this can prevent you from seeing it as a form (or blueprint) that you will later use to sculpt the features by adding and subtracting new forms.
@meeho
4mo
Can't wait for the next lesson 😭
@hgriff
4mo
This was really helpful! I love that part about the cheekbone. The Loomis line never made sense to me either. Still struggling with the head gesture though, but that's just going to take more practice.
Tatiana Kopteva
I hope I got it right. I can't wait for the next lesson, thank you again!
Ash
4mo
Nice! I like the sunglasses hehe
Michael Hampton
Nice job!
Tatiana Kopteva
Thank you for your explanations! And thanks to everyone who took the time to find unique photos, it helps not just you but everyone during the critique, you are my heroes
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About instructor
Educator, painter, writer, and art historian. Author of Figure Drawing: Design and Invention.
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