references:

Hi @Martin, nice drawings! The shading looks really cool😎 - You might want to try to use the shading to communicate the structure more clearly. At the moment the structure feels a little "dreamy" and unclear. Many important transitions in the structure have been washed away with soft edges. Think of how the eye is built and try to communicate that with your shading. Perhaps you would have to start the drawing by lightly figuring out the structure, which you then shade. Especially look for plane breaks, especially those that switch from one part to another (eyelid to eye socket for example). It might be a fun challange to shade something starting with only hard edges, so that you get a chiseld sculpture typ of look, then soften the transitions that you intentionally want to be soft. Think about what you want to communicate to the viewer. Think about what you want them to see. Can you make them understand all the structure of the eye? (drawing exercise) Or maybe you choose to leave out certain things and accentuate others to tell a story? I hope this helps :)

It looks pretty good from what I can tell structure-wise. I do think spending some more time with the shading can reinforce the structure you already set up, and provide more visual information to the viewer. More particularly, there tends to be a strong contrast between light and dark here, whereas some half-tones in the middle can help transition and add form. For example, the eye white area in light has such a small transition that it almost appears only one value, thus flattening the illusion. Continuing shading here, along with the areas hit by cast shadows around the outside of the eye (nose, brow ridge, eyelid), can help add to the illusion of 3D form.

Yes, eyelashes can be quite tricky, but thinking of them as clumps rather than individual fine lines is closer on the right track. They're also rather thicker at the base of the lid as they taper outwards, and you can further reinforce this by fading them out a touch as done in the demo at 4:42.

I put your picture over your reference in my Affinity Photo programm. The red lines are your drawing. I tried to match the lines as good as possible with the reference. Proko did a video on youtube how to do this with a drawing program. The Video is called "Learn Proportions FASTER with this Procreate Trick". Very helpful :) Hope this helps to get a good review for the proportions :) Keep up the good work!

oh my goodness.

I like your eye drawings, they have expressiveness and your most recent post is very beautiful :) I would say that what may make them seem more cartoony is the remaining outline around the individual components--i.e. eyelids, iris, lashes, etc.--which makes sense given the lessons have been about the structure and form from more of a drafting perspective than painting. But when it comes time to render, it may help to also have a mode of looking at the reference as simplified 2D shapes, especially light vs dark shapes. You can (lightly) lay in the structural foundation/outline, but then start laying in the dark shapes you observe and gradually build up the full value scale. The anatomical knowledge will serve as a foundation to make sense of what you're seeing on the reference, so together both sides work together to have a strong drawing. This should also help with making the lashes more manageable, by steering you away from the preconception we have of lashes towards the shapes that actually occur on the page. Hope this is useful :)

Very nice and a solid approach to learning the structure for the eye. A bit of a pointer I think can help is to give a second look at how you position the tear duct in your drawing. Based on the viewing angle, it could be going in a different direction or protruding from the rest of the form, like in the right (viewer's perspective) eyes in the right and bottom drawings. It's a small detail but I think it can help you think about the spherical structure of the eyeball as separate from the surrounding area, moving you towards more "3D" thinking instead of relying solely on the "2D" graphic shape.

Hi @Utkarsh Phutela, nice studies! I like the expression XD. I'll do my best to help you further: - You tend to put the eyes too close to eachother. The eyes are usually an eye's distance from eachoter. Check out this video How to Draw Eyes – Anatomy and Structure at 02:31. - I think you could refine the shape of the opening of the eyelid. Check out the video above from 03:42 for some more tips. - If you're setting out to learn the fundamentals I would highly recommend taking the Drawing Basics course. It seems like a lot of fun, and you'll learn a lot of stuff that is going to help you in your portrait drawing. I hope this helps :)

Hey Alex! I see you're getting down some of the form, but the shading may be getting in the way of transmitting it across. What program/device are you using? Maybe I could recommend something, but honestly just using a basic round brush would be the best bet, especially for studies. As for the eyes, I like the use of the grey background, as it helps avoid the pitfall of bright white eyes, though you could add a touch a lighter grey/almost white for the highlight. Remember the iris is also a 3D form shaped kind of like a cone, so light coming from the top right would fall into bottom left side while the top right is in shadow. It's often a small gradation, nothing dramatic, but it does make an appearance.

I have a question, do we have to do the method shown in the video or is there an alternative, like finding your method of drawing eyes? Most of the eyes I have drawn out of imagination along with the reference.

Awesome work! I admire the dedication. I wrote down some notes I hope are useful: - Be careful going pure white, most of the time the eye white will be a gray tone with only pure white reserved for the highlight. - For #12, most likely the iris needs to be larger and take up enough space to reach the bottom lid. Unless, if it's part of a widened eyes expression, the lids would expand vertically more towards the middle, with less of a horizontal stretch, while the iris would still be slightly larger than it is now. - Consider a variety of edges. This is more on the rendering side rather than the structure of the eye, but I think it would help with the clarity of your studies to incorporate a blend of smoother areas against the harsher textural ones. I also like that you have a clear drawing stage, but you can transition some of these lines into the painting (like lines dividing the eyeball with the bottom eyelid, or pure black lines defining wrinkles) as it can create unintended contrast. - Careful with going too thick on the top plane of the bottom lid. It's great that you're noting it down as it adds three-dimensionality and structure, and more often students will forget about it, but remember it as a small sliver of skin wrapping around the eyeball. Keep up the great work :)

Good work! Starting with a light framework like a Loomis head will help you place features on the face, judge proportions, and maintain perspective. Check out the Placement of the Eye – Real-Time Demo where Stan starts with a Loomis head framework to place the major shapes of the eye before moving into the finishing stages of shading.

It's beautiful. Next thing for you to work on would be edges. It could use a few more soft or even lost edges so that not every line and shape is screaming for attention.

Hey there Samuel! I like the top right one the best--good work! Something to note is to remember that the eye is ultimately a sphere, so approach shading an eye basically like you would a sphere. If you ever practice shading just a plain white ball, you'll see that the light areas are mostly not as white as the page, but have some shadow affecting them as the sphere rotates towards the shadow side. Similarly, the eye white is usually never pure white except at the highlight points, but for the majority there will be some form of shadow going on, plus the cast shadow from the eyelids and lashes. Hope this helps :)

These are all very good. The only advice I have is that you will get rid of your glare/reflection if you use charcoal instead of graphite.

Really nice and clean work!