Keep up the hard work! I took a closer look at the straight on view and I agree that you have a handle on the construction of the head, which is why your proportions match so well to the rule of thirds that Stan discusses in the first video in this series, so great job! This method of construction is an average of facial features, so it makes sense that there is not as much likeness to the reference image. Likeness is difficult to attain but with practice and the tools that you will pick up throughout the course like you mentioned, you'll get it. You can see that this models forehead is a bit smaller than average. In the bottom image, I rearranged your portrait a bit to fit her proportions better so you can see how that alone can get us a little closer to getting that likeness. No reasonable expectation to capture a likeness in the beginning :) Good luck with the course.

Very nice! His left (our right) ear looks a bit small, it looks like the reference lines you used curve at more of an angle on that side. Other than that, everything else looks solid! Good work 👍

Same. I finished earlier this year, but keep coming back to specific lessons.

Here’s a couple pages from Michael Hampton’s Figure Drawing book that you might find helpful for the neck. Your drawings are great! Looking up drawings will always be more difficult than other angles. thanks for sharing!

These are great studies @sharpjab. Keep in mind that depending on the angle of the tilt of the head, we may see more or less of the plane underneath the chin. When slightly tilted up, we will see a distinct plane. When tilted very far back, the skin will be stretch from the bottom of the jaw, following the muscles of the neck and will appear as one plane. In your drawing, we see a clear separation of the planes, so your shadow shapes should indicate that. You can use the muscles of the neck to determine the shape of any cast shadows. Hope this helps!

Really great studies! You captured a diverse range of faces and features! Overall, you found excellent areas to hone in on when constructing different face types. Subtle changes to the angle of the jaw and shape of the chin will yield dramatic differences in likeness. In Loomis's Drawing the Head and Hands he does cover a way to construct an average female head, but the rhythms and method of construction are nearly identical to male heads. His focus when drawing female heads is mainly on how to handle the subtle differences in the proportions of the underlying structure of the male and female skull, and how to use those differences to guide your portrait construction. Take a look at the 3D male and female skull models in the "Features" section and do a few studies from the front, side, and 3/4 views. Keep an eye out for proportional differences particularly in the jaw, chin, cheekbones, brow ridge, nose etc. In general, Loomis suggests softening the angular/broad features of the male head when approaching female portraits. So if you learn the blockier more angular male head construction as a base, you can use that as a framework to whittle it down and soften it until you reach your desired likeness for a female character. A more slender, rounded jaw line, pointier chin, smaller nose, with a slightly more slender, graceful neck width will quickly visually separate the female characters from the blockier male head/neck. Keep up the great work, the more studies you do the more you'll start to piece together how you like to show differences in your portrait construction methods. Hope this helps!

You asked for help on this one but this looks like you're grasping the core concepts well so far! If you do that series of them, it'll help to bring out any areas where you may need more practice. Personally, I really like the look of the 360° exploded diagrams like this one. It's a cool image to look at AND handy practice. Ask for help on it again so I can see it later when you do!

Yeah I’m struggling, too. I’ve been breaking the Loomis head into steps: 1) draw a circle 2) draw a sphere in perspective 3) just the cranium I’ve been using sketchfab to generate the references. For the “circle in perspective” i used a basketball, which has a set of perpendicular lines on it to practice from. For the cranium, there are Loomis head references for just the cranium to practice from. I’m getting better, little by little, and I’m starting to see things in more 3d than I did a few days ago, which makes me hopeful.

You are correct!