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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
In this project, we will practice measuring with a portrait drawing. Accurate proportions are essential for capturing a likeness. We'll break the process down into steps, starting with the biggest shapes and working our way down to the small details. I’ll also show you the various measurements and strategies I use when going through this process.
Join us in the premium course to get access to this lesson, full lesson notes, assignments, demonstrations and critiques!
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ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![@kuscheldrache]()
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![@kuscheldrache]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Cíntia Bloom]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Jorge López]()
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![Camille Varner Kolafa]()
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![Sven]()
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![Patrick Bosworth]()
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![Marco Uggè]()
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![joseph henry]()
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![@d3lizabeth]()
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![@pedros]()
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![Camille Varner Kolafa]()
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![Sebastian Rivera]()
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![Camille Varner Kolafa]()
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![Anastasiya]()
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![Tim Norris]()
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![Liel Attias]()
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![Byron Chikukwa]()
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![Cíntia Bloom]()
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![Krock]()
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![kathryn martinez]()
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![Dallyn Siegrist]()
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![@4grounds]()
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![kathryn martinez]()
Deadline: Submit your assignment by 07/25/2023 for a chance to be featured in the next critique video!
Use the reference photo and all the measuring methods you learned in the previous lesson to practice drawing a portrait with accurate proportion.
Keep in mind that your layin will get harder as you move from big shapes to smaller details. Don't draw too small, otherwise the shapes of the features will be too small and harder to draw accurate. Keep the photo next to or in front of your paper to avoid distortion.
Expect a careful layin to take about an hour. Don't rush. Worry about accuracy, not time.
Remember - big to small, use straight lines, measure units, double check, find plumb lines, judge angles. Try to have fun!
Level 2, you're doing the same thing for this one. This exercise doesn't change no matter what your experience level is.
The Musketeer photo reference is from the Musketeer Model Pack by Grafit Studio
Looks pretty close. The right (from the model's point of view) eye and the nose are a little too low, I probably exaggerated the tilt of the head too much when drawing this side of the face. Also the eyes are too big, I think that is an error that I have done when I drew portraits back in high school as well.
Thank you for your feedback, I will keep that in mind when I try my next! The size of the drawing is 30 x 45 cm. It just looks smaller in the overlay because my scanner cannot scan the full size and then I had to reduce the size to overlay it.
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2d
Nice work! The proportions of the big shapes are looking great! The smaller interior shapes always take a bit more measuring and adjusting to dial in. Drawing eyes larger than they really are is VERY common in learning portraiture. Just try keep it in mind and double and triple check the measures of those shapes while you're working on the lay in. It looks like you're drawing at a fairly decent size, but a good rule of thumb is to draw portraits roughly the size of your hand on the page. Its a little easier to be more accurate with your measurements the larger you draw. Keep up the good work!
Third attempt. It felt a little bit easier...but I still wasn't any faster. Th mouth shape was hard to define. Red, pink and blue overlays are the sequence of adjustments.
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3d
Nice, the lay-in and likeness looks good! Studying your adjustments like this is great practice. You'll start to intuitively look out for making those adjustments in your next lay-in attempts, keep up the good work!
I accept constructive criticism to improve my work.
It took me more than two hours to finish the drawing; we need to check the measurements to make sure.
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2d
You're so close! I did a little digital layover to check your proportions. It looks like you drew the face a little bit too wide, causing features to be over to far to the right. The eye on our left seems okay, but the other eye is off along with the nose, ear, and mouth/beard. The mouth and beard was most noticeable to me, so I drew pink lines showing the position and angle compared to the photo. So double check your horizontal measurements for the most part, but don't forget to check your angles too. Great job overall!
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3d
Nothin to worry about! Nice work, this is a clean, simplified lay in and it's really close in proportions. Adjustments are easy when you have a clean base established like this, keep up the good work!
This was really difficult, and I’m not super happy with the results, but hopefully with more practice I’ll get more accurate!
Would like to know more about how to draw the elements of the face! Hopefully this course will eventually get into that .
Aligned the eyes for the overlay. Seems like everything else got shifted right and upwards especially the ear! Overall pretty pleased, especially in comparison to my value study portraits from the start of this course... lol. The measurement advice has been super helpful.
Edit: For any other students using Krita, I followed the path of Filter > Adjust > Levels to darken my sketch, then Filter > Colors > Color to Alpha to remove the background, then Filter > Adjust > Slope, Offset, Power to change the color to something more visible than black. Probably there exists an easier way but I struggled a bit before finding that combo so figured it might help someone else
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18d
Good job on this!
My submission I found this really difficult as I’m no where near as good as I need to be to draw from observation and it was a bit frustrating once I got to the details of the eyes and nose
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20d
That's okay, don't forget that you'll improve each time you practice! You did a great job! I would suggest not worrying about details like the eyes just yet, just focus on identifying the shapes that make up the whole. Measuring the angles is super helpful and what I find helps me the most.
I tried both measuring and eyeballing methods - and with both it was quite a challenge and I did not catch all the relations perfectly. But I'm glad with the outcome. The eyeballing method was easier for me for some reason though (and also took less time).
What I see in a side to side comparison is that it seems like in both cases I tend to put eyes lower than they should be.
Any critique would be welcomed, thank you!
Cool shape design. I get boy wonder vibes from your Cillian. I would definitely recommend more attention to the neck and jaw relationships. Communicating his stronger jawline could depict his age more accurately. The musketeer’s neck is worth a second look.
I tried to check accuracy with photoshop, the body was completely off, the face turned out decent. I should definitely practice more. It was fun though :)
i was mostly eyeballing the first attempt and try to replicate the larger simpler shapes of the model and in the second attempt I was mainly concerned with capturing accurate distances and angles of the features
Hello, I'm back after a long winter. Here is my first attempt at proportion. It was hard indeed! In the picture, the red overlay is the first sketch, and the white overlay is the second. On paper, first is graphite, second is blue and the red are the final adjustments. I think the hardest for me was to place the eyes, even though I seemed to get them mostly right. The nose was quite off hehehe
Here's my first attempt on the Musketeer. I did have problems drawing the eyes and the nose. I also used one of the drawings from the critique video as a reference.
I'm think i still i need practice on proportions.
Here's attempt number 3 on this one. It was the placement of the eyes at that angle that did me in.
I did this twice and man am I glad to do this type of exercise. definitely forced me to be out side of my
comfort zone. Also I felt like I was being more positive to my self when I was self-critiquing. The self
critique that I originally did is when I make a portraits I just kept on thinking negative thoughts because
honestly I didn't know how to teach my self to get better, but now I know! I'm just getting better, and
faster ate drawing because of this new skill. Thank you guys so much!
Here is my assignment, the first one if my attempt at doing it on my own then second red one is using the phot adjustment method.
I sort of got going on the drawing and forgot what the assignment was. Here is an outline drawing with some small amount of detail. No rendering. Whoops, the guy is looking the wrong way...
