Project - Measure Proportions
Project - Measure Proportions
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Project - Measure Proportions
courseDrawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)
$159
assignments 1740 submissions
Lynn Fang
I drew my reality down into comic. Then, go back to do my assignment...Wheeeee.
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.

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ASSIGNMENTS

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

@marciahasslocher
Proportions are so tricky!
Jerome Tan
I thought I was doing decently fine, but as it progressed I realised certain parts were getting a bit out of alignment.
Camille Varner Kolafa
Yes, looks like the eye on the right went lower. You did good on the left (our left) side of the face though! Try measuring your angles with the sighting method! It also help to compare parts to one another. Look at where something lines up in the photo vs. your drawing, and see how you should adjust the drawing accordingly. Like his shoulder for example. By comparing where that line meets his face in the photo, you may notice that it meets a lower portion of the beard than you drew, and is a steeper angle that aligns almost with where his hairline comes to a point at the top of the ear.
Guilherme Ferreira
Fun assignment. The first tip really helped me identify some of my mistakes. I identified A, B, and C: A - The nose ended too low; B - The right side of the head ended sooner than it should have; C - The left shoulder started higher than it should have.
Soroush
•
4d
Gigachad jaw. Definitely need to do more of this exercise even though it made my brain hurt.
Manavi Prabha
I began with the largest shapes and gradually moved towards the smaller ones. I used positive and negative shapes, plumb lines, and angle relationships to check the proportions. I would appreciate feedback on the accuracy of my lay-in and what I should observe or measure more carefully in my next portrait.
Camille Varner Kolafa
I did a little draw-over of your angles/locations. It looks like you mis-measured where the top of his head should be, and it kind of ended up with everything falling lower than it should be. In your drawing, it almost looks like he is leaning in forward a little bit and his tilted the opposite direction from the photo. I definitely suggest triple checking your measurements, particularly the angles. If you haven't tried sighting, that would be good to try because it involves taking a unit and relating it to something else on the subject; sighting, and especially with sighting angles, helps me a lot personally.
Ry
•
7d
Struggled a bit, at least I tried after fearing this project for so long. I couldn't find a good way to align mine with the reference image so it seems like everything is a little off.
Martha Muniz
Hey there! Don't sell yourself too short, I do think you got the main idea down. The places where it deviates tend to be areas where it's a bit more difficult to have a direct comparison side by side, like the hat, or diagonal lines like for the eyes and the shoulders, where it's easy to shift the angle accidentally from your reference angle as you're comparing. However, for something like the hat and the eyes (which are a bit off on size) I would recommend trying to use other parts of the image to use as a size reference. For the hat, the length of it to the highest tip is about the same if you go down to the tip of the nose, and again from the nose to the edge of his collar. It does help to have 2 reference points to compare, I find to be the case. When measuring angles for reference, it also does help to go back and forth at least one more time after you put down the mark, just in case something has accidentally shifted. But it looks like you learned a lot in this process, this is a good submission! Getting down that last 10% of accuracy is something that takes practice to train the eye, so you're on the right track :)
@kuscheldrache
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.
@kuscheldrache
Did another one for practice. I did not expect it to be this close before I did the control by overlaying it. Just the nose is too low again - which is a bit unexpected because the nose height was one of the first measurements i had within the face
@kuscheldrache
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.
Patrick Bosworth
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!
Cíntia Bloom
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.
Patrick Bosworth
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!
Jorge López
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.
Camille Varner Kolafa
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!
Sven
•
10d
Placed the eyes and the flappy cap thing a bit too high. Not too worried about it.
Patrick Bosworth
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!
Marco Uggè
This was really difficult, and I’m not super happy with the results, but hopefully with more practice I’ll get more accurate!
joseph henry
Would like to know more about how to draw the elements of the face! Hopefully this course will eventually get into that .
@d3lizabeth
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
@pedros
•
26d
Hard stuff! I think I overanalyzed some areas of the drawing, but it was fun overall!
Camille Varner Kolafa
Good job on this!
Sebastian Rivera
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
Camille Varner Kolafa
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.
Anastasiya
•
28d
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!
Tim Norris
•
28d
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.
Clue
•
28d
Definitely experiencing frustration haha I appreciate feedbacks!
Clue
•
28d
Beginning to see ma mistakes
Liel Attias
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 :)
Byron Chikukwa
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
Byron Chikukwa
Third attempt after the demo
Cíntia Bloom
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
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