The start

First, I need to clarified that this is not my own drawing tutorial, I just collect them from the web , here and there.. I apologize if what I said came across in any way confusing, and that is why I am writing this reprise, to clear
the air of any confusing thoughts, etc. And to redeem the drawings if you found them less than satisfactoryheh
When we start an idea, and since I am drawing portraits here for the ideation of character design or panels in comics or storyboards, I cant emphasize enough how you cannot start with foundation to help you find something
new. !ew cannot grow from what we already do. If you ha"e learned an art system, all that can be done with it has already been. These systems are foolproof ways of gaining insight into the world of creation, which is not a
system. #ow do we start on our path to disco"ering the secrets of !ano or $olecular %iomechanics har"ested& We start with basic math and science. From these basic concepts we then build and grow ideas from them, and if
we are careless enough to 'now there are rules created to be bro'en, we might just find that something new. %ut it all starts with foundation for control, and foundation for change when error occurs, but dont lead your head
with it or you will fall into a time and again trap.
Foundation first, if you dont 'now it, you ha"e to learn it or the real job world will more often than not reject you. That is a bad way to try entering into the wor'force as an artist. (nless art is in your blood and the art
director sees raw talent that can be moti"ated, then you need, absolutely need to ha"e foundation as your guide.
)reaching aside, lets get into the s'etch routine of drawing and lighting consistently, characters from scratch. There was no time for the additional information of e*pression, but that is also going to be included in the +,+s.
The -'etch.fleshing out ideas begins with loose abstract concepts of shape, be they drawn in line, shape or form, the idea here is to search for something uni/ue, something you wouldnt routinely draw. -cribbles help begin
this process, use the other hand, throw a bunch of jun' together and loo' for interesting, de"eloping shapes, or find your own way. There has to be a way to brea' the mold of what you do all too often. If ideas are too radical,
they can always be culled bac' to something manageable. %ut get radical000
All of the scribbles should be gi"en some attempt of completion. +ont a"oid one because it is hard to see something in it. That is when new styles form if you stretch yourself into ma'ing these things wor'. Then, Find the
most appealing of the bunch, or the one that shows the most potential for de"elopment, and mo"e into the 1 "iew...
Fleshing out the form.This ne*t step is where foundation is a must. If no foundation or understanding is there for the artist to fall bac' onto, then the concept can and more than li'ely will loose its strength as a design, or fall
apart as the artist struggles to draw around the form poorly placing further features and such of our subject.
-tructure is "ery important in this stage. Anatomy is important, but not as much as the understanding of planes, and basic geometric 'nowledge of the shapes the surface anatomy generates 2which is still no e*cuse in the long
run for not learning the anatomy too since the planes are a reflection of the anatomy03 We need to understand that a head is structurally planed, as opposed to a ball form or completely soft with no inner surface di"isions
clearly defined 2that is unless you are in a stylized animation3. The ball acts as a place holder for the specific geometry to come. A top, a bac', two sides, a front and bac' are the first generalized planes to "isit, the ones
"isible to the eye from this set of planes.
In the front, the nose cone, tooth cylinder, eye balls and wedges for the eye soc'ets, and forehead and chin bloc's are the added to the mass. This inner structure is ideally what defines the "olumetric character features, as
opposed to the e*terior line called the contour, that helps us read the immediate big shape of something regardless of whether it is totally lit or not. These two principals help us recognize someone at a glance.
4et me turn away from this process for a moment, what I just last defined are two attributes to 'eep in mind when we are loo'ing for a li'eness, or someone we recognize, the contour and the plane structure, or o"erall form.
The form is lit with a high contrast light, creating a mo"ement of dar' shadows o"er the form defining it dimensionally, in art this is termed tenebrism. 5egardless of the direction of light, the plane structures should still ha"e
some sense of recognizable identity of that someone specific.
6oing bac' to the structure, once a concept of planes has been generated, they can be sanded down, that is softened to accommodate a softer general form structure, but begin rigid with the planes until this concept is intuiti"e.
I will typically light my concept ideas to retain 7889 of the "ision I had since I see it in my mind clearly, in color, mo"ing or spinning as I need it to. -ometimes the idea is hard to conceptualize thoroughly, so I ha"e to
scribble a bit more to find it, but e"entually I should be able to focus the minds eye.lens to seeing the "ision or idea, an important trait to e*ercise, li'e a muscle, with e*ercises to help de"elop it.
The 1 "iew.We ta'e the s'etch and mo"e it into the finished 1 "iew. Transfer the idea to a new cleaner sheet of paper off to one side so that the other : "iews can be drawn ne*t to the first s'etch. ;nce the original has been
transferred o"er, horizontal a*is lines are drawn across the page cutting directly atop on underneath each major feature as you need them to transfer the information to the other : "iews.
When designing your 1 "iew with lighting, ma'e sure not to 'ill your shadow side into total blac' unless it is in the "ain of a stylized comic, that is, describe as much as you can in the design process. +ont lea"e the details
out of the design drawings, they are your guides for all your other drawings related to this or these particular characters.
This means that you will need to understand reflected light to de"elop a core shadow of sorts for further form understanding, as the core shadows are also planes, transitory planes that help you get from one major side to the
ne*t.
-ome concepts to help 'eep proportions realistic.
)rofiles.profiles generally fit into a s/uare from the tip of nose, to top of the s'ull, to the bac' of the s'ull, to the bottom of the chin. These < points help us create the abstract notion of a s/uared proportion.
The ear fits in the lower left /uadrant if the profile is drawn facing the left, lower right if drawn facing the right.
The top of the eyes and the top of the ears, the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the ears generally line up horizontally. =aricaturing the head bends this rule.
+i"iding the s'ull into 7>1rds at the hair line, top of the eye brow, bottom of the nose where it attaches, and the bottom of the chin.
$ore fine tuning of proportions, from the top of the s'ull to the tip of the nose or base of the nose is the same or similar in distance to the bottom of the nose and the pit of the nec', or the sternum, and the same distance from
the sternum to the zyphoid process. %ut this is for our figure discussion
The eye soc'et is attached to the chec' projection line, creating the second profile contour of the face.
? "iew.most important is that the tip of the nose will normally touch the far chee' contour line. This will immediately resol"e the issue of centering the nose, to balance the eye soc'ets and the corners of the mouth to the
nose.
The mouth, or the tooth cylinder is projected forward, causing the center of the mouth to sit where we would not thin' if we just followed our standard center line. The brow, nose, tooth cylinder and chin all protrude forward
into their own centerline that is anchored to the original centerline possibly if it was placed accurately from the start of the drawing.
The brow generally e*tends outward from the s'ull, but in rhythm stays flush with the brow. =aricaturing will e*aggerate this concept also.
7>1rds 5ule applies again for facial feature di"isions with relati"ely no perspecti"al differences between major surfaces, i.e. side to front, side to bac'. Adding to what has already been said about the thirds concept, these lines
are fle*ible, no one person really has ideal thirds one will generally be larger, compressing the other two into e/ual or une/ual smaller units of measure. %ut, to 'eep features aligned, we need those di"isions. The ears will
still remain in alignment with the nose also regardless of what we do with those thirds.
=onnect the nose to the inside eye soc'et between the outside edge of the inside wing of the nostril to the inner corner of the inside eyethis helps establish the nose cone proper and separate it from the chee' form.
Find the ? point side of the s'ull down the temple through the eye soc'et down the chee', around the outside edge of the zygomatic arch down around the outside edge of the tooth cylinder, possibly passing through the
corner of the mouth depending upon the character type, and down into the outer contour of the ball of the chin
#air line runs parallel with the outside corner of the eye soc'et when drawing it around down the side of the face to the top of the ear.
Front ,iew.-tart from the middle out. $a'e a center line, here is where the centerlines recesses are not "isible other than through tonal shading. -tarting from the center out means figure out the distance between the eyes
first, this helps begin the li'eness chain.
6enerally there is one eye distance between the two eyes, and from outer ears edge to related outer ears edge is @ eyes distance.
The corners of the nose or outside edges of the wings of the nostrils line up "ertically with the tear ducts of the eyes.
The corners of the mouth line up with the centers of the eyes, or more specifically, the centers of the irises.
There is space between the outside corners of the eyes and the hairline or inner line of the ear. 4augh line in older people, properly termed the nasolabial furrow attaches to the middle top of the bac' edge of the wing of the
nostril, cur"es around the orbital of the mouth and away from the mouth a small distance, roughly the distance of the tubercle of the middle of the lip from corner to corner.
=enter of the lips, split line is generally half way between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of chin.
All of the abo"e gi"en are general tools for ideal faces and should be considered a fall bac' within your special proportions where necessary. +;!T rely upon them as absolutes or you will fall into the rule trap, all your
characters will suffer from the similarity syndrome. ;riginality suffers from rules stepping in first.
A ABC to remember about any face, ideal or fantastically designed, the contours all mirror one another to some e*tent, or the same shape pattern or form designs will find themsel"es in almost e"ery form of the face. )rofile
really shows this trait off as the inner and outer profile contours of the front of the face, the nose shape, the eye soc'et shape all feel "ery similar.
When fleshing in "alues, ma'e sure to start with general flat tones, filling the entire object with the objects local color to understand its general relationship with the "alues surrounding it, i.e. hair "alue to flesh, flesh to shirt,
shirt to hair, hair to bac'ground or surroundings, bac'ground to s'in tone, etc.
Then bloc' in the appropriate "alue of shadows of all these object "alues, that is, if a light object has a dar' contrast of about 1.@ "alues difference, it will be lighter in the shadows as opposed to the shadows of the middle and
dar' "alue objects that will still ha"e a 1.@ "alue difference between the lights and dar's, but appropriate to their local "alues, see chart for clarity of concept. The object is not the same "alue e"erywhere in the shadows, the
shadow "alues are local surface "alue relati"e 2see diagrams below3 +iagram 7 shows the result of using one "alue for all different types of local "alues. The object appears to ha"e more bounce light throughout as opposed to
loo'ing directly lit with strong shadows as e*ample : shows.
%uilding The Frames.
;', now that we 'now who we ha"e, we need to build frames to pro"e our li'eness issues.
4ets first go through a series of typical lighting conditions.
Top, %ottom, Front, %ac', -ide, ? "iew lighting
D #B5B-
This chart will help us understand in concept how to get around the "isual cues in our head as to what to see in lighting. -ee the similarities in li'eness regardless of the comple*ity of shadow pattern&
4ets pic' @ frames since I ha"e more time to do this, and e*emplify dual lighting, side lighting from an e*treme, bac' lighting from abo"e, low angle front top left lighting shot from the right and dramatic mood lighting,
grabbing from our 1 "iew and from our lighting chart.
LITTLE SECRET: IF YOU TOOK A PEEK TO MY PP ON FB, I NEVER USE MY ORIGINAL PICTURE, TRY TO MAKE IT LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT FROM OTHERS.
I ADD A BIT OF LIGHT EFFECT TO MY ORIGINAL IMAGE I GOT FROM MY CAMERA, BLUR THE BACK GROUND AND SORT OF IT.
We will s'etch the frames in %lac' and White to get the forms reading clearly. If you are new to drawing, I would recommend maybe starting with line as opposed to be bloc's of "alue to learn proportions of things you draw.
4osing information before you find it can de"elop bad wor' habits later on. %ut e"entually you will let go of this line drawing concept in search of other ways to bloc' in an image.
;nce the drawing is found, the artist should be able to proceed right into bloc'ing in the tones to establish whate"er lighting he is loo'ing for.
4et us put an organized wor'ing order to what we do here so we ha"e a clear understanding of what to do if you ha"e no wor'ing habits yet.
7. %loc' in.since we are unclear of se"eral points in our picture, lets rough in the general bloc' in of the image, to clearly understand where, how, who etc. stay loose, we are scribbling again for a bit.
:. !e*t we tighten up the image, placing any rules you need into the image to help at this stage, i.e. center line, 7>1rds, etc. bloc' out using the understanding of perspecti"e, the a*is of the forehead and chin in relationship to
their adjacent planes, locating the pitch and tilt of the head.
1. Fill in "alues of the object according to how we found them in our 1 "iew.
<. =olor o"er the "alues with appropriate color>"alues to add colors to image, adhering to the color theory rules we will be going o"er shortly.
@. $ould the "alues of the forms with their colors or without, until they ha"e the correct, or accurate perspecti"al read in the image to properly e*ude the correct lens tilt, as well as chipping out the appropriate plane structure
in light and dar', perspecti"ally strengthening the image through the lens.
E. =ontinue fleshing out the forms, rounding them as needed for additional subtlety. +uring this step we start introducing the details, the specific features etc. sharpening and softening edges to polish the image to a finish.