So, what do you guys think?
My Latest Sketch...
- Thread starter TroiFan4ever
- Start date
I think the next step for you is to develop your understanding of the form of the face. As you were shading Marina's shoulders and torso, you had some idea in your mind of the form that things take, the mass they consume in space, the way surfaces of those mass reflect light. You thought about that.
You need to take that understanding with you to the face. You need to see the nose and the eye sockets and the lips and the chin as things that consume space. The problem many artists fall into when making sketches of photographs is that they train themselves to see objects as 2D shapes with outlines that are filled in. This is why art students are often told to sketch real people, 3D forms, right in front of them. This breaks them of the habit of seeing the nose as a line that leads from one eye to the next on a circuitous path like a rope.
My suggestion for your next exercise is to try drawing just the face. And try this several times. I know you're a Troi fan, so go ahead and use Marina's face, she's got a good one. But don't even think about hair or shoulders or comm badges. Just go for the contents of the head. Then as you're working, don't do any outlines. None. Tell yourself, nothing that I draw will be a hard line. Instead, hold your pencil at about 30 degrees to the paper and shade everything, zig-zags, scratches. Imagine Marina's face as if it were made of triangles, like she were a sculpture sitting on your desk. See in your mind the triangles between points on her face, like between her eyeballs and the tip of her nose, or between the base of her simian lines and the forward point on her lower lip. And shade those areas the way they catch the light.
At first, it will look a bit more like impressionism than realism, but there will be a point there Marina will emerge from within what you're drawing, and you won't be able to avoid capturing her in the work. Drawing is a lot more like sculpture than you realize, but when it hits you, it'll be pretty powerful.
DF "I Sense An Emerging Realization" Scott
You need to take that understanding with you to the face. You need to see the nose and the eye sockets and the lips and the chin as things that consume space. The problem many artists fall into when making sketches of photographs is that they train themselves to see objects as 2D shapes with outlines that are filled in. This is why art students are often told to sketch real people, 3D forms, right in front of them. This breaks them of the habit of seeing the nose as a line that leads from one eye to the next on a circuitous path like a rope.
My suggestion for your next exercise is to try drawing just the face. And try this several times. I know you're a Troi fan, so go ahead and use Marina's face, she's got a good one. But don't even think about hair or shoulders or comm badges. Just go for the contents of the head. Then as you're working, don't do any outlines. None. Tell yourself, nothing that I draw will be a hard line. Instead, hold your pencil at about 30 degrees to the paper and shade everything, zig-zags, scratches. Imagine Marina's face as if it were made of triangles, like she were a sculpture sitting on your desk. See in your mind the triangles between points on her face, like between her eyeballs and the tip of her nose, or between the base of her simian lines and the forward point on her lower lip. And shade those areas the way they catch the light.
At first, it will look a bit more like impressionism than realism, but there will be a point there Marina will emerge from within what you're drawing, and you won't be able to avoid capturing her in the work. Drawing is a lot more like sculpture than you realize, but when it hits you, it'll be pretty powerful.
DF "I Sense An Emerging Realization" Scott
I find your critizism quite useful. Thank you.
This was the picture I was trying to recreate, with some added details, of course.
How I did the sketch:
I blew up that image to an appropriate size where a piece of paper would hide it. Then, I got a sheet of notebook paper and a thin Sharpie pen, and traced the outlines I wanted to work with -- the hair, the facial shape, the uniform, commbadge, most of the details. Her rank pips I did freehand.
Next, I traced in the cartoon-like outline from the notebook paper to my sketchpad, hence the outlines you see visible. I got rid of the thumbnail cartoon and added the details, trying to make it photographically realistic.
Perhaps I should take that advice and just do Marina's face. Then as I progress, I will then move on to do her head, hair, then torso, then a full-body sketch.
This isn't the first picture I drew of Marina / Deanna. Back in 2005, I did some sketches of her that would never seem to turn out right. I did do this one picture of her back then that I liked (I wish I still had it) but it didn't look like her at all. It was colored though.
I'm planning on doing several pictures and then move on to paintings I plan to show Marina Sirtis at a convention. But I will do the right thing, and start at square one -- only worrying about the face, then other pieces of her body.
Troi's commbadge looks like it needs a bit of work. Looking at this picture carefully, her uniform does look a bit... scribbled in if you will. I tried not to make it look smudged but I tried to go light on the collar edge rim for the blue as I did for the colored portion of the uniform, but again, I'll start small and make my next picture of her of her face. I'll keep you guys posted during my progress.
Yea, I could tell you had started from an outline. That's one habit you should divorce yourself from right now before it gets too ingrained: Don't start from a two-dimensional outline. If you need to show yourself where things generally go (as I do), then do what the great comic book artists do and draw connected circles, egg-like shapes, blobs that encompass the general space occupied by the cranium, shoulders, neck. But as soon as you can, start thinking in terms of geometry, of the planes in space that connect the important points of your subject. You can try drawing these planes as triangles, but do it very lightly.
As soon as you can, give placement to the eyes. Even if you don't know where her hairline is yet, get her eyes looking out. It's amazing how the mind can start filling in the other details once it believes those are really her eyes. And it's almost as if she starts telling you where her features are, and how to get at them. (Be careful not to take this too far, especially if you truly do meet Marina at a convention.)
One last suggestion: At the risk of scaring your friends into thinking you're making a shrine for Marina, look at several photographs simultaneously, from different angles. It will help you to see her face in three dimensions, as something that occupies space, even if the basic pose comes from just one photo.
DF "For Me It Was Paulina Porizkova" Scott
As soon as you can, give placement to the eyes. Even if you don't know where her hairline is yet, get her eyes looking out. It's amazing how the mind can start filling in the other details once it believes those are really her eyes. And it's almost as if she starts telling you where her features are, and how to get at them. (Be careful not to take this too far, especially if you truly do meet Marina at a convention.)
One last suggestion: At the risk of scaring your friends into thinking you're making a shrine for Marina, look at several photographs simultaneously, from different angles. It will help you to see her face in three dimensions, as something that occupies space, even if the basic pose comes from just one photo.
DF "For Me It Was Paulina Porizkova" Scott
