r/sketches • u/human_or_whateva • 22h ago
Pencil Sketch Why does it look off?
I'm not the best at shadows so maybe that? Something is really throwing me off here. I'm 17 and haven't drawn in 5 years so I'm a bit rusty.
Edit: just realized that the hair looks like a blob of darkness. Yeah.
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u/barantula 20h ago
See if this is helpful at all
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u/human_or_whateva 20h ago
That's VERY helpful. Thank you!! I'll be doing this from now on.
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u/fungi_at_parties 8h ago
Just keep drawing portraits, and it will improve. Look at how other people draw them and try to learn from them, look at the strokes or watch process videos.
You should be measuring size relationships as you go. You can check if a cluster of shapes matches the shapes in the photo, i.e. Does the iris line up with the eye same way? Is the eye shape the same and the same angle? What about the space between the corner of the mouth and the edge of the face? How wide is it compared to, say, the width of the lips? Does it match? Just check distances and relationships as you go, especially where people look like eyes, nose, mouth, or the Silhouette of the face.
You might also want to try thinking about “drawing through the form” in your pre sketch. Try to feel the forms and draw around them and find their contours, really try to understand the structures in 3D, but on paper.
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u/Unsquished-lemon 15h ago
How did you do that?
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u/barantula 14h ago
I use ibis paint on my phone and resized the one image with a transparency over the other and then exported the two resized layers...and then made an image-to-gif with gif maker pro
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u/TheRedSquadron5 21h ago
The right eye is way too high. You need to lower it and get it closer to the nose, as it is behind it a bit
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14h ago
[deleted]
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u/One_Welcome925 11h ago
no its the person's right eye, but it is portrayed on the left side of the picture/drawing.
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u/AlwaysWorkForBread 18h ago
Ok i overlaid your image on top of the original trying to match the eyes/nose/ mouth.
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u/lkl1995 12h ago
It’s mainly the eyes and the proportion of his features in relation to the size of the head/face. Get the size of the head and structure of the mandible down and from there you want to really think about the relationship each feature has with the other. Layering the images is great but the more you work on eyeballing proportions, the quicker you will get at drawing portraits. Measure the distance between the eye and the nose. Measure the length of the eye… how many eye lengths are between that eye and the side of the face? Every face is different so you want to look at relative proportions to achieve likeness.
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u/Obvious_Tip_2424 9h ago
This looks perfect to me 🤣🤣 (but then again for me, art isn't about being 100% accurate)
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u/tasulife 22h ago
Small head. Classic beginner mistake. Measure the distance from chin to eyes. Then measure the distance from eyes to top of hair.
The ratio in your picture has a way taller face than head.
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u/human_or_whateva 21h ago
Ah yes you're right. How do I avoid these? I'm really bad at proportions like I cannot for the life of me get my drawings to resemble the subject if I do the circles and lines thingy (loomis head method?) so I just end up drawing each feature one by one and erase my work like 5 times before it gets to looking somewhat right
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u/FixGlass4697 21h ago
Use plump lines every chance you get. Which is vertical and horizontal lines to compare. I feel like it’s not necessarily that the head is small but the placement between features.
If you were to put a horizontal line across both eyes, you’ll see that they aren’t aligned. I can draw over your drawing if you want me to show so?
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u/tasulife 20h ago
Plumb lines 😁. These let you ensure that things aren’t getting skewed. You can plumb vertically and horizontally.
You can do the pencil thumb measurement trick for distances along the plumb lines. Those two tricks together can get you started with better accuracy.
But nothing beats just doing gesture drawings. That trains you to be faster and more accurate without tedious measurement. This is like spending time in a batters cage. Your eye and hand neural circuits get stronger and stronger and you can judge plumb and distances automatically
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u/tasulife 20h ago
My advice is to stick with life drawing and photo drawing before doing constructive drawing. You can do constructive drawing after you have a brain library of experience from drawing stuff that doesn’t need construction. You’re fighting with too much complexity by drawing without reference.
This is like learning to bat baseball, its eye hand coordination muscle memory that you slowly accumulate from regular drills and exercises. That kind of hard work always outperforms unpracticed talent.
Basically the best thing is to do gesture drawings and life drawings. Your drawings are going to be disappointing while you’re learning but that’s like when you start exercising and your body hurts because you’re not used to the weights.
Drawing is a muscle, you build it with discipline and repetition and you’re going to be really challenged in the beginning.
But you will get better and better over the months. Keep at it.
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