Soooo, I muster my courage, i opened photoshop and .. it's a ****** disaster ^^
It will forever be a work in progress
Spoiler
I really admire those who can draw something, or write something. I guess i'm not that type of person :/
Ooooh I love the colours! Hmm but I don't get the arm & hand position, it's like she's putting her arm backward...? Just me?
Come on, you know that it's great already, don't give up, everyone was a beginner once 
So, I extended the canvas for Cullen's portrait. It's easier to get the jawline properly 
Besides - more Cullen is always good 
Critiques and suggestions are always welcome
Good work everyone, keep it up, unfortunatley I myself am not very good so it's hard to give suggestions.
I present to you really bad hair:
I've looked at so many tutorials, it just doesnt seem like it wants to work for me, if someone has any suggestions I'd be more than willing to hear it.
I'm not an artist but what if you add more fine lines and different tones for the hair color (lighter and darker ones)?
Okay, I just had a look and found this nice video on the topic of hair.
Good work everyone, keep it up, unfortunatley I myself am not very good so it's hard to give suggestions.
I present to you really bad hair:
I've looked at so many tutorials, it just doesnt seem like it wants to work for me, if someone has any suggestions I'd be more than willing to hear it.
That's excellent progress so far Thank you for sharing
Do you have a drawing tablet? If you do, then charcoal brushes are pretty good at mimicking strands of hair. It's not necessary to set your brush to change thickness with pen pressure until the very last stage, where you put in the details.
Also, when painting hair, avoid hard edges. Hair is light, and to create this effect, it is a good idea to work with transparent brush strokes. Choose a darker mid tone, and work your way to highlights.
For blond hair, here are some WIPs of Nicole Kidman I did many years ago, along with the final version:
Let me know if you have any specific questions. I might be able to better help you that way
Thank you both very much.
@Teshayel that is incredible omg, you are so freaking good! And thank you for the tips, I shall try it tomorrow, a bit too sleepy to get into it at this time. I havea laptop with a touch screen so I draw right on top of my monitor, unfortunatley the driver for pressure sensitivity is all wonky so I canno't use that.
Thank you both very much.
@Teshayel that is incredible omg, you are so freaking good! And thank you for the tips, I shall try it tomorrow, a bit too sleepy to get into it at this time. I havea laptop with a touch screen so I draw right on top of my monitor, unfortunatley the driver for pressure sensitivity is all wonky so I canno't use that.
Wow, you did that on a touch screen? That's amazing! Too bad the driver is not working properly. I am not a computer expert, so I am afraid I cannot really help there... 
Have you tried looking up the problem on a forum? Maybe there might be a solution.
Just in case you're contemplating getting a drawing tablet, Wacom Bamboos are very reasonably priced. Trust tablets are also pretty good (that was my first tablet, and it worked really well), and at a good price. I think they are more popular in Europe.
Either way, I am really looking forward to seeing the results of your experimenting with Cullen's hair
I haven't contributed anything yet and that has to change. But I don't want to start with Cullen. Babysteps for me. That's why I decided to start with simple objects to get a feeling for the form, light & shading. I'll try to draw something at least every second day. Today I had to babysit my little step-sister and my father had this aroma lamp in his living room. So I started with that. I think it's horrible but keep in mind that I haven't drawn anything for ages.
@Teshayel I don't find the touch screen bad at all, my attempts before have been with a mouse and I also have one older cheap wacom tablet (didn't like it at all), I've give up pretty fast, the picture I am doing now I might actually finish, I never finished a picture before.
@Caja Thats a good start, learning to "see" shapes is probably one of the most important things imo.
So I tried Cullen's hair again this time alot better (thank you Teshayel). But it kind of looks like fur, so I guess now I have a good start if I ever want to do that hehe.
Edit: anyone know a good way to do his stubble? or just do them 1 by 1?
His hair looks much better ! I still can't believe that you did it with a touchscreen device.
@ Shantia
OooOoooo Quite a bit of improvement One thing to keep in mind about any sort of shape is that details fade as the object becomes farther from the viewer. So, for instance, in the foreground you might see quite a bit of detail when it comes to hair, but as the shape of the head curves away from the viewer, the strands are no longer individually visible. Same thing goes for light and shadow - you will see more detail in lighter areas, and fewer details in darker areas
Another thing that might be helpful when drawing hair is that right at the hair line you will still see some skin. There is a bit of a transition towards a darker colour before you get into really thick hair and the scalp is obscured.
As for stubble - I am struggling with it as well What is important is that the stubble itself darkens the skin. So, it is not sufficient to draw in the hairs, but also the skin colour has to change accordingly. Splatter brushes are very useful for a first layer of stubble - make good use of the eraser to get rid of unwanted splattering. At the end of the day, however, you have to bite the bullet and draw in some hairs individually.
Hope this helps Can't wait to see more
@ Caja
This is a great start. And you are right, getting a feel for basic shapes is very important for laying a foundation in drawing. My only recommendation is that you always choose a point of reference when you draw. For instance, in your candle holder, let us say that you take the top as a reference. Relative to the top, how does the bottom part curve? Are the lines roughly parallel? Is there an angle, etc.?
As far as measurements are concerned, let's say you decide to take the width of the candle holder as a reference. How many times does the width fit into its length? Along its shape, is it always equally wide? Where does it change shape along its length?
These are all very basic questions that after a while you won't even think about. You will naturally see these relationships.
Keep up the good work, and share with us
Thank you so much the both of you.
And about the stubble I was afraid I was going to have to draw them in, this is gonna be horrible hahaha. His stubble is very sparse so I didn't find a splatter brush that worked well, I might have to see if I can find some that works better for me.
Thank you so much the both of you.
And about the stubble I was afraid I was going to have to draw them in, this is gonna be horrible hahaha. His stubble is very sparse so I didn't find a splatter brush that worked well, I might have to see if I can find some that works better for me.
You can make your own splatter brush in Photoshop and Painter Give it a try, you might get something really cool.
Or, you can just go for a painterly look, in which case you don't have to do too much detailing. The closest that I have ever come to doing that is a portrait of Dan Hardy (MMA fighter). No detailing, just enough splatter brushing to suggest stubble
Wow, you are so good, I totally failed at my stubble I got too lazy 
I'll just throw the whole thing in here, suggestions are welcome, I was planning on doing some body hair, but right now I am not on best terms with hair hehe
Also don't mind the background, I got so tired of painting on a grey background I had to do something hehe.
I'll just throw the whole thing in here, suggestions are welcome, I was planning on doing some body hair, but right now I am not on best terms with hair
Also don't mind the background, I got so tired of painting on a grey background I had to do something hehe.
*snip of hunky Cullen*
Oh, my... The six-pack took me by surprise I stopped scrolling down at the neckline, to study the features, and for some reason I did not think that there was more to the drawing than that (my brain is mush after 7 hrs of grant-writing). And then... yeah.. I get nice abs Awesome
The drawing looks really great so far. It's good that you are starting out with lighter colours - this will give you much better control over the shadows. A quick note on choosing colours: if your lights are cold (green, blue, bluish violet), your shadows should be warm (rich, dark red, brown, reddish violet). This will make things pop Don't be afraid of saturated colours.
Also, to help you keep track of the tones in your drawing, it helps to desaturate the image from time to time (just add a desaturate layer in PS on top of everything, and turn it on and off to check things). This will make sure that your image is not flat, and you are taking full advantage of light and shadow contrasts
PS: I am glad you like the stuff I posted, and hope that they can help you improve your own art 
@Teshayel This is so helpful, I appreciate it so much! You are definatley helping me improve. YAY!
@ Shantia, nah I'm thinking NSFW now... You've shown us little by little from the top
@ Teshayel: Wow... The scar's really well made! I'm impressed on how many details you put on the scar & eye & eyebrow.
On my part I'm learning Proko's videos, comparing his (well, Andrew Loomis' technically ) & the Egg technique for drawing human heads. Here they are, the thing is somehow the proportion still seems very off & something's wrong... I just can't say what's wrong. 
Help
Cullen frontal sketch (Egg Technique)
Cullen three-quarter sketch (Egg Technique)
Cullen three quarter sketch (Loomis' approach)
Conclusion: That Proko videos worth every minute watching...
@ Ceru
It's very good that you are trying a more structured approach. The best advice I can offer is to deconstruct everything you want to draw into basic shapes.
For instance, the eyes are spheres that have the lids wrapped around them. So, the lids have to follow a spherical contour. The nose is a rectangle ending in a trapezoid - depending on the angle. Its tip is a circle. The head is a sphere (where the brain is housed) overlapped with a cylinder (the elongated shape of the face). The lips are a little bit trickier, but you can view them as overlapping teardrops.
And Yay! for Loomis His books are the best references to have. You can find them here as free pdf files:
@Tesh
Ooh yeah I got all of them from the same link. Plus I also get the epub for Loomis' "Figure Drawing for All it's worth" & Harold Speed's "The Practice & Science of Drawing" (PDF, Epub, etc). The latter can be found freely & legally on Project Gutenberg's page. There are images on black and white so you can read it on E-reader like Kobo.
@ Everyone: whoever wants to get that Loomis ebooks freely, better do that quickly. Loomis books will be reprinted/already back in printing & soon there might be legal copyright issues that shut down those download links apparently.
So here's what I got so far on my Cullen drawing, I really hope I finish it. I'm starting to get distracted by other potential projects and that's usually not a good sign haha. 
@ACD1 how are you colouring them actually? Colour pencil? Wow the colour choice is great
@ACD
Amazing!!! Colour pencils are such a difficult medium I hope you will finish it, because it is a beautiful portrait
@Cerulione - Hahaha unfortunatley it doesn't go down any further than that :/
@ACD101 - Wow that looks amazing, I hope you will finish it, it's wonderful!
@ACD1 how are you colouring them actually? Colour pencil? Wow the colour choice is great
Thank you! Yup, it's all coloured pencils, when I started I used regular pencil to draw the outline, then when I was confident with the picture, I made the lines lighter with the eraser, and drew over them with a brown/red crayon, really lightly. And then I just filled in the areas, colouring lightly, gradually adding more. After I added just a bit of red to areas of the face like the cheeks, nose, forehead, just to give it more life. When you think of an eye, imagine a round ball and how the light bounces off of it. the eye lids cast shadows, so that also contributes to making a realistic eye.
And yes that was a long answer, with some tips (if they make sense, it is kinda hard to understand sometimes through text)
@ACD
Amazing!!! Colour pencils are such a difficult medium
Thanks! Teshayel! I'll try to finish, I mean, I'm almost done, I'm just starting to procrastinate
@ACD101 - Wow that looks amazing, I hope you will finish it, it's wonderful!
Thanks so much Shantia! I hope so too
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