tendele's sketches

sketch 1

sketch 2

sketch 3

sketch 4

sketch 5

sketch 6

sketch 7

sketch 8

sketch 9

Awesome! my sketches are never as detailed as yours (mostly because I do it during school and not pay attention)

They're really good. For 2 weeks you have some good hand precision.

Things to work on:

1. Your eyelashes are really thick and stiff, try to flick them instead

2. a couple of the shading/blending seems really dark and could be lightened. In sketch 6 I feel the cheeks were too dark and it looks like her cheeks are dirty.

Wth!? For two weeks you have some intriguing talent!! I like,!! You should post again after 2 more weeks to see your progress. When I do sketches it mainly looks like chicken scratch lol.

thanks a lot! i will work on it more and try to get better!

meanwhile 

sketch 10

sketch 11

sketch 12

sketch 13

I love drawing eyes!!!

If you don't mind I do have a few suggestions for your shading.

On the close up of the eye, you might want to try a less rough approach to the shading.

For example, I can see some lines on the eyes that could have been smoothened out and blended onto the drawing.

I think your blending can be called cross-hatching.

smudge- this is what I'm referring to. It has a much more smooth blending technique and it gives it a more realistic feel.

But anyways I really like the first drawing on the latest update. You have talent, you just need to polish it!

^I think it's fine if she does cross hatching, it's a sketch. smudging method just takes forever and it gives the skin a very plastic-y look to it if overly done. I can't cross hatch to save a life (mainly never tried or heard of it until recently), it does give a cool texture to the drawing. Nice job on the shading!

though do try smudging method (and others), it'll help you develop as an artist and you can see what kind of feel it'll give to the drawings. Give my math teacher 10 minutes and he can scumble a pretty good drawing (obviously there isn't a lot of detail but you can tell by the basic structure what it is ie: da vinci)

I can see eyelashes are still a problem, they're not as stiff as before but work on trying to flick the end of the eyelashes. even though it's blurred at the end you can see it fades out? <--try to avoid this ending stroke for eyelashes/eyebrow hairs

if you need to just get a scrap sheet of paper and make marks that fade out on the ends. do varied things like scribbles or check marks, or lines. make sure you're using a pencil or a ball point pen

Another thing: in some of your drawings the nose bridge gets lost in the face. sketch 10 her face is at an angle. you could darken the the opposite side of the nose (where the light hits) base running up her nose and darken the side a bit less than the base (and possibly add a shadow), add a highlight on top of her nose running along with it

sketch 12: I'm not sure if it's because the drawing is more faded in the photo but you could bring the shadow a bit further up her nose side

yes yes I agree with monkeyinabarrel.

Don't overdo the smudging because it might look overdone but it depends on how realistic you want the drawing to look from close up. I prefer smudging when i'm drawing stuff (don't use your fingers because it will leave oil marks, use a napkin or a scrap piece of paper).

^ lol my art teacher never told my class about oils on the fingers so when we went over smudging/blending we just used our fingers. I wish we could have learned a few more things in the class but Google works fine also if you want to learn something :/.

I do tonal, smudging not much b/c the graphite clings on and mysteriously some areas get darker.

one day I should try cross hatching, and scumbling. I'm still amazed how my teacher just makes a few scribbles and it Looks better than my drawing I worked on way longer

Ps. OP scumbling example isn't a good one the scribbles are too small to see they're scribble marks and having good structure will get you farther on a good looking realistic drawing than trying to put in a lot of detail with not so good structure (lines, tones, perspective, probably something else..) from what I've observed.

wow! you are good considering you are a beginner!

when i first started out i was really horrible and what i intended to draw didn't look a single a bit like who i am trying to draw LOL!

an advice: when you draw, try not to make your lines too distinct. I don't know how to express in words, but let me try.

when you draw features of the faces etc, like the nose, right now i can see like a clear distinct line outlining the nose. but to make it more realistic, what you can do is like shade from that line. if you observe real photographs, we do not have lines on the face or our nose is not outlined.

so try to shade more instead of just drawing the line there. arghhhh i know i sound confusing but yea, like shade from that very first line you draw instead of just leaving it as it is!

and to draw nicer hair/eyelashes etc, do use a finer pencil, sometimes a mechanical pencil does the trick well! it may seem a pain to get those little details down but trust me, after the efforts and when you take a look at your work, you will be very very very very satisfied and happy

Ok I thought it would be easier with a visual

First up the blue lines! What's up with them? They're just perspective lines. They're supposed to be parallel to each other but I did this on my phone so it's not the straightest thing in the world. Good thing is your facial features are pretty parallel with each other. I did notice in your other pictures your eyebrows didn't exactly line up with the rest of the features (they don't have to perfectly line up but pretty close). I drew a line of symmetry (goes through the top of the chin, middle of the cupids bow on the lips, and the middle between the brows) to see if the features are equal distance away (this only works if the person is front facing, gets a little confusing when it's at an angle).

Get a ruler and just line it up with one feature and move it up or down to see if your other features are pretty parallel with it.

Light and shadow, I just guessed where the light source was going indicated by your picture. when light hits the top of the nose, your nose top will have a bright reflection of the light that runs along it. You can test it yourself with a mirror and a light. I think you would understand light better if you examined several objects with a flashlight and projected the light at different angles/distances to see how light and shadows contoured around objects. Drawing realistically will be easier once you have some knowledge on how light works with objects (well for me).

Hair, I know the pain of drawing hair photo realistically, a big pain!! I just did a little example on your drawing on a shortcut to save time. Outline the major features of the hair. have 3 tones, highlight, mid tone, dark tone. Use the highlight to indicate the reflection of the light, mid tone for most of it, and dark tones to indicate the darkest part of the hair.

Honestly though I wouldn't fret on hair for now. It's like trying to teach a 6 year old how to multiply while also trying to teach him/her to add at the same time. Possible, but s/he will understand multiplying better after s/he has a very good gasp of adding. Work on the face, eyebrows, and eyelashes and save the hassle of doing hair later.

If you do want to start on hair though my advice is: hair also has tones even if its jet black. A big reason why your hair looks flat.

Oh and to train your hand for better hand eye coordination, draw cartoons! They're faster to make and no shading! Thus giving you more practice and will be faster.

Sorry for another long post lol

wow. thank you all for taking your time and for giving me your advice. i already read them and will surely reread when i have some more time (getting into detail) and train myself a lot more. unfortunately not this week, as i am a med student and have my exams on this friday. but i will continue after that, and post my new drawings.

thanks again, it means a lot to me because, like i said before, i am not taking any classes so this is basically the only place i get constructive comments.

hi, sorry for the double post but i was meaning to ask something, what does one need for sketching, any material  besides classical pencils from 7h to 9b

Never draw with a H pencil/graphite unless you're completing finely detailed illustrations which you've already pre-drawn multiple times. Personally, H grades are for writing never for drawing.

Learn to draw using a 2B or 3B. I would recommend buying a tube of willow charcoal sticks and get yourself a good rubber/eraser. Learn to draw using the rubber/eraser. If you're not using charcoal, I suggest to limit the use of your eraser. The more time you spend rubbing out something you're unhappy with, the less time you're learning on using correct proportions.

I suggest an easy activity is to blacken your whole piece of paper with a piece of charcoal. Then use the charcoal and the eraser to create your figure.

Think of the paper as a ... pie. You want that pie to be even all throughout from the crust to the filling. Don't use the darkness of your pencil or charcoal to create shapes but try to use tones of your material to create your figure. When drawing, don't focus on the physical line or shape. Focus on how to complement each shade with each tone to create your image.

Use your entire piece of paper and this will bring more volume and life to your work. As you're not drawing live I assume, you won't really need to learn to frame your image at this stage.

If you want to learn portraits especially, you need to research on facial proportions. If you didn't grow up naturally being excellent at drawing, always research research research. Always step back from your work and draw on an easel, pin or tape your paper to a flat drawing board. If you don't have an easel, that's fine just lean your sketchbook or drawing board on an angle using something to prop it up. Working too close to your drawing will cause you to lose time as you'll be focusing on irrelevant features. Another artist-must is to have your drawing board an arm's length from where you stand or sit (better to stand). This way your arm is not constrained and you can draw freely.

monkeyinabarrel's guideline is good but if you're drawing, making guidelines ruins the experience in my opinion. If you're using a picture as a guideline and not having a live model, you can still use your thumb as a ruler. Basically, stick your arm out with your thumb leveled to your eye, close one eye and measure the distance between example the nose and the lip. Move your arm towards your drawing and compare the measurement. For this to work you must step back.

Eventually once you're starting to get better and you feel really serious about taking up portraits and such, I suggest getting at least a portable easel Drawing is always a learning process. I've had 50+ old ladies and men in my class who are good at painting but suck at drawing. Drawing is the basis of good art, so make sure you learn well. Good luck!

thanks a lot for ur advice! i will, as i said, read and learn from them.

meanwhile here is 2 pieces i have done lately.

i personally like the second one better.

thanks a lot for ur advice! i will, as i said, read and learn from them.

meanwhile here is 2 pieces i have done lately.

 *quoted image*

*quoted image*

i personally like the second one better.

I like the second one too! It's amazing. It's pretty. You are definitely getting better at this.

Keep it upppp

work in progress. a birthday gift for my friend.

work in progress, cha seung won