Head Drawing: Structure & Rhythm

1. Introduction: Hey, everyone. So today we're gonna talk about head drawing again. But this time we're gonna focus on a little bit more in depth techniques that moved beyond just the basic structures and go quite a bit deeper into the smaller structures that are gonna help your heads, hopefully feel a little bit more structurally sound and hopefully have are more realistic. Feel to them by the time you're done, so follow along and do the best you can. And I hope you enjoy. So in this class we're going to still talk about just the general structures, and we'll do a quick recap of kind of where we're starting out. That way we have at least some idea of where we're going to begin. But from there we're gonna go into talking about the rhythms of the head and really, what that means and how we can use them to our benefit so that we can at least dive a little bit into anatomy. Not so much to get complicated, but just enough so that we can talk about how it can benefit us as we're starting to draw heads with a little bit more information. From there, we're gonna do two different kinds of structure drawing. I'm gonna do one showing you how to apply the rhythms of the head so that we can actually see what that looks like as it's developed throughout the course of drawing. And what we're gonna end up with is with essentially a finished block in drawing with all the structure lines left in so that you can see where we started from the beginning and what we ended up with before we get to any sort of clean up or shading or anything like that. The second demonstration is essentially gonna be a blocking drawing, but it's gonna be a little bit cleaner. And I'm going to sort of mix a bunch of principles together, ultimately to arrive at what I would consider a relatively finished block in that is at the stage just before it would get modeled or transferred to another sheet of paper to do a finished piece. So follow along the best you can and really just try and absorb the principles. This isn't about drawing, you know, super advanced or anything like that. It's really about just expanding your vocabulary so that you can have better results, doing your own drawings and then applying those principles that best makes sense to you. So I hope you enjoy and thank you for watching. 2. Before getting started 1: So before we actually get started talking about other structural elements of drawing head, I wanted to do a short video as sort of a recap covering just sort of the basics that you're gonna want to start with before we start adding any additional information to the head. So I'm still putting in my basic lines as's faras the center line, and then we would go ahead and find a side plane. That way it would just get a really quick general idea of what direction the head is actually facing. Um, and that would kind of be just a basic starting point when in any head drawing from there, we're going to divide up the front plane of the face. So I'm gonna go ahead and place my thirds, starting with the hair line and then the brow line, the bottom of the nose and then the bottom of the chin. And so this is just going to be our basic division to get started. From there, we can kind of just build out the rest of the head and you'll get a sense of where things are going to be lining up. Ultimately, as we move forward, And so this is going to be just another sort of mannequin ized head. So I'm keeping it very simple. Um, in the later videos, I'll actually have reference so that you can see how this is being applied to a real person's face on, and it will make a lot more sense once we get into that. So But for those of you that are just starting with this class, this is going to be sort of the starting point in any head drawing is we need to get some sort of foundational components built into the head. Um, and that's just gonna help us place the features. It's gonna help us get a just a general sense of structure before we start adding any extra details to the head. So once the basic sort of axes lines are put in place, then I can start building out the rest of the features, and from there, it's just kind of going to be a really we're gonna still where I'm gonna still work with a general sort of large shaped and then gradually add information as things start developing further, but on it kind of when you're just starting out. It's going to be finding just the basic landmarks and then building the features into that . And that's kind of why those initial lines become so important is so that if a long as those air in place, then we have a much better idea of where to build everything else. So you can see here with just kind of not a whole lot of information you get under a basic sort of sense of a the direction the head is facing the, uh, the location of the features and their respective placement. And this is kind of gonna be your starting point to then flush out the rest of the features in a more detailed manner. But until you can get to this point at least on some sort of semi consistent basis with your with your drawing, um, you don't really want to move forward just yet because all the detail in the world is not going to save a poorly structured drawing. So whether you're working from life or working from photo reference or anything like that, this is sort of a basic block in that you want to be able to achieve from your model from your reference, What have you before you start flushing out any details? Like, you know, I like actual eye lids, eyes, you know, the shape of the mouth or anything like that. You wanna have the sort of foundation underpinning of the head well established before you start adding any of that other information So you'll see in the later videos kind of how I build up the structure of the head from something similar to this, but maybe not as many lines, some examples with more lines even. But this is just sort of the starting point to get to a little bit more advanced head drawing on and then ultimately flushing out the details to move forward. 3. Head Rhythms: So before we actually start drawing on actual portrait, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about rhythms. Now, before we've seen kind of just a very general structure in terms of finding the large shape , dividing it up into axes, lines and thirds and then kind of building simple planes of the face. And that's certainly a solid approach in terms of just getting a basic sense of structure with the head, however, sort of the next step going forward at least in terms of things that you want to understand our that there's anatomical rhythms that sort of are under their sort of the underpinning of what you would see in a face in. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need Teoh, you know, spend hours upon hours learning anatomy or anything like that. But I did want to introduce them to you. So that way, when you look at a face, you're you're gonna hopefully have an understanding of what these lines represent. Um, and it's just a way of keeping yourself into yet another layer of information to keep in mind. So I'm still starting with the general template. You know, I've found my center line and I found my axes for my hairline brown line, bottom of the nose and bottom of the chin. So I'm still gonna kind of proceed in a normal fashion. But here's where we're going to start deviating. I draw. I've drawn in the eye sockets because that's sort of like a home base, because it's kind of the center part of the head. And so I'm gonna start introducing some rhythms here. And so these first ones are gonna be kind of like what we've done before, where we're looking for the side plain and it's gonna bisect the corner of the eye socket. Um, and what that's going to do is it's gonna tell us where the side plane is coming into contact with the front plane of the face. And so, from the sockets here, we're gonna pull up and come across what's essentially becoming like the eyebrow ridge. And what that's doing is it's kind of making the Brow Ridge its own sort of separate eight separation from the front plane and itself and think of about you know, how someone when they furrow their brows and kind of what shape that makes and then so through here from the top of the hairline, third here, I'm gonna basically put in a circle which is gonna bisect the brow ridge and then kind of meat where the tips of the eyebrows would be. And with that circle does is it further divides up the front plane of the forehead and you can sort of imagine how again, there's, like, a ridge that's kind of coming across the front plane here. Um and I would say with you're going to see that on certain types of people and perhaps older people. But that rhythm is still there. And so as we work our way down to the nose once, I kind of know where the bottom of the noses in the corners of the socket I can kind of build from there. So from the interior of the sockets, I'm gonna pull these lines straight down. And what that's going to do is it's gonna establish the overall front plane of the nose and then knowing where the the edge of the noses, I can pull on arc all the way across from each side, and then that's going to go ahead and define both side planes of the nose. So with just those few lines we've established basically both sides and the front part, and so then that more or less gives us the majority of the nose until we move on on, get a few more bits of information in. Now I still like to pull angles from the corner of the nose to find the points of the mouth , and I'll go ahead and put those in on. Then, from there I'll be able to I want to establish the ears because the ears are gonna create a fairly large rhythm that's gonna connect to the mouth as well as defined the cheek. So I'll go ahead and within our we know that our ears gonna fall mawr less within our middle third. So I'll go ahead and put in a generic shape just for those because I want to establish just the general landmark before I put in any more rhythms. So with the ears in place and come in knowing where the corners of the mouth are, I'm gonna take a rhythm from the top of the ear. It's gonna bisect the corner of the eye socket and then hit the corner of the nose as well , and it's gonna scoop down towards what is essentially going to be the node of the mouth. And you can kind of see that our king shape as it swirls around Ah and connects from side to side when what that's doing is it's essentially creating one. It's creating a cheek rhythm that's gonna get further established later, but it's also framing kind of the front tooth cylinder of the mouth as well. It is kind of a more abstract rhythm, so you do kind of have to look for it. But it is there. So keep that in mind as you're kind of looking at different kinds of people because it will be more prominent on some people versus others. And so there's a secondary cheek rhythm that's going to go from side to side just under the 1st 1 and it's establishing the fullness of the cheek that we first put in, and it's just gonna wrap all the way down to the bottom of the chin, and so from the corners of the mouth, we're gonna pull this circular rhythm, and it's going to bisect the front portion of the nose and sweep all the way around, and it'll end essentially where just a little bit below the actual lower lip, because it's going to defined another small section in the lower part of the face. The important thing, though to see, is that that circle is going to cut through the front portion of the nose, and it's going to define the wings of the nostril as well as the boldest portion of the front part of the nose. There's gonna be some variation, especially on the front and depending on the person's nose type. But that's essentially the rhythm that you would want to look for, and you can adjust it accordingly. Just above that circle is from the side plane of the knows. We're gonna pull this line down here, which is essentially creating what we would call like the laugh line and basically think about the edges of the mouth and the cheek as it raises and kind of bends. If someone say smiles or laughs or anything like that, that's essentially what this circular rhythm is representing. And so now just under that first circle we put is there's another circle here that's gonna intersect, and it's gonna create the ball of the chin on. And where they overlap is it's creating a little transitional plane that is the plane just under the lower lip. And so, if you can see, if the lower lip was there, we would have that little small section just underneath. And that's what those two circles coming together sort of differentiate. And you can see is this kind of imagine the planes as they kind of come in and out with the contour of the face and then just on the sides here is these essentially create, depending on the person's type kind of the, you know, the jowl shape on bats, part of those mouth rhythms that are all kind of coming together in that one little small area. So as you can see here, uh, we kind of end up with a lot of lines. And it is one of those things where you wouldn't necessarily be using every single one of these lines as you were drawing very similar to what we discussed in terms of drawing with the planes of the head. Um, sometimes, you know, you just kind of have to pick and choose what lines are going to be the most helpful to you . And it's one of those things where you wouldn't bring all your tools. Um, you know, for a job that Onley might require a couple. And so it is one of those things where you kind of have to pick and shoes, and it's always like a situational basis and what's kind of more pertinent for the particular situation or scenario that you're in. So, um, I did want to introduce this, though, because it is kind of another layer of information in terms of understanding the structure off ahead and that moves beyond just some of the basic planes but now starts delving into anatomy a little bit. And while I would say that anatomies important, it's not the end all, um, you know, and so it's important to kind of see these lines and understand how they can be applied and know that they do represent anatomical information. But I wouldn't, you know, say like, Oh, you have to go out and start memorizing all these anatomical names or anything like that. What's important to take away from this is to see how these rhythms are working in conjunction with the face and how they can be applied to your own drawing eso that you get a better sense of overall structure before you move on to, uh, you know, shading or modeling or anything like that. And so for those of you that are wondering exactly what this is called, this is essentially the, uh, Frank Reilly abstraction head. And I didn't use all the lines that are in the actual head itself. But it's something that you can kind of look up. And, um, you know, you'll see people here and there and talk about it or use it. But it's not as common, uh, in certain, you know, sort of areas of art school that you may come across, but it is a helpful tool again to kind of better understand the structures that are happening underneath. You know the skin so that you can build your heads a little bit more confidently from a structure standpoint, Um, and and again, this is one of those things where I would it's another sort of tool that you can use to kind of help develop your structure on top of, you know, using your axes, lines and using your planes and just breaking down the head and to manageable shapes and things like that. So I would encourage you to try and copy this drawing or to take a piece of tracing paper on, actually put it on top of a piece of photo reference and try and inject these lines just so that you can see how they would be applied toe a person's face. But it is just another layer of information that I wanted to discuss, because at some point anatomy does become part of the equation on, and this is just another way to get there. So and the following demos I'm gonna be doing one using a little bit of this method so that you can see it applied to an actual face on. And then in the last demo, it'll be more of just kind of a simplified version and more of a structure drawing to kind of how I would approach a drawing for myself. So hopefully this makes sense and you can take something from it, and we will move on to the rest of the demonstrations 4. Head Construction & Rhythms 1: So I'm going to do this particular drawing kind of applying the principles we just discussed to an actual head eso. You'll see the reference kind of pop in and out just so that I don't take up the whole screen with it. So But anyway, going forward, we're still starting with the exact same way we have to build, ah, large shape and then start dividing it down into some simple planes and structures before we start committing to any sort of detail. So as I kind of start any drawing, the first initial lines that I kind of place down are gonna be a little bit on the looser side. And that's just really so that I don't get too uptight with myself, and I kind of know in the back of my head that these initial lines are ultimately going toe , you know, be taken out or they're gonna be changed or moved around. So what I'm trying. What I try and do is to not lock myself in to the point where if I put a series of lines down that I'm committed to them from the very beginning, most drawing just has to happen. Where you're going to put some lines down and things are gonna constantly move throughout the course of the drawing. So kind of keep that in mind as you get started. So I'm still starting with my thirds. I have my center line in place, and that's kind of going to be the first stage to at least just get started, because from there, then I kind of have to start breaking that down everything else in injecting more information. So I like to kind of start with the sockets, Um and, you know, kind of just build out from there because it's just for any, at least for me, any portrait, the kind of the eyes and nose, and that sort of center of the face is generally going to be your focal point. Um, so, building out from the sockets, I'm just connecting the side planes in the head so that you can see there's gonna be a very distinct three planes a t east for this particular pose. We're gonna see both side planes and the front plane. And so, as I'm building the sockets, I'm really just trying to go from side to side, making sure that I'm getting at least some degree of symmetry established. Um, you know, and then from there I'm going to triangulate down from the sockets to the nose. And just so that I can sort of lock in the triangular relationship of the eyes and nose together, a big part of getting a likeness is going to be getting that triangulation in the center. So my goal is not necessarily to get, you know, a perfect likeness in this particular instance, but it always helps. Um, Teoh, you know, at least get in the ballpark. I'm gonna go ahead and just quickly throw on just the hair shape. And admittedly, that's something that probably should have done earlier before at least getting the features are the sockets placed? But let me go ahead and just throw it in now. And that way, at least the face is framed. We get a better sense of the total shape of the head and again, like a lot of those lines in at least in the for the edges of the hair. Those will get shifted around as I start adding in more information in there. But at least have the shape established so continuing. Just gonna build out the rest of kind of the note, the rough. No shape. Now, in this particular instance, we're going to see, you know, pretty much all the planes of the nose. So I'm just gonna put in a large shape and at least have it there, and then I'll build in all the other planes as we start adding some more information. And so here I'm gonna just add just a rough shape for the for the actual eyeballs. I'm not necessarily going to draw the details just yet. It's just kind of using. Ah, rough shape just uses placement, but nothing, nothing to specific. So at this point in the drawing, it's still so early that I'm really more focused on just kind of finding some landmarks so that I can at least make sure that my proportions air looking good. And then once I feel comfortable with that, then I can go ahead and start flushing out more of the detail. And so just continuing to add a little, you know, little bits of information here because we're still trying to find just the general landmarks and so just kind of pulling an angle from the wing of the nostril to kind of find the ends of the mouth. And then now that I know that is there, I can just keep adding some additional information. And so at this stage right now, you know, obviously it's not really looking much like you know her, you know, or a person per se because we're still kind of in that early stage of just getting a general sense of construction. And for me, as long as the construction feels, you know, solid and nothing is really jumping out of meat in terms of overall proportions, that I just kind of keep moving forward again is as you're doing your drawings is they're going to go through so many different stages of development, especially in the beginning, when you're establishing everything that I don't really get too caught up, you know, in making sure that you know the likenesses there or anything like that. It's really just kind of just the foundational, um, you know, steps that I really want to make sure solid before moving forward. Okay, so it's kind of just getting the lower part of the jaw established a little bit better and once I kind of get the overall rough shape of the head and everything like that. Then it just becomes, uh you know, the next step is really just kind of analyzing what I have in front of me in making small, you know, adjustments here and there. And, you know, we start adding, we'll start adding more details of the features, but the big shape, once it's kind of on the page, then Now we're just kind of think of it like we're sculpting and we're just gonna be molding it in a kind of removing information, adjusting things back and forth a little bit until we convey, basically, just get it just right. I'm kind of just adjust the outer silhouette shape here, and I'm you know, I do want to keep the drawing at least somewhat clean. But I am gonna leave a lot of the initial structure lines in this particular drawing. So, um, in the later videos that the next example will be a lot cleaner and a little bit more deliberate. But for this particular demonstration, I really want to leave all the structure and lines in so that you can at least see the thought process that's going into on the various stages, and so you, you know, it will look a little bit messy towards the end. But hopefully you'll get a better sense and understanding of what we're doing here. And so it's at this point where I can really start thinking about the smaller rhythms of the head to help lock things into place and start just breaking things down into smaller sections. So I'm just gonna just draw a rhythm across the forehead here and just think of that is sort of like the expression part of your forehead is that you have that sort of little small little ridge just above the eyebrows that is kind of attaching itself. So when people make facial expressions, you see that move all the time, and that all kind of just blends in with side planes, so it can be a little tricky. But just know that it's going across the front there, and then I kind of just better establish the sockets and then just remember going as we start building everything else out, I'm gonna just draw in a little bit more of the actual ball shape of the eye and then just connect from side to side and always want to try and build the eyes in that sort of manner so that we maintain that sense of symmetry. But as you can see here is that even though the I especially you know, the left eye a T East facing us is deep in shadow. I'm kind of just ignoring all of that. And and I think initially, as you're doing your drawing is it's very easy to kind of get caught up in, you know, if there's, you know, complicated shadow patterns or anything like that. But when you're doing your initial structure, you kind of wanna a to least ignore those shadows on draw through everything. That way you just get a total sense of the structure that you're building and so kind of now just going to start dividing up the nose. And like I said, in this particular pose, we see we're going to see all four planes of the nose. So the front, both sides and the bottom, um, but what I like to do in a lot of instances and at least in particular to this poses when I can see the bottom plane of the nose. That becomes sort of my starting point, because I know in this particular instance, there's a shadow pattern attached to the bottom of the nose, and so I can use that shadow as well as the bottom plane of the nose, as an anchor point on. And then from there, at least for me, it makes it a lot easier to build out the rest of the Plains. So building out from the sides of the nostrils that clues me into the side of the side plane of the nose and then really, what's left over is just the front plane. Eso. I usually like to start with the bottom of the nose because I know that it's gonna sort of anchor the rest of the nose to the face. This one's from there. Then we can just start building out everything else and so drawing in the bridge of the nose and then that's gonna extend down into sort of the bulbs portion of the nose. And then we're kind of just left with the side planes Now, given the lighting situation and everything like that, I'm adding in quite a bit more information than what would actually be in the finished drawing. But I really just want you to see the structure underneath because this is what's really happening. Um, and the lighting is obviously gonna affect that in its own way. But the underlying structure is still the same for that particular feature, and so now that the nose is kind of roughly established, I can start working down and we'll start flushing out the mouth and then start building in some other rhythms. 5. Head Construction & Rhythms 2: so continuing along. We see here just kind of this laugh line shape that is going and what it's doing is essentially going. It's going all the way around through the cheek and you can kind of tell and, you know, kind of where the left line starts next to the knows. There's this rhythm that is kind of happening from side to side, going all the way around, and it's going to be different on everyone and some on some people. It's gonna be more subtle than others. And sometimes in this particular case, the shadow shapes can kind of emphasize that. But then also there's, you know, the variables of someone's age, their you know, their ethnic type and everything like that. So keep that in mind as you go. But I just want you to see the actual rhythm being applied to someone's face, and that kind of just continue along. I'm gonna go ahead and draw the cash shadow from the nose because that's going to give me a better idea of how to build the rest of the mouth in relationship to it. So but I'm thinking about how this can Shadow was sitting on that volume off the mouth and that tooth cylinder shape, and so that cast shadow needs to wrap accordingly so that it looks like it's sitting on the surface. I'm gonna make just a little bit of adjustment to the Contour and here because it's looking like it needs to come in a little bit. That looks a little bit better to me. We're just continuing along. We're gonna fill in the mouth. And in this particular case I'm a kind of use the shadow pattern to kind of help draw the rest of the mouth, because in this instance it makes a little bit larger of the shape. And so any time I can make a larger shape and then later for find the details inside that larger shape for me it's kind of more of a safe bet. But, um, that's just kind of how build it in this particular instance. And, um, because given the lighting situation, it kind of, you know, just below here. Even though that shadow is kind of blocking the note of the mouth, that makes a much larger graphic shape, and so that will make the readability of the mouth a little bit easier to draw and then at least just kind of for the lower lip are just gonna have a tiny little shadow pattern to draw. And that'll kind of just frame the lower lip itself. But now, just below the lower lip, there's this little sort of shelving that takes place, and it kind of creates the ball of the chin, and then these laugh lines there. What ends up happening is it creates a smaller rhythm down through here and on some people that's gonna be very prominent. And it's just what ends up becoming is when you see someone like, say, like an older person or anything like that, it kind of creates that jowl shape. But again, that's always gonna kind of fluctuate quite a bit from person to person. But it does give us a sense of how the shadows would then later wrap around those particular volumes in that area. So it just kind of is just one of those things that kind of keep in mind and knowing that those rhythms exist in every for in every person's face, even though they may not be very prominent. And so now we're just kind of just getting in a little bit better of a contour. And you can see here that we're getting close to the point where we have the bulk of the information in, and at least for me once I kind of get to this stage. It then becomes more about a matter of, like, how I'm going to refine it. Moving forward. Eso We still have some details left to flush out and we'll get there. Um, but if you can get to a point in this stage and you're drawing like this, you're really off to a very solid start because then it's just a matter of, you know, refining the details a little bit better. Um, and then, you know, ultimately deciding where you're going to go with the drawing in terms of, you know, shading or modeling or anything like that. But you want to be ableto at least get to this stage where, you know, things were starting to feel solid in terms of just kind of their placement, their structure and the relationship of all the features together and how they're sitting on the face. And so if you can't even get to this stage you'd be off to a great start and finishing the rest of the drawing. And so at this point, you know, we're gonna go ahead and start flushing out the actual details of the eyes, cause that's kind of the thing I saved for last here and not necessarily particular reason that I saved the ice for last. But for me, those were actually it will maybe sort of subconsciously, eyes were probably the most fun thing to draw. So it's nice to have toward the end of the drawing to really be able to flush those out. So but this will kind of at least establish the general gaze of the post on Ben. From there, we can kind of start adding some information. For the most part here, though, I'm really squinting my eyes down and just looking at the shadow shapes and because of the lighting, you know it. It helps kind of simplify Ah, lot of the information so that I don't necessarily have to draw all the details of the I can really just kind of get a simplified shape. Um, and if the shapes are right, then it's going to look like the eye itself. Um, yeah, see? So there's a little bit of a cash shadow kind of coming from the side of the socket and then sort of defining the lower lid. And that kind of all connects to the cheek right here. And so you can see it just really. I haven't added that many lines, and we're already kind of. We have the general shape of the I established and and that's at least kind of what you want to go for, especially with this sort of lighting situation, where it's a very distinct top down light. You can use the shadows to your advantage to at least help you solve some of the structure of the drawing. And so once I have one, I, you know that I feel comfortable about. I use it to help construct the other eye. So I'll be going back and forth and just making relationship comparisons from the eye that's established and then flushing out this new I. And again, it's one of those things where I'm going to kind of squint my eyes down quite a bit and just look for a very simple graphic shape. That way, I don't get immediately caught up in all the details. I can always add those details after the fact. But what I try and do is I try and capture the impression of, uh, the overall shape of the I first and then add the secondary information on top if I feel like it needs it. So that's why you can see like that. The eyes kind of just become really simple, you know, kind of, you know, circle type shapes, But it's enough to give you the idea of the direction that she's looking. And then really, from there, I just kinda have to add some extra detail so that three eyes look a little bit more specific to her. Okay, and so the lower lid is kind of an area. I'm just being careful. I do want to put in a little bit of information, but at least on a female, it's not an area. I'd like to emphasize too much information because it has a tendency to age someone really quickly. If you're not careful, so but moving on kind of now just making some adjustments to the socket shape and it's really at this stage where all of our information is more or less in place, and the placement of it feels pretty good, at least to me. So far. And so now it's really kind of at a point where I have to start really focusing in quite a bit and just making subtle adjustments toe everything. Eso that it gets a little bit closer and likeness, or that the shapes become more specific. But we're kind of in the home stretch here of what I would consider, you know, um, or less complete block in. And the only thing I would really like to stress is that, as you can tell here, there's obviously quite a bit of lines that are occurring. And now this isn't something I would normally do in a drawing, because realistically, there's a good chunk of these lines that don't necessarily need to be here. But part of the demonstration was really just seeing an understanding of how you would use these rhythms and structure points to build your portrait. You know, more confidently, and so that's why they're there. And and I left them in throughout the course of the drawing, and if I were doing this, you know, as a drawing for myself, I would be drawing these lines quite a bit lighter. I wouldn't be using as many lines, and I would probably be taking things out as they no longer served a purpose in the drawing . Or, you know, once they kind of fulfilled their need, I would kind of go ahead and remove it for the sake of cleanliness and making it easier to see everything else as the drawing develops. But in the next demonstration you'll see me kind of go with more of that approach, and the drawing will be quite a bit cleaner and will take the block in just a little bit farther in terms of detail. But hopefully this this particular demonstration, you can see kind of how we use the rhythms and of the face to kind of build the structure of the drawing and then gradually add information so that the drawing it's a little bit more specific in detail. So hopefully that made sense and we'll move on with the next demo 6. Portrait Block in 1: So this drawing is gonna be a little bit different than the previous demonstration in that I'm going to draw this one a little bit cleaner, and it's going to be closer to sort of how I would do a drawing for myself and how I would block it in. So I'm not gonna be using as many structure lines. I'll still use some, obviously, to get started. But the's ones are gonna be a little bit more deliberate and more specific to her. And I'm gonna be drawing quite a bit lighter because ultimately that kind of helps with cleanup in the end, as we get closer to the finished block in. But so from here, I'm kind of just establishing just a rough sort of outer shape, which we would call. It was typically called like the envelope shape and like academic drawing. But so once I have a rough shape here, I'm kind of I would kind of be comparing some measurements, and I would be looking for the overall height. Verse is the overall width of the drawing, making sure that they are at least relatively close to one another in terms of measuring. But again this early on in the drawing. It's more about just kind of establishing something on the paper and not getting too caught up in making sure that these initial lines air perfect by any means. And realistically, a lot of them are going to get changed quite a bit as we go on. And so what I'm first establishing here is once I have the exterior shape, I'm going to be looking for a relative interior shape. And so what that kind of means is, if you think about it in terms of a silhouette is I'm trying to establish an exterior silhouette shape and then an interior silhouette shape. And so what that means in this case is the hair shape, the overall shape of the hair and then the internal hairline and sort of the overall outer shape of the face itself. And so, by doing that, it kind of breaks down the drawing into sort of two large chunks, which then I can start sort of dividing up a little bit further once I place my axes, lines and everything else. But I like to kind of get those two things roughly established right from the get go because that kind of gives me three overall shape that I'm building into and I can work with from there. And so it coming just now, just kind of really. What I like to do, at least early on is too get as close as possible to, um, a not necessarily a contour, but I like to really establish the outer Thea outer sort of shape of the of the portrait and then kind of the same for the interior. And again, Like I said, it just helps me gage better the actual shape that I'm gonna be working to once I start placing the features and you can kind of tell here to just by the way I'm drawing is that I'm drawing a bit more angular and, you know, versus the other demo was a little bit more mannequin ized and kind of may be used more organic shapes. But when I'm drawing for myself, I do like to stick to more angular type of construction because I find that, for me at least, is it helps me draw a little bit more clearly, and I don't get caught up in contours or making things overly curvy. Um and I know that as I continue along the drawing, I can make those adjustments and start adding curves to the drawing. But in these early stages, I like to stay fairly simple, and I use a lot of straight lines. All right, so I feel comfortable about the exterior shape. So now I'm gonna just go into the interior shape and start making my divisions. So nothing's really changing here at this point, I'm still starting with the center line to establish the division in the front plane of the face, and then I'm going ahead and establishing my thirds. And in this particular instance, I think just kind of from observing her face is that the middle third might be a little bit longer than the other 2/3. But as I go along, all kind of make adjustments. And and that's just another thing to keep in mind. Like what I have stated previously in the other demonstrations is that in the early stages of drawing is that things are gonna be shifting quite a bit as we go, so I don't expect my initial lines to be perfect by any means. All right, so just kind of establishing our brow shape. And then from there I'm gonna pull up and find the side plane going right through there. And then that way I have a better understanding of what exactly is gonna be fitting in onto the front plane of the face and just kind of keep building out from there. So, you know, like I was saying earlier, before I find, at least for me, kind of building the socket in the nose relationship becomes really important in that hole sort of triangle shape that the nose and I sort of established together. Um, I feel like a lot of a likeness ca NBI really determined by how wide or how narrow that triangular shape is. And so that's why I kind of always have a tendency to put in that angle from the corner of the socket down to the wing of the nostril. Because I feel like if I can get that shape is close to the person a za possible in terms of just accuracy and the distance and proportions, then I feel like it sets me up for a good chance of getting a a pretty reasonable likeness , and I'm gonna try and keep This is clean as possible as I go along. But I am going to leave some of the structure lines in up until the very last minute where I kind of do it once over and clean up the drawing so you will see them in. They're just They're just gonna be a lot lighter than they were previously in the other demonstration. So again, same kind of idea from the wing of the nostril down to the corner of the mouth. And now, given the angle of the pose in which he's turning I mean, it may not necessarily see Aziz much on the far side of the mouth, but I can still kind of roughly find where the nodes of the mouth are and sort of build that tooth cylinder shape so that I know exactly where the entire lip shape Aziz, well as just the muzzle shape of the mouth is going to be established. And so kind of. What I keep doing here is is that now that I've gotten some of the features at least kind of roughly located is that I need to make some adjustments to my initial sort of interior contour shape. And again, it's just one of those things that, as I put in more information, it becomes a lot more obvious about the changes that I need to make in the rest of the drawing. And so that's kind of white again. You don't necessarily want to commit to anything super early on. Um, just because the natural course of a drawing is going to change so much and you can see here, I'm gonna be adjusting the exterior hair shape as well. A zai maybe started initially a little bit too wide for her for her head shape and everything. So just keep that in mind as you go along. And as you kind of continue to work on building and developing a drawing is that those initial early lines that you put in will most likely have to change will be removed or adjusted as you go. I am so but you can see here initially in this in this first little piece that we have the overall rough shape established, we have the the features kind of more or less, at least placed. And now we can start breaking down the head a little bit farther and start flushing out just a little bit of detail 7. Portrait Block in 2: So with the overall structure of the head more or less established, I feel comfortable enough to basically move on and start flushing out Just a little bit of detail. Um, so I like to kind of start with the eyes only only from the standpoint that I feel for me, at least if I can anchor in on one eye and get it working fairly well, then it always kind of sets the stage for the rest of the drawing. And so, at least for me, also to is that granted with a portrait is that the eyes are always gonna be a center of interest. And so I like to get them established kind of at least early on in in a basic sense. So I'm kind of just building around on the I and like using the relationship of the eyebrow to establish kind of the general placement and then basically going to construct it from there. Um, I'm still gonna be drawing fairly angular at this point. And so, um, again told, up until the very end, will I then start kind of adding some contour lines to get things looking a little bit rounder, But At least in this stage, while I'm still flushing out the drawing, I'm gonna be still sticking to my sort of angular structure lines eso with one eye in place , more or less. Aiken, go ahead and just start building out the other. And just I needed to trim a little bit on that edge is a little wide, so I'm gonna pull that in and then kind of start from the brown. Now, there's less information on this far side of the face because of how far over she's turned in a 3/4 sort of pose. And so, kind of I'm gonna have a little bit less information in the I toe work with so But basically what I do is I use the edge of the face and knowing that the edge of the forehead and then the cheek are going to be sort of my boundaries. I kind of have to just work in everything into the eye until I reached the very edge. And so I kind of use those as a way of measuring everything on and then build the I accordingly into those particular areas. And so I'm still squinting down, trying to simplify a lot of the information in there because it's very easy to get caught up in the detail. But when you squint down and make the shapes a little bit more graphic, it can greatly reduce Thea amount of information you're seeing and just kind of capture the essence of those areas. And so same thing here is that I'm gonna be using the bottom shadow plane of the nose to kind of help me establish on the rest of the structure of the nose. And that bottom plain with that strong cash shadow is more or less gonna be like an anchor point for me, so that if I get that cash shadow sitting just right, the nose will feel very anchored to that front plane of the face. Um, and then really, on a lot of instances, depending on how I were to decide to model the drawing, I don't need much more information than that cash shadow underneath. And once the noses in place, then at least kind of finding out the distances of the mouth and relationship become a lot easier. And again it just kind of becomes the same thing. Here is with the lighting situation. The upper lip creates such a dark shape that I can really just try and copy that and almost think of the upper lip almost like a shadow. Even though it's not entirely covered in shadow, it becomes such a very distinct dark shape that I can almost treat it like a shadow shape. And then that's gonna help me flush out the rest of the lips so that I can at least get the overall shape established and then make adjustments from there. And so is I've added the features I needed to make some adjustments to the contour of the face and in this instance as well. I'm gonna be trimming in just a little bit of the hair from what I had prior to that. So just some small adjustments. But now I think it's looking a little bit closer toe what I'm seeing on, yes, oh, really kind of the majority of the features air in place. I kind of just going to know and just build in the ear and kind of establish the shadow pattern that's happening across the cheek and in the chin on, and that's pretty much more or less the entire structure of the drawing. Now there's some other elements that I'm gonna build out like I'm gonna build out the shadow shapes in the ear on and stuff like that, but more or less, you can see what we've built so far, you know, isn't looking too bad. And we get a sense of again just the overall structure of the features, the angle that the models looking at and, uh, more or less with some of the shadow shapes in there. We get a sense of where the light source is hitting the model. So in this particular instance, with the ears that the majority of it is in shadow and so I don't necessarily want to draw everything that I can see or would try to see. I'm just gonna copy the shadow shape a Z best I can, and that way I get just a nice simplified impression of the year and just given the its relationship into the rest of the face. It's not something that I would want to draw attention to. And so it's one of those things that it's important, obviously toe have in there. But I wouldn't want to overemphasize any detail on and save that for the front part of the face, because that's where I want the viewer to look in the end. And so with the here and now, I can go back into the hair and make some more adjustments as I see them. But then, also to is that it may be hard to see on screen, but there are some shadow shapes within the hair itself, and so I got to treat them like anything else. And so I look for the same kinds of shadow patterns that are occurring, and I just draw them accordingly. So, um, and that's one thing for hair that I should mention in general is that you never want to get caught up in the idea of your drawing hair. Just think of it as a large mass. And then within that mass there smaller chunks, Um, you know of patterns that we're going to create the illusion of hair in the long run, and so you never want to get caught up drawing strands or anything like that. It's always more about creating the impression on and suggesting the hair than actually drawing hair. So keep that in mind. Whether it's someone with long hair, short hair, I kind of handle it all the same way and just look for patterns. And so I continue down the other side, same sort of thing. Eyes. I'm just looking for simplified patterns that I can sort of create a design with. And, um, again, just try and keep hair, you know, really simplified. Don't don't overthink it. Don't overemphasize detail in it or anything like that. Just look for a large mass that you can then later on, build into once you start shading the drawing. 8. Portrait Block in 3: So at this point, we more or less have everything fairly well established in terms of placement and overall construction. And once I get to this stage of a drawing, it then becomes more about refinement. And so, you know, it's still quite a ways off toe where I wouldn't necessarily start modeling a drawing at this point. But what I would do is I would refine the shapes to be a little bit more specific. And so in this case, I'm gonna be looking for more contour lines. I'm going to be looking to make any sort of small adjustments in the portrait. That way, when I do get to the point where you know, I say, yes, I'm ready to model that I don't really have to resolve as much, um, after that. And so that's kind of what this next stage is gonna be going from here on forward is just reassessing all of the things that I've established in the drawing so far and trying to refine the shapes to be a little bit more cleaner and then just trying to get it to look more like the model. And so a lot of times I end up using my race or quite a bit as a drawing tool and on. And I'm just going back and forth and just looking and making adjustments, adding, you know, details. As I feel like that they need to be there. But it really becomes a lot more about refining shapes at this point. Um, so we'll see here now I'm just basically going on top of what's already been established, adding little tiny bits of information on and then just building upon what's there. And you will see me kind of fill in the lines afterwards just so that we get a better sense of what we've created in terms of shapes. Um, but I really want to spend the extra time to refine those shapes to be a little bit more specific and hopefully have a little bit more clarity. Um, and then we'll go from there. And so there's little small areas where I'm gonna be adding tiny bits of information. In this case, it might be half tone shapes that aren't quite shadow shapes, but their shape that are dark enough to where I can use them to get a better sense of the structure. that's happening in the head. And so they kind of become just secondary details to help me understand the form better. Um, and those would be important to have in the drawing once we get to the stage where we decide that we're gonna model the drawing and use those as basically just bits of information to help me model the form better. So I'm taking out some of the construction lines from the initial drawing and that we can just kind of keep the drawing clean and really get a better sense of what sort of the finished blocking is gonna look like by the time we're done. And I'll do that as I go along. But I'm gonna go ahead and just fill in a little bit of the shape here, and I'm just putting in a very light value. It may look a little bit darker than what it actually is in person, but I find by by just putting in a just a very little light value, it allows you to see the shapes that you've made in the drawing. And if something looks off, you can then hopefully have a better idea of the corrections that you need to make, um because I know sometimes when you're working in the line drawing sort of a stage like this, it can be very tricky And actually see, um, what sort of shapes you're looking at in the long run? And so, by putting just a very light tone in it allows you to get better clarity of what those shapes are. And so, yeah, again, just using my eraser to make adjustments. Um, and you'll see me. I don't really jaw like this that much. But when I need to get in some to some details, I do have a tendency to flip the pencil over and kind of draw more like I write. And given the size of the drawing, which is actually fairly small. I had to do it a lot throughout this drawing, but again, just kind of want toe, really go back over shapes and make subtle adjustments, and it may not look like I'm changing very much. And in reality, um, the adjustments are fairly small on DSO, but those little things over the course of the drawing, as I continue to refine things, they add up quite a bit. Um and that's really what this state should be. It really should not be very large changes at this point. All of those have should have been addressed already in the initial structure of the drawing on. But this stage we're basically just looking at refinement and flushing out details. So I'm just gonna keep moving forward and work our way down. Okay, So again, with the nose, I want to be really careful here. And I don't want to over establish the bridge of the nose with the lighting situation and everything like that. I only really need to emphasize this cash shadow and the bottom plane of the nose, because really, that's the bulk of the information that becomes the absolute most important in terms of creating that illusion of the nose anchored to the front plane of the face. Ah, lot of the bridge portion of the nose. Almost because of the lighting, it doesn't it's not. It's just not as important, which is why it kind of just lightened the line a little bit and just kind of de emphasize some of that information in there and again. Even within this shadow shape here, I'm just going to suggest the nostril. I'm not gonna actually flush it out because that sort of detail doesn't necessarily need to be in there. It could really just be a very small suggestion, and the viewer will kind of fill in the detail with their eyes as they look at it and so seen the upper lip. I can almost treat it similarly to the nose in that the upper lip is such a dark value. And although there's some shadow shapes that are occurring on the edges of the upper lip, for the most part, if I can really just get the overall graphic shape of the upper lip, it kind of solves the rest because the bottom shadows shape on the bottom lip will kind of establish the actual volume of the lower lip itself, since that's mostly in light. But by just putting in a light, Um, you know, little value you can see here we don't I don't need a whole lot of information to get the lips toe look like they're in perspective and to capture their shapes. So just kind of keep that in mind. And all of this is always contingent on the lighting situation. Um, and for simplicity sake, it's I always find it's best to use a single light source that when you get really strong shadow patterns and ultimately to it's just I think once you start modeling the drawings, it's is a bit more fun and kind of more theatric, and, um and it's just really It kind of just makes a beautiful drawing, I think in the end, and so as I have the lips, they're better established. I can no dial in this contour on the lower part of the face just a little bit better and, ah, lot of the areas. What I'm trying to do is I want to get down to almost like a single line. That way. I just have a very specific edge, so that, um later on, when I go into model the drawing or anything like that, I have a very definitive starting an end point to a specific line. All right, so let me let me get back up into the ear here and again with an area like this. Where it's so subdued in shadow is I don't want to overemphasize. Ah, lot of the information that's in there if this were going to be a finished drawing, it would be an area that I would wanna ultimately subdue quite a bit because it's so far away from our focal point, which really in this case would be the eyes or the rest of the features eso that it would want to stay fairly buried and shadow for the most part. But I really do want to just reemphasize the actual shadow pattern shapes themselves on Ben . That way, at least they're completed. And then from there, you know, if we were to model this drawing, those would, um, kind of blend together with the small bits of ear that air in the light. Um, you know, But again, it's just one of those things where it's so far away from the focal point that I would never really want to create that much attention. Um, you know, with something like the ear, which is really not as important as the other features, at least in this particular instance. So because he I put in a light value there that way you could just sort of see the shapes on, but they look like when it's filled in and I'll go ahead and just fill in the cheek. Here is well, that way it's in and and you get a sense just by like again. With this light value, you get a sense of the light and dark effect that is sort of taking place in the drawing. And the only reason I would suggest putting it in is so that you could see or shapes better . You know, for a drawing like this in this stage, depending on what I decided I wanted to do in terms of modeling it in the long run, um, you know, whether it kind of it's kind of at a point where I would either a continue on the same piece of paper, I could sort of transfer the drawing to a nicer sheet of paper to do a finished project on . But for the most part, just by putting the light value allows you to see the shapes that you made in the block in . And that's kind of the point. Where we're at now is that we have a more or less finished block in. The shapes have been revised, Um, and everything's well established on the page and then now becomes a decision on your part . You know what you want to do with it? It could be just a simple block in exercise, which I would recommend people do, you know, just multiples of these just to get more familiar with building ahead from scratch. And then after that, once you get comfortable doing it, how you model, it is gonna be up to you. So whether you want to do something that is more, you know, more graphic or more, let's say cross hatching or you want to just traditionally build nice for modeling or anything like that. You can pretty much go anywhere from this particular stage on. And so it's kind of up to you and kind of what you feel like at the time. And, you know, maybe, you know, a certain model kind of, you know, looks like they could be drawn in a certain way because of how they look or anything like that. And there's all kinds of just creative ways that you can sort of finish drawing. Um, but basically what we've covered in this class is just how to develop the head a little bit better from a structure standpoint, and hopefully from here, you feel comfortable building out the head, and you can then decide how you want to continue on and model your drawings. But, um, this is pretty much it. And so hopefully you enjoyed it. And thank you for watching. 9. Closing Thoughts 1: so closing up. I just wanted to show you a few drawings that are at what I would consider a completed block in stage. Now there's not a whole lot of detail involved, and the drawings air basically ready to be modeled, if that were the direction that they would have taken. So I'm hoping that all of the tools that we talked about in this class kind of made sense and that you can apply it to your own drawings and what I would encourage everyone is to really focus on the structure and making everything feel really sound and solid on and look dimensional, even in a very simple line drawing. From there, you can always decide what you want to do with the drawings in terms of modeling and style and everything like that. But I'm hoping that you enjoy the class and you are able to take something away that will help you improve your head drawing. Thank you for watch