Academic Drawing Part 1: How to Start a Drawing

1. Introduction: everyone. So this class is all gonna be about blocking and a drawing from the very beginning, all the way to the finish line drawing that is essentially ready for shadows. Now, I've certainly done this kind of class in the past, but I've never taken a very sort of deep dive into the subject, such as this class that I'm doing now. And so this whole process is actually gonna be broken up into a few different videos. And this 1st 1 is all gonna be about starting your drawing, what ideas that I use in my kind of take a complicated subject, break it down to its simple shapes and then ultimately prepare it for some of the later stages in. So, you know, even though this video's gonna be broken up into a few different parts, I wouldn't say that arguably started drawing is gonna be the most important part as you're starting out with any sort of drawing practice. And while we'll be doing the drawing from scratch, just keep in mind that even though this video is sped up for the sake of time, that the block in process itself does take several hours, depending on your subject matter but nonetheless will go over a lot of different ideas that you can use to help break down your drawing and then ultimately resolve any issues that you may have. And then, by the end of it will spend a lot of time cleaning up the drawing eso that it's prepared for the following stages that we'll get to in a later video. So follow along and kind of take your time with this process. Like I have said, this part of the drawing is fundamentally the most important because it will set the stage for the rest of the drawing. And it's something that I feel, ah, lot of students at first kind of, you know, bypass or kind of rushed through because they feel like they need to get to shadows or any sort of modeling on anything like that. Ultimately, having Teoh, you know, erase a lot and take out a lot of information. So really, try and slow down your process askew. Watch this video and take a much time as you fundamentally need to get a good block and done. And the more mileage you can get by having these successful linear drawings. Ultimately, your finished work is gonna vastly improve because of a strong foundation from the very beginning, 2. Drawing Set Up: Hey, everyone. So I wanted to just show you a little bit of how I have my station set up so that it might give you an idea about what you may want to do in your own sort of work space or studio space that you have a home. Um, now I am standing at an easel, so kind of keep that into consideration. But it wouldn't necessarily make a difference if I were sitting either at like a you know, a desk are drafting table or anything like that. And, um, the more important thing that I wanted to at least convey is that because I'm working from life is that I want my subject matter as close to my easel as I can. And so you can see here that I have my cast that's literally right across from my easel. And the only reason for that is so that as in measuring and I'm holding up my measuring tool, I could literally just take my hand across and measure and then put things on my paper. And so, depending on how you set up, you know your whether it's like a still life or a cast or anything. That's kind of like an ideal scenario. Now, if you're working from a model and you're far away from your model stand, that's gonna be something, you know, obviously a little bit different in terms of proximity. But you're still going to apply the same principles regardless of your you know, your vantage point. You know, the only thing I would say is that depending on where you're at, you know, you still want to get a nice you know, sort of single light source like I have here. And it's a little bit hard to tell you. No, but I have, like, a nice, single light source, and this isn't the final light source that I'm using in the video, but you'll have. You know, that's kind of the general idea that you want to go with that. We have a nice and strong shadows beyond that. Um, again, I don't have a whole lot of space toe work with, so it doesn't really require for you to have a lot of work space in order to just get started drawing. An ideal situation would be is if you're able to leave your set up, you know especially, but something like a still life if you have, like, a little station where you can leave something out and that way you don't have to really kind of go through the struggle of having to reset up things as you go along. And the only reason on my set up and it's hard to see but you'll see it in the video is I have, like, some blue tape just so I can kind of get the cast in the same position. And if that is one of those situations where you're gonna have to take something down and then re set it up, you're gonna want to tape it off as best you can or at least maybe take a photograph of your set up so that you can position it correctly each time we need to draw. But, you know, regardless, depending on how much time you're investing in your sketches, you don't need a complicated, you know, set up. You don't need an easel. You can easily draw a desk, a drafting table. Even if you're gonna just practice in your sketchbook, you could. It all applies. My only recommendation again is have your have your you know, your subject matter in a really good line of sight. So that that way, as you're measuring out, everything is you can you can make those measurements very quickly and easily, and you're not having to strain your eyes or strain your arm till I really reach out and then have to try and take it over to your paper cause this is gonna make just practicing a lot harder. So hopefully that kind of helps a little bit again. You know, I'm drawing from life, so I'm kind of having to kind of Jerry rigs a few things in my set up. So, like this is plastered to my wall. Or at least what I mean is like hanging by a nail, you know? And then I just got some phone, some phone board to kind of block out any sort of external light that we have a very I can create a very nice, strong shadow, and I don't have any balance, life or reflected light coming from the walls or anything else in my little space here. If you don't want to do that, you can always just get to mic drop cloth like you know, go to a fabric store, get some cheap black or a dark grade, you know, drop cloth and then set up like, a little still life. Or, you know what have you just, you know, you want to try and make it as easy as possible. That way, you can just really focus on getting drawing. Um, and any sort of barriers that you can eliminate from you practicing are gonna be your best bet. Just that way, you can start getting some hours in and getting safe anything, that consistency of practice. And that's what's really gonna help your development. So hopefully that helps a little bit. I know. Sometimes it's, you know, it's hard on the videos to kind of see what my actual space looks like. I'll tell you what, I'm really not a very tiny kind of cramped space that I'm working in. You just got to make the most of it, you know? So, you know, regardless of your set up or space that you have at home, just try and make it work as best you can for yourself. In that way, you can get the practice in. So but again, just trying to get everything as close together as possible. So that way it is. You know, as easy as I could make it on myself as I'm kind of getting this thing started, so I hope that helps. 3. Beginning the Block in: Okay, So as we're gonna start this drawing here, I first gonna want to just say that regardless of your subject matter, whether it's a cast portrait figure and you know whether it's simple or complex is that this approach essentially remains the same regardless. And, you know, even is that I do other, you know, personal projects or anything like that. I never really e v eight. Um, from this sort of approach, just because, you know, I found that over the years following this approach gets me consistent results. And so, you know, if you're just starting off in your, you know, drawing sort of education or what have you? This is sort of a sound method that you can use repeatedly to get consistent results as you begin your work. So with the initial stages of any drawing, what I first want to do is kind of mark off the top and bottom of where I want this to sit on the page. And from there I'm gonna get a large shape, established what we would call the envelope of the drawing. And that just gives me a visual marker saying that I'm gonna more or less try and fit everything in this large shape, and I may or may not carve in and out of it, but at least it gives me some visual idea about how this is gonna occupy the paper. And, you know, as we go from there, the first couple of things that you're gonna want to find is you're gonna want to find the height and width relationship. And in this particular case, it's obviously going to be taller than it is wide. But again, you want to set yourself up for, you know, proper proportions. And so finding the top and bottom the halfway point and then then from there, kind of establishing the general hype, the width proportion, you know of what you're drawing is gonna be the first few things that you want to establish or at least have a visual idea about, because then you convey ace your other proportions off of that. Now, in this case, I'm also going to be, you know, trying to stay as light as I possibly can for the most part. But hopefully everything still shows up well on camera so that you can actually see the lines that I'm making but early on, obviously you want to always give yourself as much room for error and, you know, for me, kind of with this particular cast, you know, there is a lot of complex city going on that, you know, obviously gets addressed, you know, further along in the block in. But, um, you always kind of wanna draw, you know, as light as you can manage, so that you have that flexibility to remove errors as you make progress. But, um, you know, keep in mind, too, is that I'm constantly changing things and almost never is something right the first time that I put it down. Or at least you know, there's always a little bit of error that I have to kind of contend with. And so the more I can kind of give myself that room to fix, which basically means drawing light, the easier it gets as the drawing gets further along. So with the general shape established, I do want to go ahead and find a proper halfway point and on, and then once I have a halfway point, then it will be easier for me to find a true hype toe with ratio for the rest of the cast, and that's gonna be kind of the thing that is going to help me a little bit more confidently start to establish the rest of it. Um, you know, and again, depending on what you're drawing, you know, those early sort of steps, You know that the height, the width ratio, a top a bottom and 1/2 way point those are gonna be sort of the key things that you want to be looking for. And And let's say it was a series of objects and not just an individual object like this, you know, I'd be looking for that For every you know, let's say item, You know, if you were drawing or painting a still life or something like that and there were several items involved, you might be finding those relationships for each individual item. So a top a bottom halfway point, and then you would have to then figure out the relationship of all those items together, and, you know, it doesn't really matter what it is, You know, again, those things are going apply to pretty much anything that you work on. Now, in this particular case, I'm gonna have, you know, a center line. And I can construct this pretty much like a portrait. Even though you know it's a cast, it is gonna follow the same sort of principles of constructing head. Um, in this case, though, he is looking down and it's a heavy downward. Gays, Um, and there's a lot of, you know, forehead, mass and and other things to kind of, you know, to take into consideration. But it's so early on in the drawing that, um I still establishing the general structure and I'm looking for proportional things. They're gonna help kind of at least guide me in the right direction as I construct the rest of it again. Those early measurements that I discussed are gonna be the things that you look for as you begin your drawing. As I start adding additional information to the drawing, I'll still go back in and check my height, the width relationship. Um, you know, from the top half to the lower half of the drawing and I constantly going back and doing that, it's just going to give me a better idea about the changes that I may or may not need to make as the drawing moves forward and especially in these early stages, you want to just go back in and re check yourself constantly, Um, at least for me. And I know just from experiences I I'm almost never right The very first mark that I put down and often find myself having to go back in and make corrections. And and it's just I feel like, you know, no one's eyes perfect. And it doesn't It never hurts to, you know, keep measuring and and keep measuring cause, you know, depending on you know how you come in to draw from one sitting to the next you know, your eyes going to see a little bit differently. And so it never hurts to go back in and re measure or double check yourself before you get too far along. Um and then maybe potentially have to make a lot more changes. Then you would want as you as you build up the drawing. So at this point, I'm still just gonna be focused on getting a decent, you know, exterior silhouette. You know, before I start working on the inside of the drawing and I'm primarily working with straight lines and I built up the drawing pretty much entirely with straight lines. And the reason for that is is solely that, as I make one straight line to the next get very specific points and and each, you know each straight line is more or less trying to represent a plane. Change that I see. But it also gives me a way of measuring from one side of the cast to the other because as each line connects, I can use the point where they need Teoh, relate it to the other side and trying to align things the best that I can. Um, you know and again. And it doesn't mean that these things won't change, or I may have to alter. You know, some of the lines later, but as a starting point to kind of establish, you know, the sort of exterior of the drawing. It's kind of a good idea, because those lines can be used as measuring tools for the rest of the drawing. Now, I'm not necessarily looking for, like, specific contours or anything like that, but I do want to try and capture Ah, at least a somewhat accurate silhouette of the outside because that's going to ultimately be part of the likeness to the cast. And so, um, that's why I'm kind of taking a little bit extra time to try and find, you know, specific angles on. And then, you know, as I start adding information on the interior of the cast, some of these angles might change where there might be slight variances that I have to kind of, you know, rework or maybe even redraw. But, you know, for the most part, I at least wanted for me. That's a good method of getting started with the drawing before I start really focusing in on the interior and flushing out those details. So I'll continue on trying to build up the exterior silhouette of the drawing. And as I add information, I'll be relating that from one side to the other, to try and see where these angles all line up and you can see, though I mean, we're already I spent a decent amount of time just developing the exterior and really haven't flushed out much information. And and it's not that I'm necessarily drawing slow, but it's more. What I'm thinking about is because I know this is gonna be a long drawing. Overall is I really have to take my time in the beginning to make sure it's as accurate as I possibly can. Because as I get farther and farther along in the drawing, it gets harder to make corrections, especially to the overall big shape. And so if there's one thing I could emphasize is yours, you beginning your drawings of any kind is to take us much time early on in the drawing to establish this large shape, um, and make it is accurate as you possibly can, because again, as you go further along in your drawing, it gets a lot harder to go back in and make large corrections where maybe, you know, because maybe you rush through the beginning and, you know, you missed something, and it's certainly possible. I mean, my eye is not perfect, and I still make mistakes all the time. Um, but I know that the more careful I am in the beginning, and just by taking my time to do an accurate, you know, block in, the much easier it's gonna be as I get further along into, you know, putting in shadows and then ultimately modeling form and things like that. It's going to be a lot easier, because I'm gonna have a very solid foundation that I've built up. Um, that really just took a long time to get there. And my my emphasis to any new student would be to spend as much time on your block in as you need before you move farther along on. Then it will save you so much time in the long run because you won't have to go back and make corrections further down the road. So just kind of keep that in mind with your own drawings in it'll it'll help quite a bit. 4. Dividing the large shapes: So as I work from one sitting to the next, I'll always go back in and re measure all my lines in. And that's just a good sort of habit toe have is that as you continue, a drawing from one day to the next is before you get started. Drawing again is go back in and re measure things if necessary, because it's very possible that you may be missed something from the previous sitting. And you know, So I make it a point, you know, to do that for every, um, you know, for every kind of from each sitting of a drawing that I do, I'll go back in. And, uh, I'll double check the previous work that I did the day before on then. That way, I just kind of have. It's a kind of treat that as like a warm up before I start putting any new pencil strokes on the drawing, and this is a good idea. Um, you know, just as a precautionary thing before you get too far ahead of yourself. In this particular case, though, for now that I have the sort of large mass established of the head, I need to start breaking it down into some smaller chunks. And given the nature of the cast, there's some very obvious ways that I can kind of start breaking it down into smaller sections and, you know, starting with the top, you know, of the of the hair and finding where the hair cuts into the forehead on the top planes of the head. And then I'll eventually get down into, like, the brown line and then the nose. Because the main focal point really in this cast is gonna be the interior portion of the face. And with the way that the cast was sculpted, it makes very obvious, you know, cut points in the face, you know, being the brow line where the noses and then we have the mustache in the beer that make it a little bit easier to manage, at least from a measuring standpoint, because we have lots of little things that cut across the entirety of the form. And so, given that this is essentially a portrait, I'm kind of going into more of like a portrait mode sort of way of thinking. But, you know, regardless of what it is, you know, I still want to find a center line? Um, you know, and then in on this particular case, I'm gonna be looking for axes, lines and where things line up, say, in relationship from the brow line to the nose where the goatee is cutting across, you know, so things like that and that's only because it's essentially a portrait. And again, if you were doing, let's say if it was a different type of caste or anything like that, you would still want to find perhaps a center line of some kind to use as a guide. Um, you know, and then that way you can at least use that, depending on the angle that you're drawing from. The important thing to think about is that as your as your building, any drawing is you always have to think where things are lining up horizontally and vertically, and the more sort of points you can give yourself to make those kinds of measurements. It's easier to find our at least to see how things relate next to other things. And so as I continue to build up the drawing, I'll constantly be trying to measure from one side to the next, both horizontally and vertically. Um, because I'm trying to just get a good sense of alignment and where things are interacting with each other. And that kind of goes back to the point of drawing with straight lines so that you get very specific plane changes as you as you're drawing. Um, it's much easier to measure off of those straight straight lines and where those points meat because you're just giving yourself another thing to look at as you're developing the drawing. And eventually you know, all of those straight lines will kind of start to, uh, soften over time as you get further in the drawing. But it's something to keep in mind as your as your in these early stages of drawing to keep it a structured as possible so that it's a little bit easier to, ah to develop it. And so, in this particular case, I'm really just trying to find my general axes lines where I think the sweep of the brow is coming into play as it kind of gets close to the edge of the head. And then as we work our way down through the cheek and other areas like that we get that division point Ah, for the nose and the mustache, and it kind of it kind of nicely contains everything so that I don't have these overly broad shapes that become harder to measure because there's so much distance from one thing to the next. And in this particular case, you know, the broadest portion of this cast is pretty much like the forehead as well as the top plane of the head that we see towards the tip of the cast, you know, And then as we get down into the cheek and then the mustache is that everything is sort of neatly, um, you know, tight together. So because those points are closer to each other, it's much easier to measure. Whereas, you know, things can get a little trickier at the top here, because I don't really have is much information that I can use Teoh guide myself. And so, um, that's just something I'm keeping in mind. Even though it's early on, um, and you know, again, depending on what you're drawing, you always want to be aware of. You know, if there's perhaps longer distances that become harder to measure against versus information where if there is a lot of other things nearby that could be helpful Because you have multiple things that you can measure against versus, you know, a very broad surface area that, um, you know, perhaps might be a little more vague. And so once you know, in this particular case, given, you know, this cast is that once I divide the face away from the beard, then you know, I've kind of broken up the cast into some smaller shapes. And once those smaller shapes are established, I can then start kind of getting a little bit deeper and finding more nuanced, you know, shapes within them. And the main idea that I want you to take away from it, though, is that with any drawing, the concept is always going to be starting from a large shape down to a small the next, you know, smallest shape. And then you just keep wiggling and wiggling away until everything becomes resolved. And the more that you can do that, even if you're drawing something that's very complicated or that say, there's multiple elements in the drawing. If you're working from the idea of large shapes to small shapes, things become a lot more manageable because those large shapes sets set the stage for everything else. And then as you break things down farther and farther, it gets a little bit easier. And then, as you're adding information, you can make any sort of comparisons to make corrections a little bit easier as well. So just kind of keep that in mind as you're building up their drawing. Um, you know, don't get too caught up into, uh, small shapes very early on. That's kind of it becomes more of a detail thing as we get closer to finishing the block in . But right now, in the first few hours of any block in, you want to kind of just work from large to small on, then developed the drawing from there. 5. Smaller shapes and adjustments: so continuing along, Um, at this point, I'm going to start, You know, the larger masses have more or less been established. So I want to start breaking things down even farther into some smaller shapes. And then, you know, as I kind of draw those those ah smaller shapes in, I have to go back in and sort of reassess those new shapes that I put in against everything else. And what may end up happening is I start making some adjustments to other things, and that's kind of ultimately, the process that has to take place is that as you add in new information, you then have to somehow relate everything together. And if there's any sort of discrepancies, you have to, then go ahead and make those adjustments before you move forward. And so, as I'm adding in new information, I'm gonna go ahead and, you know, try and measure it against other things seaworthy, you know, see where things line up in relationship to others. So that's why you're gonna constantly see me double checking angles, making sure that as I put in another piece of information, what is its relationship and angle to something else that's close by and realistically, I would say that's That's a lot of the block in process. In a nutshell is you're constantly, um, relating adding information and then double checking it several times until everything sort of falls into place. And so that's gonna be a lot of what's gonna happen, as I kind of continue on in this lower section of the face. Now this lower portion, you know, of the face, which is predominantly going to be like the moustache. A little bit of like the lower the lower lip, which is also kind of in, you know, kind of a beard type, you know, scenario. Um, I'm not going to go ahead and put in the details of any of them or any of, like, the little cross sections in the hair. I'm primarily more concerned with larger mass that the mustache makes and its relationship to the lower half of the cast, where the beard is kind of going in and just sort of, you know, blending outward to like the base of the cast. And so when I would end up doing is just pretty much just finding the largest components of the beard and just so that I have some concrete shapes to use on. Then I can use those to measure against other things. And you know, the details in the beard will come at a much later stage, Um, in the drawing, when we actually start adding features and kind of some of the smaller details in the block in. But it's so early on in this stage of the drawing that you wouldn't want to get caught up in any little thing. And so I'm still working from the mindset of, you know, large shapes to small shapes. And, uh, you know, a lot of the times, you know, even if there's, you know, much smaller shapes in those large shapes. I kind of want to ignore those at first and just stick with the biggest possible masses. And then, um, at least use those shapes as a guide to fill in everything else later. And, you know, I won't be able to see ah lot of these smaller shapes come into play until I get back up into the eyes on and start sculpting out some of the features and things like that. But, um, you know, again, it's It's still very early on in the drawing and you'll see me make some adjustments to the lower half of the beard here. Um and that's just you know, as I see things that kind of come up and just feel off, I'm gonna go ahead and try and make those changes as I see them, Uh, and not, You know, let them sit, You know, there for an extended period of time because then I'll forget about them. And, um, that's sort of more or less a good rule of thumb is if you do see a mistake, try and correct it as you see it. I don't think that you're gonna go back in and change it later, because you'll probably forget it happens to everybody. So just kind of keep that in mind in your own drawings as you work. So at this point, I'm still gonna be making minor adjustments and just kind of double checking myself on the the width of the top portion of the head and relationship to the lower half. And things cast is a little tricky in the sense that the the face is actually angled downwards. And that's why the shadows look the way they do. And so, from where I'm standing, I'm actually catching a lot of the the forehead, the upper part of the forehead as well as the top plane of the head. And the cast itself has a very sort of large cranial mass. And that's kind of what I'm trying Teoh a just and kind of contend with in this block in a tous particular stage. And, um, I know later run. I kind of go back in and make some more adjustments to that. But again, it's kind of why, early in a drawing, you want to spend all this time now and so that the end goal of a block in is to basically have everything figured out from this from the standpoint of proportion on size and and you know, having your shadows mapped out so that that way, as you make your way into the next stage, is at the drawing. You don't have to necessarily think about as much in the process, and you can focus on, you know, sort of one thing at a time. And so by the time I get ready to put in shadows and this drawing. I don't want to be thinking about the block in as much, you know, And then by the time the shadows air done, I don't want to be thinking about those when I start modeling form and the the ideas that we take one thing on at a time so that we can devote all of our attention to that step in the process. And, um, that's why I would encourage every beginner early on is to invest a much time, as you kind of can feasibly into the block in stage so that it makes it that much easier to move forward. Um, and then ultimately, that's how you end up drawing a little bit faster as you get better at measuring on your eye gets better. Is the more accurate your block ins can be Early on, the faster of the other steps go 6. Blocking the features: So with most of the shapes and the beard, and I'm gonna go ahead and start sculpting out some of the features of the cast because this is essentially kind of the focal point, which is for me is going to be probably the most fun part to draw eso I want. I want to get in here and kind of just solve some of these issues. And, um, given the angle of the cast in its nature, you know, again, we're seeing more of the the top plane of the forehead as well as the top part of the cranial mass. So the brow ridge itself has this sort of nice, you know, scooped, you know, kind of feel to it. And you kind of see a very deep arc and the eyes are more or less in a downcast position. And even though we don't see ah whole lot of the eyes themselves because of how heavy the brow ridges as well as he has some kind of thicker eyebrows, they're still like little bits of portion of the eyes that I do see in there. Um, and even on the shadow side of the cast, while a lot of that is gonna be buried ultimately later on in the drawing. Once we get to the shadow stage, I do want to go ahead and account for that information that is in shadow just so that I have an idea of how things air sitting in space. And then I can use those to measure against other things as well. Um, it's not to say that, you know, I intend toe model or put a lot of importance to things that are buried in shadow, but it's always kind of a good idea if you can, and you have the patience to draw the information as best you can, that's in the shadows again so that you can use it as a guide to build out the rest of the drawing. And so that's kind of what I want to end up doing here in the cast. Is that even the things that are, you know, seemingly not very visible? I want to try and go ahead, and you're all them as best I can, um, and that we just have a better idea of what's going on in the shadows in relationship to the light on and ultimately just leads to a better block in and so building out the eyes again. There's not gonna be a lot of information that I actually see mostly from the lower lids in the eyes. But there is a lot of information in the cheek bones where kind of like we have, like the laugh line, and we see a little bit of like the sort of the fatty pads in the ah, in the cheeks, as well as, um, some of the orbital muscles around the eyes themselves. And those are gonna be a little bit easier to use as a measuring, um, you know, sort of guide for developing the features. And, you know, given that I'm more or less working straight on from the cast, I'm kind of just you know, it's like doing a front view portrait. And so I'm just trying to relate from one side to the other, looking for, you know, a relative degree of symmetry. And, you know, even though there's actually some differences up close on the cast, which might be a little bit hard to see, you know. So whereas I see there's some information that is sculpted in the left hand side of the face that isn't is apparent in the right hand side. But, um, you know, at this, you know, at this particular point, because it's still early on. I'm not looking for those subtle details. I'm looking more so for just trying to capture a very sort of symmetrical feel to the features. And then later on, as I get a little bit deeper into the into the the details, then I can co it and flush out the subtle differences that I see continuing along. Um, you know, there's little bits of information in the shadow that I am going to just try and flush out , and that includes, you know, at least on left hand side. I'm actually drawing in some of the shadow patterns because it's it's so predominant on the left hand side that, um, by at least getting a very simple mapping of the shadows, I can use those Azaz, a measuring tool against other information in the face, and that always becomes kind of a case by case scenario, depending on what you're drawing and the orientation of your light source. But if you need to map in shadows, perhaps a little early on in the drawing because those shadows shapes will give you a better idea about how to fill in more information. Then go ahead and do that. Um, you know, if you set up if you set up a drawing that has very high contrast shadows, you know which ultimately I would recommend for the simplicity of practicing drawing. But if you need to map in shadow shapes as a sort of placeholder, um, so that you can measure better, then go ahead and do whatever works for you. And, um, it will really depend on the lighting situation as well as what you're drawing. But it can be a useful tool early on, just so that you have at least you know, some extra information to use as a tool. Eso just kind of keep that in mind. And because this particular area of the faces so shadow heavy. That's why I'm kind of drawing some of these in perhaps a little earlier, you know, and given, given the, you know, sort of the light scenario with this particular face, it doesn't take long to kind of, you know, see, these little areas developed rather quickly and you know they're by no means being close to finished. And I still have to go ahead and get up into, you know, the Brow ridge and then as well as into the hair. But you can kind of see, you know, even with that little bit of information in the face, it's kind of slowly piecing itself together. And that's just kind of how this ends up. You know, working is that you just kind of keep slowly adding information and then obviously making adjustments as you continue to draw. But, um, you know, we went from a very simplistic drawing to something that has a little bit more complexity to it pretty quickly, just by adding, you know, some of the smaller shapes and the features And, you know, at this particular point, you know, I'm kind of zeroing in on some of the shapes that are gonna be the focal point in the cast , but we still have a ways to go to develop, you know, the hair and some of the supporting areas in the in the cast, like the beard. So, you know, just kind of keep it in mind, you know you want This is all like a gradual process as you develop your drawing. And you know, I'm not necessarily rushing through any of the steps, but I'm just trying to take my time and make sure you know, I can get things as accurately a zai can before moving forward. 7. Beginning smaller shapes and details: with the majority of the shapes established in the cast. I feel OK at this point to more or less start developing things a little bit farther, which means kind of breaking down some of the shapes into even smaller shapes and more or less trying to account for some of the details within them. And there's not necessarily, um, you know, when you get to this stage in the drawing, there's really no rhyme or reason to pick an area. A Sfar is where to start, but I usually would like to start in the focal point. Um, you know, of the cast so I can really develop, Um, you know, that particular area. And so in this instance, it's gonna be kind of the center, you know, of the face, because that's really where I want to spend a lot of time later on in the drawling, really developing, you know, like the features, the shadows and kind of the forms within that face, because I think that's where, at least to me, that's kind of where more than interesting stuff is kind of coming into play. And then if I were to think of a secondary area of interest. It would be kind of like the mustache is that meets into the nose. And those those kinds of spots in this particular cast are gonna have the most interesting kind of things toe. Look at later, Ron, once we get to four modeling and shadows and things like that. So, um, but at this stage, you know, I have the more or less larger shaped established, the face is separated away from, like, the beard on. And then we have edges of the hair. So at this point, I really I have nowhere else to go. I kind of, you know, built the large shapes, you know, as good as I could. So I have to start breaking them down and start finding some of the smaller indentations in the form any cut lines or anything like that that is gonna help develop these areas a little bit farther. And then, as I'm filling those in, I have to then go back and try and relate. You know, the shape that I established early on to some of these smaller shapes that I'm putting in now and make sure that everything feels cohesive and there's no like sort of proportional discrepancies or anything like that. And so as I'm adding details all trying, you know, more or less stick to ah, an area and get as much as I can kind of fill in at one point. And then as I kind of continue working, I'll still go back in and double check everything, um, and then clean it up along the way. Um, now, you know, I'm not, you know, as I'm putting in these details, I'm not trying to put in any sort of, you know, contours or anything like that. I'm still more or less trying to draw in, you know, straight lines and just angle everything out and knowing that as I get further along in the drawing, all of that will kind of resolve itself in the modeling stage. But, um, you know, again, we're still so far off from even that are adding shadows that I'm still thinking in a very sort of construction type manner. Eso a lot of my lines are still gonna be very straight and angular. Um, mostly so that I can use them as tools to measure other things as I go. And so, as I'm as I'm kind of just continuing to fill things in. It may not look like I'm adding much, and it's mostly because, you know, I'm working in a very sort of small area, and there is very just a lot of small mark making that's happening. And as I'm flushing out some of these details, uh, you know, it's not like I'm making very big jumps or I'm adding a lot of information at a given time . Um, and that has, You know, once I get into like the beard, um, in some of the smaller areas like that, you'll see a lot more things happening. But, you know, for the most part in the this sort of face, you know, plain that I'm drawing in right now. There's not a whole lot, um, you know of let's say is like, super refined detail that I'm gonna have to put in at this point. It's mostly just figuring out where things are kind of connecting, and so that what I'm thinking about is far in the future. When I get to the modeling stage, any lines that might be a benefit to me toe have as sort of like a guideline. So, you know, things like the side plane in the nose. Even though they're very subtle on the cast, I'm putting in some of that information. So that that way I just know, you know, okay, this form is gonna have to exist in this space when I get to the modeling stage. And, you know, maybe eventually some of these lines are gonna get, you know, kind of either erased or lightened quite a bit. But any sort of guide that I can give myself that is going to sort of develop into the following stages of the drawing. I'm gonna go ahead and put those in, um, sort of like a road map for myself, and I know that sort of thinking, like, a few steps ahead. Um but that's kind of I think that's maybe, like, an important thing to consider as you're drawing, um, thinking a little bit, um, far ahead so that you have a way, um, to guide yourself as as you get into the other stages of a drawing. And this might make a little bit more sense when things get filled in with shadow. But I'm just kind of knowing ahead of time when I get to the modeling stage of the drawing that it's gonna be helpful. Toe have some of these lines in there. So just continuing along, Um, as I'm filling in some of these details, I am trying to either eliminate or lightened or even entirely erasing out some of my earlier construction lines. And it's more so that I don't end up with a lot of clutter, which, you know, depending on what you're drawing, can happen rather quickly. Um, and you know, you may, when you first start the drawing, have some lines that were useful, Ah, in the very beginning. But as you develop your drawing farther, some of those lines initial that you initially put in you know, perhaps, are a little less useful. And so that's why you see me constantly erasing and taking things out. And it's more so either on making adjustments or I'm taking out lines that aren't really serving a purpose anymore. On that will, basically, you know, I don't want to get confused because I have so many lines going on in the drawing that anything that I can eliminate that isn't really helping me. I'm gonna go ahead and take out, Um, and this will be much more prevalent as they get into a really, like the really complicated area in like, the moustache and in the beard, Um, where a lot of things are gonna get moved around and shifted a little bit. But you know the same thing in some of the areas of the face where you know there's maybe some initial lines that are no longer serving. You know what I needed them for? Ah, in the beginning. So I'm gonna go ahead and take those out and clean things up, moving on to like the brow ridge in this kind of little furrow area here. There's lots of little tiny sub forms and how some of the forehead wrinkles air kind of coming together. Aziz Well, as some information in the sort of eyebrows themselves. But I'm trying not to get too caught up in some of like, there's a lot of very smaller um, sub forms that exist within the brow ridge. And I don't really want to get too involved with those at this point. I'm primarily looking for the large cut lines that I see in the ones that really stick out in terms of separating one piece of the forehead from another. And, you know, as I get further along, I will go ahead and mark some of the smaller sub forms that I see, especially around the central area of the forehead. But, um, you know, for now I just want to look for the major cut lines that are very obvious on then. Then I can kind of use those, and I'm mostly looking for spacing and a lot of this area because there is kind of like, this stair step effect that you see in how the brow is scrunched together. And that's really what I want to focus on in this particular portion of the drawing for now , Um, but otherwise, you know, we just want to continue to develop, you know, some of the details so that we get closer to resolving the rest of the drawing. And as we complete everything, um, you know, we're still gonna have to go back in and just double check ourselves and make sure that things are lining up correctly and on and then get on to cleaning up the drawing. So, um, you know But you can see, though, as we're adding little bits of information, it's slowly starting to take shape. And, um, and that's kind of how any drawing should really sort of happen. Is that once you kind of have the large masses resolved each new addition of information, what kind of slowly and slowly get you closer to hopefully, uh, the end goal on your completed blocking? 8. Continuing small shapes: continuing on, I'm gonna develop Ah, little bit more of the brow ridge through here. And then I'm gonna focus a little bit on building some of the information on this shadow side of the face. And, you know, even though there's a lot of information that will ultimately be lost in shadow on this side of the face, you know it. Sometimes it's sometimes it's really beneficial to put in perhaps a little bit more information than you need Onley to use it as a tool to help you locate other things. And so, even though I have kind of established a decent amount of information on the right side of the face, and I can use that to help me put in other information on the left side Ah, that's in shadow. There's some little things that might be they might be a little bit tricky to see on camera , but I do see them in the cast in person, and so it could be a little helpful to put some of that information in, um so that I can use it and then I can decide afterwards whether or not that information stays there or if it gets lost in shadow in the long run. I think sometimes those sorts of things in terms of how much information you find in shadows, can ultimately be a lot of personal preference. You know, with how you want to finish your drawing. But, um, you know it. I always treat you know, these things is like a case by case scenario and what my overall intention, um, is for the drawing in terms of like the effect that I'm looking for. But it is sometimes helpful toe look for things you know that are perhaps deeper in the shadows just so that you know where there's, like separation points. And in this particular case, it's like, Where does the cranial mass, you know, separate from the hair? Or where does the cheek line come into play? Um, you know, as it meets with the rest of the face. Even though that's buried in shadow, it's helpful to find those distinctions so that it makes sense mentally for yourself. And then you know where things are separating so again with this area, you know, there's a lot of there's kind of different sections of shadow within this particular area. There's like the deeper portion of like the inside, where the noses, where it's a deeper passage of shadow that kind of cuts across through the eye. And then, as I get closer to like the side plane of the nose and some of the lower um, or vehicular muscle, it's kind of it's still in shadow, but it's kind of like a It's a lighter shadow, but I can still think of the entire area is being a shadow shape. And then that way it really gives me a distinction about what's in light and what's in shadow. And then, you know, when it when it comes down to the to the point where I have to start filling in shadows, then I can make a distinction about OK, where is the deepest portion of that shadow? And then where is it May be a little bit lighter, Um, and then where is the actual light? And but in the block in stage, the more you can kind of make these separations you get, you know, kind of a clearer idea about where things are actually sitting in relationship to one another, so I will not out my shadows. Um, you know, if I need to in sort of sections like that, where if there's a deeper passes of shadow and then you know, a lighter passes of shadow as I actually will go ahead and map out both of them so that I know very clearly. Okay, this part is one part of Shadow. Here's another part of shadow and, um, you know, and then this is where you can kind of end up having a lot of lines. So you do have to micromanage some of these details a little bit, but I find that that's helpful to do in the block and stage eso that you know, by the time you come to put in your shadows or flatten them out, Um, you know exactly where to go and think of it is like you're drawing a, um you know, like if it was like a coloring book and you're putting in the lines for yourself so that you know where to fill in. That's kind of how I think about it. When I mapping out my shadows and the more distinction or more lines, I can give myself to know where things separate the easy. It'll be when I get to flattening my shadows, and I know exactly where to begin and end a specific shadow pattern, All right? And so at this point, I'm gonna just do my best to try and tackle. You know, this mustache and beard and, you know, it's when you look at it, you know, for at face value there's a lot of information that's going on in this area. But, you know, when we originally started the block in, I had this area basically in just a couple of large shapes. And so to make it easier on myself, all I'm going to be doing is any of the little cross sections that I see in the mustache. I'm gonna break them down into smaller shapes on Ben. I'm basically just gonna follow that procedure, you know, from until I get to some details. And so you know, the shadow, shapes and things like that I'm gonna worry about later. But I want to just break this down into some smaller sections that I that are gonna be easier to manage one at a time, and then I can double check, you know, measurements and things like that later on on and then get down to, like, filling out shadows and some of the smaller details in the mustache. But, um, you know, regardless again of whatever you're drawing or however complex it is, um, you know, the thing you have to remember is just large shapes to small shapes, and then you just keep going down to the smallest shape possible. That, you know, is perhaps feasible for that for whatever you're drawing. But that's all I'm doing. And and that's just the way for me mentally to make something as complex. Is this Ah, little bit more manageable to draw. And you know, again, I'm also taking my time. And even though this is being sped up for the sake of time, it took a while to kind of resolve this area to get it to look right. But what I'm thinking about long term is if I've invested this time so far in the block end , um, if I can figure out everything early on in the stage is going to be so much easier to draw later on in terms of shadows and modeling. So I want to spend that time now and make sure that everything looks correct. And so I'm gonna just put in, You know, I do see a little bit of the lower part of the mouth. And although a lot of it is buried in shadow, there's a little bit of information that I'm gonna go ahead and put in. And even though again it might be lost in shadow later on, I want to go ahead and at least put some information there. And that way I can use it, um, to kind of build out the rest of the mustache under the under the lower lip. And then that kind of continues on to where his chin might be before it gets to the base of the cast. And, um, you know, as I continue to build this up, I'm gonna still be checking, you know, angles and where things align. Um And then, you know, I have to go back in later and flush out more details. But it's really more of just trying to account for some of these smaller shapes because there's a lot of undulation in the hair and how the sculptor kind of decided to inject some of these little bits of information So I want to just try and account for some of those little tips of the hair. Um, where That where? It's a little bit more pointy and what those angles are and how they line up with the mustache. And so I'm just going to continue to build out this area. Um, And then, you know, I still have a ways to go in terms of finding the details on everything like that. But, you know, as you saw, we took the large shape of the mustache and then just broke it down into smaller chunks. And I'm basically just going to repeat that pattern until the whole thing gets resolved at this point. And, you know, it is one of those areas where because there's so much going on, it certainly is a bit more time consuming. Um, but just by kind of following the process and, you know, going from that large shape to the smaller shapes, um, you know, it's still very manageable. Um, and, you know, depending on what you're drawing, as long as you kind of go in that order, it doesn't really matter how complex it is. It just made It may take more time to draw. But you know, as long as you follow the steps, things become much easier to draw because you're you're not. You're not overwhelming yourself with so much at once, and you're just kind of taking it one chunk at a time. So, um, you know, from here, we kind of just have to go back up into the hair and resolve some of the information up there. Um, And then, you know, once that gets in, you know, put in place, we can really start dialing in some of the smaller details and then ultimately clean up this drawing to get it ready for shadows. 9. Developing details: So with the bulk of the mustache and the beard, or what? What beer There is, uh, now that it's kind of, you know, at least roughly blocked in. I feel okay to move on and start mapping out some of the details. Um, you know, I'll have a tendency to prefer toe work on one little section at a time. Uh, and just you know, as I'm adding information, I'll go ahead and double check angles and things like that before moving too far ahead. But, you know, again you can kind of see from where we started with the large shape and 10 where now we're dealing with these much smaller shapes, and it just kind of slowly develops over, you know, a period of time. But, um, you know, it's one of those things where if you just As long as you give yourself enough time and patience, you can take something that's really complex and make it, you know, fairly manageable for the most part. And, you know, again there's gonna be a lot of details that we have to contend with, Um, as we get farther along in the drawing. But, you know, hopefully it's kind of making some sense in terms of how you know I built up. You know, this area in particular from a very simple set of shapes into, you know, these more complex organic forms that we have now. So as I start tackling the mustache, all I'm really looking for is that those little small sections that I've made within the larger shape of the mustache I'm essentially just building into those and defining some of those shapes a little bit better and looking for more specific angle changes. A swell as mapping out some of the shadows. But, um, you know, as I need to all start, you know, erasing or trimming things up a zai. See, you know, differences from what I originally started with. But again, since I took that large shape and broke it down into those smaller sections, I can focus on one little section at a time and then hopefully be a little bit more accurate in terms of drawing this sort of complex form a zai build outwards and, you know, again, there's gonna be a lot of, you know, smaller details even within these shapes. But some of those I will save towards the end when I start either putting in shadows or start modeling them. But at this point, what I'm looking for are specific sections where either there's an overlap in some of the shapes or the forms. Or if I see a small you know, shape that might be in a more pronounced or more obvious, I want to go ahead and put that in so at least I can account for it. So, um, again, this is kind of a lot of these things may be specific to this cast, Um, but I would treat it the same way, regardless of what I was drawing. And if there's any little you know, shape that I feel like would benefit me in some way, or if by adding a piece of information would benefit me, I'm gonna go ahead and put it in, um, just so that I can account for and use it as a tool later on. So just kind of continuing along, adding, you know, adding detail in terms of like shadows and slightly adjusting some of the shapes on bits, mostly just sort of like the little kind of undulations that I see that are occurring in, like the moustache that I want to account for those little subtle variations. And it's not necessarily that I'm trying to dial in the perfect shape for these just yet, But, um, you know, if there's noticeable changes in the shape from what I initially started with, I want to go ahead and at least try and account for some of those deviations on, and then ultimately they will get resolved. Um, you know, as I, you know, put in shadows and get to the modeling, you know, stage of the drawing towards the end. But at least for this particular purpose for a block in, I wanna at least get large changes in shape. And then, you know, and then I can kind of decide. Okay, Well, how much farther doesn't realistically need to go on. What changes do we need to make because they're going to better serve the drawing. So, you know, it's just kind of ah, you know, a case by case scenario and what's going to be beneficial to me at this point. But, you know, again, we're still kind of in a in a stage of where we're flushing everything l And then once everything is in place, then we'll have to make one large pass over the drawing again. So kind of have to meet, make some adjustments here to the edge of the base. And it's a little. It's a little bit off from what I originally had. Something to go ahead and make that correction now. And it's really just more matter of kind of where I see the edge of the base that's in shadow relative to the edge. That's in light and and it's I don't know if it's it's really that easy to see on camera, but I do see it in person. So you know those little changes. I'm gonna go ahead as I see them. I'm gonna go make corrections and on do you know, again, just kind of, You know, you miss little things here and there, Um, from the initial block in, and so you just kind of have to go back in and make corrections on make sure that, you know, before you move too far ahead that those things can be resolved. Ah, and you make the right changes. You need to for the better of the drawing. You know, and in those cases it's usually just, you know, small things. It's not necessarily like a making huge changes where I have to take out an entire section . It's usually just very small, you know? Oh, there's a little you know, I could add a little bit more here or take away a little bit here and hopefully, you know, if if we kind of started with the right, uh, you know, process in terms of our measuring, you know, height than with ratios and things like that. If you do have to go in and make changes there always small ones, not necessarily large ones. But, um, you know, from here we can kind of continue to develop out some of the shadow patterns in the mustache, and then we'll tackle some of the smaller shapes. Ah, that I see. But we're kind of getting to a point where, you know, almost the entire thing is getting filled in. We're still gonna have to resolve some of the hair on the top part of the head. But we are getting to that point where, um, almost the entire thing is accounted for. And then we can really then go back in one more time and really start to make some corrections, um, or finesse things a little bit more and so just kind of continue along. There's a little bit of information on the base part of the cast here, and it's not a whole lot. It's more just kind of the way there's. There's a small degree of curvature in the base of the cast that I have to account for, and there's a little tiny bit where I can see as the as the basis turning into shadow the way it was sculpted that I need to account for us. I'm just trying to get that in there. Um, otherwise, you know, we really just have this lower portion of, like, the goatee kind of area under the lip that I have to account for. But otherwise, you know, we more or less have the whole lower half of the cast resolved. And again, I'm still gonna have to go in and maybe flush out a few more details on, Then go back in and double check everything in. You know, not until I get the rest of the cast filled in. Well, I make one final pass through the cast and try and clean up. You know, some excess lines, or if I feel like lines are too thick in certain areas. Or if things could be described a little bit better in certain areas, I'll go back in and make that final pass. Um, before I move on And you know, and I'll kind of explain that as we get to like the last few portions of the block in, but otherwise again, you know, you can kind of see where we started with this particular area of the cast and how we've kind of gotten to this point in terms of detail and how we problem solved from the large shapes down to these really smaller shapes that are now getting to a point where there's a lot of information that's going on in the cast. But hopefully that all made sense in terms of how I approached it. And then, you know, all we really have to do now is kind of resolve some of the hair on the top part of the head, and and then we're kind of in that home stretch in the block in 10. Finishing the block in : So at this stage of the drawing, I'm kind of just getting in some last minute details in the beard here and then pretty much from there. All I have left to do is get up to the top part of the head Ah, and resolve the hair on the two sides of the cranial Mass. And then pretty much the whole drawing is in. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm done yet. Um, I'll have to go back in and do another pass over the entire drawing on and really just kind of clean up any sort of excess pencil lines on, then maybe go back. And if certain lines, or maybe too thick eyes go back in and get him down to a nice, clean, singular line, Um, and that will basically serve as kind of prepping the drawing for the shadow stage, which will be an entire separate thing of its own, you know, So at this point, it's still just putting in those last minute details and, you know, depending on what you're drawing and what your subject matter is, how far you go at this stage is entirely up to you, I would always say an air on the side of putting in as much information as you feel you need on anything that's, you know, maybe excessive is maybe save that for the modeling stage. But everyone will kind of figure that out. Ah, and what works for them? But, um, you know, again, I just want to get these last few things in place before we can. Then kind of think about cleaning this up and moving ahead and again. So just gonna finish off these last little details that I see in the goatee. And, you know, I'm gonna try and get as many little bits of information Aziz possible so that, you know, I have these as a guide when I get to the shadows as well as to the modeling stage. But there's certain very sort of my new details that I will probably not put in at this early stage of the drawing simply because they almost require me to get to the modeling stage so that they have a little bit more impact. So if I can omit some details for now, um then I'm gonna go ahead and do that, and that just allows it to keep the drawing at least somewhat on a simpler side of things, so that, you know, when I do kind of get to the point where the shadows get filled in Is that all have hopefully a better sense of clarity by the time I get down to that area and start modeling things. And if there's other little areas that need to be resolved, I can resolve them at the modeling stage because I'll be focused on, you know, basically finishing details at that point. So, um, I still want to just stick to these, you know, smaller shapes that stick out the most, And then any little details that kind of I don't have a significant impact on the way that I see the cast. Then I'll go ahead and omit those for now, Um, And then, you know, again, we'll kind of get to those other small things at the very end. Um, where we can then really focus in on modeling. So, um, you know, again, just still want to try and keep it on a as best I can. A simplified side of things. Now I do need to get back up into the head or at least the top portion of the head, I should say. And what I'm gonna end up doing here is I'm gonna actually go and widen the top part of the head, is it? I feel it was getting maybe a touch narrow in relationship to the lower half of the of the beard. And the tricky part. I think with this particular cast is that because the face that's in shadow is actually angled downwards. Um, it makes the forehead, um, and the actual cranial mass look very, very large. And it's not that it isn't large is actually quite big. Um, at least you know, for the for the cast itself, it's actually quite wide and very tall because of the angle, um of where it's placed in front of me, where I'm standing and drawing it a swell, as you know, again, it's just kind of he has no hair on the top of his head, and so it's kind of accentuating of the forehead, and so I just needed it just felt kind of to narrow and shallow, so I needed to extend the cranial mass out just a little bit farther. And I'm not talking about a large amount here. It's actually just a small amount, but it's those little things that can add up, um, and have a greater impact in the long run. So while it's still very early on in the drawing, if I see these things that kind of even if they stick out a little bit, I'll go back in and measure and double check myself and make sure that it's looking right before I move forward. And so that's kind of just kind of had a feeling that it was looking a little a little too shallow, a little too narrow, so I wanted to just go ahead and make some adjustments, especially I didn't you know, I hadn't put a whole lot of information in this area thus far. So at least now is I'm kind of working back up into the top part of the cast. I can focus in on these areas and and really look for any sort of things that maybe I missed early on when I was first blocking in the drawing itself and again, that's kind of the reason why you want to try and stay light in these early stages so that you give yourself that kind of flexibility in your drawing, um, so that if you do need to make some adjustments or, you know, hopefully, you know, worst case scenario if that if you have to remove a section in a drawing, which you always hate to have to do. But if you stay light enough in your drawing, you actually can do that. But hopefully it won't come to that. And it's just kind of a minor thing that you can adjust without too much erasing. But again, just giving yourself that extra room for error on flexibility is not a bad call. So I'm gonna make some adjustments into some of the this portion of the head, and then I'll put in some of the details of the hair, and then we're pretty much kind of done with the overall block in so far, so we just need to go back in and just kind of start cleaning it up 11. Finishing the block in pt. 2: so as I'm kind of getting into the hair, there's not as much information in the you know, that the actual head itself most of the cranial mass is going to be a fairly even tone. So, ah, lot of the information that I'm gonna be putting in is primarily just gonna be on the edges where the hair is and even relative to like the moustache and the beard on The cuts in the hair are actually a little bit more shallow. Um, the way the sculptor has defined the hair in the cast itself, so I don't have to put in as much information. Um, as well as the value ranges in this area are actually gonna be fairly light overall, Um, as they are a bit more light facing than some of the elements in the other part of the cast . So I don't have to put in a ton of detail a tely east for the sake of the block in All I'm going to be looking for are the major cut lines that I see or any sort of specific ridges in the hairline that the sculptor is indicated on as it gets closer to the top part of the crane, the cranium, those those little bits of hair actually get, um, a little bit more diffused because of the light source, so I don't have to put inasmuch information in that regard. Three Only thing that is kind of that sticks out in the cast is there's a very specific plane change in the front part of the hair on, and then the part that is actually going back towards the back part of the cast, which you can't really see on camera there. There's a very specific plane change. Almost if you were thinking about the sides of a box, there's like, Ah, front facing plane of the box. And then there's that side plane of a box, and that's kind of what the hair is doing in this particular instance. So again, just kind of looking for distinct separations in the hair, where I see kind of, you know, there's very sort of small strands that you can kind of see as it's going in and out of the of the cast. And so that's all I'm looking for a zoo. I'm building this out, and when it comes time to shade those areas. There's really not a whole lot that's in shadow. So a lot of the value range through that area is gonna be very compressed. And so I just have to make distinctions about what is light facing and what is actually tipping away. Um, you know, from the light source and then build it that way. But the range itself is actually gonna be fairly small. Um, especially on this side of the head, because it's the It's the one side of the head that's not in shadow a tall. So I just have to keep that in mind, and I can't get too carried away with some of the values in that range when I get to it. And so on this side of the head, there's gonna be, you know, kind of a similar amount of information that's in the hair. But the lower half of this section is gonna be in shadow, and then the the side plane of the hair that is kind of turning away from us is actually a bit more noticeable because of how it's It's more or less facing away from the light. So you see a very distinct front and side sort of transition on this piece of the hair on the left hand side again. All I'm really gonna be looking for is where I see distinct cut lines in the hair. And, you know, there's a little bit of some smaller bits of information that I see that are deeper in the shadow, which you know when the time comes, it might be nice toe, have some some of the reflected light that I see in their toe. Actually, go ahead and put that in. Um, but I don't want to think that far ahead. At this point in any of the smaller shapes that I see, I can at least indicate them for now on. Then when it does come time to put in the shadows, I can then kind of contemplate whether or not I want to make room for that reflected light or just completely omit it altogether. But for now, I just want to get the rest of the hair in on, and then we can focus on cleaning up the drawing on, get it ready for shadows. And so I'm putting in the hair. I'm really looking for Is this kind of There's kind of, like this exact pattern that I see Aziz. There strands sort of that are sort of overlapping and weaving together. And all I'm really trying to do is copy those patterns and seeing where they line up in relationship to some of the shadow edge that I see on the far left hand side. And, um, that way I'm not thinking about drawing hair per se, but I'm just trying to follow the shapes that I'm seeing and pretty much kind of how I did the mustache earlier is that I'm just seeing the hair in one little section at a time and trying to just connect the dots from left to right are, you know, one side to another and making sure that those alignments look, you know, relatively pretty good to what I'm seeing. And so, um, that's more or less it for this, you know, section of the head. There's not a whole lot of other information that I'm gonna have to worry about. Um, at least for now, once the shadows get filled in, it's gonna tie in this area up a little bit easier, I think, um and then, especially in the modeling staged a lot of this value range is gonna all more or less be in a very kind of middle range eso There's not a whole lot of information that I'm gonna have to necessarily think about when it comes time to modeling. It's more just a matter of making sure that things were broken up properly and all the spacing is correct, which is kind of what we're dealing with now in the block end stage. So, um, kind of just getting towards the end here and we're just kind of have to Then go. I just said, go back in and clean this thing up And, um you know, once the drawing is finally completed, I'll make another pass over and just kind of double check measurements and things like that as well. All right, so just come and go ahead and, um, you know, clean up, clean up the little bit of hair that's left here. Um, and you know, there's really not a whole lot going on in this area of the drawing, so I don't I'm not going to necessarily put in a ton of information. Most of it would get resolved as I go into the modeling stage later on in the drawing. Um, and, you know, granted, you know, the hair itself isn't gonna be a big area of interest. You know, most of the left hand side is gonna be in shadow, and then there's gonna be some, you know, a few strands where the form really sticks out. And then towards the top of the head, it's gonna get maybe a little more diffused because it's receiving more light. So I don't have to really fuss too much with what's going on over there. Um, I just kind of wanna at this point, get everything in, and then I can really focus in on making sure that double checking on my measurements, um, and kind of finalizing the block in so that when I get to the shadow stage, I'm not thinking about proportion. I'm not thinking about Oh, does this, you know, does this lineup or anything like that? I want to try and get all of that resolved before I take the next step forward. Um, and it's just more toe again. Kind of keep in the process of that, I want to focus on one thing at a time eso that Aiken devote all my attention to that eso at this particular stage with the block in, that's all I'm focused on. And then, you know, when I finished that portion of the drawing, then I'm only gonna focus on shadows, and then when they finish that, then I'm only gonna focus on form. So that way, I have a very sort of, you know, linear path to get from a start to a finish with this project. So, um, anyway, I'm gonna just put in the rest of the hair here, and then we're gonna start cleaning this drawing up. And so at this point, you know, I feel pretty good to where I can just start cleaning up the drawing, um, and more or less prep it for the shadow stage. And so all I'm really gonna do is I'm gonna take on Eraser, and I'm and I'm using these sort of, like clicky pen type erasers, cause they have Ah, a much smaller point. So it's easier to kind of navigate. Ah, and some of the tighter spaces. But, you know, you can do this with a kneaded eraser, Justus. Well, um, but more or less. All I'm really trying to do at this point is if I see any areas that have excess line or if maybe some of my lines were a little too thick when I initially laid them in, all I'm gonna do is try and either tone those down to a single line or lighten them up. They kind of just gently skirting along the line so that they're a little bit lighter. Um, but I basically just want to get rid of any sort of excess line that is not going to help me in the shadow stage or even, you know, into the modeling stage. And so I kind of just wanna do a once over on the drawing and just, you know, I kind of just trim things a little bit here and there. It's nothing too dramatic. Um, you know, sometimes a lot of you know you could have, like, little spillover lines when you're blocking something in, or sometimes it's even just little smudge marks. You know, as your hand is resting on the paper, you have all these like smudge marks that you want to just get rid of before moving on and um, you know, I'll explain when we get to shadow is like how to prevent that happening Because then once we started dealing with large masses of tone that can be its own specific problem. But I really just want toe get it down to where you know all the lines are really clean and definitive. And if there's any sort of vagueness to any of my lines, I want to go ahead and either try and resolve it by trimming it down. Or if I need to go back over on area with maybe a little bit more pencil just to define an area, I'll go ahead and do that as well. So you know, again, I'm just making one little final pass so that when I get to the shadow stage, I'm not having to think about these other things. Um, as I move forward 12. Cleaning up the drawing: So as I continue to go back and clean up the drawing, I'm gonna go ahead and actually reinforce some of the lines, um, in the cast. And the reason I'm doing that is I want to get a very clear separation, especially in areas where, you know, I feel like it's going to be important. So in this case, kind of, let's say, like the brow line or where the nose is coming into contact with the mustache or just little areas like that so that I have a very clear sort of separation visually for myself. Because what ends up happening sometimes not all the times, but you know, all the lines, more or less have a very similar weight to them. And because there's so much information going on, it would be very easy to get lost. Eso I'm gonna go ahead and really only just kind of going over the lines that I've already drawn and just reinforcing them a little bit. So it's nothing too dramatic. I'm not changing anything. Um, but also, hopefully to is going into the shadow stage. I'll know exactly where I'm gonna, you know, sort of have, like, a border to build that shadow up to, especially in the area around the eyes, which I feel like is gonna be very important, you know, as I start adding some of those shadow tones. But, um, you know, beyond that, I really just want to separate things out a little bit better so that I have an easier time seeing very distinct separations where you know, let's say from one feature to the other. And so that way, there's no sort of doubt in my mind about where things you know, where lines begin or end. Um, you know, for that matter. So beyond that, I'm gonna continue to go ahead and just take out some information again, like excess lines, any sort of, you know, smudge marks or lines that are too thick. I want to go ahead and just get rid of that s O that I you know, again, when I get to the shadow stage, I have as clean of a drawing a zai can so that you know, I'm not second guessing anything in terms of whether a line should be there or not. Yeah, so I'll go ahead and do the same thing for the nose, and then I'm gonna go ahead and do it for the mustache. Aziz. Well, but hopefully you can see Ah, you know, on camera that those lines around the brown line and the nose there just a touch darker. Simply that Aiken separate them from everything else. And then that way, you know, again when I get to filling in the shadows that there's no you know, there's no sort of question about where something begins or ends or, you know, I don't accidentally mix something up as I'm filling in shadows. So, um, you know, it's not a whole lot more than I'm really adding, but it's just enough so that, visually, I have a very distinct separation, so I don't confuse myself again. I'll just kind of separate the mustache out just a little bit more and really more so in this area to be important, because it's kind of where ah lot of shadow is converging, and I really just want to separate where the actual mustache itself, um, is even though, you know, I know that a lot is gonna be buried in shadow. I at least want to know where it begins and ends um, just so that I can see it because odds are I'm gonna have to put some reflected light in the mustache in some of these deeper shadows in the mouth, because the lower base of the cast is actually reflecting up just a little bit in those areas. So it's not quite as dark a Some of the shadows that we see in the in the face around like the eye socket in areas like that. Um, but otherwise, you know, we're kind of wrapping up this drawing and, you know, hopefully ah, from where we started in the beginning, with a very simple shape all the way up into this sort of complex block in, um, you're seeing the steps and kind of how I got from from one place to the next. And, you know, regardless of you know, your subject matter or how simple or how complex it is, Um, you know, the process remains the same. Um, I just chose this cast simply because I thought it was really cool. Ah, and I remembered it from when I was in, uh in classes, and I really wanted to draw it, but never got a chance so kind of taking that opportunity to go ahead and do that for you guys so that I have fun at the same time while teaching. But again, regardless of the subject matter is, I don't really deviate from this process, you know, unless you know, unless I'm kind of just free forming and, you know, it's maybe like a sketch or something like that. But any sort of serious project that I do that is going to require a lot of time. Um, I'm pretty much following the same process every time and and simply because it gives it gets me a consistent result on Do you know, it kind of breaks things down into a very sequential process so that I'm not jumping all over the place at any one given time. And it allows me to focus one thing at a time. Um and then that way it's a little bit easier for me to get through a drawing. And I never feel like I'm lost or or I don't know what to do in terms off next steps. And so I would encourage you, Teoh sort of follow this procedure in your own drawings. You know, regardless of how far you take them in terms of finish, if you're just starting out and you're in sort of drawing and you're kind of getting a grasp with the drawing process, you could spend quite a bit of time just doing block ins like this over and over again on any number of subject matter. And, you know, for the most part, that actually might be a good idea for, um, you know, for someone that's just starting out learning to draw, Um, and you're kind of at those early stages. Is practicing these kinds of block ins for an extended period of time and not, you know, putting the pressure on yourself to, ah, get like a really, you know, nice finish or anything like that is really just practice the steps. And if you can get a good start to a drawing, then getting a good finish is really just a matter of how much time you want to invest on that particular drawing. So, um, I'll have some closing thoughts for this block in in another video. But this is pretty much where we're gonna be at before we get to any sort of shadow stage, and I feel more or less pretty good with how the drawing is looking in this sort of final block in stage. And you know, beyond that now we're just gonna have to add the next pieces of information so that we can push the drawing forward. 13. Closing thoughts: All right, everyone. So I wanted it. You know, as we're kind of closing out with this class, I wanted to just spend a little bit of extra time. Um, just talking about where the drawing is right now. And what's kind of what's gonna be looking forward with the rest of the drawing. And, you know, it was that kind of finished up the last video. I just wanted to give you a last look at the drawing because pretty much the stage after this is we're going to start flattening our shadow patterns on, and it's gonna product predominantly. Be on. You know, obviously, on the left hand side, and we're gonna have all throughout the goatee little pockets of shadow here. But, um, fundamentally, I would say this is where you want your drawing to be. Um, not necessarily, um, you know, detail wise, and it's a lot of the detail is purely related, you know, to the cast here. So, I mean, obviously that's very busy in some of these areas down in the goatee and a little bit in the brow. But I would say in terms of, you know, line quality and you know, cleanliness that I would say this is like a good goal to shoot for, Um, obviously, you know, skill wise. And, you know, like your skill level is gonna be a factor on and then, as well as the subject matter that you choose eyes also a potential factor as well. However, I would say, you know, and use this is a guide in terms of how you may want to have your finish lines quality looking before you start your shadow stage of your drawing. Um, you know, I've tried to clean up the drawing, you know, as best I can. None. All the lines were still fairly light so that if I needed to, for whatever reason, make a correction because maybe, you know, along the line, I got, you know, lazy or I just missed something. I was tired when I was drawing. You know, what have you There's all kinds of things that can happen, You know, maybe you miss something. Is that all? My lines are still fairly in a non committal stage where, if you know, let's just say worst case scenario, something has to get removed. I have the option to do that s Oh, that's not a bad spot to be in. Even as you're going into your shadow stage. Obviously, the best case scenario is where you have everything that's dialed in in terms of proportion in shape on everything like that. And then that way, you know, you're not thinking about it as much in the next stage of the drawing, and you can solely focus on, you know, developing your shadows and getting that looking correct. So, um, again, I just wanted Teoh, you know, as a last sort of, uh, you know, video is just say, like, you know, this would be like a good goal to aim for in terms of, you know, your line quality and like what they should be looking like. Obviously, everyone's hands gonna be a little bit different in terms of, like, the confidence of your lines and things like that. But I would more put focus on how light the lines are. You know, all that. Like I said, all of these lines can be taken out. If, you know, I absolutely had to make some serious changes in the block in, uh, you know, drawing. So, you know, take it you know, with whatever. Whatever you're drawing with your subject matter is, I would say use. This is maybe, like a guide, or at least maybe a goal of some kind Teoh, where you don't want to have any confusion about what your lines are. So if there's any sort of, like extra lines that you put in when you were drawing or, you know, maybe some lines were were too thick or anything like that, try and clean it up as best you can that way, you know, as you begin the next stage, working off of a very clean drawing on, then you can just really focus in on that individual stage, you know, of the shadows and then ultimately the modeling part. So I really hope that helps in terms of just seeing what I consider a Finnish block in to be, um, and like I said again, depending on, you know, even if it was a much simpler still life or anything like that, I would treat it the same. The subject matter for me is always sort of relevant, So even though this is incredibly busy, you know, if it was like a you know a ball or, you know, let's say like a still life of, you know, just like fruit. Or, you know, let's say flowers or anything like that. I treated the same. I block everything in the same. So my process is always consistent. So I don't ever have toe think like, Oh, well, I'm drawing. You know this subject matter. So I treated differently. That's never the case. Everything stays the same regardless of what you know. The subject is so Portrait's figures cast still life. You know, I don't really do landscapes, but if I were to do a landscape, I would kind of treated the same. Um, you know, and so and this also ultimately applies to, you know, down the road. You know, if you decide to get into painting, I kind of do my painting the same way in terms of how I would, you know, I would block in a drawing the same way, and then ultimately, I would want to get this transferred to a canvas. But nonetheless, you know, that way I feel like the more students have a consistent process to follow, that you can always rest on that, and you're and you never feel lost. And I find that a lot of the times beginners will have, uh, this feeling of being lost and they don't know where to go, because maybe they have been shown to many procedures or they have too many other ideas and about, you know, where a drawing should look at a certain stage. And so I'm hoping by doing this drawing in a very sort of sequential manner that you can see just sort of how methodical the process is. But it does lead to a consistent results, you know, if I follow it. So again, I just wanted to have, like, some last minute thoughts on this and then I hope everything made sense throughout the course of the video. And like I said, when we get to the shadow stage, that's going to present a new set of problems that we're gonna have to tackle. But to me, this is the hardest part, you know, because this is kind of establishing the entire thing from a blank sheet of paper all the way up to this. And even if you just got to this part, uh, regardless of your skill level, I would consider that a success? Um, because the block end stage is by far the most daunting on bond. Even if you don't finish a drawing, the more you can get comfortable with this stage of the process you're drawing is going to get substantially better, because then it's really just a matter of time to finish the drawing. But getting it started getting everything in proportion and looking clean and ledge a ble. Um, that's what drawing it's really honestly and so beyond that Venice is matter of like, Well, how do I want to finish it? Do you know what kind of style do I want to finish the drawing in, or how am I gonna indicate, you know, let's say shadows or shapes and embellish the drawing so that it looks nice to look at, um so and that's kind of another conversation in and of itself. But I just want to get you guys through these early stages in your training so that hopefully it will be a good guide for you as you develop your skills. Thanks for watching