How to Easily Draw Heads | Understanding the Loomis Method | Messer Creations | Skillshare

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How to Easily Draw Heads | Understanding the Loomis Method

teacher avatar Messer Creations, Artist | Author | YouTuber

Watch this class and thousands more

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      2:40

    • 2.

      How to draw a Loomis Head Angle 1

      5:01

    • 3.

      How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 2

      4:00

    • 4.

      How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 3

      3:17

    • 5.

      How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 4

      3:33

    • 6.

      How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 5

      3:13

    • 7.

      How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 6

      3:33

    • 8.

      How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 7

      2:48

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About This Class

In this class, we will be going through the initial steps and drawing out (7) different Loomis heads based on reference. I will be taking you through each step in real-time so that you thoroughly understand what the entire process looks like. I hope you upload your PROJECT and leave a REVIEW of the class :) 

You won't need much to draw along with me and ALL of the tools are listed down below under Amazon Affiliate links. 

Happy drawing my fellow artist :) Here are ALL the TOOLS you will NEED to draw along with me!

Reference photos via Google Docs

Reference 1: https://bit.ly/41GMq8T

reference 2: https://bit.ly/3ZGv4qX

Reference 3: https://bit.ly/3ZAIxjS

Reference 4: https://bit.ly/3kNQ1S0

Reference 5: https://bit.ly/3ZkTJBl

Reference 6: https://bit.ly/3ZhKgux

Reference 7: https://bit.ly/41HMFk1

Mix media paper - https://amzn.to/3EfZ9DF

Compass set - https://amzn.to/3EekH3B

Sketch book - https://amzn.to/3hv9thf

Colored Pencils - https://amzn.to/3OH1b51

I hope it helps and happy drawing! :) 

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Messer Creations

Artist | Author | YouTuber

Top Teacher

Hi, I'm Braden Messer -- artist, published author, and drawing instructor.

I've built a community of over 200,000 artists across multiple platforms by teaching what actually matters: structure, form, and repeatable methods that remove the guesswork from drawing.

My approach is simple: break complex subjects into clear, step-by-step systems. Whether you're working in graphite, charcoal, or colored pencil, I teach you how to see, construct, and execute with confidence.

If you're ready to stop hoping your drawings turn out well and start knowing how to build them correctly, you're in the right place.

See full profile

Level: Beginner

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Transcripts

1. Introduction : Hello. My name is Braden. Miss her. I am an artist, YouTuber, and I may content for the Internet of Things. I'm your instructor for this one. And today we're going to be going over how to draw the Loomis head from seven different angles. Now there are multiple methods for drawing the preliminary steps for a portrait, such as the Bridgeman method, the Reilly method, Loomis method. I'm sure there are other ones out there, but in my opinion, it had been drawn for awhile now. And I believe that this method, Loomis method that I'm going to teach in this class is the easiest. What to expect. In this one. I'm going to be showing you how you can draw a basic circle. And then from there, analyzing your reference photo and figuring out exactly where you can put your oval, which of course is the side plane of your drawing. And then establishing the vertical and the horizontal axis of each of seven references that we will be walking through. And also how you can effectively split the head into three equal sections and established the hairline, the brow line, and the bottom of the nose, and then of course, the bottom of your chin. Once we get to that point, it's really easy. That is all you really need to do. Now I'm going to be teaching a follow-up class where we're going to be drawing these exact same seven references. I'm not only going to draw the Loomis head as I'm teaching in this class only. But then I'm also going to be sketching in the features and we're going to be discussing proportions. And that is step two in a three-step series in between where I'm going to be drawing each one of these seven references with my personal drawing method. For those of you that have been following my videos for awhile, you know. But for those of you that don't know, it will tell you. It's called the three-layered method, which is a very effective chocolate approach. I got links in the description of the class for all the tools that they use. So that if you want to pick some of those up and draw along with me, absolutely. Make sure you do that. That's the 401 on what to expect. And I hope to see you in class. 2. How to draw a Loomis Head Angle 1: Alright, so for this one we're going to be using our helix campus. We're gonna be using green sketch pencil. And don't have things to these tools and the description of this class for you guys as well. But we're going to do is we're gonna set our campus to a two. Right here in the center of the paper. We're just gonna do a nice solid circle. This is the first step in drawing any limits head. Now what we're going to do is we're going to identify the oval, which is our side plane. And we can see that the eyes go up at an angle like this. Way our reference is looking something just like this. Then once we have our oval established, we're going to identify our vertical axis. And the horizontal axis, which is going to follow the direction of the eyes because our subject is looking up, that horizontal axis is going to look up as well. And then what I like to do is I like to put a little plane right here for the temple. And then we're just going to pull these lines over, up and over just like this. We have our hairline first, our brow line second, the bottom of our nose. Now, we're going to identify the center line or you can think of it as the center of the face. I'm just going to pull this line down. This line goes between the eyes over the top of the nose, through the center of the mouth. And this one's a little different. And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this. One is because our subject is looking up because she's looking up, her chin is going to be shorter. We pulled down from our vertical axis, then we connect the bottom, right over here. Boom, just like that. Then we have a little plane right here that we're going to pull down, down and then over. And this is going to be the bottom of the chin. You can see because our subject is looking up, something just like that. Then we have our throat. So we can just kind of very, very suddenly punching where we want that throat to be. But see now here effectively what we've done is we have identified the proportions, proper proportions of where our features, such as the eyes, the nose and the mouth are going to go. And then here I'd just like to draw out the cheek plane. We can kind of draw out that other one. But I've said it in lots of other courses that I have on YouTube that when you're doing these luminous heads, don't be afraid to grab your sketchbook and draw literally hundreds of them, all different angles. And after a while, you'll start to see that every Loomis head is principally the same. And the only thing that really changes between portraits that you will draw is on the ankles. Then here what you can do is you can identify This section. Then you can have some fun with the two and you can be folks, certain lines you can play with your line weights and your qualities and these start to dress it up. But this is all real-time, so I expect you guys to draw these. And then once you've drawn the heads, I would very much love to see them. You can go ahead and you can upload them to the class projects. See, I'm just beefing up certain lines. Not all lines. We want our lines to have differences in weight and quality. That's pretty much that one. Now what we've done here is we have 123, so I'll just label them here. You have your first, second, third sections. That's what we've done. We've split the face into three equal sections. That's a principle of bloom as head called the rule of thirds. So every single reference you look at, you want to identify those thirds, alright, onto the next one, a different angle. 3. How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 2: Same thing as the last hidden. We've got our helix compass and we're going to be sketching this one out in blue instead of green instead, or comes to, to place it right smack dab in the middle of the paper and we're in draw our circle. The whole point of these classes that I want you to see that it's the exact same approach no matter what the angle of your reference. Now this one is different. This subject is looking almost straight on, is heads kinda cocked to the left slightly. We won't be able to have our oval on the left side butt right here slightly, slightly because of the angle, we are going to have the oval a little bit. As you can see, this oval is quite different from the last one. Our subject was showing us the whole side of the head and then looking up. This one's more or less looking straight. Hitchcock slightly to the left. So we have the oval on the right side but not the left. But it's the same. Okay. Don't overthink it. You have your hairline. Pull this over. There's your brow line and the bottom of the oval and pullover. And there's the bottom of the nose, center line from the top, pulse straight down sunlight. Then this one's more or less equal. They're equal thirds equals sections. Once we've established the bottom of the chin, we're gonna pull up and over, connect it to the bottom edge like that. Just like that. And then just for proportion here, I'm going to draw out the neck and the top of the shoulders just so we can start to get an idea for how the overall shape of this sketch will be. Subject has a thicker neck. Then we have that cheek plane right there. Then it's slightly off. It's not symmetrical because of the way the head is looking. But even if it's off, you can just pull the line right there. Such a big deal. Remember, in this class we're just sketching. We're trying to get a rock solid fill for how the loom is, head is for all of these different angles that we would sketch it out in our preliminary steps for portraiture. Be from that up. I would recommend guys, while you're going through and drawing these heads, is obviously, you can use these references that I have in these classes, but don't be afraid to find your own references and draw those as well. But look at them and try to build up looking at your references through the lens of the Loomis method. When you look at a reference, I want you to start thinking about them in the sense of, okay, cool, I need to draw loom said, what does that look like for this given drawing? And then that way that'll help you with your initial approach to drawing pretty much any portrait that you want. Nice and light here. See, that's pretty much that. Now if you were doing this in charcoal, obviously this wouldn't be graphite. That is the general approach. That's two different angles. Now, let's move on to angle three. 4. How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 3: For our third angle, this one is a profile shots, so I'm going to sketch this one out in red. Again. Don't overthink it. So circle center of the paper. Then. Oh yeah, that's right. This is a profile. So check this out. You can take your compass on profiles and just cut it in half. So if we set that first circle at it to set your second circle at a one, then just do a nice circle inside the other one. You can make it more or less center. But this one, the angle is slightly, slightly off. It's not exactly straight on profile. So technically on portraits, it's not necessarily an oval so much as just another circle. So just be aware of that. But once you have that established, you have your vertical axis or horizontal axis, your temporal plane. And then you just pull those lines over, hairline, brow line, and the bottom of your nose just like that. Then with these ones, when you start to draw the front of the face, pull down and when you get to your brow line, you pull straight down. You don't follow the circle. Then boom, there's your three sections. Then you have your jaw right here, connect that Boehm and just do a generic jaw. Remember, the Loomis head itself is a generic approach. So don't get caught up and do not worry about proportions or features at this point in time. Just draw the best loom who said that you can. Effectively, what we're doing is we're practicing and building up our muscle memory for them was heads. As they apply to actual references. This will, this will help you start to understand exactly how to look at a reference photo and how to draw something just like that. Beef up these lines and mess with the line quality, if you will. We got some certain planes instead of fear. I can't wait, sketch these in the next class and you guys will really like that. Alright, so we've got our first section, second section. In our third section, it can be felt these lines, Why not? It's not gonna hurt nothing. That's it. Rule of thirds. It's that simple. Just like that. The next one, I'm going to be showing you a different angle. We're gonna do seven different angles. 5. How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 4: Alright, got our compass. We're going to sketch this one out in green. Set it to two, just like all the others. Center of the paper are Circle. Lots of artists will call you, shouldn't be doing that freehand. I'm like, No, we're doing it with a compass because I'm lazy and it works perfect. So super quick. That's always gonna be right about there. Right about there, something like that. There'll be afraid to go around in a circle a couple of times to establish it. And then once you've got the oval vertical axis, the eyes go something like that. Almost more or less straight across. So don't forget that angle because when you look at the reference photo, he isn't looking straight. He's looking up and over from where we're at. So we're going to pull the hairline over, pull the brow line over, pull the nose line over, something like that. Then that center line from the top pulled down, down again, down again, and then one more time. The chins, something like that. It why not? Right about there. The jaw straight to the chin. Let's pull this up and over. It's very easy to start messing around with proportions of what you're actually drawing. But for this class, just do the basics, just a basic level. We said that's all you have to do. The neck, something like that. And then he's got his robes here. Sketch out the road real quick that way you just kinda get a sense of sense of form. Even though we're totally not worried about for right now. And this is more or less framing form, but it's not formed because there's no value. Just shapes. Cool. Something like that. That first section, the second section, that third section. Simple guys. You just drew a Lewis acid based off of a reference. This is how most portraits are drawn. This is how I draw every portrait with the three-layered method, which of course is a charcoal approach. But you could use this even for a graphite approach. You could use this for painting portrait. If you started out with the Loomis method like this, would serve you well. Just keep that in mind. Then, just like with that first one that we did and this one, the chin, you do have the bottom of the kings were more or less looking up at the subject. So we want to make sure that we stay true to that. Something just like that. Alright, onward to the next one. Another angle. 6. How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 5: All right, Our fifth angle. Looks campus. We're gonna skip this one in blue. Just like all the others said, it's two center of the paper. Solid circle. I hope by now you're starting to see that it doesn't matter the angle. The very first step is always going to be that circle. In this one, the subjects looking down, down until their rights so that, that oval is going to be something like this, something like this side plane there. Our vertical axis is going to go like that. Horizontal axis is going to follow the eyes and the angle that they're looking. We've got our temporal plane, which is something like that. We're just going to pull these lines over. There we go. Wonderful. Then that center line, stepping over, across top of the head, straight down. The bottom of the chin is going to be right about there. Let's pull up and up and over. Don't worry too much about detail guys. A lot of this, the whole point of this class is just the habituation of it. Drawing almost the same thing over and over and over again. But I want to see all your limits heads. Even if at first you're a little unsure, don't worry. The more hedge you draw, build up that muscle memory and the more confident you will become. And before you know it, you'll be bus now Loomis heads like it's nobody's business. For section the second section, third section. Will pull her cheek plane over there. They're cheap plane, something like that. Something like that. Just kind of thicken up the quality of some of these lines. Dark enough the weights? Yeah. Something like that. See if we just drew that and just under three minutes. Lot of times it's just it's just taken that initial time when you're drawing a portrait. And then making sure that your proportions are as close to the real thing is you can get them. All right. We got two more angles. Let's get them done. 7. How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 6: All right, This angle is one of my favorites. Helix compass. We're going to sketch this one out and read. Just like the previous five. Set this to two. Dead center in the paper. There's our circle. Let's follow the eyes. What are the eyes doing? What are kind of doing that? The oval. It's going to be something like this. Something like this. There we go. Vertical axis. Horizontal axis is going to follow the eyes. Something like this temporal plane. Let's start pulling these lines over. Hairline right about there. A brow line right about there. Knows right there. Center line down. Like that. The chin right about there. There we go. Actually, I think I don't want to do right here top of the jaw and then connect the chin to the top of the jaw and just pull this one up. Something like that. Then we got the bottom of the, bottom of the chin. We got that plane because the subject is looking up. So this will be a very low value when it comes time for, say, the charcoal. Put in this step, we can still very much identify it. Drop shadow. And technically it's not even really a drop shadow, it's just a plain of the actual channel itself. Just got some robes, so we'll put those in there. The biggest thing with the Loomis method when you're looking at reference photos is you need to look past the features. You have to look past the hair, past the close. This is one of the reasons why I'm starting you guys sketching now, Loomis heads, four sculptures is because sculptures have very, very little detail compared to, say, the photograph of an actual person. So I don't want to overwhelm you. I want you to focus on the principles in the first steps. The Loomis head is the first five steps and say a 25 step process. Something just like that. Just reinforced the jaw. There we go. We've effectively identified our first, second, and our third sections of the face, so we followed the rule of thirds. Here is a drop shadow and we can just kind of iron that out. All right, cool. One more to go. 8. How to Draw a Loomis Head Angle 7: Okay, last one, helix compass, and I think I'm going to sketch this one out and in green. You know what to do. Your compass to two. Right smack dab, middle of the paper. Draw your circle. There it is. The subject. He's looking off to his right, so he's showing us quite a bit of that side planes. So the ovals going to something like this. There we go. Vertical axis. And of course look at the eyes. The horizontal axis follows the eyes. Temple plane. We're going to pull these lines over hairline, brow line, bottom of our nose. Identify that center line. I'm going to pull that down. Then like nice equal distance, something like that. And there's the bottom of the chin, right? They're going to pull this up and over top of the jaw. Pull that down to the chin. There we are. Now let's work on this robe. It's something like that. He's got his medallion. There are like a pin, something like that. Getting carried away. I can't help it, man. I want to draw everything. But yes, something, something like that. Remember, the whole point of the luma said is to establish your proportions. Give you a baseline, a framework if you will, for when it comes to start using your charcoal, graphite, or your painting. I mean, this cool thing about it is the general approach and it can be applied to any medium of art that you wish. But of course, this one I'm gonna be teaching charcoal. So I'm really excited for the next class. I hope that you join us. Because in the next one I'm going to show you, we're going to do the exact same thing that I did on all of these angles. But I'm going to be actually sketching them and implementing the features with the sketch pencils. And so when we put in the eyes, the nose, the mouth, that type of deal. So I hope you enjoyed it. And I'm looking forward to seeing all your limits heads.