Intermediate Head Drawing

1. Introduction: Hey, everyone. So in this class we're gonna cover a wide range of topics all about head drawing. And in the beginning you're going to see me do a lot of diagram and explanations about how I deconstruct the head into some simple sort of concepts and ideas. And then, from there I'm gonna do an entire head drawing from start to finish so that you can see all the different stages that I go through, going from an initial sort of construction and block in into shadows and then into modeling . Now my recommendation is that this class is fairly long. And so it's one of those things where you do want to pace yourself and depending on your skill level on where you're kind of starting with this classes, maybe rewatch some of more basic starting videos. If you're more in the early construction stages of doing a drawing, and then as you get more comfortable with a lot of the concepts and ideas, go ahead and start moving forward and getting into the shadows stages as well as agents by the end of the class and watch me completed drawing from start to finish and you'll have a good idea about all the little things that I go when starting from a blank sheet of paper down to. So we'll still begin by going over some very basic diagram type drawings and how to break down the head on general placement and proportion. I'll show you this from a couple of different angles as well. A show you how to transition from this sort of block in method toe, a more refined line drawing on. Then, from there, I'm gonna go ahead and do my own finished drawing from the very beginning, and you'll see how I use the same concepts to reach amore finalized line drawing before we transition into any sort of tone from the finalized line, drawing will start adding some shadows and then move on to our for modelling, which is basically going to be the bulk of the class now, for modeling stage is quite possibly the longest portion of the class, and so it's something that I encourage. You take your time in terms of how you digest it. It really does take quite a bit of time to finish an entire drawing. And so, even though a lot of the footage is sped up just a little bit. It will take a long time as you kind of see me slowly developed from one area of the drawing to the next. Now, the ultimate goal I really hope for you is not to be able to necessarily do this. But more so understand the stages of the drawing from the initial block in tow, adding tone and then ultimately for modeling towards the finish. And hopefully, by seeing this happen in front of you, you'll get a better understanding of how to approach it in your own drawings, regardless of how you choose to finish on whatever sort of style or technique. So take your time on, really Take it in. Thank you for watching. 2. Constructing the Head Pt. 1: all right. So before we get to actually any sort of see no serious drawing, I do want to go over a lot of, you know, sort of basic construction approach. And, um, this kind of varies from, you know, teacher to teacher. And the only thing on kind of open up with saying is that my approach is generally, um, more academic. And from the standpoint that you're going to be either drawing from life or maybe even drawing from photo reference with the idea of either doing a representational drawing, it doesn't mean that you can't apply these principles to illustration or something out of your imagination. But that's kind of my approach is going to be more from the academic standpoint and so just kind of keep that in mind before we get started. So given that this is going to be a diagram type drawing, I'm gonna keep it fairly generic. And so, my general, you know, sort of starting point is to get a large shape established on the page on, and I'm also constructing in very sort of straight mechanical lines. And so the reason for that is that each line will essentially represent some sort of plain change in the form that I'm seeing. But more importantly, even if some of these initial lines aren't accurate, having straight angular lines are much easier to measure off of eso. If if I'm drawing more with, like more curves or using more organic type shapes like you know, drawing ahead with, you know, circle or an oval and then attaching you know a jaw to it. It's not that they can't work, but it's for me. It's not a good approach to drawing from life. That might be a better approach for illustration or drawing something out of your imagination. Um, but drawing from life, I feel like it. Uh, it kind of becomes a lot of unnecessary things that you're gonna have to overcorrect as the drawing progresses. So I prefer to draw in a lot of angular straight lines and, um, again looking back at maybe some of more some of the more academic drawings of, like the 19th century a Telly A's. You'll see that a lot of drawings are kind of done in that way, and this rounded, more organic approach, you know, you saw maybe become a little bit more prevalent in illustration, especially around like the golden and silver age of illustration. Um, so that's just something to kind of keep in mind, and ultimately it kind of doesn't make a difference. You know, good drawing is good drawing, but for me, like I said, I like to keep things very, you know, maybe more simplified in academic. But I find that it's easier for to do this approach, then using some of the more curved, organic type shapes. But the main underlying principle with this is that I want to start established, ah, large shape to begin with. And, you know, if the person had hair, you would want to draw maybe the exterior of the hair and then the interior portion of the head. Ah would be like an interior sort of silhouette. And so the reason for that is that we want to establish the biggest possible shapes in the very beginning, because then it's much easier to break them down into smaller shapes. But we're establishing the large masses from the very beginning, and that gives us a sense of scale. Um, you know, relative to the size of the drawing that we're creating so Once we get a big shape established, we need to start breaking it down into some smaller sections. But again, because I'm doing sort of a diagram kind of drawing. I'm not gonna have any hair shape or anything like that. So kind of just keep that in the back of your mind, But nonetheless, I'm going to start with a center line down the middle, and this is going to be a straight on perspective. So that way you can kind of see the symmetry relative to, you know, matching, you know, the eyes, the nose in the mouth and everything like that. So, um, you know, we want to just take a large shape, break it down into smaller shapes, and then as we start dividing things up, we can go into smaller and smaller details. So But again from the beginning established the large masses and then work down from there . And so once we have a center line established, all it's really doing is again is giving us a very specific division about where the center line axes is of the head. And then we can make relationships based around that. Now again, if this were a different head angle than that axes line is going to bend in accordance to the turn of the head. So, you know, the further you know, someone's turn or gays gets away from us, that center line is gonna continually bend away in perspective. And so, you know, given straight on, the only benefit of having straight on is that we know that things kind of have to more or less stay relatively aligned andan This particular case, I'm not too concerned about, you know, tilts or anything like that. But that will come into play. Um, you know, with your other axes lines. And so perspective does become its own thing at some point, depending on the angle at which you're drawing, Obviously. But, um, you know, on I would actually say that sometimes, you know, 3/4 can actually be easier than doing things straight on or just off of straight on. But just keep in mind that center line and how it's bending with the perspective of the head. So the next thing we need to do is we need to divide the head up into sections. And so what I'm doing here is I'm dividing the front plane of the face into thirds. Um, now, the stipulation with doing this is that we're gonna begin by making equal thirds. And this is a very common approach that a lot of people use. And the large sort of, you know, thing I would mention is that if you make equal thirds, you will kind of sometimes lean towards making a generic head on. Now, given that this is gonna be sort of a mannequin, I'm doing this intentionally. Now, when you're drawing from life or from reference, you want to be a little bit more objective when you make those measurements. But the top section is going to be from the hairline to the brown line. Middle section will be from the brow line to the bottom of the nose, and then the last third is going to be from the bottom of the nose to the chin. Now the trick is that you can still divide the front plane of the face into thirds, but where you want to be really specific is looking at the individual person you're drawing and noticing where those divisions start to become different from one another. So it's not necessarily that you have to make equal thirds. But, you know, maybe someone's forehead is a little longer, or maybe from brow to nose is a little bit longer. You want to be looking for those individual characteristics from person to person in order to break down the head and hopefully get closer to a likeness with your portrait. Um, now, again, if you're just kind of starting out, you know, keep it, You know, for the time being, keep it generic and make you know, double check yourself and make sure that they're equal and just get comfortable with the idea of breaking the head down into this sort of sequence. And as you get more confident with your measuring and placing all you know all of your lines and grids, you can start deviating from this sort of generic approach and really start looking for, um, you know, very clear specifics. But again, if you're just starting out, you know, kind of maybe just follow steps. And then, as you get familiar with everything, go ahead and start deviating, because the important part is, you know, at first when you're drawing is just the construction. It's maybe not necessarily, you know, getting a likeness or anything like that. But maybe it's just getting everything toe look like it's proportionate, toe one another on everything. So just kind of keep that in mind as we get going here, and then we'll start breaking this thing down a little bit farther. So once I have those divisions in place, I need to start finding you know, where the rest of the features are. And so I like to start in the center of the head and in particular start with the eyebrows in establishing the sockets of of where the eyes are going to be. And the reason for that is those air, some of the more predominant and larger features in the in the head and as well as the skull. If you look at the skull, you know, and the relative size of the sockets, it does consume a lot of the front plane of the face. And so, for me, starting from the center of the portrait is the easiest way to build everything else. And so what I try and find first is I try and see where the two closest points in the eyebrows meet. and then build my sockets around that, um and then once I have those in place, then it makes it easier for me to start establishing the nose and some of the other areas in the head. And the tricky part with the sockets is kind of figuring out where they're gonna end. But I find that maybe roughly half way in between the brow line and the bottom of the nose , you confined the relative distance of where the sockets are going to end. Keep in mind, the sockets are actually larger than the eyes themselves, because the eyeballs are actually sitting in in the sockets. Eso they are gonna be a little bit bigger. And once I find one, I can carry it over to the other side, and it's and simply just sort of mirror of the shape that I made on the other side and again. One thing that I'm looking for is kind of just establishing the largest possible shapes first, before I start breaking things down any farther. And, um, the sockets have a couple of things that we can use to start establishing the rest of the head, most notably the corners of the sockets become a very important part for me because I'm gonna use them to help establish the side plane of the head. And the way you can do that is from the corner of the brow. Here, you can essentially pull a line that will bisect the corner of the socket. And if you carry that line up, um, it will go ahead and establish the side plane of the head. And so I was gonna pull this line straight through here, and it will, Like I said, it will cut through the corner of the socket and you can draw that line all the way down to the chin if you wanted to. But I usually just kind of keep it up into the side plain. And you can see just by adding that little bit of information, we have a very specific front forehead and then to side planes of the head. And, um, you know, again, even though this is front on, you know, from a front on perspective, we do have depth through the head and we will see all of those planes. And the hard part, sometimes with side plane, is depending on the person is that the hair and sometimes obscure. A lot of that information on git may block and make it less visible. But, um, it does have to be there in order to get that sense of the front plane of the faces coming forward, um, in relationship to the side or back of the head. And so those plane changes become very obvious. If you if you go and you look at your model, you know, from a profile of you or you kind of just walk around the model, you'll see that kind of triangular cut out that's bisecting through the socket and creating that side, playing down to the cheek. And so just kind of keep that in mind when you're doing this initial construction, because it will really help having that perspective as you move forward. And so from here, once we have this established, we kind of have to just go down the rest of the head and start filling in the other information. And, you know, for me, what I like to establish in the head is getting the nose in there. But it's also this triangular relationship of the eye sockets down to the knows that will really help. So I'll use the sockets that I've established to help me find the general location of where the nose is going to sit. Andi, I just need to get that down to the wings of the nostrils. But there's a few other ways that we can build in that relationship. And so I'll talk about that in the next video, because now, at this point, we've kind of established a large mass, and so we have to start filling in the rest of the features. 3. Constructing the Head Pt. 2: so continuing on what again? What I'm looking for is, I want to find the tear ducts of the eye. And so the easiest way for me to do that because we're still starting out and I have very little information is I'll pull an angle from the corner of the brow and try and place the tear duct that way. And then once I find one tear duct, I simply just have to carry it over and find the other one and again dealing with a straight on view. Um, you know, we're trying to find a relative degree of symmetry, and so I can kind of then carry from the tear duct and just keep a line all the way across because we're gonna have the end to your ducks at the corners of the eyes as well. And so the importance of that tear duct, though, however, is to basically pull a vertical line and that will, generally speaking, give you the relative position of the wings of the nostrils. Again, it's kind of a generic rule, but it will be a good starting point for you, and so I'll take that angle and then I'll then pull an angle from the corner of the socket like I mentioned earlier, and that will help me kind of just hone in on where the nose is sitting. And for me, what I like to do in the beginning is I know that there's other planes in the nose, Um, but once I find the bottom plain and where the wings of the nostrils are, I feel kind of safe about the positioning of the nose. And then it's much easier to break it down into smaller shapes from there. And so when I'm beginning a drawing, I'm looking for that bottom plane in that trying your relationship with the rest of the sockets. And for me, the reason that's important is because I feel like when you look at someone and you're drawing a portrait, that relationship is what you focus in on, like you know, for example, like if you're talking to somebody, um, or you're observing a portrait, you know, like it's that triangular relationship that I feel like, really give someone their character type on, and I find that maybe that's where the largest changes are going to take place and you know , yes, there's the mouth and the rest of the head. But, um, for me, that that kind of centralized triangle is the most important thing. Um and so what? The nose in, we need to establish the mouth. And so the next sort of thing is, once we know where the tear duct is, I need to kind of find the relevant relative position of where I think the pupil or Iris is going to be. And again, the sort of generic rule is if I pull a vertical line down from the iris that I confined the corners of the mouth. Um and so what I'll do is very similar toe. You know how if I found the original tear duct is I'll pull an angle from the wings of the nostrils as well, down to the corners of the mouth in addition to the vertical line down from the iris. And then that way I get a really, you know, a much more calculated idea about the position of the mouth. And so with those two things in place, what ends up happening is is you have these two interlocking triangles of the sockets and the nose, and then the nose to the mouth and again for me, you know, a portrait that to me, those two sort of triangular relationships are what really encompasses the likeness of a person or the character type of their features. And certainly there's other important things, like the exterior and interior silhouettes. But then, once we actually get beyond that and look into the features themselves, it's those two triangular shapes and how they interlock with one another that will really give you the proportions and character of that person. And so once I have the, you know, the nodes of the mouth established, I can kind of just piece together everything in between. And so the first thing I like to do, though, actually is from the bottom of the nose. You can pull these angular lines almost like another triangle shape, um, outward. And what that does is it's coming from the filter. Um, which is the tiny little piece under your nose, um, before the top lip. And what it will do is if you pull those lines downward, it will break up the lips into smaller sections, as well as established the ball of the chin. Um, and the only really good reason for this is the kind of just divide things up into Maybe, you know, little small pieces that are maybe a little bit more manageable. So when you start thinking about breaking down the lips into the top lip, you know, the lower lip and then you have that little transitional plane that kind of curves in before you get the ball of your chin. You have all these little kind of things that are converging together in the lower half of the face. And by dividing it up like this, it does make it a little bit more manageable. And you can kind of do your best to fit. You know, all those little pieces of information within that triangular shape on, and hopefully it'll make it easier to kind of break that down, um, and then build out the rest of the lower half of the jaw. And so now I'm just kind of working within those small those small little divisions Aiken build out the you know, the rest of the lower lip. And then with that in place, you know, from the bottom of the lower lip there in that middle plane it'll establish, um you know, again, the ball of the chin as well is that little transitional plane just below the lower lip. And, you know, depending on the light source, you know that you're drawing your model from Is that often times that little tiny piece here will be in shadow or at least have 1/2 tone in it. So because it's generally, you know, not a whole light, a lot of light is actually hitting that area. And then just below the ball of the chin will be established a swell and, you know, granted, you know where we are now. We still have a lot to fill in in the head. But the general landmarks, you know, given, you know, the eye sockets, the nose and the mouth are established. And so from here, we can really start to divide things a little bit farther. But it's usually when I get to this point, I feel like if everything is proportional, then I'm off to a great star. And then I just need to start refining and start finding smaller planes and shapes and things like that so that I get a better you know, either likeness or just a better construct for the rest of the head. But if you've made it this far, though, you know, hopefully things were looking good. And if not, you know, you can kind of make corrections early on before you get too far ahead. And so with, you know, kind of those features established, I want to go ahead. And, like I was saying earlier, is just break things down a little bit farther because now we need to kind of more or less get into some details. But before we get too far ahead of myself, I want to go ahead and establish the ears. And, you know, generally speaking, because I'm not dealing with any sort of pitch of perspective, meaning I'm not dealing with, you know, that the there's no tilt to this particular head is that the years will relatively fit in between. You know, that middle third. So between the brown line and the bottom of the nose, you know the years will roughly sit in between there. And, you know, the thing is with the ears and very similar to the nose is because it's a more cartilage kind of based feature is that you see a lot of, you know, variance in the length on do you know with. And so there's just a lot of variables for years. So again, just kind of keeping them in the middle third is kind of a generic way to start. And then from there you can always go ahead and deviate based off of what you're seeing. But generally speaking, we can kind of, you know, fill those in there, and then we'll have the rest of the features established. And the ears will be helpful for a couple reasons only because, you know, obviously again, it's kind of just we're just finishing off the rest of the features. But I also used the ears to help me pull some additional lines and take measurements off of um, And then now the tricky part, obviously, is that sometimes now the ears are gonna be obscured, depending on the person's hair type, so you can't always rely on them. Um, but for the sake of a diagram are anything like that, you know, they're gonna be in full visibility, and I'll show you what you can do to help establish some other things by using the ears. So what the ears established? The next thing I can do is from the corner of the mouth, eso like the nodes of the mouth. I can pull a line on at an angle and then connect it to the top part of the ear. And what that will do is this is basically just an anatomical rhythm that's establishing the cheek plane, um, in the head. And once I get it from the top part of the ear, I can connect it from the side of the socket, and that essentially builds that front facing plane of the cheek that exists on the front plane of the face. And then where the line cuts over is going to be the drop off into the lower part of the job. But generally speaking, you'll have a highlight in that corner of the cheek if the light is coming from a top down source, which is typical for kind of an academic approach to portrait drawing. But, um, you know, from there you're seeing, you're going to see the very specific drop off from that cheek plane down into the lower part of the jaw, and you can do that on both sides and even to you can, I would say, even from a 3/4 perspective, you can still use this rhythm. And it's just a way of breaking down the front plane of the face a little bit farther and having very definitive cheek planes so that you kind of know. Okay, well, this is the extent of the front plane of the face on Ben. Everything beyond you know, that sort of 45 degree angle is kind of more or less part of the side plane of the face. And so again, depending on the light source that you're drawing from, you're going to see a much higher degree, um, of drop off in light and in value on the lower part of the jaw. And so from here and now we can, you know, we kind of have I feel like the major sort of elements of the head. And even if we didn't get much farther in this drawing, you can kind of see how we've broken things down from the very beginning, um, into the larger kind of components of the head so that, you know, everything feels relatively good in terms of proportion in perspective and, um, the general construction. But from here, we want to go ahead and start breaking it down even farther into some smaller shapes. And I would feel like at this point that a lot of it does become a little bit more detail oriented. So if you're just starting out, if you could get this far with your drawing, then you're off to a wonderful start. And it's really, from this point forward that we're gonna just start flushing out the features in a little bit more complicated manner, but not necessarily super detailed. But we're just gonna describe more information so that we can flush out the entirety of the head on. Ben, you know, eventually get to a completed sort of, you know, block in or a mannequin eyes drawing. So I'm basically building from the center plane of the nose in between the sockets and kind of building out through there. When we initially started, we kind of we already have the bottom plane established, so it's really just a matter of filling in the gaps of information, and we know that with the knows, we're gonna have a basic sort of front plane where the bridge of the nose is, we're gonna have a bottom plane, and then pretty much what's left over is just the two side planes, and you can certainly make the knows a lot more complicated because it's a lot of cartilage . But when you're just starting out, it's sometimes easier to just really simplify it down into its basic planes and then add those other details once you get farther along in the drawing. So in the next video, we'll kind of wrap this up in terms of blocking the rest of it in. But if you've made it this far in, your blocking is looking like this, then you're off to a wonderful start. 4. Constructing the Head Pt. 3: So at this point, we really have kind of the key elements of the head established and so moving forward. What we want to do is we want to start breaking things down into some smaller planes. And so, depending on, you know, maybe the person's type that you're drawing and you know, again, there's all kinds of variables that you're gonna have to consider is that sometimes some of these other planes may not be as important as others, and so you kind of have to treat that as a case by case scenario. But for the sake of this diagram, I do want to start adding some smaller elements just so that you can see some things that have to be broken down. And so, in this case, I actually want to start by adding a little bit of Brow Ridge. And mostly because through this area, having that brow ridge in there will indicate a very distinct plane change. And so, you know, I would say predominantly on a mail, it might be it might be more obvious, and it's still gonna be there on a female head as well. But, um, it's just a matter of knowing that there's this rhythm or this, you know, sort of structure just above the flat part, um are just below rather the flat part of the forehead That is kind of when you think about when you, you know, sort of, you know, scrunch your eyebrows together or, you know, make an expression you think about these muscles around that area. I'm kind of contracting and making different shapes. And so it will also define the temple area through here as well as you connect it from one side to the other. And so we end up with this nice sort of little flat ridge. And again, if you look at someone in profile the brow ridges, obviously more prominent and again, depending on the person's age and you know, ethnicity and all these kinds of factors, Sometimes this little area could be very, very specific to that person. And then also through here, there is this kind of circular rhythm that kind of takes place, and this one's a little bit tricky to sort of talk about, because I find that you're not going to necessarily see it all the time on everybody on guy . Find that maybe It's more obvious on an older person than it is a younger person. But it's this little circular rhythm that is kind of cutting through the brow ridge as well as the front plane of the forehead, and it kind of divides that flat forehead plane into some smaller sections. And again, it kind of I treat this particular rhythm as a case by case scenario. I do know that it's there and based off of the muscles and the forehead. Um, you know it does there. It can be a little bit more obvious in certain people than others. Um, but I just wanted to put it in there so that you guys can see and know that it exists underneath when we're thinking about the musculature of the head. But, um, if anything, I kind of just stick with the Brow Ridge just because that is gonna be more obvious on Universal, Universally, everyone versus that circular rhythm cutting through the forehead and again, depending on the angle at which you're drawing. You know, your portrait from some of these things are gonna be very obvious and sometimes will be a little bit more subtle that things like a forehead plane are, you know, although not necessarily a landmark, are gonna be very obvious on everyone. And it's just a matter of gauging how much or how little that is actually protruding and so moving down into the sockets, I'm gonna go ahead and start building out the I and because I found the two tier ducks of the eye earlier, it makes it very easy to place the sphere of the eye and then build the lids off of that, keeping in mind from the very beginning when we started with the shapes of the eye sockets , you know, Now we have to just considered how the actual ball of the eye is going to rest in between the actual center of that socket. And again, the tear ducts are gonna be the key landmarks that you're gonna want to use to construct the I because then you at least have a very specific beginning and end point. Um, if you know, for for where you're gonna connect the lids and then depending on your light sources well is the sockets will create very specific shadow shapes that sometimes can make it a little bit easier to construct the rest of the eye. And again, this is kind of assuming if you're drawing from a top down sort of ah, you know, light source where you're gonna have very specific and obvious shadow shapes. But you really want to just use what you can in terms of constructing the I. But you know, if let's say, for example, the eyes completely illuminated and you have no shadows, you can kind of use the eyebrow as a as a landmark to construct and measure off of, as well as the tear ducks on Ben. Basically, just you're gonna build the eye off of that as you go. And so if I construct the island's I'm basically just, you know, you have to imagine that we're wrapping this lid around a ball shape, and then it has to kind of follow that contour Beyond that, the only other thing that really keep in mind is that generally speaking, the top lid is gonna have a lot more volume to it than the lower lid. Um, comparatively. And you know, obviously there's always gonna be differences depending on the person's type and, uh, you know, ethnic background and things like that. But, um, for the most part, I would say the lower lid is actually fairly small in relationship to to the upper lid. And you'll see more of the character of the I, um, is being formed by how that top lid is rolling around the ball of the eye, and so it's just something to kind of look out for. Regardless, you know of whether you're drawing from life or from reference. It kind of has a tendency to really sort of look that way. If you start paying attention to just the subtle details in people's eyes, and you know beyond that you have things like eyelashes, um, and and things that can kind of hide some of that character. But again, just kind of keep that in mind is that you need to wrap those leads around that contour of the ball, and that will really give, like that feeling of something wrapping around a form 5. Constructing the Head Pt. 4: all right. So continuing on, I'm just going to start filling in some of the smaller shapes again so that we can flush out some of the details and again, depending on, you know, the kind of character of the person that you were drawing. You know, you may see some of these things you may not, and sometimes it can actually be beneficial to keep your construction simplified. Eso that you don't maybe overwhelmed yourself by putting in too many sort of elements as you're blocking in your drawing. But I want to go ahead and put these things in just like that. You can see it and be aware of what's actually happening. As you're kind of observing, you know that your reference or the model that you're drawing and so beginning with knows, you know, initially be kind of established. The four basic planes, you know, which is with the bottom, the front, and then the two sides. And from there, really, the only additional things that we need to start adding would be some more detail along the ball of the nose as well as like, the wings of the nostrils. And you can kind of generically mass them together like this in this sort of little our king shape that I've drawn in, the sort of maybe not potential problem with the nose is that everyone's knows because it's a cartilage shape and it's not necessarily muscle tissue or, you know, or even, you know, skeletal structure is that the cartilage can vary so much. And so that's why you'll see a lot of different kinds of types of noses, you know. And it's the same in relationship to ears as well is that there's so much variance that sometimes you almost want to just draw what you're seeing in the moment and not necessarily build too much structure into You're blocking as you get to something like the nose and often times all maybe keep things in a much more simplified manner. As I'm constructing the nose, knowing that as I get much farther in the drawing, I'll implement those details as I go. But beyond those you know, additional things like the ball of the nose and the wing of the nostril, the only other thing that we have to consider is you know, the bottom plane in which will see the nostrils Aziz well as thesis TEM of the nose, which is that little tiny piece in the middle. And the funny thing is, is that you know, depending on the angle and the lighting at which you're drawing your portrait, you you sometimes don't necessarily draw a whole lot of the bottom plane of the nose. And that, especially, is I would say, true in a lot of academic scenarios where you are dealing with a top down light source and you often find that there is going to be a very predominant cash shadow on the bottom plane of the nose. But you know, as soon as you get something in, let's say profile or even 3/4 you start seeing a little bit more information. But you know, it's one of those things where you one of almost simplify a lot of the shapes in the lower part of the nose and maybe not put too much emphasis on things like, you know, let's say like nostrils or anything like that, because it's not. It's never gonna be something that you're gonna focus on or be a focal point in the picture , so but it does have to be there. So you do want to get that information in. But it's not an area that you want to emphasize moving down to the lips. You know, we don't really have to do Ah whole lot because earlier, when we blocked a man, we kind of divided up all the sections to begin with and so moving forward, the only things I'd be really paying attention to is some of the curvature in the top lip on and trying to kind of capture that Cupid's bow kind of, you know, curvature to that top live and again, the lips, just like any other feature, are gonna be very specific to the individual. And the way we've broken them down can still be used regardless of the type. But then it's really it's gonna come down to the details and how you articulate, you know, those specific lip shapes. But for the most part, we can still construct them in the same manner to at least simplify things down for ourselves. And then we just have to go back in and find the little details that make it specific, you know, to that person. And then once the lips, Aaron Kind of getting down to that lower little transitional plane. We do have the ball of the nose, then the other thing is here as well is that we do have kind of what we would call just like the jowl area. And again, this will be something that, depending on the person, it will maybe stick out a little bit more. But the nice thing about having some of that musculature in there or that rhythm is that it kind of defines the overall muzzle shape in the person. And, you know, when you start thinking about the mouth in general and you know it's harder to describe from a front view. But once you start seeing it from different perspectives, you really get that sense of, you know, the mouth is this very sort of ball like form that is sitting on top of the front plane of the face, and it has to protrude out in a very specific manner so that it feels like it has volume and depth to it relative to the rest of the head. And so that's kind of when we started, you want to be thinking about the mouth as this ball shape, and those little tiny details underneath the lower lip can really help sort of define that , especially when it's a front of you. And you don't really get that sense of depth now. Obviously, you wouldn't want to overemphasize the area if it didn't actually exist in the person that you're drawing. But know that that those muscles are there and they can really help kind of push some of the form and volume in that particular area. If you know, maybe the mouth, depending on lighting, feels maybe a little flat or doesn't have a whole lot going on in it. The nice thing about this area is that that those rhythms just below again will define the chin. But they also carry into the top part of the mouth, and it extends essentially into, like, the laugh line. And so when you think about when you smile or, you know kind of, you know, having expression is that the last line is gonna bend and twist along with the musculature around it, and that's all sort of interconnected throughout the mouth. And so when you think about you know again like when you laugh or smile or even if you watch yourself talking in the mirror, you see kind of the thing. You know, everything that kind of moves and articulates around based off of the musculature and those those lower gel areas around the mouth will kind of define that again. And then depending on you know, the person's type, you will see that that sort of laugh line, um, kind of be a part of that rhythm or, if, let's say, for example, someone were toe have, like dimples in their cheeks. You know, you kind of there's these little things that kind of help tie all the muscles in the face together, and you can use them in your drawing to really help you get a sense of connective ity in symmetry, depending on the angle that you're drawing your portrait from. Now again, it's something that you don't want to get too caught up in and putting in too much information if you don't actually see it in the model. But it is helpful to know what is there and and basically use that as a mental guide to help you place some of the other information in the head and again for me. I always treat every drawing as a case by case scenario. And I don't like to put in excessive information if it's not gonna help move the drawing forward. And that's kind of what I would say for the majority of doing the block in, you know, when you beginning your drawing. But I feel like I wanted to show you these little things that although you may not use them in every drawing or maybe not at all, it is helpful to know that they exist so that you can use them as a tool to help you construct your portrait. Um, you know, and as you see me do the finish drawing, you'll kind of, um, you'll see what that I actually, you know, kind of bypass a lot of this. And I just used the essentials. What? I need to help me get through the drawing. Um, now it is a little bit harder at first. You know, if you're just starting out, you may wanna practice just doing some of these diagram type drawings, whether it's from reference or even just from imagination. But you'll see as I do. My own drawings is that I'm picking and choosing all the time. Um, what I'm gonna need and what's gonna be useful to me and I don't want to put in extra information because it just becomes, ah, lot of unnecessary mess that I'm gonna have to go back in and fix later. So it's sort of like a closing thought on doing this kind of structure is if you're just starting out with, you know, portrait drawing in general is to just take your time, and you may want to practice just doing these sort of diagrams, get a piece of reference. You know, Hopefully it's well lit, but you can just pull something, you know, online or in a magazine, or if you can get, you know, someone to sit for you even better. But you want to just practice breaking down the head into the sort of, you know, sort of diagram drawings. And it's not for the standpoint of doing a pretty drawing per se, but it's about understanding the structure underneath so that you can have a better approach to breaking something down that's complicated into a few simple steps and then gradually start adding extra information. You know, I when I first started doing all of this. I was doing a lot of this kind of drawing for a very long time on then. Kind of just worked my way up to doing more finishes. Um, you know, so just kind of take your time with this And don't rush the process. It will take. You know, a lot of, you know, practice to just get comfortable breaking the head down into some of these, you know, sort of simplified forms from there. It's much easier to kind of start adding complexity to it. But if you can't get these steps right from the get go, it's gonna be very hard to move on to a more finished, you know, portrait of any kind. So just take your time, you know, draw slowly on Ben. Hopefully with the next couple of drawings that I do, it'll make more sense 6. 3/4 Head Pt. 1: Okay, So as a secondary example, I do want to show you the same sort of construction from a different angle. But the main sort of thing that I want to get across in this next sort of example is what I was alluding to earlier at the end of the last video is that often times when you're first starting out with this sort of construction process, you end up with, you know, possibly a lot of construction lines that over the course of time and through the progression of the drawing, is they kind of start to get in the way after they serve their purpose. And so what you may end up finding is that, you know, you get to a certain point where you like all right, I'm good. I got on my construction in everything looks, you know, like it's aligned and in place, and everything is feeling proportionate. And that's great. And now you need to transition out of the drawing. And the tricky part for a lot of students is when you're first starting out is you don't know quite how to transition out of that. And so you know I'm gonna draw ahead here in 3/4. And I'm gonna intentionally draw some, uh, you know, almost excessive, you know, construction lines. And I want to show you how you can sort of get past that. Um, and you know, that allows you to transition into maybe refining the drawing so that you can actually start drawing the, you know, the actual features of the person that you're doing the portrait of, so just kind of follow along, I'm still going to go through the same steps that I did in the first example. But I'm gonna show you what it looks like as you kind of get beyond the basic construction process. And ah, and started, you know, moving forward. So it began this drawing in the same way by finding my center line and then finding my initial thirds. And so we're gonna go ahead and continue toe block it in the same way as we did the previous example again. The only really sort of difference that we have to take into consideration is, ah, degree of perspective. And this is probably close to a fairly standard 3/4. It's not terribly extreme. Um, but it's just it's certainly far enough from straight on where we do have to account for some of the changes that are taking place, and I'm still going approach it fundamentally the same way. The only really big difference is that we are going to see a lot more of the side plane of the head on. And then we're going to see a little bit of recession on the far side of the face that's turning away from us and that all that's really gonna do is it's gonna come in the way of seeing less of one socket, Um, and then we're gonna also have to account for the mouth turning away from us in perspective . But beyond that, I'm not really doing anything all that different from the very first example. I'm just simply changing the angle. And the one thing I would say in relative consideration is that regardless of the perspective, um, you know of the portrait or whatever, you know, whatever you're sort of drawing from is nothing should fundamentally change. I mean, yes, you are gonna have to account for, um, you know, the perspective change, but procedurally, um, nothing will really change, and that's really the I think the important take away from any of this is that regardless of what you're drawing is, you want to have a sound approach to everything that you're doing. And so for me, a lot of it is is I know the steps to get to a finish, and it kind of has to start with this sort of very procedural block in, Um and it's not to say that this is the end all be all way to draw anything. But for a beginner or from someone who is just kind of getting their bearings with this kind of drawing, it's just kind of a foolproof way of starting. And then once you get to a certain point, you can kind of fundamentally decide what you want to dio. So for this head so far, you know, I kind of threw the box just to show you an example, so that when you when you treat a 3/4 head, you can kind of think about it fitting into some sort of, you know, box or relic rectangular kind of shape. And that's kind of how I'm thinking about the perspective lines and granted, I'm not really considering any sort of tilt in the head, it's gonna be relatively straight on. So even my axes lines are going to for the most part, stayed the same. And, you know, if there was any sort of tilt or pitch in the head, then you have to think about how those axes lines are gonna move in perspective. If we were drawing a box and use them to think about how things wrap around, you know, a box and that the side plane is that corner point in which the perspective is changing, so just kind of getting in the rest of the sockets. And now I'm gonna go ahead and draw through, um, and just draw in the entire socket, knowing full well that the nose is going to come in front of that socket at some point. But it's much easier to just go ahead and draw it first. And then, you know, I can go ahead and erase whatever I don't need after the fact. And one thing with dealing with a 3/4 view is you're going to see some overlap where, you know, you might see the cheek come around the eye socket and you're gonna see the forehead sort of stick out a little bit further than the front plane on. But, you know, those were just very small things I'm not too concerned about so far. But as we kind of continue to build up the drawing, you see me add more lines and we kind of just make adjustments from there, all right? And so again, you know, I'm still going to place, you know, the features the same way I did in the first example. And the only time the only thing that's a little different is that say, for example, here when I'm finding the tear duct and pulling Ah, vertical straight down to the wing of the nostril is very often when you start dealing with perspective is a lot of the little sort of tricks and and tips that we did, and from the front on view, they may not work. And again, it's just those those sort of sort of tools like, you know, the tear duct down from, you know, to the wing of the nostril or from the iris, you know, down to the note of the mouth, those sorts of things you want to use is maybe a guideline, but knowing that not everyone certainly is not gonna fit into that sort of example. But you can use it as a way of at least finding a relative placement for a lot of features on Ben, make more accurate decisions once you get to the actual, you know, feature that you're trying to locate and you still want to use other areas of the head, um, or other landmarks to help guide you and find where those you know things are actually located instead of relying on, you know, sort of generic principles. But, um, just kind of keep that in mind, because I find that a lot of students early on would get too caught up and knowing all these little kinds of tricks that, while they certainly can work in a lot of instances if you don't deviate too much from them , is that you end up with the same sort of generic kind of looking head because they're all tied into this sort of generalized placement. And it's not you're not really seeing accurately when you follow. Um, you know, all those little tricks too much, so just and it's not that I say, Don't use them, but just keep it in mind and always be objective and make comparative measurements to what you're actually drawing based off of what you're seeing and not based off of a formula, so does be so as I'm getting down to the mouth here. The one thing I need to keep in mind is that dealing with the perspective is I can't be drawing from my original center line that I began with because otherwise if I were to do so , is the mouth is going to be looking towards us, the viewer. And so what I usually end up doing is from the bottom of the nose all pull an additional center line outwards so that it gives the perspective of the lips as they're coming off the front plane of the face. And remember, what I was saying earlier in the first example is that the mouth is this sort of, you know, sphere like, you know, sort of form that is protruding off the front plane of the face. And so, by that nature alone, it it has its own center line and perspective to it, And so I have to just keep that in mind as I construct the mouth in a 3/4 pose, and I usually end up doing this sort of thing almost every time, not from the standpoint that I have to, but it just It's a way of reminding myself that there's perspective in the head, and so if it's any pose, that's not a fundamental straight on view, all go ahead and do that for the mouth and kind of just continuing. We'll go ahead and place the here and again. Just remember that the ear is going to exist on an angle and not straight up and down. If you if you draw it straight up and down, it's gonna look a little off, Um, in perspective, in relationship to the head. And once we get the sort of general year shape and we know that we can basically build off from there and connect the lower jaw and then, you know, realistically from this part we have the bulk of the head in place, and also I'm still gonna go ahead obviously and put in more information. But you can kind of see, even with what we've established so far, we have all of our axes aligned. The, uh, perspective is there. And this is kind of how again I would begin, you know, a portrait drawing if I were If I were just starting out and I wanted to just establish the basic structures and, you know, as you can see, you know, there is a lot of lines that were starting to sort of take shape, But a Zoe get kind of get a little bit more information, and I'm gonna show you what you can do to help mitigate that. But before I do that, I'm gonna go ahead and put in, um, you know, some extra information that gets it a little bit closer, like the first example where we have everything accounted for and so just kind of follow along and we'll go from there. The one thing you will notice, though, is that even though this is in, uh, a little bit of perspective is just like the first example that was straight on. I still want to relate, you know, from one side to the next. So even though I have to deal with, you know, a little bit of four shortening on the far side of the cheek and areas like that. I still want to find the general relationship of one side has to kind of mirror the other in the sense that we are still trying to have some degree of symmetry throughout the face. And though even though we're dealing with a turn and that things are looking away from us, we can't have anything that looks off kilter So you can find little things across the head that you confined a relationship to, um and make sure that everything is staying aligned with one another, even though something is closer and something is farther. So as we kind of continue forward, I'm gonna add some of the details of the features on. And then, from there I'm gonna show you what we can do to help clean this up so that if we were transitioning into a more finished drawing, how we can still use this structure to help us place everything but then move forward and kind of get to a more complete a drawing where we can get closer to me. The adding shadows and some other details 7. 3/4 Head Pt. 2: all right. So before I get to ultimately the sort of end objective with this particular drawing is I want to go ahead in stool, move forward and add some extra information. And so, you know, again, depending on you know, the model and like, whatever circumstances you're dealing with as you're doing this drawing is, you know, you'll end up with a lot of, you know, construction lines, depending on how much you need. And I'm gonna go ahead and actually inject, you know, more information here. So we flush out the features a little bit more, and we kind of end up with a very similar drawing, like we did in the first example. And then from there again, I'm gonna show you what you can do to help yourself transition out of that. Um, And again, it's not that it's not something that's gonna be, you know, sort of terribly complicated by any means. But hopefully it'll make sense and what you can do to help yourself as you get, you know, maybe more comfortable with doing this kind of block in on Ben moving forward with the rest of the drawing and actually putting in you know features that are specific to what you're drawing and then ultimately getting into shadows on and things like that. So I'm gonna go ahead and just start filling in, you know, the nose, and then I'll do a little bit of the eyes just so that you can kind of see this drawing get progressed a little bit farther in. You know, we don't necessarily have to add, you know, that much detail. But, um, And again, depending on the pose that you're working from, you always want to pick and choose, You know, kind of the things that you're adding and make sure that they're going to be really beneficial. Um, you would never really want to just arbitrarily put something in for the sake of doing it. Um, you know, And that's just kind of I feel like that, that sort of thing. You learn as you kind of get you know, as you progress and as you get better and was, you'll end up finding, as as you advance, is that your I will kind of project a lot of that information along, and you may only have to find a few key landmarks to help yourself get starting, you know, sort of the Catch 22 with all of that is that the only way that happens is by doing a lot of these sort of diagram type drawings. And, you know, it's just kind of a case by case scenario, and you could practice doing a lot of these drawings for quite some time. Justin, what kind of know and get a feel for how all of these lines, um, you know, are used to make up the face on. And then as you kind of start, you know, getting more familiar and more comfortable, you just start using less and less of it. Um, but anyway, um, kind of just moving forward, I'm gonna do a little bit, you know, again for the lips. And then we'll get a little bit of the eye and there, um, but you can already see, we're we're getting close to the end where we were with our last example. In the sense that we have more or less everything established, everything is aligned in terms of its perspective and axes, and we almost have all you know, more or less All things are accounted for in terms of the features. And, you know, it is. I got this point. If you find yourself a to this stage in your drawing, um, you know, you start kind of asking yourself like All right, this is this is a lot of lines that I have to contend with, and again, depending on what you're drawing. Um, you know, you could end up with a lot of lines like this. You could end up with a little bit less, but I want it in the next sort of video. I'll show you what you can do to help yourself, uh, kind of mitigate that and make it a little bit more manageable as you move the drawing forward. Um, but anyway, so I'm just gonna go ahead and just put in a little bit more information, you know, for the eyes. And but I feel, you know, I feel good about where this drawing is right now. So I again, everything is sort of proportionate in perspective. There are a lot of lines, and, you know, this was kind of I kind of added some extra, you know? Kind of I don't know, not not necessarily sketch lines, but I didn't intentionally try to keep this drawing clean because I wanted to show you how you can sort of manage that, Aziz, you get, you know, to this sort of stage in the drawing where you feel good about your construction. Um, and then now you need to kind of start moving away from that and then actually start drawing the person that you were intending to draw from the beginning. All right, so let's say you get to a stage in your drawing, and this is where you are before you begin to maybe start adding specific details to the portrait that you're doing. And so you're kind of looking at this, You're like, all right, I got a lot of you know, these construction lines that I now don't really need any more. They serve their purpose. And so now how do we transition out of this? And so the obvious thing is to just kind of take your eraser and start cleaning up areas. And what I'm doing specifically is I'm trying to just get the lines that I've created. Um, I'm gonna leave in the ones that are absolutely necessary to kind of help me but the ones that I don't really need any more. I'm gonna go ahead and remove Andi. Just try and take out as much as possible so that I'm left with as simple of a construction drawing as possible. And then the next thing I'm going to do is, you know, and you can take a you know, you can try and shape a kneaded eraser. I like these little eraser pens just because it's a finer tip. But what I try and do is any existing lines that I made. If they're a little bit on the thick side, or if there's maybe too many little extra sketch lines is all just kind of trim them up so that I get him as thin as possible, Um, and so that I don't have these really thick and abrasive lines that are kind of getting in the way. And I can't really tell, you know what line did I really need to put there? And you know what's absolutely necessary. And so I'm trying to get the lines as thin as I possibly can so that I'm just left with the absolute sort of bare necessity in terms of construction that I need so that I can move forward. Now that's sort of the you know, The caveat with this is that you still want to leave in maybe some of these construction lines, and it will vary from drawing to drawing. Um, and you know, sometimes certain perspective angles or certain poses can be harder than others. And so sometimes you may decide to leave more lines in Andi again. I'll just kind of say, that's a case by case scenario. But, you know, again, for the most part, I want to try and simplify the block in stage as much as I possibly can, so that just the absolute necessary lines that remain in the drawing are serving a very specific purpose so that it kind of guides me towards the finish on. And so I'll just keep going and going until I get, you know, as clean of a block in drawing, um, you know, as I possibly can. But the sort of tricky part comes is that let's say, if your lines are a little on the dark side, or maybe you're a little you know, like you're a little heavy handed, maybe or, you know just kind of other variables like that you have to consider. I'll show you what I would end up doing in that particular instance, because that may happen to a lot of people, you know, realistically speaking. Um, but you really want to maybe spend as much time as you can, trying to clean up the drawing into the absolute essential lines before you move forward, and so I can spend a good deal of time doing this and, you know, I don't know. It really just depends on on kind of what information you feel like you need, but in you kind of decide that for yourself. But again, try and get it as clean as possible. And then from there will kind of do a couple of other things to get this in the right direction. And so once I feel good about what I've done with the pence with a sort of pencil eraser thing, I'm gonna take my kneaded eraser and roll it into, like, a little bit of it. Kind of like a little log. And I'm just gonna roll it across the lines. And so if you're on the heavy handed side, or maybe you feel like some of your lines are a little dark. You can just roll your eraser like this and just gently roll it across your lines and it's gonna pick up a little bit of the graphite off the paper on and you kind of see, hear My lines are immediately getting lighter. Now, the best part is is that it doesn't actually remove the lines. But I'm not really applying so much pressure that I'm gonna be left with eraser marks or anything like that on the paper. So it's just enough pressure to remove some graphite. But I'm not losing the construction lines that I spent all this time trying to sort of figure out and construct in my portrait. And once I kind of go from here and I do that all over the drawing, any area that I need to maybe reemphasized or maybe some. Maybe you go a little too far. You know, you can always go back over with pencil because you're not going to completely lose your lines at all. And so depending on you know what level of comfort ability you feel like, you know, with your block end stage, you can just go back in and either clean things up again. Um and then, you know, go back with your pencil and re Adan information, but that's all you would really have to do at that point and again, just buy it by rubbing your eraser gently across the surface. It's going to still keep your lines in there so that you don't really lose. You know, all that work that you put in. But you can transition towards adding the more important information, like actual features from there, without having to re sort of figure out you know, where the placement of everything is. So at this point, I can kind of begin to re emphasize my lines and start adding, and all the extra details that I need that are gonna be specific to the portrait that I'm drawing. But the nice thing is, is that by going over with the eraser is that all my initial block in lines are now reduced quite a bit. And now I can really focus in on, um, you know, the things that are really important. So I can really start developing the features out more specifically and then, you know, as we kind of get further along. That's when we can start mapping out our shadow patterns on and then ultimately filling those in and then hopefully getting on to modeling form. But you know all of the drawing that you're going to see me do, and the and the actual finished demo as I go through all of these steps that I just went over in the last two sort of diagram videos. But you know, again, I'm kind of skipping some of the steps and you'll still see me go through it. But it's gonna be maybe a more simplified version of this same process. But what I'm hoping for you is that by watching these diagram videos, you'll get a much better understanding of all the thought you know and ideas that go into constructing the head. Um, and then it can certainly get more complicated from there. But every drawing that I do essentially kind of starts out this way. It may involve, you know, more information or less information, but I'm pretty much doing the same thing every time on DSO just kind of keep that in mind as you're working on your own drawings that. You know, you may do these sort of block in type drawings first, where they're very rigid and mechanical, and then you kind of start moving away. Um, you know, a little bit from that, and you get more specific and your block ins will maybe get a little bit more advanced, but just kind of go through the process. And then as we get to the final demonstration video, um, just kind of take it with a grain of salt about all the steps that I'm sort of blending together. Um, you notice that I will follow again pretty much what I've gone over with you here, but I am kind of bypassing certain things. Eso that it works out better for the finish, drawing for that particular demo. So I hope all of this made sense in terms of the breakdown on been that way you can apply it to your own drawing on and then go from there 8. Beginning the Block In: alrighty. So kind of just getting started with the drawing. Um, obviously, this is going to be a long process, but in order to get to the fun stuff, we kind of have to go through the block and stage. Um, and you know, it's gonna be a little bit different for everyone, I think. But there's still some kind of general rules that you can use to get started. And so for me, what that typically means is just establishing the largest shapes possible. Um, just so that you have something on the paper on. And I still feel like the hardest part about any drawing is really just getting something to look at, you know? And so you want to just establish a large shape to begin with and don't be too committed to it. Everything is. You know, at this stage you want to be drawing relatively light and non committal. You also want to be looking for some landmarks. And so once I have the initial, you know, large shape established, I want to find a center line. I want to find the relative, you know, sort of height to width ratio. And I want to start looking for axes, lines so that I established the general tilt of the portrait as well. And so this is something I'll spend probably the first anywhere from like an hour to two hours. It really just kind of depends on the complexity of the portrait. And in this particular case, because the portrait is a straight on view, I often find it to be a bit more difficult. So I spend a bit more time measuring when I have to worry about symmetry and things like that and paring things together, you know, like eyes and ears and such, but nonetheless kind of going forward. I like to find the frame of the face against the relationship of the hair. And so what we end up having is we have a silhouette on the interior establishing the frame of the face. And then we have an exterior silhouette, which, you know, for most people, is going to be the rest of the hair, you know, maybe the cheeks, you know, depending on the person's hair type and whatnot, So but what that does it kind of gives you a little bit of an area toe working. And so once I have, you know, the interior silhouette established. It gives me an idea about where I can fit the rest of my features in the face. The only thing I'll say again is at this stage, it's so early in the drawing is that you don't want to get overly committed to anything you put down. Um, you still wanna, you know, try and plot points measure, but if something's wrong, take it out. Or if you feel you know that something could be improved, go ahead and actually make those changes. I think the key is is just really just maintaining. You know your lines is, you know, is fairly light as you as you can, or at least what's tolerable to you, so that if something has to come out, you don't have Tina worry about erasing too hard, you know, on the paper or anything like that, or worry about having ghosted lines about an area that you fixed. But, you know, you kind of it's all just kind of a feeling out process, and you don't want to get, you know, so caught up in one particular area where you just feel everything is accurate and even though it may not be in and what I end up doing is, is, even once I get everything fleshed out, I'll go ahead and actually re measure areas again just to double check my work. And so this is kind of why you know, the early block in stages could take, you know, 23 hours or, you know, or more and honestly, the time is sort of irrelevant. You really want to get as good or is accurate of a blocking as you can. Because if you can, if you can kind of nail the early stages, you know pretty well then it makes doing the rest of the drawing so much easier. All right, and so going forward, I'm still just, you know, more or less trying to plot information down, and I'll try and get is accurate oven angle, you know, to you know, to what I'm seeing at first, but odds are I'm gonna probably have to make some adjustments down the line. But as long as it's in relative proximity, when I'm establishing the large shapes again, it's still just kind of getting some visual information on the paper so that I can go back later and make accurate judgements in relationship to other things. Um, and so flushing out, you know, kind of, you know, the sockets and the knows I'm still going to just plots. Um, you know, little you're gonna see me plots and little dots on and that just those little dots are just gonna be areas where I can uses a landmark, the plot, other information. And this is typically what I do for most of the features, as I'm just getting started. And in this particular case, because it is a straight on portrait, what I do on one side, I'm gonna simply mirror on the other. And you know, that doesn't necessarily mean things are actually gonna end up being that way. Because if you really pay attention to people's faces, is none of us are, you know, 100% symmetrical. And and I find what's fun about doing portrait's finding those little idiosyncrasies and people's faces where you notice small changes, and that's really part of the person's character. And, um, you know, early on, I want to just go ahead For the sake of simplicity. I want to mirror each side as I'm plotting things out in a straight on view. But then once I start focusing on some smaller areas on and not necessarily details, but just starting to establish the block in a little farther, then I start looking for some of those slight differences that I may see and so will find the nodes of the mouth. And once I kind of get all these points established. So, like the wings of the nostrils knows the corners of the mouth, the tear ducks, everything kind of for me from there, because become sort of like a connect the dots and those landmarks to me become very important things that I can measure other things against. And so I'll be looking for relationships of, you know, say where the edge of the nostril lines up with the corner of the mouth where the corner of the mouth lines up with the tear duct or the outside portion, you know of the eye. And in this particular case, because he has a goatee, it kind of helps frame the mouth, and it establishes the lower part of the jaw as well. And so you know someone with, you know, like things like facial hair can certainly make it a little bit easier to plot things out. And if you have Teoh, sometimes it can help to just use the shadow patterns depending on how your portrait is lit and use the shadow patterns and maybe blocked them in a little bit early so that you can use them as a guide to measure. It will always be kind of a case by case scenario, but the only sort of Constance that I will follow when I, you know, block in the drawing is establishing the large shapes against one another and then, you know, start plotting the general points, and from there it's going to be really dependent on, you know, the light source and, you know, kind of the angle of the portrait. And so there's all these little factors at play, which make it hard to make some sort of generalized rules about how to approach, you know, drawing. But, you know, kind of just going from a fundamental standpoint, beginning with the large shapes and then plotting and, you know, finding axes and finding verticals, horizontal things like that, or what you're gonna want to look for early on and then build out the rest of the drawing. And again, like I was saying earlier, is that once I gonna get things flushed out a little bit farther, like actually drawing in the features, I'll go back and re measure everything again and try and check my work. And because again, odds are you know, my eye isn't perfect. Your eye isn't perfect on DSO. We have to constantly go back and check our work to make sure that things are lining up in the right place or, you know, certain angles are, you know, corresponding correctly to with what we're seeing. And the only way you can really do that is to just double check your measurements. Um, you know, repeatedly until you feel good about them on, then you can move on. And so, at this point, going forward, I you know, the general landmarks have been established so I can start flushing things out a little bit farther, and now this doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to start drawing details or anything like that. But I can start maybe developing some of the features a little bit more. And then again, as I start building these out. I'm gonna go in double check everything before moving forward. And, like I said, in sort of the beginning, is given the fact that it's a straight on portrait. I'm often times you know, gonna be a little bit more careful because there's just a lot more potential for things to become misaligned or for things to go wrong versus if it were 3/4 or profile, and all it really needs is you just have to sort of micro manage. You know, the the information a little bit more, and it can be a little bit tricky because it's a lot to deal with. But if you go on, attack it slowly, it is, it can become manageable. And you just have to just double check things. Maybe just a little bit more now, in this particular case, you know, because it's a very strong shadow pattern. I can kind of use a lot of the shadows to help me flush out some of the information. And so I don't necessarily start constructing features by going through all the different stages of you know, A nice is round and then there's lids around it and what I'm trying to do is I'm really trying to squint down, look at the you know, the relative shape of the shadow pattern and sort of map it accordingly so that I don't think about features themselves as as what they are. But I just want to be more objective and think strictly in sort of a shape, you know, sort of anil ization pattern. And so I'm not thinking about the I, but I'm just looking around the shadows that are around the eye and what kind of shadow shape that the I'm makes on. And then eventually, as you know, I start feeling information in and I start getting into some detail down the line, it will hopefully all kind of come together. But to go back to where we started, really quick as you would, you wouldn't want to start working on this particular stage of the drawing until you felt pretty comfortable with the general axes of the drawing. So you would wanna have a distinct center line all your tilts established for all the features, make sure everything is aligned. Have you know the interior silhouette the exterior till so it rather established and then move on, and so you know it. There's a lot to manage early on in the drawing because you're kind of just establishing everything all at once, But you really want to take your time. And like I said, it could It could take an hour. It could take two or three hours. It really doesn't matter. Um, you know, And if you're drawing from life, you know, you only have so much time If you're drawing from reference, you know, take a much time as you need. Um, but it doesn't really make sense to kind of rush through these early stages on Lee to later go back and have to make all kinds of corrections and remove things eso And for the sake of good practice, take your time and whatever gets finished gets finished. 9. Continuing the Block In: continuing along. I'm just going to be using the, you know, the shadow shapes in the portrait to kind of establish the rest of my features. And the reason for that is that I'm still in the mindset that I don't want to get caught up in detail. And so a lot of the times, if you have a strong shadow pattern when you squint down, it kind of has a way of connecting things. And in this particular case, because he has a goatee on everything, a lot of the shadow shapes kind of converged together. And so the goatee down into the mouth, down into the chin, they all sort of start making, you know, a larger shape. And so the more I can kind of establish, you know, a large graphical looking shape, the better it's gonna look in the end. And so I don't want to separate things very much, Uh, at least more than I have to. And, um and what I'm looking for is that I just want that quick, you know, sort of poster look. And this will make more sense once we actually feel in the shadows. Andi, start talking about that and but as I'm blocking in still early on in these stages, I'm still thinking the same way. I'm just right now. I'm establishing what the poster is going to look like before. I feel in the sort of, you know, black areas. You know what? You're going to be like the shadows. And, you know, obviously I'm gonna have to sort of move away from that as I developed the rest of the drawing. But in these early stages, if you can kind of think that way and just go for a really simple graphic look, odds are you're gonna be fairly accurate on and sort of capturing the basic light and dark effect. And and, like I said earlier, is that it often times can help you flush out the rest of the features or any sort of details that you may be struggling with. But you can see by the way, that I'm, you know, sort of blocking everything in Is that the shapes air? Pretty simple. And I'm trying to keep them that way so that it's easier for me to see what I'm actually, you know, sort of establishing with the information on putting in Eventually, as we start modeling on and everything like that, we can get caught up in some of the more nuanced areas or some small details that may stick out a little bit more. But, um, again, this is kind of still the early first few hours of the drawing. And so we want to try and, you know, simplify as much as we can, so that it's easier for ourselves to make corrections and just to see the large masses as they're being established. And so, as I continue to add information, I'm still going to be double checking myself. And in this case with the eyes, I'm always gonna be going from side to side to make sure that things are aligning from one side to the next. And initially, I will be looking for, you know, a degree of symmetry just so that things are aligned. So the top of the lid, the top of the eye itself. I want to make sure that all of that is, you know, feeling symmetrical to one another. And once I get the initials shapes established, then I'll go ahead and look for some of the subtle differences from one eye to the next, and typically you're kind of always have some sort of variation in the wave, like the eyelids wrap around the ball of the eye. Or maybe it's the way a lower lid sweeps across the I. And there's all these kinds of little things that you kind of want to key in on even as you're blocking things in. But more importantly, you want to use, you know, information like the you know, the angle of the tear ducks and everything like that. You want to make sure that everything is sitting on a nice and even axes lines so that there's no discrepancy about, you know, eyes sort of looking off kilter or anything like that. So we're getting close Thio more or less having all the information in place for our block in. You know, there's still a few things left here, obviously, but, um as we kind of get things filled and I already know that I'm gonna have to go back in, kind of take a look at things and reassess, you know, Is there anything that feels off or is there anything that could possibly be indicated? Better are all the angles, checking out in terms of axes, lines or is there anything sort of glaringly standing out in the block in that I feel needs to be addressed? And And that's kind of you know, what I would think is that there's sort of two stages of the block in and, you know, the first stage is obviously just getting everything on the paper. Uh, and then once you have everything on the paper, you can say like Okay, well, this is what this is what I have let me go ahead and now readdress everything. So before I start adding tone, um, then I can kind of make some corrections or clean up the drawing, Um, you know, and what have you? And so I try and I try and go through these steps before I had any sort of tone or any sort of shading for that matter to the drawing so that it's easier for me to make those corrections if I have to. And so the way I treated is that as long as you're staying with relatively clean lines, you have a way out to make those corrections and because, you know, again like you're our eyes aren't going to be perfect. And so you can easily miss something even if it's small, you know, work its large, whatever you wanna have the option of being able to go back in and correct it. So I like to stay in this line drawing for as long as possible until I feel really good about it. So at this point, I can kind of just start focusing on smaller, you know, details in the block in. And, you know, I kind of just establishing the eaters and just generally trying to clean things up or adding little small bits of secondary information that now that I have the sort of the overall block and established, I can focus on some smaller areas. And if I need to add in, you know, maybe some some shapes that are, say, sitting in the shadows or if there's maybe like little areas of half tone that I maybe want to map out or anything. Um, usually, what I tell students is add as much information as you feel like you may need to help you when you start moving on to shadows and into modeling. Um, personally, I'll say it kind of varies from posed, opposed for me And, you know, some I may wanna have all the information, um, you know, to have just so that I don't feel lost as I start modeling, it really just kind of varies on the lighting situation and how comfortable you feel. But, um, you know, sometimes more can be better, you know, for simplicity's sake, and so that you could really latch onto all the little small details. But, um, you know, just kind of you kind of feel that out as you go. Um, you know, I think if anything, as we're getting close to wrapping up the block in, um, by the end of this stage, you would want your drawing to be, you know, very easily readable still. And if it if it is looking a little bit messy, try and clean up your lines with your eraser because as we go forward into the shadow stages were just all we're doing is we're building on top of the scaffolding that we established with this block in. And so as we add information, sometimes I don't know, it can get maybe a little bit out of hand if the lines are a little bit too messy, so go back over your lines. If you feel like there's areas that need attention to be resolved or more clarity, go ahead and do that. But if you're happy with how you're blocking is looking in the linear state. But maybe some of your lines are a little bit too thick. Um, you know, Or maybe there's little sort of areas where you know, they kind of their vague and they're not really well defined. Go back in and really address those things more that you can kind of solve in terms of, you know, the block in at this early stage, the easier it's going to get as you start adding your shadows and start moving on to modeling form on things like that. So at this point, I can more or less say that this is kind of the Finnish block in before I start moving on to ah, flattening shadows or adding any tone to the picture. But to kind of reiterate from where we started in the beginning is you want to give yourself as much time Ah, in these early stages to make sure things are Aziz, you know, accurate is you can make them, um, and again, depending on, you know, model that light source. Your you know, your overall experience withdrawing is it could take several hours and and sometimes, you know, if you can do a successful block in and just that amount of time and you don't get any farther than that, there's so much more benefit of being able to just start with a blank sheet of paper and slowly just start adding information and making corrections. And And I feel like that's a process that a lot of you know, students who are just kind of starting out drawing don't spend enough time doing. Um and we're all we're all kind of guilty of, you know, just wanting to get to, like, the fun part into shading and, you know, modeling and all that kind of, you know, fancy stuff and and and and it is fun. But the rial work is is really just starting from nothing and just having to visually measure and place things and make comparative measurements and, you know, making sure things are aligned, and it really is. That's sort of like the hard work of kind of starting a drawing. And so that's why I would encourage everyone to really spend a lot of time. Um, and even if you make block in the entire drawing, you do know shading whatsoever. If you just do that on a regular basis and get used to the habit of you know of just putting an information measuring double checking your work and everything like that, that will do so much more for your drawing in the long run than rushing through the early steps and just trying to, you know, make something look, you know, like its models. Really? Well, you know, we're just throwing in tone arbitrarily. Um, it's really just kind of a secondary part of a drawing. At least in my opinion, the rial work of the drawing is is doing the block in. So I would encourage everyone to really just fall in love with this process of, um, you know, finding all that information taking measurements, and the more you do it, obviously, the better you get at it. But I also feel like it gets more fun to, because then you really are problem solving at that point and So the next time we kind of started the next video, we're just gonna be jumping right into some tone, and I'll kind of go over my thought process on that. But again, just have a nice, simple clean block in before you move on to any next stage on, we'll go from there. 10. Flattening Shadows: Okay, So what I've done here is I didn't want to film me filling in shadows or flattening shadows or anything like that, because, honestly, this this process right here can take, you know, depending on the size of your drawing, filling in all these shadows can take quite a while. And so and I think the thing that I will also sort of comment on is that it will take a while to fill them in cleanly like this. And so I'm not going to necessarily talk about, um, you know, because you know how you feel in shadows. Um, can at one be kind of a style thing on, and I'm not necessarily concerned with style A to this particular point, I'm gonna kind of preface this by saying that my approach in how I'm filling in shadows and how you get to my modeling is gonna be fairly academic. Um, and so in the sense and in that regard, then my shadows I want to be sort of very clean, very even on flat. And so I'm not trying to I don't want to have a lot of noise in the shadow. And so to get a nice, clean tone like this. And graphite, um, can take quite some time, depending on again, Like how much shadow area you have. Uhm And then how big your drawing is, And so I didn't want to waste, you know, time filming that. But I will make a few comments about what I did here so that you can understand, Um or at least use this to, um you know, when you're doing your own drawing, keep this in mind as you're going. Um, you know. So the objective here really is to just fill in the shadows so that we get a nice, flat two D image, you know? So we have our light, you know, our lights and then our shadows. And then that's it. I'm not considering any middle values at all. You do see some little kind of things that I've made here, where I've established ah, shape and I filled it in lightly. The only reason for these kind of little shapes to exist in the drawing is that they were sort of, um very prominent shapes. And so I wanted to kind of map them out specifically, Um, you know, I would not consider them shadows by any means, but they're very specific middle tones or half tones. Um And so I felt, you know, for me, just kind of get a better sense of the shape and also a step help kind of establish, you know, some information and the features. I felt it was necessary to at least get them in there more for a visual aid on my part than anything else. Um, so the whole idea behind getting your shadows, this even is really just to create, at least for me. And how I like to think about it is that shadows want to be fairly calm. They want to be kind of, you know, quiet if you will. And so if I were to just rush in and really scribble in a shadow kind of quickly, that's what I'm referring to. His noise. And there's instances, you know, stylistically where maybe that is a desired effect. But again, that kind of is leaning more towards a style sort of a thing, which I don't really want to address in this type of class, because for me again, this is all about learning how to draw in sort of an academic sense to improve your skills . And so, you know, once you get to a certain point and you know, you understand proportions and, you know, in value and all that kind of thing, you know, you could make all the kind of stylistic choices you'd like, because at that point you're now making a piece of art. But for learning purposes, it's best to kind of keep her shadows nice and simple and flat, Um, and what I like to do, especially for this kind of drawing, where I'm going to essentially be modeling out of the shadows and just trying to make complete passes and form a zai like to get my my shadow values about as close to what the final value is going to be. Um, and there's a couple of reasons for that, I would say The biggest reason is when you kind of when you get a Z close to a value to the shadow range that you want your sort of setting the stage for the rest of the drawing, meaning I don't wanna have to go back in, um, and constantly be going back and forth in the lights and in the shadows, making adjustments to try and get to where I want my finish to be. So the closer I can get to a final value when I establish my shadows, the easier it is going to be to model into the lights and then not have to really think about going back in later and darkening down my shadows. Um, it doesn't mean that it won't happen, but, ah, I want to try and prevent that as much as I can. So what I would you will see me do is I will go in and re establish the edges along where the Shadow is meeting with light to create a more, um, you know, kind of a cleaner gradation, as this shadow shape is rolling into the light. But for the most part, a lot of the deeper shadows through here I'm not really going to fuss with too much Now. There might be a couple of accents in the shadow, like, you know, underneath the chin here where there's a little bit of a darker passage, Um, you know, and then maybe some other small areas. But for the most part, I try and get my shadow value to be what I want it to be for the rest of the drawing, because then it that by doing so, it gives me a better idea of how far I can push my lights or to what degree I have to compress my lights so that in this particular instance, the lighter side on the highlights in the head I know that those are gonna be my brightest areas. And so I need to work up to that. Um and so by kind of having my my shadow is is deep. A zit is. And I think, you know, on camera it's probably gonna little be a little bit darker than it, you know, is in person. But it's this fairly dark and, you know, especially in relationship to the hair shape. Um, you know, it's it's more or less, you know, fairly dark. You know, I'll say that the hair is not, you know, Jet black. And, you know, with graphite that's really hard to do, but it's it's pretty pretty darn dark. Um, so this is kind of where you want your drawing to be before you begin. Any sort of modeling you know you want again like I said, a nice, flat two D image, very graphic. You know, shadow shakes that you can work into, and then you can start building your form off of, um, that's kind of where you want to be. And like I said, for academic purposes, you would probably want to have your shadows as clean as possible. And by doing so, it's gonna make your your form in the lights look that much better. Um, it's gonna allow the form to shine more so than having again, like a staticky shadow, which is gonna compete then with the light side of the face. The only other thing I'll make a comment on is that a lot of my shadows, the way I like to build them up is, um if you're going to do this in graphite, there's a couple of ways, and I mostly use a couple of grades, but I'll start with, you know, generally, depending on how dark I want to go, I could start with, like, an HB lead or even a B led on. And that's kind of what I did in this case is. So I used a B you know, a B lead pencil. Um, And then, as I got to a certain point, then I went over it with an H and then even a to H and so on. All that really does is that the softer pencils, like a B or an HB, are only gonna allow you to go so fine, Um ah, in terms of the kind of grain that you'll see when you fill in a shadow. And it's not that you can't do it all with the one pencil on and some people may like doing that. But for me, I find it easier. Teoh, start with an initial layer of, um, you know of like a softer lead, like a B or H B. And then as I get, you know, the tone build up, I can go in with the harder lead like an HR A to H. And those harder leads will fill in the pores in the graphite so that you can get that even tone that we're after, Um, again, It really kind of is up to you, depending on how far you want to go with that. To me, this is fairly clean. And, um, you know, it's there's No, there's very little noise, if any. And it's not that I couldn't have spent more time, let's say trying to get it even more even. But, um, you know, everyone's gonna kind of have a comfort zone this and you couldn't honestly, depending on the drawing of working on, you can just spend hours upon hours filling in shadow. And, um, I think it ultimately dependent on the kind of finish that you're after. But for me, this is kind of where I like to be in terms of cleanliness and evenness, with my value in my tone. So going forward, um, you know, we're basically just gonna be modeling into the lights. And for the most part, Aiken do most of my modeling with an H pencil. Um, and that's dark enough for me. And then if I need to go in and refine, I can kind of get a to h lead t kind of fill in any little gaps. But for the most part, this is where I want to be before I get into any sort of for modeling. And this is what my recommendation would be of Kind of a stage, you know, if we think about the drawing in stages, this drawing stages where I would want you to be before you consider modeling in your lights? Um, you know, and again, the degree of which, you know how clean your shadows are is kind of up to you. But, um, for the process of learning, I'd recommend trying to get them as clean as possible on and before you can continue. So from this point forward, we're going to be modeling, and I'll go into some thoughts. Um, as we're doing that, um, you know, and we'll talk about some concepts as we go, But for the most part, um, you know, then you know, I said even though I didn't film this, you'll see me complete the rest of the drawing for the class. And, ah, what kind of talk about things as we're going from there 11. Beginning the form pass: so beginning the initial form pass, I always have a tendency to work out from my shadows towards the light. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't start in the light and then work down towards your shadow, but for just kind of personal preference and and and and just personally speaking for me, I've always found it easier toe work out of a shadow on and then gradually slowly turned the form into light. And so, in this particular case, um, I'm gonna just start in the cheek here with him because it's a you know that from the shadow on the left side of its face is, um it's such a prominent shadow in the drawing on Guy feel like it'll easily kind of connect up into the eye and then also connect into the mouth and chin, and then eventually I kind of just circle around and then work across to the other cheek and into the forehead. And in this particular case, with the lighting the way it is, I know that the brightest area on the drawing is going to be on his upper forehead, and then it will kind of slowly de temps get less intense on his cheek, and then it will slowly fade off as it gets closer towards the chin. There's a few highlights here in there, like on the nose and then a little bit on the lip. But if I'm thinking about the head as a whole and we have this sort of like oval, kind of shaped head, it's gonna be fairly dark on the left hand side as its is rolling into shadow. And so the overall light effect that I want to create is I want this sense of there is, you know, this shadow pattern on the left hand side that's occurring, and that's where the light just can't get in. And yes, I know there's some, like reflected light in there, but I'm kind of ignoring that for the for the sake of simplicity. But so we're starting from the left hand side of of the cheek, and I just want to slowly build form out of that and gradually work towards the brightness of the forehead. And that's sort of the overall light effect that I want to try and capture, and depending on how you're drawing is set up in your light source and everything like that . You want to find what is the brightest portion of of the portrait and and kind of ask yourself, you could almost reverse engineer It is, Well, how can I create this light effect? And by doing so and asking yourself this question, it will hopefully inform you about what kind of decisions that you have to make in the other areas of the drawing. And so what I mean by that is is that I'm not necessarily copying what I see. I'm trying to interpret it for the sake of the light effect. And so if that means that I have to make a value darker or lighter than what I actually see it as in order to create the light effect that I'm after, then that's what I'm going to do. And so that's kind of my mode of thinking from the beginning toward and until I get to the end of the drawing is I'm really just trying to chase a light effect that I want to create , Um, and how I get there by, you know, pushing and pulling values, um is sort of a means to an end. And so you have to kind of go into the drawing knowing immediately that you can't copy what you see. And so I'm not trying to chase that at all. I'm simply trying to make a drawing and make the light effect believable. And so that's sort of my mentality as I'm beginning the form pass and throughout the rest of the drawing is I'm just trying to create a light effect. And so I wanna I want the viewer to see, like, Okay, this is how light is hitting the form. Um, and then I just have to use values in order to get there, but, um, it doesn't really matter what those values are. And it's not that I want to downplay the importance of value. Um, but just keep that in mind as we go along, and I'll try and kind of explain it as I go. - So the two main filters that I'm kind of asking myself as I'm as I'm kind of filling in the form is I'm always thinking about the surface that I'm drawing, and then the question would be is Is this surface you know, perpendicular to the light source, or is it more parallel to the light source or, you know, to what degree in between is the surface facing? Um, and so an example would be is that the areas on the form that are more perpendicular to the light source are going to be your brightest areas. And as they kind of start rotating in space and let's say, get more parallel or even start shifting downwards, you're going to see a significant drop off in value. And now, obviously there's going to be sort of an infinite number, you know of, let's say, playing changes that are occurring on a surface, and it really becomes more about how gradual of a plane change is happening and that will inform you about how to make a shift in your values. So for an example here, as I'm working, you know, down here in the mouth is like the surface is actually fairly parallel to the light sources , and it gets closer to the chin, the chin. A lot of it is actually facing, you know, fairly downward, especially towards like the ball of the chin. And so I already know just by observing that is that those value ranges down there are going to be significantly darker than say, you know, the cheek and then the forehead. And what we end up doing is we're trying to create a hierarchy and the in this particular case, with where the light sources I know that, OK, you know, the top of the forehead is going to be sort of my brightest, you know, most luminescent, you know, point in the drawing. And so I need Teoh sort of factor in everything else in the drawing, according to that, and, um, again, like I was just saying earlier is that I'm after the light effect in creating the feeling of light hitting a surface, and I just kind of have to use values in order to create that effect. Now, the tricky part will have say areas like this in the corner of the mouth is that we have this little light patch that surrounded by a bunch of shadow, and if I kind of take it at face value, um, no pun intended. But, um, is that, you know, our eyes were going to tell us. Let's say like, wow, this, you know, this little light, you know, area inside the corner of the mouth is so bright against, you know, all this shadow, but in reality it's not, and and what this effect is called is It's called the simultaneous contrast. And that's one thing that I feel like a lot of beginners make the mistake of is that we see these little kind of holes that are poking out of the shadow, and we want to immediately make them bright. And it's it's only because those areas are surrounded by so much shadow that they just happen to appear that way. But if we kind of think about things a little bit more objectively, you'll realize is that those values are actually fairly dark relative to everything else. And the thing I always remind myself, as I'm modeling things, is that I already know from the very beginning I'm asking myself is okay, what is my brightest area? And then I just make all my decisions off of that, and obviously there's going to be things in between. But for the most part, you know, we can kind of just use that as my main filter, and I'll make all my decisions in accordance to the brightest area of the drawing. And so, as we continue to model the rest of the drawing the I'm gonna be asking myself the same sort of questions each time as I move on to one area. And so you'll notice that I kind of work from one section to the next. And that's just kind of how I prefer to draw. Um, some people would argue that you want to bring up the drawing as a whole, and I totally understand that argument for me. I just kind of personally like working this way because I can kind of really focus in on an area at a time. And I don't feel like I'm juggling several things at once and so just kind of, you know, take that with a grain of salt and you will have your own preferences. But for the rest of the drawing, this is gonna be how I'm approaching it. 12. Continuning the form pass: and so continuing along I more or less just kind of trying to gradually build up along the shadow edge. And what I'm looking for and what I usually say is that the shadow edge or what we would call the Terminator is that area I find to be the most sort of sensitive area and getting a form to turn. And so all that really means is is that I really have a tendency to focus my attention. Um, about all the little subtle changes that are happening from that shadow edge as, ah, form is rolling in tow light because as as a form begins to turn, that's where we're going to see the most drastic changes and then as a form gets more and more into light and it gets further away from shadow, Uh, you know that the changes, you know, it will depend on the kind of person, but the change has become a lot more subtle, especially, and say something like a cheap here that we're building up. But if we think about where the form is turning from the shadow and just very gently rolling into the light, that's where we're going to see the biggest changes. And so, throughout the course of the drawing, you'll see me spend a lot of time on the edges of the shadow to really try and get those to read correctly. And so you'll see, as I kind of, you know, move along here is that everything is sort of a gradual build up. And what I like to do, at least for myself, is I want to try and get as close as I possibly can to finishing an area before I move on. And it doesn't mean that I'm gonna you know, I'm most likely going to have to go back into areas and revisit them as more information gets filled in. And that's really sort of the Onley, maybe potential drawback of working this way. But I find by focusing in on an area, um, you know, one thing at a time again, it just kind of prevents you from feeling overwhelmed and like you have to juggle, you know, you know 100 things at once. You can really just cone in on a specific area and really give it as much time as you need it before moving on. And so you know, kind of again as we is. We're building up this. I'm gonna just scratch early fill in an area and then, as I feel in a new section of an area, it does allow me to reassess some of the things around it that have already been filled in . And so I'll go back in and make adjustments as needed. And, ah, lot of times, it's very just minor things. And it's never anything to to, um, you know, like I'm erasing areas or anything like that. But just going in and maybe darkening or lightening certain things and so continuing along the cheek is you'll see me just again. Starting from the Shadow edge or Terminator is I want to just slowly build up and out from that area. And right now, you know, I'm mostly doing this with an H lead, so it's not too hard. But it's not too soft as I find that I can get a good balance with an H lead and then again later on, As as things kind of get filled in a little bit more, I'm a transition into a little bit harder of a lead. But for right now in these early stages, I find that the H lead is more than enough for what I need to do. And again, the important thing that you want to be keeping in mind, like I mentioned in the previous video is, as I'm moving from one piece of form to the next, I'm still going to be asking myself the same sorts of questions and trying to think about where the particular surface I'm trying to draw and what is its orientation in relationship to the light source. And, you know, I find right now working on the shadow side there's a lot of compression between light and dark values that are taking place. So it's always a little bit easier to start out this way. And because it's the darker portion of the portrait, um, at least for me, I find that it's easier to work in this particular area first, and then it will really set the stage for the light side of the face, especially as we get closer to, you know, sort of the the highlights in the forehead and areas like that. So if anything, a lot of the times I may find myself working or pushing the values a little bit darker on Lee from the standpoint that it will emphasize the the light effect even more and again that there's some sort of artistic license when you're doing that. But again, when it we're not trying to copy, you know what we're seeing. We're trying to just make an interpretation, and what's really important is just creating the sense of volume on form and really establishing the strength of the light effect. And, you know, by the end of it and everything gets filled in, you know, hopefully it will be successful. But that's kind of the thought that I go into as I'm working on. Any drawing, you know or portrait is that I want to emphasize a very specific light effect, and I try and chase that, and then everything else will kind of help reinforce that statement on. And it's just a matter of making those decisions along the way as I start to model the form . And so as I'm coming out of this kind of shadow shape from the knows, I'm still kind of treating at the same way as I would like the shadow on the cheek, and it's really about how the values or transitioning outside of that shadow pattern. And then as we get across into more of the middle section of the cheek again, the subtlety and range of value gets a lot closer together. So I can more or less think about the middle portion of this cheek here to be relatively even. And the key parts of modeling are really just going to be taking place in and out of the shadows. And as we get closer to the eye, there's gonna be a little bit more variation because then we're starting to get into some smaller sub forms, like the eyelids and and what not? But for the most part, when you're working on a cheek, you want to think about just this round sort of surface that has like a nice, even great Asian. And part of the reason for that is also is because he's fairly young and, you know, we don't have any. You know, he doesn't have prominent cheekbones or anything like that, so that's just part of his character type. And so, ah, lot of the statements that I'm making, you know they're gonna be fairly generalized because it's, you know, you always want to be observing what you're looking at, who your model is or what your references and base those decisions off of what you actually see. But in this particular case, and I think just for in drawing in general that's kind of more or less what I'm gonna be thinking about as I'm modeling in certain areas. And it's best to be thinking about the large forms first as it is, and it's very easy to call up, caught up rather in smaller sub forms. But you want to always be thinking about the general form first and then maybe move on to some of the smaller forms as you go along and again, just kind of moving out of the shadow here. And it's fairly, you know, as the cheek kind of starts tucking into the nose. Um, you know, again, being that he's fairly young, it's we're not gonna really have like, a deep laugh line or anything like that. So a lot of these forms have a relative evenness to them, and it's not until we get up into a little bit of the lower lids where we start running into some some some sub forms, and we have to start thinking a little bit, not necessarily detail. But we have to think about how things are starting to turn a little bit more rapidly. But as we kind of fill in the rest of this cheek, my my goal, more or less is that just try and get a nice, even gradation across this one large form to try and tie it together. And and so again, once it gets filled in, I may have to go back and revisit or clean things up a little bit if the transitions don't feel as good as I'd like them to. But for the most part, it's a fairly easy passage of form to get started with. We have a full value range that we can work into, and that's kind of again why I chose this particular area to begin the form pass with is that it's kind of a nice, warm up area before I get to anything too complicated and I feel like that's just a good way to go As you begin modeling, any sort of drawing is, you know, kind of just pick an easy section to kind of warm up your hand and just kind of you're establishing kind of where the drawings gonna go from from the beginning, You know, once you get past, you know, feeling in your shadows and everything like that. So, you know, as you kind of start moving towards the light, um, you know, it can, you know, it can may or may not get a little bit more difficult, but again, it really depend on, you know, the model, the light source and kind of what, what that looks like for you, but for me, Like I said, I always found it easier to transition out of a shadow and into the light. So this was a good area to kind of get started with. And just to get this drawing, you know, hopefully off to a good start. 13. Continuing the form pass pt. 2: And so, as they get to this sort of middle section here again, these values are going to be fairly, you know, kind of close together because that portion of the cheek is mostly in light. But once this all gets filled in, I can kind of take a seat back and really kind of decide. Okay, Well, for this particular piece of form are the do the values feel good? Is there anything that feels like? Maybe it's not turning as well as it possibly could. Can I compress the value range? Maybe a little bit more in certain areas? Meaning, Do I have to go a little bit darker in some places? Do I have to go Maybe a little bit lighter? These air kind of the questions that I kind of start asking myself as I get ready to sort of complete a new initial piece of form, and I like to do this before I move on to a brand new section. And so that way the idea again is to hopefully complete an entire section of form so that I don't have to go and revisit it again. Um, you know, again, it's something If it needs to. It needs to, and that doesn't really happen until the very end of the drawing once everything gets filled in. So, um and that's one of the tricky part about working this way. But, um, again, I just wanna have to prevent myself from juggling too many things. So I want to try and really focus on completing one little area at a time and do it the absolute best that I feel like I could do it before moving on to a new area, all right? And so kind of where I see you know, the cheek form transitioning into the lower lid. That's gonna where I'm gonna want to go back and reassess everything right? You know, in this particular area and kind of make some decisions and just trying to make sure that everything looks clean before moving on. And once I get into the eye area, there's a lot of small sub forms on, and that's in that section. So we'll have to spend, you know, a bit more time trying to assess the changes in there. But I'm thankfully, it's a smaller area, so I don't have to worry about large passes of tone and and that's really the Onley part. I would say That's tricky when you start getting toe large, sort of masses of where you need consistent even value. So, for example, like the far cheek that's on the light side, the forehead, those areas for me, I find sometimes to be a little more difficult on Lee from the standpoint that all your value transitions are gonna be in a very small range of value. And they have to be very clean so that they read properly. And so that's kind of why, you know, even with this cheek here, I'm gonna have to just go in and make a couple more passes to really try and keep areas clean. Um, you know, and you know, again, kind of really ask myself now, can a form be pushed a little bit more so that is creating a reemphasizing the light effects that I'm trying to capture. And so that's where I'm just kind of going back in these areas that I already have filled in and just trying to push things a little bit more so that, you know, I really get the sense of that Chief, that's rolling out of the shadow. And for this, I'm using a little bit harder of a pencil and so that, um the harder lead will kind of get into the little tiny pores that you know, the softer lead kind of creates. And that's just gonna allow me to have a cleaner passage of value throughout the cheek. And I kind of end up doing that for all the sections of the head is I'll start off again initially with and H lead and then, as I feel comfortable with with how the form is looking. But maybe it needs to be a little bit cleaner. I'll pull out a harder lead like a to age or four h, depending on the area and go back and try and just make the transitions a little bit smoother. And, you know, again, I think just kind of the important thing to keep in mind. You know, with this particular approach to modelling form is that, um is that it is time consuming, but you want to make your drawing. You know, it's not really like a race to see how fast you can get the drawing done. And, um, you know, one thing a lot of my teachers always emphasized as I was coming up a za student is that it really doesn't matter how much you get done in a drawing. What you really want to have is just a good system to break down and problem solve what you're trying to draw. And however far you get is, however far, um and it really doesn't matter. Toe what you know, degree, you know, a finish. Because realistically, a lot of the finish is just a matter of time. And so if you're in a life drawing class and it's on Lee a couple hours, you may not get past the block in, you know, realistically. But, um, you know, if it's a longer is, let's say multiple weak class or anything like that and you have the time. You can kind of maybe go with this approach in terms of modeling form, because hopefully the time at that point will be on your side. But hopefully you can see how I'm building this up and on. And you know, even though the video is being sped up a little bit for the sake of time, is that even a small section like this could take, you know, a couple hours, and that's only because I'm trying to be as careful as I can. Um, and, you know, and even though I've done this for a little while, it still takes me Ah, good amount of time to get the kind of a finish that I'm after. And so just keep that in mind for yourself as you're working on your own, drawing on and to not rush through the process. And so as I'm kind of starting up in the lid here again, I'm gonna treat it the sort of the same way as I did with the cheek. And I want to build out of the form shadow that's around the eye socket and then gradually worked towards the light. But the only difference with this particular piece of form is that they're obviously much smaller. So the eyelids themselves, the ball of the eye on and then the interior portion of the socket. You know, it's still the same sort of thought process, but now we're just thinking about smaller forms. But I try and break everything down into its own individual form, so each eyelid is its own form. The ball of the eye is its own form. The interior portion of the socket near the tear duct is its own form, you know. And so, by doing that, you again you can kind of just focus on one thing at a time and so that you're not overwhelming yourself with all these little data points simultaneously. And, you know, again, we just want to kind of I'm asking myself, Well, OK, you know where this eyebrow is, Will help. You know, the brow is actually facing down away from the light, So it's actually going to get fairly compressed, especially coming out of the shadow, and it will pick up a little bit light as it's rolling towards the bridge of the nose. But for the most part, it's gonna be a bit darker of of a value. And then once we get to the top part of the lid, the top part of the lid is actually facing the light. So it's actually going to be a bit brighter, but not by a whole lot, because we're still relatively speaking. We're on the shadow side of the face. And so these are the kinds of questions that I'm asking myself, and it's going through. My head is as I'm working is, you know, this is on the shadow side of the face. What, you know what the small little pieces of form, what's most light facing with actually facing away from the light. Now let me go ahead and use my values to create that effect accordingly. Um, you know, so you'll watch me as I fill this in the next video, but I try and keep it fairly simple because if anything, I want maybe a little bit more focused on the eye that's in the light. And so the one on the shadow side will get a little, you know, more downplayed. 14. Modeling the Eye: So as we move on to the eye here again, we need to really start to consider that there is a lot of little small sub forms. But the overall large form of the eye is basically a ball shape. And so, as I start modeling the forms of the eye, that's kind of staying in the back of my mind. Is that the overall effect of the form that I need to get needs to have this sort of spherical sensibility to it? And the only thing that's going to sort of break that up is the fact that, you know, we do have the eyelids that are enveloping the ball of the I. But for the most part, I'm still going to treat the eyelids as sort of small sub forms. And so the overall, you know, sort of form that I want to really try and capture is just the roundness of the eye. And, um, the only thing that I am keeping in mind is that again, as I'm transitioning out of the shadow and rolling in tow light, um, those values are gonna be a bit darker and a little bit deeper because they are coming out of the shadow. But as tempting as it would be to feel like there's so much light in the socket of the I In reality, that socket is actually rolling down towards the top part of the lid. And then once we reach the top part of the lid that that top section is actually facing upward and that's actually receiving a bit more light. Now we're gonna have a couple little sort of small areas where you know they're gonna appear like little highlights, you know, especially around the tear duct and everything like that. But I kind of again have to fight that temptation to make those areas to light and again. The reason for that is that we're dealing with simultaneous contrast of the dark eyebrow and the dark passage of shadow into the brow ridge and tear duct, which is leading down into the nose. And so I'm just trying to be really objective about how I'm placing these values and then, realistically, as well is I do want highlight in the iris of the eye to jump out, or at least have some prominence. And so when we get all of these little tiny areas where we see kind of highlights. Sometimes it's best to sort of down play some of that information for the sake of the overall effects that we're trying to get, so just kind of keep that in mind. And then again, when you're drawing an eye, it's It's very tempting to get caught up in the smaller sort of shapes. But you want to be thinking about the overall Spiric ALS shape of the I first and then move on to some of the smaller forms, and so is in kind of coming out of the shadow here through the top lid. I just want to make sure that there's this sort of gradual rounding effect that's happening and again the same principles are still being applied is that we have this form that is coming out of the shadow, and it's gradually working its way towards the light. And so I just need to slowly build up the lids and some of the other sub form so that they gradually sort of converge or feel like they're converging towards the tear duct on DSO you want to use the tear ducts is sort of like sort of like starting an end points, really? So from one to duck to the other, you kind of know that there's thes two little forms that are converging all towards these points, and they need to meet in a very sort of smooth the way and everything. All the transitions that lead up to them have to feel sort of organic, and and so that's kind of what I'm trying to think about. And now, even though there's, you know, little sort of small shifts and sort of the lower lid and then as the lower lid kind of stops and then goes into the, you know, the white of the eye and things like that, I'm more or less trying to ignore that. And I'm I want to sort of squint and look at the large effect that the I is having in this particular area on the portrait. And when you squint down, you know the shapes air relatively simple, and the value transitions, you know, are fairly subtle, for the most part. So I really want to focus on trying to capture that effect more than anything, and then if I need to pick out any sort of small details to sort of enhance what's going on in that particular area. Then I'll do that. But again, we don't want to sort of sacrifice the large effect for some small little detail because it's really not going to, you know, lead to a successful, you know, drawing in any case. And so just kind of keep that in mind as you're going on throughout your own drawing and that you want to be chasing the large effect. And you can't focus on any small particular detail in the drawing and sort of sacrifice, the larger effect for that one particular area. And so, and that's usually what happens when people just start out. You know, let's say doing Portrait's is that, you know, maybe they put too much emphasis on a particular feature. Say the eyes, you know, or nose or anything like that. But then those features stand out significantly more than the entirety of the head. And so it does help to sort of step back from your drawing and sort of gauge how things are being brought up together as you're finishing one area to the next. So just kind of keeping that mine keeping that in mind as we kind of fill in this I hear and, um, again, trying not to get too caught up in detail. And so as I get the rest of the I field in, the other thing that I have to keep in mind is that I also need to make the I feel like it belongs to the rest of the cheek that I filled in initially. And so what ends up happening when you work this way from one section to the next is that sometimes you can maybe create these sort of little small likes what we would call like seems where, as tones you know from one area to the next are gradually meeting up together. If you're not careful, you can kind of see little sort of seems or edges where you can see where you moved on from one area to the next. And so as I feel things in, I have to go back in and maybe cleanup areas, or we're kind of just go back in and add more pencil so that those transitions all feel like they're all part of the same drawing. If that makes sense and it's just one of those things that again you're trying. You're trying to focus on one area at a time. Then you do need to bring it back on and make sure that there is a general cohesion of everything working together. Because at the end of the day, we're just gonna have a single drawing in a sort of single portrait. And so everything needs to feel like it's all part of the same drawing. And if and if there's little areas where we're seeing little small discrepancies in the transitions, then things start to fall apart, and so we just kind of have to keep that in mind. And so as I'm filling in the rest of the eye and trying to clean up, you know, little areas here, I also need to make sure that the I feels attached to the cheek that I established in the beginning. And so as we have everything filled in here, um, you know, again, if you kind of just now start taking in the eye and relationship to the cheek that we established, it feels, you know, like it's all working together so far and, you know, again, there's not a whole lot of detail in the eye. And realistically, a lot of the emphasis is going to be on the iris of the eye because he has, you know, really dark eyes. And so that's gonna be sort of the dominant shape and and realistically, you know, when you're looking at a portrait, your eye music gonna shoot straight to the ice. I wanna have more emphasis there than anywhere else. And a lot of the other forms around that are gonna be much softer. And so at this point, all I'm going to be doing is going back and trying to just clean up some areas and maybe put a little bit more emphasis on making sure that transitions are all looking relatively clean. And and so I'm using a little bit harder of a pencil to go back in and and clean things up . Um, you know, from here we're gonna start transitioning into some of the smaller areas in the features like the nose. But again, I want to try and go ahead and really dial in this area so that it kind of sets the stage for the rest of the drawing as we move forward and, um, at least dealing with shadow side of the face. First, I kind of established the general value range that I know I'm gonna be working. And so, as I know him as a transition into the light side of the face, I know that I'm gonna have a certain amount of room to play with and making sure that things look illuminated. So, for example, like the ball of the nose, the cheek on the far side and then the forehead. So by working in the shadow stage on and then the shadow side of the face first I at least for me like I said, it gives me a good sense of where Aiken go for the rest of the drawing and maybe what I need to do now in the light side so that things look, you know, effective, or at least a again highlighting the overall light effect that I want to create for this particular drawing. So, um, we'll be moving along to kind of transition into the mouth and in the nose on and then go from there. But again, hopefully can kind of see now that we've attached to small pieces of form together. You can kind of see how this is all gonna start panning, panning out with the rest of the drawing. 15. Beginning the Mouth: So now that I have the I am, I can go and this left half of the face is kind of There's enough information where I can start making some other decisions about me, the areas that I need to refine or clean up in. When you finish a particular section, you may want to go back over and just double check things before moving forward. And and that's generally what I like to do. You know, in this case, I'm just kind of adding a little bit more to the shadows just to kind of extended out a little bit farther, but more or less, you know, we have the I the cheek in, and we can really start to see things you know to take shape. But before I move on to the mouth or anything else like that, I want to try and just clean up any little things that I see so that hopefully, by the time more of the face gets filled in, I don't have to go back in and revisit areas too much, and so this is kind of the time where you want to take some opportunities and you want to go back to those original questions that we started with and really look at what is light facing and what is facing away from the light and then make those adjustments in value ranges as necessary. And so I'm just gonna go ahead and fill in this little bit of the nostril of the nose, and not that I want to focus on the nose too much right now. But if anything, what I don't want is I don't want that little piece of light in the nose kind of just sticking out on this other side of the face that is already more or less completed. So that's why I'm just kind of filling this in right now. And keeping in mind that even though there's a little tiny bit of light showing up on this nostril, the bulk of the nose on this side of the face is in fact covered in a form shadow. So again, due to the nature of simultaneous contrast, my eye is going to tell me that this little piece of light in the nose is fairly bright. However, thinking about it more conceptual. Lee, I know that you know the nose is in fact on this left side, mostly in shadow, So it simply can't be that right. So as I start working on the mouth, I don't want to be thinking about the lips themselves as individual pieces. But I want to be thinking about the mouth as an individual form as a whole. And so what really that means is that we're dealing with this sort of rounded, almost, um, spherical type form that is sitting on the front plane of the face and the lips are essentially kind of breaking up that overall rounded form. And so, even though I'm gonna go ahead and model the lips separately in the back of my mind, I'm just trying to think that Okay, this mouth is a rounded, sort of spirit kal'fahn form that is sort of resting on the top front plane of the face. And so I need to create you know, that effect first, or at least try and capture that effect. And then I can start to flush out some of the small details of the mouth and in this particular case, again, starting from the shadow side of the mouth. I just wanna build out of the small little shadows that I see and slowly create that rolling effect as its ruling from, you know, one corner of the mouth to the other. And so I just have to have a B a nice, subtle value. Great Asian on drily just again focus on that big sort of form first and then kind of separate things out in a little bit more detail. Now, generally speaking in the mouth, there isn't usually, you know, depending on the person's type. There's a lot more sort of nuance in the upper lip because of that sort of Cubans bow effect that we get in the top part of the lift and the lower lid is generally much more simplified is it's just a kind of a flatter, rounded mass, and there's really not as much curvature. But, you know, again, these sorts of things are very specific to every person, and so you always want to just be mindful of the details you see. But what I would emphasize is that you don't want to get too caught up in little tiny little you know, if you see kind of little extra little sub forms in the mouth or like lips or extra little ridges. You kind of want to ignore those things at first and if to be honest, if not, you'd actually want to eliminate some information for the overall effect, to just read a little bit better to the viewer. And so I always have a tendency to simplify. Um, you know, the features of, like, the lips if I have Teoh, unless they're just such a unique character type to that person. Just because I find that if you put too many details and something that is not necessarily a focal point, it has a way of distracting the viewer and causing them toe. Look, um, you know, at maybe an area that's maybe not as important, you know, such as like, the eyes in this case. And so just kind of keep that in mind. And if you have to sometimes tone down some things for the sake of the picture as a whole, sometimes it's best to do that. So as I continue along, I'm just trying to build up the top and bottom simultaneously. That way I can see how they are going to develop as a whole. And again, I'm just thinking about in the form in its entirety first. And even though I'm drawing two separate things, they are part of the greater form. And so that's how I have to treat it from beginning to end. The nice part about the mouth is that it's very similar to the eyes, in the sense that we have to tear ducks oven I on. And so we have two nodes in the mouth and it gives you a very specific starting an end point that you can really just focus on making one smooth transition from one point to the other. And then you don't really have to get too concerned with anything else at this point. And so even though there's a lot of maybe smaller things going on in the lips, I know that from this shadow side to the light side, um, there is gonna be just have to be this rolling effect that I have to try and create the best I can. And and that's all I'm really focused on as I continue to build these out. So it's really, you know, for the most part on this particular form, it's a very sort of subtle variation in tone. And once I get past this, the little bit of shadow in the lips it's a fairly even progression. And although there's some highlights that I know in the back of my head, that I have to sort of work up to, I'm not too concerned about them right now. And often times when I end up doing is I almost draw over where the highlights would be on and then that way later, I can go back in, and if I need to, I can pick them out with my eraser. But I find that you know, often times people get too caught up in highlights. Um, so you know, because it's especially, even though they're very apparent on lips. You don't want to overstate them because again it it really does become this balance effect that you're trying to create overall in the portrait. And there's really no reason on a form like the lips your even though there are highlights . If you make them stand out too much, it's gonna take away from the eyes it'll take away from, Let's say, the highlight on the nose, and so you do have to think about this hierarchy, you know, even with little things like highlights. And the more you and the more kind of detracts from the overall effect. And so you want to be thinking about the greater importance overall in the portrait. And so that's why I have a tendency to skip over, you know, oftentimes things like highlights in the lips. And it's not that they're not important. But I do want to get the form first and make sure that the form works well enough without the highlights. And then once I know the form looks okay without them, I can go back in later and add them in, um, just to give it a little bit more depth. 16. Continuing the Mouth: as I'm continuing along here, I'm gonna start building out from the other node of the mouth and essentially just connect the two sides together at this point in again, still thinking about from where I started on the shadow side now dealing with the light side, I just need to make sure that I'm getting a nice, continuous sort of rolling effect across the larger form of the mouth. And what will most likely end up happening is that I'll fill in, you know, everything. So the top and the lower lip and then once they're filled and I'll probably have to go back in and make some adjustments to some of the values and making sure that that effect is getting emphasized more so than the individual lips themselves. And it's just one of those things where, as you're putting in information, it becomes a constant back and forth, and you may not be quite sure at first, and sometimes it just helps getting everything in, so that you can visually reassess everything and then decide. Okay, you know, this is where things are right now. Let me go back in and find tunes of adjustments so that everything else feels like there's a cohesiveness amongst the forms as they come together. The other thing I'm keeping in mind as I'm filling things in is that because of the light source in the direction, the, uh, the light is hitting as well as the angles that the lips are facing, the the top lip in general, with again considering at the top, it's a top lit light sources that the the upper lip is going to be relatively darker than the lower lip. And again, if you think about it logically, the upper lip, for the most part, is actually facing downward away from the light. When, then, when it comes down to the lower lip, the lower lip is actually receiving more like because it's more or less in a upward position. And that's why you predominantly see a highlight on the lower lip, much more so than on the upper lip on any given individual and again, this is all in context. It's relative to the light source in, But given our top down light source that we have here with this particular image, that's pretty much the same case. And so you know, and again the value. The whole value thing is relative, but generally speaking, because of the perpendicular nature Onda parallel nature of where light is hitting the upper lip is actually facing a bit a bit more downward than the ah. Then the lower lip so thusly it is going to be relatively darker in comparison to the lower lip. And so, with the upper lip filled in, I can go ahead and focus on finishing up the rest of the lower lip and again knowing that the lower lip is gonna be just a little bit brighter in value. I just want to make sure that I have a nice, clean rolling transition from out of the shadow on then towards the light. And again, I'm gonna kind of focus on working around the highlight and not paying it too much attention at first. And I just want to get a nice and even, you know, from corner to corner and get a nice rounding effect. And then, as I continued to develop everything else, I can go ahead and re re add the highlight or, you know, actually put a little bit more time deciding how I want to flush that out. But, um, again, just looking for clean transitions and making sure that the overall effect of the mouth as a whole is reading correctly. All right, so we're kind of getting close here to getting the rest of the mouth filled in. And I'm feeling good about how the top lid or I'm sorry, top lip, rather eyes looking in context to the lower living. So I just gonna have to get the rest of this lower lip filled in. And then I need to also build out the rest of muzzle shape of the mouth because the lower lip is going to be quite a bit more fleshy than then the top lip. And so, depending on the person's type, it kind of will the sort of the bottom edge of the lower little transition into the rest of the muzzle of the mouth. And that's part of the lower form, um, of the of the sort of the tooth cylinder or the overall mouth form that we have to draw. And so those transitions themselves have to be built into the lower lip. But for now, I'm just gonna kind of work up to this highlight and get everything filled in. And then we can start going from there. All right, so I have the highlight, more or less, you know, flushed out. And it'll probably need to be downplayed a little bit more. But now that I have pretty much the whole mouth filled in, I can kind of start reassessing areas that maybe need, ah, little bit more work or focus on cleaning up transitions throughout the entire form. Now, again, the thing is with, you know, with any of the features and, you know, lips included is that everyone's gonna have this sort of unique, you know, shape that you have to really focus on. But the forms are more or less the same, um, and so kind of from where we started, you know, drawing the mouth is that I want to have the effect of the shadow side rolling into the light side. And then really, then there's just I want to just kind of touch little areas here and there to kind of separate the top lip in the lower lip. But I'm trying to avoid putting in any sort of razor sharp edges, because if I were to go in and just put in a really harsh line to sort of separate a middle , probably stand out too much on and look very natural. And the thing with the lips is that you want to keep everything relatively sort of organic feeling and feeling like flesh, which is gonna be very sort of soft and supple. And so I want to kind of keep that sort of intention in mind as I'm kind of finishing up here. But you know, more or less, though you can kind of see, you know, from where we begin, everything's filled in and it's, you know, it's more or less feeling attached to the face. But I know I have to go in and start getting the rest of the chin and the muzzle shape connected to it so that it doesn't feel, you know, you know, as isolated as it does now, going forward in the next video, we'll kind of start filling in the rest of the chin and the muzzle shape so that we get the lower half of the face sort of working a little bit better and again in this area will start talking about the value range in this particular area is gonna be tempting to make very, very bright again due to simultaneous contrast in the fact that he has a darker, darker beard. But given the relationship of this area of the face and the, uh, our light source that we're working from, it's actually going to be fairly dark on, you know, relatively, and it's a very compressed area. Now there is a few light areas that will have to touch on. But for the most part, this lower half of the face is going to be relatively dark, and by doing so, it'll reemphasize the highlight in the forehead on and help us create the light effect that we're after. 17. The Chin and Lower Face: so as I'm beginning the lower half of the face. The one thing I really try and keep in mind is that there's a very distinct temptation to make some of the values down here in the lower part of the face much brighter than they actually are. And part of the reason for that is we do have a highlight on the chin on some of the most up facing planes. And given his natural complexion on and everything like that, you know, he's fairly light skinned. There's also the dark goatee, Um, as well. That's gonna give the illusion of some of these values down here near the chin. And the lower part of the jaw is appearing much brighter then what they are on. So what I do to help myself mitigate those temptations is basically logically. I'm thinking that, OK, given the lighting situation, I know that the forehead is gonna be one of the brightest areas in, you know, the portrait. And if I start asking myself, even though it's just the face, the relative distance between the forehead and the chin is that the chin can't be nearly is bright as the forehead and So to put emphasis on that, that hierarchy of light, um, I do need to compress the value range in the chin and the lower jaw a little bit darker so that if I make the values the same or similar in the chin is in the forehead. It kind of breaks the light effect. And again, kind of where we started from the very beginning is that it's all about chasing the light effect. And so I'm not trying to copy what I'm seeing. But I'm trying to interpret things in a relationship so that I'm creating the light effects that I'm after. And so going off of that is that the values in this area simply have to be darker. Um, then the values that I see in the forehead and so for me if your if your portrait is sit up , set up in a similar way, I'm always sort of flicking my eyes back and forth, saying, like looking at the forehead and then quickly looking down at the chan and and asking myself, Okay, well, the value on top is so much brighter than the value below, So well, let me let me go ahead and compress those values down a little bit farther and realistically, even if I have to sort of cheat my way and make the values in the lower jaw darker than you know, maybe even maybe darker than necessary, as long as it reemphasizes the light effect in the forehead, then I feel OK about it. And so that's kind of the approach you want to be thinking, um, in your own drawing, depending on how your subject is lit. So the other thing I'm keeping in mind is that from the goatee and just given the overall shape of the head is that you know, when you think about the head overall, just regardless of the features or anything else like that, we kind of have. And we're just thinking, sort of in terms of generic shapes is that the head is sort of like an egg shaped and so it's an elongated oval and it's spherical and and that's something you would see if you go when you look at a lot of old Master. Portrait's a lot of old paintings. They kind of sometimes really emphasize that effect more than anything else in their in their paintings, And so that's also how I'm trying to simplify a lot of the stuff that's going on down here through the chin. And then just in this again, just in the general sense of the forms and the volumes that I'm seeing is that knowing that the peak highlight is in the top of the of the forehead, that's sort of the top of the oval or the egg shape and the lower, you know, the lower jaw. The chin is sort of that bottom form of of the egg shape. And so I'm really trying to emphasize that effect more than anything. And so, you know, down here through the chin and the goatee, it's gonna get, you know, quite a bit darker. Most of that is due to the facial hair, but it's also to just relative to the overall shape of the head, the light source on and the drop off of light as it's rolling down his face. And so if I can emphasize that effect, hopefully by the time everything is filled in, the overall portrait will have a nice sort of rounded effect. Um, that we're after and you know, even if again like I said, if if certain details have to be mitigated, Toe emphasized the overall form, we can go ahead and do that. And I think the portrait in the end would read a little bit more successfully than if I were to try and capture. You know to too many sort of minute details. Now, while we do want to emphasize the overall large effect of these forms, there are some smaller sub forms that I do have to get in simply because they're necessary to re emphasize some of the anatomy of the face. And like in this area, for example, here it is part of sort of the jowl area of the mouth. And it is also creating part of that two cylinder shape that we started with when we first started drawing the lips. And again, I'm still just trying to think about. You know, there's a form as a simple form that's ruling, you know, from the chin and then closer to the lower lip and then, as it read, as it kind of gets closer and closer to the lower lip. There are some lighter passages where the lower lip and the Joe are separating So that does have to be in there, um, as a piece of information. But I'm still trying to think over all about where, how the form is turning in space and what you know, where the light is hitting it. And then as its ruling down towards the chin, it's gonna get a little bit darker and a little bit darker. And then it'll start rolling into the secondary, some form of the chin, and then, like what would be the mandible or lower jaw. But as long as those transitions kind of work themselves out and they look, you know, smooth, it's not gonna overemphasize the lower gel itself. And it's not something. It's not really an area where you would want to have a lot of emphasis. And even right now in this particular state, it kind of stands out because I still need to get the rest of the lower jaw into the cheek and let those areas transition together. Um, and that's something I just kind of know going forward. It's going to sort of work itself out as I add in more information. But again, we do want to emphasize the overall large turning of forms, but in certain instances, there are some absolutely necessary sub forms that helps explain the anatomy on the face. And this is true for any drawing. Um, what's more important is to think about the larger form first, and then let those secondary sub forms come to surface after the overall effect has been established. - From this point on, though, we can kind of start filling in a little bit of the goatee up here and then gradually work our way up to the nose and start filling in that information. And realistically, I could kind of go any direction from here. I could, you know, kind of fill in the cheek or just go up to the nose. Um, once you get into these certain parts of the drawing, kind of where you decide to continue on with your form pass is more or less up to you. As long as you feel good about making the transitions of what you've already established. Um, and so for me, I'm gonna go ahead and just start working on the nose from here, and then I'll kind of just go across to the other side of the face. But um, you know, kind of building out from the nose. I'll talk about this a lot more in the next video and still going to start an emphasize, you know, from the shadow shape of the nose that we begin with from the very beginning and then slowly build out the forms from there. 18. Drawing the Nose: so starting the nose. I kind of at least wanted for this area. I know that I'm gonna be dealing with a lot lighter value range, but, you know, around the ball of the nose and around, you know, the wings of the nostril. That's where I'm really gonna have to put some emphasis on some plane changes. And so I want to start with some of the darker areas, like the actual nostrils themselves and a few of the shadow shapes that are in the front part of the nose. And from there, I kind of want to start building out the ball of the nose. And that's where really, I'm gonna have the biggest sort of change in planes the bridge of the nose, while important, and it's gonna have more obvious plane changes where, you know, sometimes I feel like with the ball of the nose, depending on the person, there's so much of variants that can happen that you really have to sort of pay attention to small plane changes and depending on the person's type, Sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's not. And I feel like in his particular case, while there are various plane changes there. It's more of a bulb, this sort of knows effect that is happening. And so I want to emphasize the roundness of it. And playing changes air very subtle, from the bottom plane to the top plane of the ball of the nose on. Then it transitions into the bridge, which is a little bit more obvious. So just trying to be mindful about where I see changes occurring. And, you know, having the highlight there on the tip of the nose is a good indicator about where a plane change, Um, is taking place. And by using that as sort of a ah, you know, kind of like a landmark. I can make some decisions based around that. And if anything, for now, I want to emphasize the areas that are coming out of shadow because it's easier to transition out of them. And then as they start rolling into the light, I'm gonna be using the highlight as a guide for the rest. So transitioning out from the shadow side of the nose, Um, you know, I'm very aware that in a general sense, you want to think about the nose in sort of four basic planes and the ball of the notes could be broken down into much smaller sub planes. But early on, I like to just get the overall effect. And so the bottom plane of the nose obviously is gonna be the nostrils. And then the transition as it sort of dips down under on, connects to the front plane of the face. And then, as we kind of work our way up, we're gonna have the overall front plane of the nose, which is a combination of the ball of the nose as well as the bridge. Now again, like I mentioned earlier as we work out into the lights and with him and his particular knows type, the plane changes air very subtle and not as obvious. So the highlight is going to be a very a very important thing because the highlight is always gonna fall on a corner or where a plane changes taking place. And now, even though there's no corners on the ball of the nose, um, that highlight will give you a good indicator about where a plane changes taking place. And again it will come down to the person, sort of, uh, you know, type per se. On some people, this is very obvious, and on others it's much more subtle. So just kind of keep in mind where those highlights are landing and it will give you a good idea about where things are changing. With the majority of the ball of the nose established, I'm gonna go ahead and move on to the bridge, which I find is a little bit easier as the planes are very obvious and there's gonna be, you know, a small a very small front plane of the bridge and then the two side planes. And given the lighting situation on here, we have one side plane that's completely in shadow, and then the other is, you know, gonna be in the light. But the ranges here are gonna be fairly close together on and then we're gonna have a highlight that's running along the bridge. And so again, that highlight is going to be an indicator about where a plane changes taking place. And so I'm I'm basically going to just use my tones and get them really right up to where that highlight is, and then I'll kind of go back over and make cleaner transitions and probably smooth highlight out. And in this particular case with knows, I don't necessarily want the highlights to be two prominent, Um, at least along the bridge. Now they do certainly have to be there to show a clear indication of a plane change. But in this particular case, I want to let the highlight on the ball of the nose have a little bit more dominance than the one that I see on the bridge. And what's gonna be more important again is just showing that the plane changes in the separation so that we get a sense about where forms are turning in space in relationship to the light. But just like anywhere else, it is easier for me to build out of the shadows here on this side and again. The the kind of the rolling of form is gonna be fairly, fairly tight through the nose because it's not a large volume, and it's actually more because of the bone on the cartilage in the nose. The shift is more sort of sudden, and it's not as it's not a sort of a long transition, like something like a like a cheek or any area That's fleshy. Ah, lot of the transitions are gonna be fairly tightened quick in the nose, and then they start to spread out as they get closer to the cheeks or even into the forehead. And so most of the values through here are gonna be fairly consistent with one another, because there's not a whole lot going on until we get closer to the light side of the face and realistically will see some small changes as it gets closer to the forehead and things start transition there. But the light side of the nose is going to, um, you know, the value range is going to get really tight, and then we'll have some minor changes as it gets closer to the eye socket. And then as it spreads out into the cheap plane, all right. And so, for the most part, you know, the rest of the bridge of the nose is a fairly even, um, you know, value range, a zit transitions out of the ball of the nose, and the only parts that again that will be a little bit different are areas that are closer to shadow on. Then they'll be a little bit of fluctuation as it gets close to the highlight and then into the side plane. But for the most part, because of help plainer than noses, it doesn't necessarily have to have all kinds of forms, shifts or anything like that. So it's better to keep it simple if you can, so we get close to filling in the rest of the nose. I do want to start incorporating more of the cheek because the relative range of values that are taking place in the cheek are gonna be fairly tight, Um, or at least very close together. So it's something that I have to keep in mind in relationship, especially on the light side of the face. And for me. I knew this area was gonna be, you know, probably one of the harder areas only because the range is so compressed. And so to make anything sort of feel like it has volume, there's a subtle manipulation of values that sort of has to take place. And for someone like him who doesn't necessarily have really pronounced cheekbones or anything like that, sometimes it could be a little bit tricky to make these forms look believable. Eso kind of going on from there. I will want to focus in on the rest of the cheek on then we can kind of make some comparisons once we get a little bit more information filled in. 19. The Second Eye: So with the nose, mostly in Aiken, start thinking about putting in the second I. And so I'll say the one sort of tricky thing about this particular eyes that because it is mostly in light, I don't have the same sort of shadow pattern to sort of lock on to some of the shapes like I did with the other I. And so, depending on your light source and how you're drawing, um, this can sometimes present a little bit of a problem, because it would be. What it sort of feels like is that you have these these floating shapes out in the middle of a light area, and there's really no shadow pattern to help guide you on sort of lock in very specific shapes in a sort of a graphical sense, like we did at the very beginning when we were filling in our shadows. And so what I have a tendency to do, and what helps me in these particular situations is the fact that even though the I is not in shadow, there's a very strong middle tone on the interior of the socket and realistically, from a top down lighting scenario, even you know the I that is in a light area will still have a strong middle value range that you can use as a little bit of of a guide, or like a template to help frame the I and make it a little bit easier to establish from stronger shapes. And so what will typically do is I'll start building everything around the I S O the interior of the socket, the outer edges and all I'm looking for is a little bit of a framework that it's gonna make it a little bit easier for me to then go in and fill in the lids of the I and then kind of start putting in all the details. And so again, that's sort of unique to an area where you don't have a lot of shadow pattern to build on or to build out of, I should say, but you want to use any sort of like, half tone to kind of help guide you along and getting everything else filled in, and it will just kind of take a little bit of time, and you have to be a little bit more deliberate with shapes that you make But as we continue here, we're just gonna kind of put in some of these middle tones around the eye so that I have something toe work into. And this is this would be my recommendation. If you know if you're dealing with a lighting scenario where you know you have, the eyes are fully lit and you don't have shadow patterns. You want to look for areas that are maybe slightly darker than light area and make them into specific shape, so you can kind of almost make them like mock shadow patterns. And so what I'm doing is I'm deliberately darkening down on this area and the interior of the socket and and also realistically, to is again. We're thinking about what is light facing and what is dipping away from the light source. The interior of the socket is actually facing downward, and it's not until it rolls up into or above the eyebrow or a little bit on the outside of the of the socket that it's going to start to brighten up a little bit. And so we'll have a little bit. There is a little bit of a highlight on the brow itself, where it is fleshy, and that could be a little sort of tricky because it is sort of like a small peak, as the flesh is going from the interior of the socket and rolling towards the eyebrow. But again, I can't. I can't make that highlight overly bright, because then it'll take away from the highlight that's actually in the eye. And so that's something I'm sort of keeping in mind and, if anything, again thinking about the interior of the socket and how it's rolling underneath and then towards where the ball of the eyes. That's what I really want to focus in on this interior portion so that I can help again build out the rest of the I a little bit easier, since it's really the only dark area that I have to work with. So I'm filling in the lid that the thing I like to keep in mind with eyes is that because obviously in a portrait, the eyes air generally going to be a focal point, and so I like to take my time to really build them up slowly so that I can, you know, kind of decide where I want to put emphasis in certain areas. And what I find is that a lot of, you know, sort of beginner students will have a tendency to, um you know, sort of overemphasize a lot, you know, almost everything in the eye on. And it can kind of sometimes be a little bit distracting because you're trying to inject too much detail in an area when you only really need a few little things to really place, you know, a strong emphasis on, you know, on the eye itself. And so I kind of almost build everything up in a very sort of soft manner. And then once I have most of the information and I can go back in and really, you know, sort of focus in on a given area to place a little bit more emphasis so that there is a dominant thing in that I that is interesting. And it's not just, you know, everything is like sharp or punched out or anything like that, because we still have to think about the I in the context that it's attached to the face and the eyelids are attached, you know, to the cheek into the brow, and Sophie, if we kind of play up too much information, sometimes weaken, sort of almost like punch a hole out of the eye, and it makes it look like it's pasted on their instead of organically feeling a part of the rest of the head. And even so, through hero, you know, like with the island itself, I do still have to think about. There's a form change that's taking place. And so the upper the upper lid is actually catching more light than the brow itself because of its orientations. When if you think about the upper lid and and how it's basically wrapping around the ball of the I, the top part of that upper lip is actually going to catch more light. And that's why you'll typically see a little bit of a small sliver of highlight as the form is peaking around the eye and wrapping around the ball. You know, kind of catch. It'll catch a little bit of light, and again, this is dealing with the fact that we have a top down light source. But it will actually be a little bit brighter than some of the areas of the brow itself again because the brow is facing down and the lid itself is actually facing upward. And these are all just things you want to be keeping in mind. So that cause even though we're dealing with a small form like an eyelid, it still has to follow. You know, the same sort of principles that we've applied to everything else in the head so far. So earlier on when we're talking about the orientation of, let's say, like the lower part of the face or, you know, some parts of the lips, even though on eyelid is such a tiny, tiny little spot, you know, on the head itself, I'm still treating it the same way, like I did everything else. And so I'm thinking about its orientation and where the light is hitting it. And you know just how perpendicular or parallel these little tiny forms are facing the light source. And so, as I get to the lower lid, I'm still, you know, thinking the same thing. So in this case, you know, the lower lid as it's wrapping around the ball of the eye is actually facing downward. And so it's going to be, you know, just a little bit darker and kind of be in more of that middle tone. You know, half tone range, that the interior of the socket is as well. And it's not telling. Comes into contact with the cheek plane on some of these other areas where those areas air receiving a bit more light. And so then the value is going to shift to reflect that, Um, and so again, it doesn't really matter, like how small the area we still want to be treating everything with same sort of, you know, sort of care and attention to detail in terms of how we're interpreting how light is hitting the surface of that form. Um, and you know, the more we can kind of do that it's just gonna give us a much clear indication about how the rest of the drawing eyes looking, I feel. And even though I have to, you know, kind of go back and forth and I constantly will chuck other areas of the drawing that are completed and check them against the areas that I'm filling in and asking, OK, well, now that I have have a little bit more information filled in in the head itself, I can use those finished areas as reference points toe in for my decisions that I'm making on this area that I'm now just getting to like this secondary. I, um and you know, again, once everything else gets filled in in the head, we have to then go back and maybe reassess a little bit. But if I'm making good decisions along the way, um, you know, in terms of how I'm working from one area to the next, the sort of ideal goal in the end is that I don't have to go back and make any corrections , um, to any given area. But, you know, far be it for me to say that I'm you know, I'm so good that I don't have to do that. It's just not the case, you know, I still like. I think it doesn't matter really how good you are. You kind of have to go back in and reassess everything at the very end. Once things are all filled in, and then maybe go back and revisit some areas, that could be maybe hand a little bit better or help reinforce, you know, again, the original idea that we had or the sort of light effect that we were after from the very beginning 20. The Eye and Cheek: Susan continuing along with the I. I want to build up a little bit more of the cheek. Um, because it's going again, kind of allow me to assess everything I think leading up to the I a little bit better and and kind of. What I had mentioned earlier is that this sign of the face is actually, at least to me, kind of tricky. And And what I mean by that is is that for him on his sort of character type is he doesn't really necessarily have, you know, prominent cheekbones or anything like that. And so sometimes when you get to situations like this, depending on the person's type, is that it could be very difficult to sort of latch on to some of the anatomical landmarks that you would normally encounter on a different character type. And in his particular case, like, I know what has to be underneath the skin in terms of musculature and the skeletal structure, but sometimes giving given the person as well as the lighting situation. Sometimes you're kind of just left with a very sort of broad area of light that you have to try and explain. Topographically, you know with your values and with four modeling, and so it can be a little bit tricky at times because you don't have any things really sort of latch onto. Or the form changes are so subtle that it's hard to make very sort of descriptive, you know, sort of changes in surface as you're moving along the form. And so what I'm trying to do in this particular case is that any areas where I see even a subtle fluctuation of tone where planes are changing and, um, you know, like in this particular area and the interior portion you know of the cheek is there's there's a little subtlety of planes that are changing in there, and then there's gonna be a little bit around the cheekbone, but the value ranges are gonna be so tightly compressed together that you run the risk of maybe overstating something on. Then it will look completely off. And so I'm just trying to be mindful of that as I'm putting information in. But I'm definitely keeping this in the back of my mind and, you know, depending on the person that you're drawing, this may be a very similar situation. That you find yourself in and so you just gonna have toe, you know, kind of approach these areas maybe a little slower, and take your time filling in the tone so that everything kind of looks and feels cohesive together. So getting back to the i ast I'm getting into this lower lid here in this outer edge of the value range is actually fairly light because it's so close to the cheekbone, which is receiving quite a bit of light in this particular area. And so I'm just kind of keeping in mind, especially in relationship to the interior of the lower lid here, where again the value range is gonna be a little bit darker because it is facing away from the light as well as being closer to the interior of the socket. So it's just not as much light is going to get in there, and it will be counterbalanced by the other lid, which is receiving more light near the cheekbone. And so there's, I mean again in this area there. The range that I work with is going to be fairly compressed for the most part because the rain, like the value from one transition to the next is fairly subtle, and so that's why I'm in this particular situation. I find myself switching over to some harder leads, like a to H more four H because it gives me at least maybe more mentally, some flexibility toe work in a title range. Because I don't have to worry about pushing too hard with my pencil lead. And so I wouldn't want to be using a softer lead like an h you know, or anything like that in some of these areas, because it just I'm trying to eliminate any sort of potential errors that may happen, which a lot of times maybe could be depending on if you're heavy handed or not. You know, pushing a little bit too hard and maybe going a little bit darker than what you intentionally mean to, um, And so that's something to maybe keep in mind as you're working and, you know, again, depending on how comfortable you feel, you know, handling your tools. But you may decide to switch to some harder leads in the light areas so that you don't run the risk of potentially going to darks too fast, and you might have a little bit more control of your value range that way. And so, as I'm kind of working on the cheekbone here, you are gonna see. There's a very slight variation where the where the cheekbone is actually turning upwards. That's where we're going to see the highlight as the as the light is hitting it. And it's not a Nen enormously strong highlight on the cheekbone for him because he doesn't have prominent cheekbones, it's actually it. All kinds of it all kind of blends together pretty well on him. And so but knowing that the highlight is hitting on a corner where the form is changing plane as soon as it transitions from that highlight, I know just below that highlight, the form is coming to a slight downward pitch, and that's where it's gonna be a little bit darker. And you would depending on. You know, if the person, let's say, for example, had you know much, you know, sunk it. You know, heavier cheekbones or, like, you know, really prominent cheekbones. That's sometimes where you can see a little bit of like a tiny form shadow below where the where the cheek plane is actually turning downward. And in this particular case, with him again not having prominent cheekbones, the value range is a. It's a very subtle shift that's happening, but it still needs to be there to show that there is a plane change taking place and that as the form is being highlighted on the top of the cheekbone, it is also, uh, coming down in value as it's turning downward away from the light source. But we're really talking about a very subtle range of value here, So it's not gonna be this enormous, you know, stair step in value that you're going to see and again that's going to depend on the person that you're drawing and their skeletal structure and what that looks like. So you know, it's a lot to kind of micromanage, but that's why sometimes I find when you work in a section at a time like this, you can really focus in on some of those smaller things that if you were trying to build up everything simultaneously, it sometimes becomes a little bit harder to focus in on those subtle little things that can really add a lot to a drawing. Once it's completed, eso That's kind of why I do like working this way from one section at a time to the next is that I can really hone in on a very specific area and sort of forget about everything else that's going on and really just try and focus on a particular form and make it look as believable as I can in that given moment. And so with the cheek and I can kind of get back up into this I and start finishing it off. And you know, now, as I'm working in the interior of the I, the only thing I'm keeping in mind is that again the the white of the eye, sometimes creating an illusion of simultaneous contrast in relationship to the iris, which, you know he has very dark eyes and then that in contrast to the white of the eye, the tendency for a lot of people who are starting out is to leave the value range in the white of the eye almost too bright. But we do have to factor in again that the I is a sphere and it is rolling based on how the light is hitting it, and also to We have to keep in mind that the top lid is also almost always going to be casting a very small, um, sometimes unnoticeable shadow on the white of the eye as well. And depending on, you know, let's say if this was a female, um, you know, sometimes you know females with heavier eyelashes or whatnot well, sometimes actually sort of obscure a lot of the white of the eye, depending on the person, and they're sort of type. But the one of the I actually has to be a fairly sort of, you know, middle value as well, so that it actually sits. It feels like it's sitting inside the lives that are sort of cupping it. And if we make it too bright again, it's gonna sort of punch out of value and make it seem a little bit too bright and out of place. If it's not handled properly and so is we're kind of getting the rest of this I filled in, we can we're gonna just slowly start working up the side of the head and then eventually get to the forehead. And again the forehead will actually be very similar to this cheek in which that we have a very sort of broad form that can sometimes be a little bit tricky to explain the subtle changes that are happening. But we'll kind of just take it one thing at a time and eventually get there. And once we get that finished, will have everything more or less filled in. And then we can kind of gradually recess areas that we need to work on, or perhaps maybe touch up a little bit, or fix or alter some of the values. But, um, you know one thing at a time and what kind of start filling in the rest of this and then move on to the forehead. 21. Starting the Forehead: all right. So it kind of just want to wrap up the eye on a little bit that we have left here before we move forward with the rest of the drawing. And so again, just kind of building up from the cheekbone. We get to the sort of side plane temple area of the head, and it actually is receiving a fair amount of light, given that it's so close to the light source. A swell as the highlight in the forehead. And so but working from the interior, Or, I would say, the outer portion of the socket. Rather, it is receiving a little bit more light. However fundamentally, the socket is still facing downward a little bit. And although we'll have this little fleshy transition of skin as it rolls towards the interior of the socket, it still can't be overtly, you know, bright and again, what I would do in this particular areas, I'd be flicking my eyes back and forth between you know, this area of the socket and relationship to the light that the brow is receiving just above the eyebrow here in, you know, even just looking at making those comparisons, it's still a little bit darker in value overall, and it is more down facing than the brow ridge itself. So I have to keep that in mind so that the values don't get, you know, to mixed up or make any unnecessary form changes that I'm not after And again, as we kind of reached this temple area, we're getting pretty close to being fairly light facing and given the angle of the head on and everything like that. And even though it's the side plane that were essentially working on in this temple area, given his relationship to the light and where the light source is coming from, it's actually fairly light. And so when it even though it's the side of the head, all of the value ranges through here are still going to be fairly close together and the only really large fluctuations that we're going to see is, once I get over to the shadow side of the forehead, we'll see ah, much larger change, especially coming out of the shadow. But once we get to kind of maybe about the halfway point, um, the value ranges, we're gonna get very similar, um, you know, together and so I'm gonna have to be really careful about the little things that I emphasize in the form so that the light effect will read properly, you know? And that's, you know, again, this is sort of what's happening here. A little bit in the side plane of the head is that it's all kind of a fairly compressed range, and then it will get a little bit brighter as it comes up towards the hair and then closer to highlight in the forehead. But given just that, we're still down in this part near the I, um it's still gonna be fairly even, and then we'll just get further lighter as we go up the head. So as I'm beginning the forehead, I'm actually going to just build out of the shadow side and then out of the eyebrow here, as this is gonna be my greatest opportunity to create the sense of form as we're going from one side of the forehead to the other. Um, now I am keeping in mind that there is obviously some anatomy that's taking place in the forehead. So we have, you know, a separate brow ridge that has a series of muscles on top of it. And then just above the brow ridge, we get the flat plains of the upper part of the forehead, which also have, you know, some musculature there. Um, but beyond that, the thing that I'm gonna be focused on more so at least at first, is just creating the sort of large, you know, sort of sweeping effect of the forehead as a single large form. So I don't want to get too caught up in the details of all of the sub forms that are in the forehead and all the various muscles that air there. I really want to focus on just creating this nice even transition of of the value range going from the shadow side here, all the way over to the light source. And what ends up happening is that it can get a little bit tricky because we have this very large pass, a form that the values have to be really consistent all the way across so that the overall light effect reads as light is rolling across a very large and vast form on, and when dealing with those kinds of areas, it can actually be a little tricky, um, more so from the standpoint that it's not particularly hard to model the form. But it's really more about keeping your tools, um, in check, and so that the value ranges look smooth and your transitions are smooth. And there's no sort of, you know, quick jumps in value where you see one value jump immediately to the next. And so everything has to be really even when you're working in these large passes of form. And so that's something that I'm really trying to be careful of. Um, and that's why I said earlier, even in areas like this or in the cheek, that we're just drawing earlier is I find that those are generally more difficult, at least for me, because I'm not, You know, there's not a lot of latch onto, and the transitions have to be so smooth and clean, and that just means I have to maybe work a little bit slower and maybe pull out some of the harder lead pencils so that I can make those transitions a little bit easier. Um, and that would be my recommendation for you as well in areas like the forehead where it is a much larger flatter plane toe work in again. This will all be just kind of dependent on your model and then your light source as well. And so just kind of like we started from the very beginning, um is I'm gonna build up out of the shadow pattern, and what I'm gonna do in this particular case with him is I'm actually reemphasizing the core shadow or Terminator along the ridge of the forehead. And I really want to create that rolling effect and so that the values coming out of this Terminator have to just be really tight together, but in a much darker range, because it's gonna be a very long, gradual transition. And so the it can't be like a very sharp, you know, sort of from the shadow to a light part of the head. And even though it kind of looks like that again, the biggest turn inform is gonna be occurring just outside the Terminator so that value ranges that happen through here. I really want to spend a lot of time finessing and making sure that everything reads Aziz Well, as I can make it before I move on into more of the middle part and the brightest part of the forehead, because when I need to do is that I need to give myself enough room for those value ranges to feel like it's kind of like a very long stretch that we have to sort of fill in. And the more I can emphasize what's happening on the shadow side, the more room is gonna give me to play with in the light side, meaning that the ranges that I established right out of the shadow are gonna be very crucial for setting the stage for everything else that comes after it. And so even in these middle portions just above the Brow Ridge are slightly darker, then a lot of the values that occur closer towards the highlight and the brightest areas in the forehead. And so the more room I can create in these areas for that highlight to become more prominent. I'm gonna go ahead and do that, because again, the whole idea behind this drawing from the very get go is to create a light effect. And so I'm not trying to copy what I'm seeing. I'm trying to create an idea that I had you know, when I'm working from this, I want to create a sensation of light that's hitting the surface on him in particular. And so I just need to manipulate my values as best I can to create that light effect. And you know whether or not it happens is always, you know, our intention is artist is to always kind of create things and that we have an idea about an idea that we want to express on. And in this case, with the portrait, I have a very specific idea about the light effect that I'm after. Um, and so everything else is going to sort of play to that effect and, you know, so I'm just having to manipulate the values that I see in order to help guide me towards that on. That's kind of where the interpretation part of doing a drawing comes into play. And and it's not to downgrade the idea of, you know, drawing from life for drawing from reference or trying to copy what you see. But, you know, you have to know from the get go that we simply can't make a 1 to 1 translation. You know of something that we see onto the piece of paper. We have to have some interpretation as artists to allow us to express the idea of what we're seeing on. Hopefully you know, and this been this particular case, we're just doing an academic study. But hopefully we're all working towards the idea of making pictures and whether or not that's a portrait in an interior or in an environment, or even just a singular portrait that maybe has a little bit more expression to it. Thes air kind of the ideas that we want to keep in the back of our head as we move forward . 22. Continuing the Forehead: So as we're moving along here again, I really want to focus in on this left side of the forehead because this is going to sort of give me whatever leeway I have is I get closer to the highlight. Um, it's going to be a little bit easier to convey the light effect if I can really spend more time here in these darker areas and decide what Can I maybe push a little bit darker Or, you know, just so that I have the room? Um, because the thing what ends up happening is as you start compressing their values in a light area like, for example, in the highlight spot is it's very difficult to convey the same sort of form effect if you're working with such a limited range of value. Um, and this isn't to say that, like the highlight on his forehead is like this sort of, you know, glowing, you know, highlight. That's just, you know, it's like as bright as the pupils, and there is the highlights in his eyes. Rather, it's but it is a lighter passage that needs to be emphasized, and so I and I really want to get that, um and you know, and again it's still not like it's not like the forehead is, you know, like the focal point by any means. But it is a predominant highlight that needs to be in there. And so, in order for me to convey that I do have to really work in the value ranges on the shadow side, um, and then sort of bridge everything across and work up towards that highlight. Which is why I'll spend all this time on the shadow side making sure that things look Aziz good as I could make them before I start moving further and further away where I have to be more concerned with how I'm pushing and pulling my values. And so is, um, continuing along here through the sort of shadow side of the forehead. I'm still sticking to sort of my h lead pencil because I find that it's, you know, it's dark enough for me to get what I need out of it. But as a transition into the lighter side of the forehead, I will most likely end up switching to my two h in perhaps a for age, uh, let just so that you know, I don't have to worry about going, you know, to dark in those particular areas again. The one thing that I'm really trying to focus in, which is why I keep you kind of keep seeing me work in the same area, is I just I really want to get the transitions out of the shadow as clean and as smooth as possible so that the overall effect that's taking place through the forehead is this long passage of light that's coming out of shadow and then rolling to a brighter. You know, it's like a brighter highlight, and so I'll end up going back and and really trying to make sure that those transitions are looking Aziz clean as I can make them. Because if there's any sort of interruptions that take place, it will have a tendency to break the form. Or it can sometimes look like I was maybe trying to emphasize a sub form that may or may not be there. Um, but it may do that at the expense of, you know, kind of ruining the large effect of this large piece of form that is rolling out of out of shadow and in tow light. So that's why you kind of see me even as I get to the other parts of the forehead. I'll probably take my time a bit more to make sure that everything looks really clean and I'll be going over the same areas, maybe multiple times, to ensure that everything looks like it's transitioning smoothly now. The one thing to keep in mind, even in an area like a forehead, is that it's not just transitioning from, you know, let's say left to right, you know, like across the form. But there's also the fact that we have to think about the form as it's going from, let's say, the eyebrow with hairline. So there is a sort of vertical and a horizontal transition that we need to be thinking about, and for the most part it's relatively even on him. So he doesn't have you know, a particularly, you know, sort of strong forehead where the planes are so pronounced, you know, on him that you see these big, noticeable changes in form, and a lot of that's gonna have to do with the fact that you know he's young and Andi, that's just sort of his type, you know, in his musculature. So But depending on the kind of person that you're drawing, let's say, if it was a much bolder person or maybe someone that maybe has a ah very pronounced brow, you might see some more transitional plane changes that are much more apparent on DSO. You have to then maybe think about the sort of Brow Ridge as its own predominant sub form, and then the sort of frontal plane of the forehead as being sort of a secondary form. Aziz. Well, on and again, this really just comes down to the type of person that you're drawing in, sort of what is specific to them. And, you know, the younger the person is Obviously there's gonna be less maybe sub forms that you may see unless it's a very specific character type, but not say when it comes to let's say, like, you know, females or young women Or even, let's say if you like to draw, you know, Children or anything like that, you know, everything is very smooth and even, and the transitions are gonna be very sort of long and broad, and you're not going to see much in the way of sub forms at all. And if it is a female, perhaps maybe even if you do see them, it's something that you would down play, especially if they're a younger female, as that could potentially age the age them as a, you know, a sort of a character type. But, um, these are all things again that you're gonna be thinking about. But you're gonna be thinking about them specifically to what you're drawing and the subject matter eso I'm just kind of keeping that in mind. But given again with him being fairly young, I don't have a whole lot to work with in terms of some forms or very sharp plane changes in the forehead. It's gonna be more or less fairly, even with a little bit of subtlety across the brow ridge. But not a whole lot. Which is why, in the end, I think everything is going to be more or less, even for the most part. So that again we can kind of play up that light effect that's hitting on the other side of the forehead. And so, as we get to this middle portion of the forehead on, there's not a whole lot going on in terms of transition or anything like that. It's a fairly even passage of tone. Ondo Women's up happening a lot of the times when you get these very big areas where you don't have a whole lot of information in terms of planes changing or forms turning. The biggest concern is making sure that you can keep the value range through that area fairly even inconsistent. On DSO, a lot of the times will find with kind of with myself is that we'll pick up a little, you know, like sometimes with graphite on. Just the nature of it is that you can end up with lots of like little spots where you may be kind of catch the paper Ah, little bit, and what ends up happening is you just kind of have to go back in with your eraser and pick out those little spots because if you leave them in there, it kind of brakes that even passage, and it kind of will break the form as it's transitioning from one area to the next. And I would say pretty much. For the most part, this is the case with any area where you have a very broad, consistent value range where there's not a whole lot going on, and you have to kind of go back in and and really make sure that those areas look clean and sort of uninterrupted on. And so that's kind of what I end up doing through this particular area. Um, and you know, I'll still go back in and re you re kind of cleanup areas. Aziz best I can because I really have to make sure that this reads even and smooth. And there's no sort of, you know, sort of distortion or any sort of noise going on through this very broad area of light and with the forehead kind of, you know, halfway in here, we're kind of reaching this sort of point of point of no return where we are now getting to the brightest area or one of the brightest areas, and in the drawing and so again given, given the light source in relationship to him, um, it's something that I have to be careful of and and the fact that my value range is gonna be very small and so that any sort of subtle variations that I put in this particular light area are gonna be have to be very specific so that I don't break that light effect. And so what I'm actually gonna be doing is I'm gonna be starting from the light side here in the brow on the brow ridge and then just kind of build upto everything. And that's generally how I like to approach, you know, working up the highlights is, I don't like to manipulate too much with my eraser if I don't have to, because it ends up looking to artificial and kind of picked out on. And so what I like to do is I just like to gradually build up my tones up to the highlight so that the value range ends up blending in together on and then emphasizes that particular highlight that I'm trying to capture. And so that's kind of what I want to be doing here is I'm working from the brow and then upwards, Um, again, it's it's all fairly light and range, and so that's I don't have a lot of wiggle room. Teoh kind of manipulate those plane changes or as the form is turning, so I have to do what I can, you know, kind of coming from from the side plane of the head as it rolls into the front plane of the forehead. Anything that I can kind of push and pull a little bit of value to get things to look brighter or to turn form. I'm gonna go ahead and have to emphasize those Aziz best I can. 23. Finishing the Forehead: So is we're working up towards the highlight. I'm going back in and again. What I want to do is I want to try in at least build up a little bit of the side plane of the head so that it gives me a little bit of extra room to play with in the highlight, but also to I have to be thinking about how the side plane is transitioning towards the front plane and the only thing we're going to see. A large form changes around the brow ridge where there's a very distinct shift in form. And so I'm gonna have a little bit right in the corner of the brow. There's gonna be a little bit of a slightly slightly darker passage that's gonna give me some flexibility to re emphasize the highlight a little bit more. And as I kind of start bridging across like I said earlier is, I like to build up to my highlights, so I'll have a tendency to sort of work around the highlight and then gradually start, sort of, you know, weaving in some values so that I don't want this sort of harsh cut out highlight. Is it just because that doesn't exist. Um, you know, in the in the subject. And so all of these transitions have to be like a very natural, even, sort of, you know, wash of tone that needs to take place. And so, um, I'm essentially just going to be skirting around a lot of that, because once I feel like I have the tones surrounding the highlight, it's gonna give me a better idea about how much more I need to push and pull the value ranges so that the actual shapes of the highlight are representing the form. A swell as I can and I would also do is it will give me an indication of maybe some of the areas around the highlights I may have to make darker so that it reemphasizes the highlight itself. So it doesn't necessarily mean the values around those specific highlights. But maybe all have to, let's say, as an example, go back to the shadow side of the forehead and maybe reemphasized some of that so that it gives me a little bit more room to play with in the highlight area of the forehead. And not that I feel like in this particular case that needs toe happen. Um, but it's just something to think about and again the whole, you know, from start to finish, the value thing is something that you're always going to be pushing and pulling until it's just right. And so a lot of the times, depending on you know, your light source and how you're working, it may be better toe error on the side of going to light on and maybe some of your shadows or the areas you know, the light sides that are near the shadow so that it gives you that room. Um, you know, to kind of work a little bit more in the light side. However, um, that's kind of why I think, depending on how your subject is lit, if you're starting darker with, let's say the actual shadow value Is that again, that sort of setting the stage from the very beginning, which is why we filled in our shadows entirely. First, um, you know So depending on again, the way your light situation is set up and the light effects that you're after, you may decide to skew your shadows or the value of your shadows a certain way so that you kind of know what your endgame is as you start building up into the lights as well. And in this particular instance, you know, like the my value range in the shadows is relatively close to what I'm seeing on. And so I feel like it's sitting okay. And as I continue to build into the forehead, you know, I think I'll be in a decent place to make adjustments. Um, you know whether or not that needs to be more on the shadow side or if I can even push maybe some of the values in the lights a little bit more So as I'm getting closer and closer to the main highlight in the forehead. The range and values that I'm working with is all getting fairly close together, Um, even still, and there's a temptation to kind of maybe sometimes cheat some of those values to reemphasize. Ah, highlight or make it look brighter. But the problem of doing that is that you end up breaking the entire effect. If you're chasing an individual highlight and I remember that something I really, you know when you're first starting out, learning to draw. You know, the fun part is sort of, you know, creating that light effect and making something look right in a very, you know, sort of, you know, high contrast image. And it's kind of, I don't know, it's still something I still enjoy, you know, as I do, any sort of drawing is having that nice high contrast highlight, and that's sort of like the icing on the cake. But sometimes I think, you know when people are starting out is that they will probably try and cheap things so much so that because they really want a specific highlight to just jump out and look like it's super bright. But they kind of do that at the sacrifice of the entire drawing. And so that's kind of you know, that something always you want to try and avoid, because it's really not about an individual effect. It's about the effect of the entirety of this particular portrait or the you know, the overall form of the head that I'm looking at. And you know, as much as I want to try and, you know, create this bright effect, I have to be realistic with myself and and ask. Well, how right is it, you know, and relative to his complexion on and everything else. And you know what sub forms are around there that maybe I can squeeze out a little bit of extra value, and maybe it'll nudge. You know, those highlights just a little bit more so that I have a tiny bit of leeway. But, um, again, as you kind of start finishing a drawing like this, you kind of start reassessing everything. And even though I still have a little bit left to go, you know, I'm gonna still kind of look back and say like, Okay, well, now, how is everything looking together, You know, from where we started in the beginning, with our shadows and working out of our shadow from the cheek and then slowly filling in the features and then the lower half, you know of the jaw. How is this looking? And what you know, What can I do to reemphasize the effect? So I need to go back in and, you know, maybe darkened down an area or do I need to maybe clean up some areas where maybe the transition's could be a little bit smoother or just cleaner. Um, do I have little spots of graphite in areas that you know? Maybe it's breaking the form by doing that, So maybe I'll go back in and and take my eraser on and clean up little things. But as we're getting so close to filling in the entire drawing, it's sometimes moments like that where it's best to maybe stand at a really decent distance away from your drawing and just kind of take it in. And the hard part sometimes is where, as we're working, as we get so close to our images, that we never step back and and really assess everything from a distance to see how things are reading. Um, and I'm certainly guilty of that as well. Um, you know. So I have to remind myself to get up and and say, Okay, how is this looking? What needs to be, you know, adjusted or pushed or pulled, or what have you? And so as I'm kind of finishing up the forehead, it doesn't mean that I'm not gonna go back and look at it again. But as I get close to feeling everything in Aiken, start to really think about where this is taking, um, you know how it's taking shape and everything and then really decide once everything is filled in, where to go from here? Um and so this last little part, you know, I do have to get this year filled in. It's kind of an odd angle for that. You're given a front view and just kind of with shape of his ear in particular. You know, there's not a whole lot toe latch onto, so, ah, lot of this year is more about the shadow pattern, Um, and just trying to get the relative value range working on him. 24. Finishing Up: So is we're kind of getting towards the end here again with the ear. It's not, you know, it's not a fairly predominant, um, you know, sort of a form on this particular angle because it's kind of to be honest, it's kind of a flat shape coming from, Ah, front facing portrait. You don't really see a whole lot of information that really gives you the depth of the ear . It's kind of really just we have a little bit of the shadow in the helix of the ear and Aziz well, as a little bit of shadow in the Contra or the whole of the ear. Um, nonetheless, it is a piece of information, you know, that we have to get in. So realistically speaking on, you know the way the way light is hitting it it it is fairly, you know, sort of. It's not bright, but it's not. Um, you know, it's not like it's in shadow or anything like that, but it is. However, the ears, very similar to the nose, have a naturally darker complexion because of all the blood vessels that are in it. And similarly, you would see this in the nose as well, depending on the person's type. What that really means in a black and white drawing, though, is that the relative value range in the ears is going to be a little bit darker to kind of show off some of that complexion on DSO relative to the light side of the face. The here is actually a bit more of a middle of value range in this particular instance. But again, given the fact that the angle of it is more or less flat, Um, there's only a couple areas where I can really try and get form. And that would really kind of be on the top of the helix around here on and then a little bit on the anti helix, which is a little piece of cartilage that is sort of wrapping around the Contra. And that's really all I can kind of do from this angle on its Not that I don't mean, you know, to downplay the importance of drawing ears. I think it's just more part of the fact that from this particular angle there's not a whole lot toe work with, and you know the fact that the other ear it's whole visit in shadow entirely, which is why I really just put in the shadow shapes of the ear and didn't emphasize anything else. Is trying to capture the form of a near and something that's in deep shadow is, you know, generally, you know, I don't like to emphasize too much information in the shadows as I feel like it has a tendency to draw yourself away from the lights. But that's kind of more just my personal opinion and how I like toe work and some people will say otherwise. But, um, I like to really emphasize the light side of the four, much more so than the shadow side. So I have a tendency to play down information in the shadows unless it's like dark accents . And so again, you know, kind of with this here, even though I see like there's little tiny in a flicks of like highlights in the ear, you know, from you know, just the orientation of the light source and the fact that the forms on a lot of the cartilage of the year gonna be fairly tight and because the forms turned so fast on the ear and you're going to see ah, lot more potential for little tiny highlights. But given the angle of the ear and also relative, you know, to the portrait itself, it doesn't make sense to even have a lot of that information in there. The only time I find you know where ears really become a major part of a portrait is if you have a profile and it's a predominant form in the profile. So if it's like a you know, someone with really short hair like, you know, like a lot of guys or, you know, or if someone's hair is like pulled in a ponytail or something like that and the ear is fully out in the open, you know, then it becomes a major form that you want to be thinking of and then can be, you know, kind of a nice detail to really get into the ear. But for me, in this particular angle, the ear is just not an important factor, but it still has to be in there. So I'm almost treating it as a background element in this case where that I do have to flush out the information and there, But I'm going to downplay a lot of it for the sake of the rest of the drawing, but with everything fills in here. Now, um, you know, we kind of reached the point where we have all the information in. And this is where I start to really reassess on areas that maybe I need to revisit. Um, and that could be, you know, making transitions smoother, maybe pushing values a little farther. You know, it's not gonna be major things, really. You know, im I The ideal scenario is you know, I don't There's no major structural issues that I have to go in and fix, and it's really just more a matter of refining things a little bit more or asking myself, Does this read properly or does this transition as well as it could, Um, and you just kind of now start reassessing everything and depending on what your original intention was or what your original gold for the drawing is, you have to base it off of that and that convene a number of things. But for a lot of you may be just kind of starting. This drawing process is just getting a good block in or you know, and not even tonal or anything like that. It could just be linear drawing. Um, you know, so everyone is gonna be at their own stage for doing any sort of portrait drawing. But in the last video, I kind of just talk about you know how this went. Um, and just kind of go a little bit over where? Maybe areas like, you know. Oh, I could have done this better. Um, you know, and that's all you can really do. At the end of the day, when you when you fit me, you complete a drawing. You do reach a point where you just going to say, like, Okay, this is where I'm at on, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in depth in the last video, and I'll give you some of my closing thoughts. 25. Closing Thoughts: alright guys. So I wanted to spend a little bit of time just talking about where were at finishing, you know, everything up in. It's kind of, you know, in any time you finish a drawing, you know, and I find his artists. We always kind of, you know, we're kind of second guessing ourselves about where we got with the drawing, and I feel like that's sort of a normal process for everyone. Um, but I find that it's important, you know, at at some point when you get everything completed on the drawing, your kind of asking yourself like you know, this is maybe as far as I could get, and this is where my skill level is. And so that's kind of how I treat, you know, once I get a drawing completely filled in and maybe I try and go back and refine some things is for me, it becomes a lot of just reassessing where areas succeeded. Maybe I fell a little short and other areas, but I kind of just take it at face value. And so I never beat myself up too much about where I got. And as long as I know where I maybe slipped up and maybe made some mistakes. Then I kind of know for the next one, um, you know, like, okay, maybe really work on that. And so even just using myself as an example. I remember when I was a student and just kind of getting started is that I had a lot of problems, you know, oftentimes getting the spacing wrong between you know, between the brow as you're making the bridge of the nose too wide or a lot of times, You know, if I was drawing ahead and perspectives, I would get the mouth off. And so you start to see patterns in your development that you want to if you see yourself making mistakes and this is why it's important toe have maybe an instructor toe look over and critique your stuff, assuming there at a higher skill level than you, or even having friends that are kind of going through, maybe a similar stage. And they're drawing as you are. So you guys can help each other. But, um, it's important to take note of things that maybe you notice a consistent pattern in which you're messing up, and it may not even be anything this finished. It could be very well, just a block in of some kind, and that's totally fine. But, um, what you end up doing at the end of the drawing, you reach a certain point where you have to kind of just say, you know what? This is far as I can go. I don't think anything I do at this point is going to make the drawing better. Um, and again, it's just kind of a matter of reassessing where you think you are in terms of your development and then kind of going from there and then just using that for motivation for the next drawing. And And I find that as I've gotten better over the years, you know, skill wise is that you're never gonna be I don't know, you're never going to be quite a satisfied as you think you will when you get to the end. And every now and then you'll kind of hit a drawing like yeah, you know, that really kind of I feel like I really hit that one. And it kind of captured what I was going for when I wanted to begin that drawing in the first place and other times you'll fall maybe a little bit sure in that's kind of the game We play with ourselves as artists that were always kind of trying to juggle. You know what we are? Original goal was by doing the drawing, and then maybe where we end up is a little bit different. And drawings just have a way of have kind of. They'll go in different directions as you kind of move through the drawing. And maybe they end up much different than what you originally intended. Um, so just kind of keep that in mind as you're working on your own projects. But again, whether it's going for a full finish or even if it's just trying to get a really accurate block in, um, you know, it's just just treated like a process. And the thing that I would encourage most beginner students is to not get too caught up in the finish. The finishes will eventually happen. Um, as a matter of time, Um, and I find that earlier on a lot of students who are just starting, they just want to rush Teoh sort of this stage and they don't give themselves enough time to really get involved with the early stages, which is like all the blocking in and all the measuring and and that's to me Looking back, you know, when I was a student is that's where the rial growth is is when you get to a point where the blocking in and the measuring becomes a very sort of intuitive process for you, so that you don't necessarily have to think about it as much. But you're just drawing, you know, and you're just enjoying the process of plotting points measuring and then and this The stages naturally progress after that. But I don't want to downplay the importance of the early stages and blocking in. And if you can fall in love with that sort of stage, Um, as you're learning to draw and do this and in regardless of portraiture, figure, what have you It doesn't matter. Um, spend as much time as you need on that kind of stuff. And then this this sort of thing will naturally happen as just a natural progression. So, again, you know, when you reach the end, it's just kind of you kind of have to ask yourself. Okay. Well, did that I capture what I was meaning to capture on. And if I felt sure, where did I fall short? And was it something that I mis measured? Um, you know, so just gonna keep all those things in mind. But, um, you know, if you made it this far throughout the class, you know, thank you for watching. I hope that a lot of the information made sense, and I was able to kind of explain myself clearly s O that it could be useful to you in your own work. Um, and again, you know, just kind of It's a daily. It's a daily sort of process or some for some of you. Maybe it's not daily its weekly or you know how much time you have to devote to this. Um, just enjoy the process and kind of just get comfortable with it, and then you'll naturally make progresses. You continue one. Thanks again for watching