Preserved Topic: working on self portrait

took a long break from photoshop (and sadly the asylum) to get my grades up in school. Came back and PS had become kinda intimidating to me. But much like a bike I'm starting to get the feel for it again and finally using my small wacom to create.

I checked out Weadah's painting tut found here and it inspired me to do a self portrait. I apologize cause I did not do the tutorial justice. I'm still not sure of what brush styles to use and how to use them. I'm expecting all my shades to show up by how hard i press down on my tablet.

I'm no artist and I can take harsh critiques so let me have it. I want to make myself better. Techniques would be greatly appreciated, in as much detail as possible.


a pic of me to compare



A wise man once said;
"I don't know!?!?"

http://www.portrait-artist.org/ is a great site to use when your doing portriats. You may want to browse the site and read over the tutorials. Figure drawing can be really difficult to start out but there are certian guidelines you can use for proportion and shading to make it easier, you can find that stuff there.

Right now your drawing lacks depth, darkening your shadows (like under your nose, between your lips/upper, eye sockets, and under your chin).

One thing that helped me was to feel (I know it might sound silly) my face and other peoples too ( if you know people who'll let you ).

Thanks that is a great site. Still not sure of which brushes I should be using but excellent technique that I should be applying.
I worked on it a bit more. here's what i got.

I still look like a rat but I guess that's just how i look
And touching other people's faces gives me something tonight to do during New Years
Have a Safe and Happy evening everyone. Don't forget to take your pills.

A wise man once said;
"I don't know!?!?"

Heheh, that`s ok, if you really look like a rat.

It`s amazing how little you have to move a line to make a BIG difference. Look at hoe the different parts of your head/face relate to each other. How does your ear relate to your eyes ? The space between your nose and lips ? The distance (front ot back) between your lips and cheeks.

It`s all in the details. In general, only a few millimeters separate the difference between individual faces.

Okay, I can see the nose and lips difference and that will be changed soon....Thank you for pointing it out it's pretty obvious.
A little more with what deals with front to back (lips to cheek) would be nice. I think it's fine but hook a brother up. More or Less. Let me know?
PS did I mention I'm ugly LOL
Happy New Year

A wise man once said;
"I don't know!?!?"

MalFunkShun: Good start

You might want to have a look at Grays Anatomy to get the underlying facial structure right - my main concern is your cheek area. Particularily in the second version it looks a little odd. The zygomatic bone runs across the face under the eye socket and the main cheek area is below that. In yours the bone seems to be running in the opposite direction

Any Grays Anatomy:
http://development.gurusnetwork.com/link/62/

specifically:
http://www.bartleby.com/107/40.html

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Well, without knowing what you really look like it`s hard to get too specific, but I meant ...ummm how to describe it...imagine a vertical centerline through the middle of your head, from the throat out the top. Now , check the distance from there to your cheeks and chin. Does that make sense ? That`s a sort of odd way to look at it , but I couldn`t think of any other way to describe what I meant.

Also, work on blending the light to dark. The change seems abrupt in the cheek and upper lip areas, and as Emps said the cheekbone seems misaligned.

There's been some good advice doled out in here.
Some of it is rather vague... but a lot can be taken from it.

as an early side note: The photo doesn't do us much good, as it's not really a good angle or size for us to get an idea of what you really look like.

You said you checked out Wead's tutorial... which, right off the bat, is a great place to start.
However, in comparing the early stages of his "tutorial", it would seem that you have deviated from the suggested methods.
Notice how Wead starts by discussing:

quote:

---

"scribbling in the outer edges, defining lines and shapes. this is pretty much note taking, nothing is set in stone, just sort out your values and basic form."

---

Although Weadah's wording isn't exactly what I might use.............. What he's saying here is pretty much the basic step in painting, that almost anyone will tell you...
"block" things in first.
Look at his first posting in the tutorial....
rough shapes that give the overall impression of where things are. As he said... "note taking". You're making physical marks and blobs of higher and lower value areas that you will later bring definition to, and out of.

All that aside... each one of us eventually will get used to starting things off in a manner that's most comfortable to us.
Sometimes I'm really loosed with my beginning strokes and blobs... other times, I'm tedious and nit pick too much as I go.
From my perspective, and for my works, both methods have their advantages and disadvantages.
When I'm loose... i find myself creating things that would be categorized as "my style"... I work things over .... and over... and over again.
The advantage to this method is that I'm consistantly a little more pleased with the results. Things get brought out of the picture gradually, and generally speaking, I think the final product is more impressive.
The downside to this however, is that it's exremely time consuming. I paint rediculously slow. Even when I'm loose, and block things in, I go over the same area a dozen or so times. This almost makes it difficult to keep focus to work on the image, as it seems to take an eternity to finish.
It'll take me a long time to bring values up to the surface, and often times, I end up seeing that I'm using washed out colours as a result of my low opacity brush fetish.
On the other hand, we have the method of being rather meticulous as you go.
The advantage to it...... when an idea pops into your head for that little section.... you can just start incorperating it at that very moment, rather than holding off and going back later, as the other method would suggest.
You can really sit there and work things over to your liking... and in a lot of cases, this method is more satisfying as you paint, because you're "completing" sections at a time. Little victories along the way. It's almost a means of inspiring yourself as you go.
The problem is..... that if I'm using this method, and I set the painting down for a day or two, and come back to it, I have trouble making the overall image feel "cohesive". Some days my brush strokes are shorter than others.... some days I lose myself in using darker colours or a certain technique... etc.

Deciding how you want to tackle things will take a bit of time, that's just an insight as to my thoughts and experiences on it.

Here, I thumped over your current state in about 5 or 10 minutes.
I sort of used your version as my "blocked in" version... and brushed it over to something that I'd feel more comfortable working from.



Some things to note from this...
You're using a white background... which most people will agree, is not the best choice to go with. Something in a mid-range helps you better develop the shadows and highlights, as the background won't be at an extreme. The white that surrounds the entire subject will trick your eyes.
While using this white background, it would seem that you are painting around the areas of the cheek... and only trying to create depth, while leaving areas unscathed, that you will eventually deem as your highlights. I don't particularly agree with this method of going about things.
I think you're making it much harder on yourself by doing that.
In my example... everything has got some painting on it. I've got a solid model to work with.. and I can go through and drop in some depths or bring out some highlights wherever I need 'em.
Although I didn't spend much time on it... I'm seeming to think that your head has a little bit more to it, on the back side. Not a whole lot..... but perhaps you should add a little bit more it... about mid-way up. Remember... this portrait has hair.... hair has some bulk. Imagine where the line of the back of the head would be if you had no hair, and you'll understand what I mean.
While your nose may be pointy or large... I trimmed it down some... I think you unintentionally exaggerated it. Furthermore, the odd overall look of your face was largely due to that one nostril.
The nostril (which is in a largely "flared" positions in your painting), coupled with the incorrect cheek bone was throwing things off.
In my little paint over, the nostril has been put to a much "lower" state and I think it emphasizes the difference.
The cheek bone that I roughly tossed in there is at a rather steep angle... but it's just loose right now, and gives the feel of where the bone and highlight will actually be brought out from.

Other than those things.... just blocked things in a little more from where you had them.
I cross hatch a lot... so that's sort of my method to blocking things in.
And this will still lack depth, as it's in the early stages... but you've got some concrete areas to work off of.
And the paintings of transitions are made by using low opacity brushes.. and pulling tones from the image itelf... rather than going back to the pallete.

I think it's a great start.
Stick to that tutorial, as far as "the idea" goes.
Post your changes...... you've got our attention..
and there's plenty of us that would like to see updates.

Cheers.


FAQs n' Bits: Michael

Well said , Michael.

~golf clap~

Looking forward to those updates, Malfunkshun.

I think you've got a good start with the face, but the shading should be more structured, I think. The features are aligned pretty well, but the eye on the left (our left) is a little?off. It's tough, doing eyes at a 3/4 angle.

I've done a few quick, sloppy paint-overs, to (hopefully) give you an idea of what might help. I also changed the angle of the jaw, since it wasn't quite right. Also added some structure to the neck. On the second picture I overlayed some sketchy red lines over the face, to give a general idea of the alignment of the features, and basic structure. I dunno, I am not in a rambling mood tonight, so I'll leave it at that for now. Overall, you've got a good start!





[This message has been edited by bearsclover (edited 01-05-2003).]

Haven't done anything at all the past week. Still recovering from new years eve.

Michael - Thanks for clearing up some of Wead's tutorial. Like you said that style is very time consuming and this project is more to get me back familiar with PS and my tablet.

bearsclover - That is more of the info I needed to advance with what I got. The shadows just weren't right now I can see where to place them and how to line things up a bit better.

As for a better picture of me to compare
This is the best I can do...

Honestly what I did came from the top of my head (LOL now that i think about that comment it's pretty funny)
I just drew what I had always pictured myself to look like and I used the same angle as Wead because I had a better mental reference form his pic.

I will be posting an update here sometime this week. Possibly later tonight. Thanks again everyone.

A wise man once said;
"I don't know!?!?"

Well I did a little bit today, but damn did that little bit sure help. Thanks again to everyone that took the time to give me thier advice. It has really paid off. I really need to stick with practicing cause if i can remember all that i have learned from this recent modifying that I had done then I'm well on my way. After looking at what I did originally and what it is becoming I'm kinda embarrassed at posting the first two. Sad thing is I actually thought they were kinda good. Man am I a dumb ass.

Here's the new one just to keep you guys updated. I'm gunna ask for very little comments on this one cause I feel that I'm just doing what is obvious to you guys and doing that.

Give me a week and I'll do some research. See what I can pull out of my face or reshape. I'll post a new one and then you guys can go to town once again.



A wise man once said;
"I don't know!?!?"

[This message has been edited by MalFunkShun (edited 01-06-2003).]

oustanding update.
looking much, much better.

2 quick things...
- be weary of using your highest and lowest values too early in a painting. (refer to wead's tutorial... i'm sure he discussed it)
- start using slightly harder brushes as you continue to work on this... and you can start to bring out the details.



FAQs n' Bits: Michael

well I'm officially ugly....kinda. Not as bad as my original sketch but still ugly. My girlfriend and a few other friends of mine said my picture was looking good, just as you guys said, the only problem was that it wasn't me. Our own mental images of ourselves seem to perfect what already exsist. Seems that I thought I was Barbies boyfriend Ken. But I'm not and it's just me, so I did what someone recommended and grabbed a mirror. Time to make the real picture. Still detailing the face didn't get to hair or ears yet. I wish I had a shaved head things would be alot simpler. Anyway here's what I really look like...Don't laugh... Ok laugh but not too loud.



Note: That's me on the RIGHT... EVIL BETTER LOOKING TWIN on the LEFT!!

A wise man once said;
"I don't know!?!?"