Hello, and welcome back to Jenna Gets Creative! Today we're going to test out some of the
tutorials in Ten-Step Drawing: People by Justine Lecouffe and the Walter Foster Creative Team
at Quarto Publishing Group. For those of you who don't know, I do have a second channel
called The Westveil Archives that's all about books and writing, and normally when I've
finished with an advanced reading copy of an upcoming title from NetGalley I'll review
it over there, but since this is an art book, it makes more sense to review it over here.
Unlike a lot of the "how to draw" tutorial books I picked up at a kid or have since found
published online, this book doesn't get half way through the drawing and then say "add
detail." The steps and examples do show quite a bit of intermediate detail development.
That said, step 10 in all of these tutorials is "add colour," and that's a whole other
set of skills that is not being taught in this book. Swatches of colours used or suggested,
often with suggested shading or highlight tones as well, are printed next to the step
10 image on all of the full spread tutorials, but that's all the colouring instruction we
get. I won't fault the book for that, though, as this is a drawing manual, not a colouring
manual. First let's try one of the eye tutorials and
one of the lip tutorials, then we'll dive into one of the early full head portraits.
I do like the variety in shapes that are demonstrated for all the facial features in this book,
and the fact that the descriptive language given with each step avoids the problematic
language we often see when describing non-Caucasian features. I do think that a novice artist
practising with book would get enough variety in shapes here to be able to confidently communicate
a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. At this point, however, I would like to note
that on some of the eye tutorials the lashes are slapped in quite haphazardly, and the
front-view ears look exactly the same in every tutorial, despite being demonstrated in their
own mini tutorials multiple times. Before we get into the full face attempt,
I would like to say thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for approving
me to review this title so quickly. I literally requested and got approved for this title
on Sunday and filmed this demonstration on Monday. I have provided the publisher with
a full review through NetGalley and posted it to the book's Goodreads listing, but I'll
also be publishing a blog post version shortly after this video goes out, and I'll review
it on Amazon after it's published. If you're interested in getting this book, release day
is September 1, 2020 and the Publisher's MSRP for the physical paperback listing is $16.99
USD. I'm not sure if they intend to sell the digital version I'm reviewing from, but I
don't think it would work well in traditional single-page display ereading apps. I'm viewing
a protected PDF file using Adobe Digital Editions so I can view two pages at once as if it were
a physical book laying open on the desk in front of me. All of the tutorials that are
more than just practising a single feature are full two-page spreads, and seeing the
whole tutorial at once is handy. Now that we've sampled an eye and a mouth,
and inadvertently drawn a Cyclops, let's put a full portrait tutorial to the test. I'll
be loosely following along with front view face 2 on pages 18 and 19, though please note
when I show the pages I was looking at when we get to the end that I was only looking
to replicate all the individual style choices made in the tutorial, not produce an exact
copy of the face the tutorial created. I did let the way the facial features evolved dictate
the final shape and placement of the chin and jaw line, and I've stopped at what can
most accurately be compared to step 8, not step 10. What we're missing from the tutorial
by the time I lay the pen down is shading in step 9 and colour in step 10.
One thing I noticed about the way Justine is instructing us to construct faces is that
there's no discussion of the Loomis method type divisions, where the skull is sliced
horizontally into three segments before deciding where to put the facial features. Without
making that consideration, it's easy to do what I ended up doing and have some or all
of the features too high on the skull. I don't think I placed the eyes or nose too high for
the final result, but I had to raise the jaw line to put the chin at a reasonable height
for the lips. In what feels like an odd contrast to that
omission, when this book moves on to full body figures, it does devote several pages
to dividing full body anatomy into eight head-height segments. Novice artists referencing this
guide should remember that while eight head heights is a good rule of thumb for the average
adult anatomy, there's room for plus or minus a head when drawing extremes in typical body
proportions, and characters with some forms of dwarfism are going to be even more than
one head height shorter overall due to restricted limb length. Additionally, keep in mind that
young children have squishier proportions as well, and cartoon styles call for exaggeration.
Traditional chibi proportions are just two or three head heights overall, devoting a
third to half of the overall height to the head itself.
Overall, keeping in mind that this is an introductory set of tutorials for realistic human anatomy
and specifically not a colouring resource or a resource on advanced and cartoon anatomy,
I chose to rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. I'm still confused about dividing the full
body anatomy but not the head, and I can't get over how similar every ear drawn in this
book is. Now let's talk about what I ended up drawing
with the full portrait tutorial. What I came out with is really cute, in my opinion, and
it was done very quickly so it's far from perfect anyway, but I feel the need to roast
myself a bit. Although the eyes are much more level than I normally achieve that effortlessly
in a face drawing, they are absolutely not the same shape. Either the eye on the left
is open a little farther, or the eyelid on the right is droopy. I went with the haphazard
brush bristle lower lashes, too, since I was breezing through this pretty quickly and that's
what the individual eye focus tutorials demonstrated doing. Second, those eyebrows. They're the
same overall shape and position, but I really should have taken a little more time and allowed
myself to rotate the page when filling in the hairs on the left. My right hand doesn't
want to draw smooth curves the right way for that left side arch, so many of the hairs
are drawn top-down instead of bottom-up, which created a more defined edge along the top
rather than the bottom like I wanted. Third, I ended up with a much fuller top lip than
intended for the size of the bottom lip, and the final mouth shape and placement forced
me to modify the jaw line I had already roughed in. With all these changes, I ended up with
a shorter, rounder face than the sample character in the tutorial. While the tutorial's character
looks a bit like YouTuber Rikki Poynter, mine looks like Mila Kunis pretending to be Aria
Stark. That's not a bad thing, and again I wasn't trying hard to replicate the exact
character created for the tutorial, but I started with a skull shape that should have
ended up looking a lot closer. The jaw line was a huge change in that regard.
Again, thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group for the opportunity to review this book.
This was fun, and I rate it 4 out of 5 stars. If you want this, it comes out on September
1st and I will have the ISBN and other info to look for in the description.
Thursday's video is going to be round 2 of my TSS Character Symbol Tournament, so be
sure to come back for that, and don't forget to vote in round 1 if you haven't yet.
If you're looking for more to watch, I've got some suggestions up on the left side of
the screen now, or you can click on my face on the right to check out The Westveil Archives.
I upload art content here twice a week at minimum, every Tuesday and Thursday, and if
you like living life creatively, whatever that means to you, I'd love to have you along
for the ride. Bye guys!