[Music]
the first thing to do in this sketch is
design the overall shape of the head and
the hair I simplify the shapes and keep
the lines very light so I can change
them later if necessary this initial
shape establishes the level of the
exaggeration so I make his face longer
because I know I'll need to accommodate
a large long nose later on then I
establish a center line to the face and
mark the spots where the features will
be now I begin mapping out the shapes of
the features I try to keep the shapes as
simple and geometric as possible the
reason for this is that I'm hoping to
see a likeness emerge from the most
basic abstract shape if the likeness
doesn't work at that stage then I
haven't wasted a lot of time rendering
detailed anatomy I want to draw only the
bare minimum required each stage of the
drawing until I'm confident in my
choices I'm also thinking a lot about
the perspective and making sure the
features sit symmetrically on the face I
rely on my centerline and other
alignment marks to keep the reality of
the face in check and I'm avoiding
shading too much at this stage until the
linear portion is solved at this stage I
start refining the contours of my shape
I feel pretty good about the likeness
and want to begin making the anatomy
feel more natural and less geometric I
also begin to map out the shadow shape
thinking about where the soft and hard
edges will go after I map out the
outlines of the shadows I then fill
those areas with the same average tone
not too dark though there won't be time
to darken the shadows later if I go too
dark too soon I may have to erase areas
in the shadow which is not a good idea
with charcoal it smoothes over the
natural grain of the paper now I begin
to darken the areas that require it and
define the edges even further
and at about the halfway point in the
time it took to draw this and only now
do I even think about realistic
renderings
you always want to hold off on the
rendering phase until the underlying
construction is complete and feels solid
fancy rendering won't save a bad design
so what I'm thinking about now is how to
sculpt the forms and give them greater
reality I'm focusing mostly on the eyes
trying to transform them from simple
outlines to three-dimensional forms I
also try to think of the hair as a
single mass with plane changes rather
than individual strands since this
drawing is about a 40-minute study I
don't get too involved with details just
a suggestion of the hair texture with
some short scratchy strokes now I start
adding values in the areas of lighter
half tones here my pencil strokes are
much lighter and handled more delicately
I'm using the pencil in two basic ways
on its long side so that I can lay in
broad areas of tone but I also use the
tip of the pencil Olaf to draw in thin
strokes that change direction to show
the plane of the face and note this
cross hatching technique can create a
nice contrast from the soft broad
strokes and give your sketch more
personality I do a little bit of finger
smudging too but I don't want to overdo
it and overly soften the tone also in
this page I beep up the drawing by
adding darker accents and do more detail
work on the eyes and nose they were
still looking a little vague
unstructured at this point I'm building
up to my final value it helps to squint
your eyes a lot at the photo reference
to see how the values match up because
when you can't see the details in the
photo you can better see the big picture
and continue to add definition to
smaller and smaller shapes as I go and I
further refine the edges making them
either softer with broad strokes and
finger smudging or with thin dark lines
when I draw in a hard line somewhere
I always shade a dark value right up to
the edge of it so that it doesn't look
like a cartoony outline here I'm using
the kneaded eraser to not only list out
the highlights but also to even out and
simplify the shapes now just a few more
crosshatch strokes to help describe the
planes and give some contrast to the
soft shadings and that's about it if you
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