Hey there!
My name is Stan Prokopenko, I'm going to be doing a series of video tutorials on drawing
the head from various angles.
Hopefully there will be some interest and I'll continue making more of these for you
guys!
In this first video I'm going to *attempt* to summarize and simplify Andrew Loomis' approach
to drawing the head.
Here we go..
If we remove the eyes, nose, lips, and ears from the head we are left with 2 simple masses.
The first is a ball for the cranium and the second is a boxy shape for the jaw.
The cranium is spherical, but with the sides flattened.
So, chopping off a slice from both sides gets us a simplified but close representation of
the cranial mass.
When drawing the head, I'll start with the circle for the ball. and after a few failed
attempts...
rip out your hair.
take a deep breath and try again.
But seriously, make sure it looks like a circle and at least the height and width are the
same.
The oval is a bit more tricky.
The height will always be the same, no matter what angle you're drawing the head from.
It's 2/3 the height of the circle.
So I'll usually look at the area From the center of the circle to the top, divide that
area into thirds, and this top third will be where the oval begins.
and the same for the bottom.
The width of the oval depends on the direction the person is looking.
Compare the width of the front plane to the width of the side plane.
The top portion of the oval falls on the corner of the forehead.
This is where the front plane meets the side plane.
This area is usually rounded so it's open to the artist's interpretation.
I've found that it usually lies near the end of the eyebrow.
So as I just showed we indicate the left and right turn of the head by the width of the
oval.
Now we need to find the up and down tilt.
This is indicated by an angle along the side plane.
If the head is tilted up, the angle will point up and if the head is tilted down, the angle
will point down.
The degree of the tilt will determine how steep to make this line.
I like to use the angle from the ear to the brow.
From there, I'll continue that line over to the front plane.
Since this line represents the brow, pay attention to the angle from one brow to the other.
Then, draw a curve parallel to the the first one, this time starting from the bottom of
the oval.
This represents the bottom of the nose.
Drawing the same line again from the top of the oval, would bring you to the hairline.
Since the face can be broken down into nearly perfect thirds, chin, nose, brow, and hair,
we can use the measurements we've already found, to find the length down to the chin.
Observe the general shape of the jaw and draw in the major angles starting from the brow
coming down to the chin, and going around to the side plane of the head.
It's usually about halfway into the oval, or a little bit further back.
We've already found the side plane of the cranium.
Now we need to do the same thing with the cheek and jaw area.
There's a rhythm that starts at the top of the ear and curves down to the outside of
the chin.
Then find the centerline of the face.
Remember, this is the center of the front plane, not the center of the whole head width.
and finish with the neck.
Now that we have the foundation of the head established we can finish it by putting in
all the features!
eyes, nose, lips, ear, hair, jaw, cheeks, chin.
Don't worry, I'll explain this step in more detail in another video.
Each feature deserves it's own tutorial.
This approach is really good to establish the perspective of the head.
A good exercise is to try to think about the head as a simple elongated box.
The angles in the front plane of the face such as hair line, brow line, nostrils, lips,
and chin will be the same as the angles on the front plane of the box.
The angle on the brow line to ear is the same as the angle on the side plane of the box.
These angles are really important because they establish the head as a three dimensional
form in space.
Let's go through that one more time.
Start with a circle for the cranium.
Oval for the side plane of the head
Angle to show the person looking up or down.
Draw an identical curve to find the nose
And double that distance to find the chin
Attach the jaw and you have a 3 dimensional representation of the head ready for the features.
At first this approach might seem a bit technical with a lot of important details to remember
but once you get the hang of it, it actually becomes really easy.
So get that sketchbook out and practice this a hundred times, with various angles.
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