Reddit reviews Drawing the Human Head

I'd suggest picking up Burne Hogarth's Drawing the Human Head. I think you're seeing faces with too much intellect right now because they still appear flat and 'symbolic.' When you can start to think about the head as a three dimensional form with distinct geometric planes, you'll breathe realism into your work. You can see that her right eyeball looks odd and lopsided, this is because you thought more about the 'idea' of what an eye looks like (the symbol of an eye) as opposed to the 3D visual form of the eye - a sphere inside a hole on the face. If the sphere of the eye is right, the eyelids can be placed appropriately.

Right now her lips are lacking dimensionality, they look like a flat object loosely put in the right area. The issue is that the center of her mouth is not in line with the center of her nose or chin. This is the 3D issue I'm bringing up again.

You know, you actually nailed the forms under the eyebrow on the left eye, it shows very keen observation. The bridge of the nose isn't half bad either, there is a very clear distinction of planes (one is lit up and bright, the other is dark). You made a further success in the nose by accentuating that bright triangle of light under her eye. It's a plane change that's on the same plane as the nose (because it's lit up identically). It tells us that her cheek is facing forward, like a real 3D face would.

Finally, think of the design of your image. The right side of her face is just floating off into blankness and becoming lost. This is unfortunate because the silhouette of her face on that side has much more interesting features than the roundness of the back of her head. Add some dark tones behind the side of her face and accentuate your observation of this contour. Similarly, if that side of her face was dark, you could bring out a strong silhouette by leaving it light behind it. It's just the concept of contrast - light on dark, dark on light. Here's a great explanation on this topic by James Gurney.

Here's a portrait by John Singer Sargent for example. Look at how much contrast (relative darkness compared to lightness) he created on the side of her face. We can see her much better now, she seems to come forward and makes herself known. Look at how we can run our eyes over her face and almost feel the topography, especially on her lips. Always remember that though your media is two dimensional, you are striving to make it appear to have depth and be three dimensional.

Keep practicing! Try to avoid using clear lines on areas like her chin and face, use value (darkness) to bring these areas out instead. Maybe even try looking up some portraits by Leonardo or Velazquez or Rembrandt or Sargent and just straight up copy them. Go to a bookstore and get a book of portraits. Not only is it inspirational, but by copying their work you can learn their techniques.

this is good information on the symbols of drawing a face which is good for a beginner. if you are reading this and feel like you are 'past' the information in this video and you want to draw heads and faces you need two books (well, not need but these are the book i personally swear by).

Drawing the Human Head will give you everything you need to draw the main shape and move it how you will.

The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression will tell you everything you need to put faces on that head.

I can definitely help you with this.


How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination

This is the best book on perspective you can buy. Perspective is the number one thing you need to have a grasp on if you want to draw, especially from imagination. Practice this until it clicks for you.

For setting up scenes I recommend Andrew Loomis books, Creative Illustration in particular. Loomis has several books out and they're all amazing. Many artists have learned to draw from Loomis.

Burne Hogarth is another master of the craft and you can learn a lot about musculature and anatomy from his books. These are generally a step up from Loomis so you could move on to these once you have a solid grasp of the fundamentals to take your work to the next level. Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing the Human Head.

For people and anatomy, Proko (http://www.proko.com/library/) has good free youtube videos. He uses a lot of Loomis and Hogarth methods (which are pretty much the standard) and presents them in a way that is easy to digest. He's constantly updating his channel and adding new videos.

If you can only get a few books, I would get the How to Draw perspective book first, then go through the Proko material, then move onto the Loomis and Hogarth stuff. These learning materials will take you pretty much as far as you want to go.

Also I highly recommend sticking to traditional materials (pencil and paper) while you're learning. Once you have the fundamentals down then you can move on to digital. You're going to make things much easier on yourself if you stick with traditional while you nail these fundamentals down.