Please give us your impressions.

This is my first time posting.

Please give us your impressions.

Ahhhm... impressions about what? I see two buttons (?) indicating images in your post, but there is nowhere to look at them or open them. A lot of people use imgur and link to that, if they want to show something in forum. It is really quick to set up.

Sorry. I didn't know how to do it. Please check this image.https://imgur.com/Bv3vHzz

OK, that's a Loomis head, well done. I like how you designed the features of the face. Clean forms, clean lines. From the big eyes and triangular chin I sense a bit of manga/anime influence, am I right?

I find Loomis great for working from imagination, but applying him to draw from a model (let's not kid ourselves, from a photo) is tough. If you draw the face lines free hand, and then fill in the face, it works swimmigly, but if you stare at a photo, and try to decide where those damn circles have to go, to fit to THAT specific face, it suddenly turns into a puzzle box. I switched to Reily Abstraction of the head, which is kind of the same deal as Loomis but with even more additional lines, which makes my problem even worse. But it is always a fun visual puzzle.

If you want to stick with drawing from imagination, you could try to develop a few distinct characters, and then try to stick with always the same face, but from different angles and or with different expressions, so you could use them in a graphic novel or such.

Your foundational work so far looks solid enough to drop a thought about how far you want to go with rendering. If you just keep the head construction as is, but repeat the outlines and the features with a dark marker, that would absolutely work for telling stories.

The more you want to go into depths, shadows and texture, the more extra work you need to define the exact topographie of all the features of the face. There is a whole series of head constructions from different authors beyond Loomis, I know so far about Reily, Steve Huston, Michael Hampton and Brigman....

Oh, if you want to train portrays from a model, don't use the class feature, chose long repeat times (3600 sec is max, that's an hour), take your time, and switch the fotos from hand, when you are done. Portrays work a bit different from poses in that regards, don't let you get confused by the site features, they are more geared towards poses. which are easier to start from first simple forms. If you try Loomis heads in 30 sec mode, you won't get far beyond skull circle, browline, center line and maybe starting to think about where to place the side cutouts, before the photo switches

Thanks for the feedback.
It was the first time for me to show my painting to others and I was very nervous.
I will take your advice into consideration and continue to draw pictures.

Hello Idell, and welcome to Line of Action, I'm Polyvios, and how are you?

You know, you're still doing the finest job on your understanding or control of gestures, biggest shapes, but with solidest forms with the Loomis method of head structures. Greatest going, but the lines and gestures could use the most pushing work. Why don't you please loosen up your dominant hand and shoulder with 3 minutes of 1 minute face poses? (3 sketches, using the underhand position)

The reason why is because, if you want your first-ever goal to be making most flowing over stiffest drawings, then you're hereby validated to do so.✍️✍️✍️✍️

Before we close, here is some mighty useful tidbits of inspiration to help you out on your very first goal, I'd recommend the 2 PDFs of the Drawn to Life Series By Walt Stanchfield right here.

Thanks.

I took the time to draw a face.

I drew a face in 3 minutes.
It is difficult to draw even hair.
I tried to draw the eyes and nose with care.
If you have time, please give me your impression.
Note, the contributor is not good at English. It is possible that I may have understood your text by mistake.

https://imgur.com/UNpWo0C

https://imgur.com/wgZRjNC

• Idell edited this post on December 18, 2023 2:47pm.
• Idell edited this post on December 18, 2023 2:49pm.

Hello again, Idell, welcome back. Say, you've done a greater job on your solider structuring of your heads, faces, and of course, expressions. I completely think that your head structures are getting a step in the right direction, but I feel that the lines and shapes could totally still need more boldness and confidence. Would you please try out 6 more minutes of 2 minute faces and expressions, without merely tracing the Loomis template? (3 face sketches)

The reason why you could exercise your hands in drawing is because it could and should allow you to completely and totally loosen and warm yourself up, in order to have a more punchier quality to your faces, like a cartoon face design.

For further inspiration, look at this new video down below:

?si=wR-QRwt2WMM9zTp9

It's about artist, Eliza Ivanova, and she learned how to draw straight ahead from drawn animators.

Thank you for your valuable time and cooperation.

Hello, I am idell.
I also drew a face of a human being.
This time I took more time to draw the face than before.
https://imgur.com/pErddK7
https://imgur.com/xsatSYT
https://imgur.com/QWIQrrD
https://imgur.com/pfgsqJM

I spent about 15-20 minutes for each face.
If you have time, please give me your impression.

I also studied Rilley's method a little. I found it very difficult.
Especially the shape around the mouth, muzzle and forehead.

Note, the contributor is not good at English. I may understand your text incorrectly.

OK, I see good and clean applications of the Loomis abstraction of the head.

Too be honest, I am at a bit of a loss about the logical path to progress from there. I am myself more experimenting around, then knowing what to do.

Concepts, ideas, I picked up so far: If we want to progress to a stage, where we can apply a lot of intense shadow, we need some solid construction to clearly identify the planes of the face, so we can always identify properly at what angle they are to the lightsource. (Or lightsources, if there are multiple)

Loomis clearly does not provide that. He gives a decent orientation where some prominent features like the eye sockets, mouth, nose, chin and ears generally should be in relation to each other, but not much else.

Reilly, as you said, adds a few more details mostly about the area around the mouth and the cheeks, which makes it a bit more difficult. And I am not sure, how much he ultimately gives in return. Maybe I will know more about that in a few weeks.

Loomis, Reilly, and other head constructions also have the principal problem of working from idealized heads. Which is somewhat at odds with achieving likeness to a specific reference.

To your drawings and your own plans of going forward, I would say, you achieved a level of skill, that makes your result look confident and comfortable with what you try to do. If you want to progress, you should probably try to leave your comfort zone, and define new goals to work towards.

Getting a more solid foundation for shading is only one possible goal, which came to my mind first, at it is the thing, that I personally would like to progress in, but there are other possible goals as well:

-your line quality is suitable, but not exceptional. you could try to push yourself towards fewer, but longer and better designed lines, for a more elegantly looking end result.

-I don't have the reference you worked from, so I can't judge how convincing the likeness of your drawings is. I think I remember some of the models on the images, and it feels like you are more working on drawing some human face with a few of the features of the reference, then on THAT specific human face. To improve the likeness, you need to become very good at measuring, and willing to deviate from the standardized features that working from idealized templates like Loomis or Reilly try to push you.

-so far, you are (like me frankly) mostly copying the reference. there is the possibility to go beyond that, and find ways to stylize your drawings.

-you could also experiment with how a different medium than always graphite pencil would influence your art.