Posts published in “Sketchworks”

As it says on the tin: my wife and I went for a long walk, which we normally do at the very end of the day just before I hit the hay - and then I realized I hadn't done my drawing. So you get a quick sketch.

Drawing every day continues, hopefully with more rendering, tomorrow.

-the Centaur

Quick sketch of a model from a sale on the Dell website (which I can no longer find). Roughs in pencil, sketched with a Pilot V5, no rendering to speak of. Let's see how I did:

Not entirely terrible, and I'm getting better at overall proportions in the face, but I am consistently tilting faces - this time roughly 3-4 degrees - and the further I get from the face the worse the proportions are. There's no way to line up the hat and the face simultaneously due to the tilt, and I completely lost the script on the arm angles, though the outlines of the arms aren't entirely terrible.

Reflecting on the past, seems like the angle of the page is less important for the squashing phenomenon than just paying attention to distances, as this was a sketchbook-in-the-lap drawing, and by consciously looking at the sizes of things (and using construction lines) I kept it together.

Welp, more work to do on the broader landscape - and that dang tilt.

And with this, my posts have caught up with my drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Yesterday's sketch (pencil roughs and rendering and all) of Brad Pitt from Moneyball. I dunno, to me this looks more like some other actor auditioning for the Joker. "Do you want to know how I got these scars?" Let's see how I did (this isn't the precise shot I drew this from - I was flying, and sketching off a frozen screenshot of Moneyball - but it is close) compared to the original Billy Beane: I still don't like the drawing, but the proportions aren't too bad. I was about 7 degrees off on the tilt of the head, but the relative positions of the features and hair and even shoulders - everything except the shirt collar - more or less line up with the face. The real problem is I crushed his right cheek (the left side of the picture) which apparently destroys the "bradness" of his face. Also, the eyes are bit off - he was very squinty in the screen still I used, hard for me to render in the near-dark of the plane. Well, getting caught up. One more drawing to upload after this. Drawing every day. -the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch of another scene from Shadow in the Cloud. I have to turn in early, so this was quick as can be, but I put special focus on trying to get the proportions right and paying attention, if not to the angle of the sketchpad per se, the distances between pieces. Let's see how I did:

As usual, I missed a couple of degrees of tilt, but I really only had to scale this, not squash it. The mouth was too narrow, the nose too low, and the hair too narrow, but otherwise, not too off the mark. I tried squashing it to make sure, but no, this is about as good as it gets. Construction lines I think would really help with the nose and mouth, as it's hard to get the proportions right on the first try; the width of the hair and the scarf would have been salvageable if I'd kept up the feature size comparison I'd done on the cheek (roughly, her head height is about five foreheads, and facial features are three forehead heights wide; but the hair extends far more than I measured, as does the scarf).

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Welp, another failure - and I did this quick Sharpie sketch twice, with the sketchpad held on my knee supported by a bag to try to get that 90 degree angle. But even the second try failed to match the face well (admittedly, Chloë Grace Moretz is screaming her head off here, because a gremlin is trying to take her head off here, all while Japanese planes are shooting at her and her fellow airmen are hitting on her like, all at the same time and stuff, no pressure or nothing):

Looking at this, if you squeeze it say 5% vertically, some features line up better, but the hairline and jawline are actually worse, so I'm showing below one that is not scaled. I think the real problem is that I simply am not accurately seeing what is there, and need to pay closer attention to angles and lines (or at least, the way I recreate distances as I draw the lines I think that I have seen):

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Well, this was a fail. Quick Sharpie sketch of Chloë Grace Moretz from Shadow in the Cloud. Again, the sketchpad on the knee, again the protractor - but I skipped the extra bag, as I'd raised the pad to the right angle by sitting differently. Well, either I settled shortly thereafter, or I'm doing something else wrong, because I stretched her head compared to the original:

As usual, there's a 2-3 degree tilt I'm missing, but more importantly, the head I drew had to be shrunk vertically by about 15% in order to make it line up (and even then, there are other problems). I think construction lines will help, which I will return to in a few days if I cannot correct this stretching problem through the tilt of the canvas.

Welp, back to the drawing board.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch of Elizabeth Debicki as Kat from Tenet. Yes, rendering with a Sharpie is kinda crummy, but for this exercise I was specifically focusing on page angle (using a protractor and a small folded bag to raise the sketchpad to 90 degrees to my eye while sitting on my knee), head tilt, eye tilt, overall landscape proportions, and making sure the eye closest to the edge of the face was close to the edge of the face. Let's see how I did:

Wow, I forgot how beaten down Kat looked in this scene. :-( Overall, I don't think the sketch came out too bad. I missed a roughly two degree tilt to the scene, and the eyes are still not perfect (more clear if you match the cheek rather than matching eye-nose-mouth) but the hypothesis that the root cause of my stretched / squashed heads was drawing on a poorly angled page seems preliminarily confirmed:

Perhaps I'll try a few more of these, focusing on the angle of the page, and if I can keep getting the proportions right, maybe we can go back to trying to do actual renders.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch of Robert Pattinson in one of his pre-James Bond film roles, playing the mysterious benefactor Bruce Wayne who assists the Protagonist of Christopher Nolan's Tenet. While I got the head tilt and eye line all right this time, overall I'd rate this sketch as a firm "meh" compared to the original:

Doing a comparison just based on scaling, the eyes, mouth and cheek look OK, though the nose line is way off and the head is too narrow. That's a clue, so let's try this with a relative squeeze of about 15%:

While the nose line is still off, the whole thing lines up much better. This is really starting to make me suspect that I'm not tilting the page right when I draw with the sketchbook in my lap. To test that theory, I calculated ~15% corresponds to an angle of roughly ~30 degrees (at least, according to the arccos function) and measured the angle to the page with a protractor held right angles to the page and a ruler lined up between it and my eye. This measured out roughly ~20 degrees, which is close enough that it makes me think the page tilt from drawing in my lap is a serious suspect for the culprit.

Next, fixing that. Somehow.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Clémence Poésy's character from Tenet. Wow, even though I tried real hard and used construction lines, it came out just terrible compared to the original:

My first thought was that I was making the jaw too long, and maybe I am, but overlaying the drawing with the construction lines made more visible, the real problem is that I got the line of the nose right, but completely gaffed the angle of the eyes (and a bit of their proportions too). There's no amount of rendering which will fix messing up the proportions this badly.

Well, more practice then. Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Quick sketch of Nemesis from the cover of Wildstorm: Revelations, which is sitting around in my "inspirational pictures for Porsche the Centaur's space armor" file. No roughs, but I did discard a few failed Sharpie drawings. For comparison:

Overall, I seem to have pushed the face in a bit - both the hair outer line and the hair framing her face - and missed several degrees of tilt. But the features aren't too terrible:

Roughs definitely would have helped - if you look closely, the head's not just badly tilted, but badly tilted in relation to the shoulders, and the hair is really missing a lot of body - but I have contractors coming tomorrow, so this is all we get for today's Drawing Every Day.

-the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch of H. P. Lovecraft, deliberately trying to focus on the shape and proportions of the head, with the sketchpad held up at a good angle on my knee. Since there are few good pictures of Lovecraft, I took this still from a Rick Roll of Lovecraft generated by deep learning:

Comparing the proportions by matching the eyes, noes and mouth, it doesn't seem too terrible, though I have trouble really believing the size of people's ears and misjudge the chin. But the hair is off, so once again, this means I've put the facial features slightly in the wrong place:

Trying to match the hair, chin, and width of face, it appears that I'm less than a percent off in my overall head proportions, which is great; but that does confirm I am still putting facial features in the wrong place in the face, and that's a trickier problem to resolve without doing it lots and lots of times to get it right.

So, practice, practice, practice: by drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch (with blue pencil roughs) of Ringo Starr. Since I was stretching faces earlier, and had hypothesized that my quick sketching habit of having the pad in the lap was a bad angle, I tried to compensate by folding a tote bag to put on my knee to lift the page, trying to approximate a 90 degree angle. Let's see how I did:

According to Photoshop, I missed a ~2 degree tilt to the head (or the head I drew was tilted, same difference) and the overall head was about 10% too wide - if you measure by trying to match the eyes-nose-mouth features in the drawing:

But there the head top and shirt collar are off. Trying to match those up doesn't work very well, but matching the top of the head and the beard, we get something more like this, where the glasses and the top of the head line up, and, sort of, the beard, but the nose and mouth are pushed downward:

Still got work to do to get the proportions right. Sigh.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Michael Douglas as Hank Pym from the MCU - quick Sharpie sketch after non-repro blue roughs. Man, I gotta start doing these drawings earlier in the day. Again, I stretched his head - I think because the sketchpad was in my lap and was not right-angled to my view. At least, that's what I'm guessing is going on, as I've done it on a few other drawings, but it isn't consistent, as I squashed Daniel Craig.

The content of the sketch isn't terrible, but it did require (a) tilt and (b) widening in order to make it even roughly line up with Mr. Douglas's face. I think I need to be more careful about making sure the page is lined up properly - not sure that's the problem, but I'll give it a try. And look for the tilt, man!

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Super quick Sharpie sketch (yes, I got a new shipment of Sharpies) of Sarah Connor from Terminator: Dark Fate. What happened to her jaw, man? Wow.

No easy way to make this one line up, even with distortion to try to make the proportions better. I can chalk part of that up to quick sketching with no roughs - once that Sharpie line is down, it's down - but there's also missing that tilt to the head, and squnching the features of the face.

But it's late and I'm tired.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

I would call this a quick sketch of Scarlett Johansson from Lucy, but I am so tired I actually started fading as I was doing my quick sketch, so I quit that and did an even quicker scribble. Real drawing tomorrow.

Drawing, even if just a scribble, every day.

-the Centaur

Quick Sharpie sketch of the cover of the Alien: Isolation game, run through Photoshop to create the lens flare - and, secondarily, the background greys needed to make the lens flare pop, and the green photo filter to recreate the overall look. I made the mistake of rotating the head and helmet as I drew it, but, hey, that was easily fixed in Photoshop too. Overall, it's rough and sloppy, but not too bad, though the original face shows a lot more fear, especially in the eyes and a little bit in the shape of the mouth:

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur

Clasped hands from the title page of Drawing the Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis. While this was from a full drawing after pencil roughs, I did simplify the rendering to use just five primary levels of value (white, black, two levels of crosshatching, plus the ink outlines of course) to make it easier on me.

The outcome: not ... terrible, but not great. I'm not going to include a scan of the original as it is inside the book, but for comparison, here's my attempt at this drawing from two and a quarter years ago:

Admittedly, this drawing was much smaller than the new one, but the old one is still pretty sloppy. It does have a nice energy to it, and the dark outlines I use as a crutch make the old drawing pop.

Still, both of these fail to catch something about the barely visible palm of the left hand (in this picture, the left hand is on the right side of the drawing, and the palm is just barely visible at the edge of the index finger) which shows up perfectly fine in Loomis's drawing with just a few lines. This is definitely one of those times where flipping the drawing 180 makes it easier to see the true shape.

Maybe that's a sign of a really good drawing: it can look better when rotated or mirror reflected than the original. I sure have a long way to get there.

Drawing every day.

-the Centaur.