To see what was wrong with the previous day's drawing, I traced - literally traced - the outlines of the image and then rendered it as before. To facilitate this process, I spent a good part of the day yelling at my drawing table, Photoshop, and Google Chrome. Oh wait, that came before and after what I did to facilitate the process - I took the Matt Smith image and Photoshop filtered it to bring up the outlines:
This process of mine, which you've probably seen on other art such as the current banner to the Library, involves duplicating the background layer, smart blurring it to create a softer look (and to make the outlining features work better), then duplicating it 3 more times and applying the following filters:
- Top layer, set to Darken, Opacity ~75%: Filter Gallery > Stylize > Glowing Edges, then Inverse
This creates a heightened set of outlines.
- Middle layer, set to Darken, Opacity ~50%: Filter Gallery > Graphic Pen, often Inverted
This creates a shading layer. You may need to play with levels, contrast, or lightness, possibly with other filters, to create the necessary dark and light areas for this filter to give good results.
- Back layer, set to Normal, Opacity ~90%: Filter Gallery > Poster Edges
This creates a cartoony layer; a 75% to 90% opacity lets part of the original image through to fill in tiny details to create a slightly more realistic look.
This combination creates the impression of a colored drawing. I like how it turns out, though your mileage may vary. Regardless, in this case, it punched up much of the outlines and dark/light areas of the drawing, which facilitated doing the tracing layer.
The screaming and yelling came in when I tried to compare today's work to yesterday's. Well, actually, it started when I tried to make a minor upgrade to my drawing setup above, a lip to prevent things from falling off; this was a pain in the ass because my nice but cheap drawing "table" had a lip so short that not only would notebooks and such fall off it, it was hard even to attach something to extend it. Yelling ensued. But eventually I did extend it, using a thin lip of oak held on by carefully angled screws:
It's a little too deep now, but that can be compensated for with a mat, whereas not having a decent lip can't really be compensated for at all. Regardless, I drew on that tonight, and when I was done, I scanned the image and compared it.
Or tried to, as I hit a wall in my Photoshop knowledge, right when my disk filled up so I could neither undo changes, nor save files, nor really look anything up online. More screaming ensued, followed by an exhaustive closing of apps and Chrome windows. (Note to self: clean off the hard drive of your main computer, there must be some free space somewheres).
I hit the place I call "stuck in molasses" where every attempt to fix a problem creates a new obstacle (down to Chrome not even wanting to close web pages when I'm trying to free space, or web pages popping up "Would you like to sign up for my newsletter" right over the instructions as I'm reading them). This is often related to "the novice penalty" where you have all the general knowledge needed to tackle a problem but none of the specifics, so nothing you try getting started works; it can also happen to experts working in an area where they've grown rusty or the equipment, real or virtual, has bitrotted through disuse. The solution, I've found, is staying with it, focusing on an area of work, constantly seeking ways to either improve your skills, streamline your process, or eliminate blockers. As you build up this library of solutions, you reach a point where making progress is quick and easy, despite blockers.
In the end, ears ringing from yelling, I did manage to find the solution I wanted - to lighten "black" ink layers to a midscale grey prior to trying to colorize them - and that enabled me to produce this:
Red is yesterday's drawing; blue is today's rendered trace. Trying to line this up by matching nose to chin, I discovered various things:
- I got the top of the head pretty OK: Matt's hair is roughly in the right place. That doesn't surprise me: I like drawing hair, as all my favorite character creations are well-coiffed.
- I was correct in thinking I'd gotten the eyes too wide.
- I tend to exaggerate chin shapes, or at least I did here (and even in the trace before I caught it), leading to the too-wide original face. Human heads are narrower than I tend to draw them.
- I underestimate shoulder shapes, or at least I did here, or, more accurately, only Matt Smith could make someone as totally ripped as he is look like a goobery old professor.
Well, now I have some more things to work on. Onward!
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
P.S. You may be wondering, "Yelling until your ears are ringing ... are you OK?" No, no I'm not. Welcome to the pandemic, which is actually the least of my problems. Thanks for asking!
Einstein on Strathmore 9x12. First roughed with a #2 pencil, again using the trick of rotating it 180 so that I could force myself to see and draw what was there, not a caricature of a face. This came out good enough that I half-erased it, finessed the lines, and half-erased again, tightening up, before inking with Sakura Pigma and Micron pens. As for whether the face looks like a face ...
... I do see things to fix, but I am not so unhappy with this one. I put special focus on the relative position, shape, and direction of the eyes, and cross-correlated with the mustache, hair and ears; a few more tweaks to the eyes, eyebrows and lip direction, plus the eye direction, really brought out the smile.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
As it says on the tin: trying to get to bed earlier and did a quick sketch. From the cover of a random comic "Gearhearts" in my inspiration pile. The sketch didn't turn out ... terrible ... in fact, the arms almost came out right, and it sort of looks like the cover. But as usual, doing one or two iterations of roughs would have helped the layout of the head and face. My eyes just seem to move around, man.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Full drawing of 
Rather than starting over on Strathmore, I switched to tracing paper and tried the following. In some ways I like this drawing more than some of the later sketches - it captures a bit of Gödel's distinctive face - but I rapidly realized I'd again got the macro-architecture of the sketch wrong, shoulders ending up in the wrong place and such. Also, though you can't tell from this crop, it was too small on the page.
So I started over, producing the following sketch. The face is a bit off here, too wide, looking something like a cross between Mr. Magoo and Joe Biden (if either wore glasses). But I could tell the overall layout was good this time - things were roughly in the right place, and could be corrected with some effort.
I traced the following directly over the previous sketch, correcting for the shape of the nose and face, but keeping the parts that seemed like they were a good fit. This sketch wasn't perfect either, but it was close enough for me to get started - I had blogposts to write! - and led to the drawing at the top of the page, which I traced over the below drawing, making a few more corrections and allowances for rendering.
The original? Below, from a 
My drawing ... sorta looks like the guy? I still think I can do better, particularly in making faces longer and narrower (a problem I had with the Eleventh Doctor as well). But still ...
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Quick sketch of 
Not ... terrible, but the proportions are still off, and my sketch gave him way too big a schnoz. Jason Momoa is a good looking guy, and unfortunately my sketch makes him look more like a rejected villain from the Princess Bride. Ah well. Perhaps I'll eventually be able to sketch good looking superheroes ...
... if I keep drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
So, today's exercise was something very difficult for me: abandoning a failed rough and starting over.
You see, many artists that I know will get sucked into perfecting a drawing that has some core flaw in its bones - this is something I ran into with my Batman cover page. I know one artist who has worked over a handful of difficult paintings for literally 2-3 years ... but who can produce dozens of new paintings for a show on the drop of a hat. But it's hard emotionally to let go the investment in a partially finished piece.
This is tied up with the 
I started what I intended to be a quick sketch, and got partway into the roughs ...
... when I decided that the shape of the face was off - and the proportions of the arm were even further off. I started to fix it - you can see a few doubled features like eyes and lips in there - but I decided - ha, decided - no, stop, STOP Anthony, this rough is too far gone.
Start over, and look more closely at what you see this time.
That led to the drawing at the top of the entry. There were still problems with the finished piece - I am continuing to have trouble with tilting heads the wrong way, and something went wrong with the shape of the arm, leading to a too-narrow, too-long wrist - but the bones of the sketch were so much better than the first attempt that it was easy to finish the drawing.
And thus, keep up drawing every day.
-the Centaur
(1) I'm not bitter. 
Sketched faces from tonight's 
The ultimate goal of these drawings is to rekindle my love of my art and to sharpen my abilities to the point where I can once again resume 
As Spock says: it's 2am, but if it was an hour earlier I'd have done another whole sketch before rendering. The side to side tilt is right, but I've leaned his head way down from what it is, making his face look bashed in. This is sort of the opposite problem from what I was having earlier, so ... yay?
One of the things about learning is that regular, immediate feedback is important for progress. That's why, when I have reference material for what I'm drawing, that I post both of those here so I can compare and judge what I've done, looking for things to improve.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
צילם: אלי זהבי, כפר תבור, 
As it says on the tin: a quick sketch of Xiao from 
I didn't make her easy to draw, and her outfits only get more complex as the series progresses.
Ah well. Here's hoping those sketches and thumbnails once again turn to webcomic pages.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Today's exercise: since I am more comfortable inking, what if I did my pencils IN ink, using tracing paper rather than the tedious erasing of pencils? I think it turned out rather well, though there's an error in the face shape I caught a bit too late and could not fully correct without starting over. Nevertheless, it's not bad. What I started with was this picture, from a 
This I roughed - not traced, roughed by hand - on one sheet of tracing paper:
Then, I corrected and tightened this drawing on a second sheet of tracing paper:
Finally, I corrected and rendered this drawing on the third sheet of tracing paper that started the blog. If this wasn't a drawing every day exercise, I'd have started over on the face, as it was out of proportion and angle to the original reference. I think I have a tendency to straighten up heads, which makes faces that are at an angle look very weird unless I work hard to correct it.
Still ... drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
As it says on the tin: I've been trying to improve my artwork by studying how other artists plan for success with technique and thumbnails. The author of 
Who's that? Another exercise in trying to make a face look like a face. This is a new set of techniques based on 
Actually, I inked this in black, then (roughly) followed the guidance 
... I'm still rating this a "meh". I'm still having trouble landing the overall map of the face - not say the curves at point A or B or even the overall outline, but the relationship of the various parts so they're correctly sized with respect to each other and properly angled with respect to the original.
Still ... drawing every day.
-the Centaur
P. S. Gosh it is drawing a super wrinkly face and making it turn out right. I hadn't realized how much of Reagan's distinctive look was not just the shape of his face, but all those genial wrinkles. 
Quick sketches of writers on tonight's 
As it says on the tin: it's late, I'm tired, and I have early meetings tomorrow (fine, fine, FINE, 10am Pacific, which is 1pm my time, but it's 3am already) so here's a quick sketch of the Fourth Doctor on Strathmore using a dry erase marker, because damnit, the point is not to perfect the drawings, but to not break the streak. This one could really have used a preliminary sketch and a normal render though:
I'm happier with the jaw, but the hair could have extended about another 10%. Another thing to watch out for (though it's easier to get right when you're doing preliminary sketches before diving in, instead of jumping straight out of the airplane with nothing but a dry erase marker and hope).
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
11th Doctor sketch, done with much tighter pencils than normal. Forget the crosshatched shadingo on the coat - wasn't trying to get that right, it was just a means to the end - but as for the face ... Meh.
Much about this sketch is better than many of my previous ones, but there are still proportionality issues - the left side of his jaw is lopsided, the eyes are too big and too far apart, and the whole proportions make the head too big and too squat despite my attempts to get the rough proportions right before I started the detailed pencils. The real Matt Smith is ... shall we say ... more lantern-like:
Not quite sure what I'm doing wrong there, but it's something to pay attention to. While I could do some work on proportions and drawings with graph paper, or read more books on anatomy, I think the real solution is to draw a heck of a lot of faces and keep doing this analysis to them.
Which is why I am ... drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
A deliberate attempt to just sketch in pencil and not ink. I decided to sit down and methodically start working through Wizard's How to Draw: Getting Started, working on roughs, when I noticed that one of the things I like about the book is that it has a mental model of artwork.
That inspired me to dial it back even further and to try to generate my own theories of art. I measured a Green Lantern figurine and a drawing dummy looking at proportions (hips are about midway in the figure), then examined old Superman comics and sketched one trying to see what I'm doing wrong.
Since I cut my chops inking my own webcomic, as fast as I could manage, wherever I draw it, I got in the habit of inking right over my own pencils, trying to get a good rendering in one go, which is a thing people do. But I've noticed many great artists use roughs to plan for success in their drawings.
These roughs often have several levels of shading, which right there is an improvement over my "everything is an outline" style, when in reality, outlines are mostly in our minds, not in reality. So I sketched out a few figures, with shading, in greater detail than I normally would in pencil.
I can't tell you how hard it was to NOT start inking.
Still ... drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Shortflight is a dragon stuffed animal given to me by my childhood neighbor Marilyn. He's got tiny little wings and is, um, rotund - dare I even say "pillow-shaped" - so I always called him "Shortflight". I think this name may have come from a childhood book The Dragon Circle, but I'm not sure. If I still own that book, it is buried in boxes somewhere.
And while this was not quite a cheat, it was (a) a good exercise in use of the Wacom, character design, and more practice with coloring, and (b) easy to work on while I finished watching Tenet.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Trying very hard not to break the streak of drawing every day, but it's late and I have workmen coming early in the morning (sure, sure, FINE, they're coming at 9, that's early for ME because I go to bed at 2-4am most evenings, er, mornings). I present dread plush Cthulhu and friends, rendered with whiteboard markers on 9x12 Strathmore, briefly colored in Photoshop to give it dimension, and as always ...
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur 
Another attempt at space hair. I did a better job at creating dimension in the hair, I think, but fell for two classic blunders: first, the face is too large compared to the size of the head, causing the top of the head to appear cut off, and second, this first error was caused by me leaping too quickly from roughs to inks, which may not be a classic error for everyone, but is classic for me. Also the eyes are off angle:
According to Google Image Search, this is