Genvid & Dies Gaudii Forums

I like to draw and I have been drawing since I was very young, however I'm not talented at drawing, especially facial features. I get so hung up on facial features because to me if they are wrong, the whole drawing is stuffed as they add the whole character to a drawing of a person I do.

I worked on a drawing of a woman and I was fairly happy with it. Especially her hair and the rest of her, but the eyes, nose and mouth are really annoying me. I tried to draw her eyes all squinched up as they do when she smiles, but now she looks just ugly and evil and not like her at all. I'm working on a drawing of another lady now and I have done everything but the eyes,nose and mouth. I'm very scared how I'm going to go ahead with this. I want the character of these ladies to show up very well in my drawing so that you know straight away who they are. Lips really do me in too as when I draw lips it just looks absolutely awful and as if they have had a bad lip job

Any help on drawing facial features would be very helpful. I want them to be perfect (the drawings) as I plan on giving the drawings to these 2 ladies one day



IMPORTANT NOTE:
I am not drawing these people anime/manga style, I rarely draw people anime/manga style at all.
I thought I would put this topic in general as it isn't really 'sailor moon fanart' related, even if one of the ladies is Sailor Moon related

The best method for me was replication.

Get an existing drawing & copy it to the upteenth degree. I personally found it was a great way to get into a particular drawing style.

Unfortunately, I started out with NGE. Now Usagi looks like Rei Ayanami with blonde odangos.... But ill get there in correcting that.

I think she was talking about drawing real people. However, one may try tracing photos of faces. Very careful observation of faces in the real world & on photos also helps, & that can also be made into a habit - just don't make the person you're observing feel uneasy.

SailorBecky, a lot of people have trouble drawing things like faces because we specifically worry about them so much. The face is kind of the key to the whole person so it's pretty easy to get overly focused on it and start drawing what you think it should look like instead of what it actually looks like. I have a tutorial on DA that might help you understand the kind of mindset I'm talking about. That tutorial is talking about gesture of a figure, but the same ideas apply to drawing a face.

Your right brain is the one that's good at seeing forms and shape and relationships, but your left brain is the one always trying to take charge and make decisions. The book I talk about in that tutorial is called, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. You can get it from DrawRight.com. It's a really awesome book that explains the science of how your brain works when you draw and gives you lots of steps and excesses on how to activate your right hemisphere while working on art.

Some basic things you can start with:
- Flip your reference upside down and draw from it that way. You'll be less focused on, "does it look like a nose" and more focused on reproducing what you're seeing instead of what you THINK you're seeing.
- Pay attention to the spaces and shapes BETWEEN the features, not just the features themselves
- Look at drawings of faces that you like. Go on Google or deviantART and look at some drawings that people have done of faces and really intently LOOK and see what they have done with light and shadow to get nice form. Try to reproduce little sections from those drawings to get the feel of how they are rendering the form so well.

Remember that you are creating an illusion of form - you are still working on a 2D space so anything that looks 3D is a complete fabrication. That means that drawing just the outline of things won't necessarily get it to where you want it to be, tone and shading are going to be essential in creating something that has space.

You didn't post to your drawing so I can't give you specific critique, but if you ever needed some please send me a PM or something and let me know. Always happy to give an artist some real feedback :3

Best of luck!

Thank you so much for the tips. Yes, I have a HUGE issue with drawing the left part of a body. Especially the left eye! Sometimes when I do drawings I just leave the left eye undone or just draw it winking I guess like you said, that it is because the left part of the brain is more mathematical and the right side is the creative side. At school we once had a relief teacher who made us draw upside down and all different ways (man my brain hurt )

Our brain has been evolved to process visual data of the face in certain particular ways, as facial recognition is critically essential in navigating our social environment, which in turn, as in the case of our species, is essential for our survival.

That was very technical, my brain hurts

I've already avoided getting down into the exact technicalities in my last post above.

I sound like Usagi lol. Something she would say haha

I attempted one eye, the nose and the mouth. To be honest, I can see a bit of the lady in the face. Not much, but I done the right eye better than I thought. The mouth is not porpotional to her face though... I gave it a shot. However, the eye is a bit off I think and I want to add some eye wrinkles but it didn't turn out too pretty.

Would you like to show a pic of that?

It has my full name on it and I'm very shy

after you scan the picture open it up in paint and cover the name up