Hi there! I'd love some feedback on what I've got so far here. This is only the third portrait I've ever done, so I'm a little nervous. I know I'm having trouble in particular with the hair, specifically where the part is. Anything else that stands out to you as needing improvement... please let me know because I'd like to make the face better while I move on and start working on the shoulder, arm and hand.

Thank you!
Monique M.

There's a lot to like here! The modeling of the round, chubby shapes of the cheeks, chin and nose is very good. You've got a lot of variation in the values of the eyes, and modeling of the whites of the eyes, which is great too.

A couple of things that stand out for me: first, the iris has to be perfectly round. Use a circle gauge, or turn the drawing around and around as you work, but make sure they're round. Lumpy irises can really spoil a drawing.

Second, the hair. My favorite way of describing how to do it: "Draw the hair, not the hairs." You're drawn a lot of hairs, but not really the hair itself. On our left, where a lot of the hair is supposed to be in shadow, there are bright white gaps in between the individual hairs you've drawn. You need to fill those in, and concentrate on drawing the large dark shape more than on the individual hairs. Sadly, I just went to fetch the link for a hair tutorial I love, and I find that it's no longer available. But Google around, there are plenty of good ones out there.

Finally, the separation between the lips and the skin around them isn't actually as distinct as you've made it. Try to soften up that transition, indicating it just with a change in value, without hard lines.

Good advice about the lips I did not see that until you mentioned it .. yes they need to blend a bit softer ...sometimes with hair I like to change the picture to posterize in my psp program this helps me see the depth in the sections of strands ...no need to erase the hairs just add to them some darker values as Ernest as suggested and it will look very detailed .

You guys are awesome-- thanks SO much for your incredibly helpful feedback!

Kim, that's a great tip about the posterizing (I found a filter called "poster edges" which I'm assuming is the same thing).

Ernest, you're so right about the lumpy irises! I think I've improved upon them now, but here's something I wanted to ask for clarification with: on the viewing right, there's a sort of secondary highlight in the bottom right corner of the eye that lightens not just the eyeball, but also the iris. I'm wondering if that comes across correctly, or if it's contributing to the lumpy appearance by seeming like a flaw in the shape of the iris...?

Also, what exactly is a circle gauge and how is it different from a compass? My google search just brings up a tool related to wheel bolts, but I'm guessing it allows you to draw a circle that's not flat (like a compass would) but rotates the axis so the circle is rendered correctly as it would be seen at an angle...?

Now, to tackle this hair problem...
Thanks again so much; I really appreciate your time

Monique

Nope, it's not the catchlights that are a problem. Both of the irises look to me to have a sort of rounded point at the bottom, and another corner about 90 degrees clockwise from there. There are some visible lines that go around circumference of the irises and those emphasize the imperfect shape, I think.

A circle gauge (or really, I'm thinking of an ellipse gauge) is just an inexpensive piece of clear plastic with a bunch or circles and/or ellipses cut out of it in different sizes. You can get them from any art supply store. I had to google for "ellipse template" to find this picture so maybe "gauge" isn't the right word here.

You got some good tips here so far, the thing that I notice about the eyes are that the pupils are not center of the iris, maybe thats whats throwing off the eyes.

I like your single directional shading, it gives it character.

Ernest, thanks for clarifying and thanks also for the picture of the ellipse gauge.

Poe, you're totally right about the pupils. Hopefully there is some improvement now.

I worked on all your suggestions, and have attached the latest version of this. The eyes looked better to me until, interestingly, I saw the scan here, where they still look a bit flawed. I'm hoping the hair is a bit better, though, and now I've started the hand. If you have any thoughts on the hand in particular I'd really appreciate it. I haven't found any tutorials on this site for practicing hands. Am I overlooking something? Anyway, this is the first time I've tried to draw a hand

Thanks in advance. I'm so grateful for this forum!

Monique

It's coming on well and the hand looks good. Could I suggest making the pupils of the eyes a bit bigger. It looks to me as if she's getting too much light in her eyes and also the pupils tend to enlarge when someone is relaxed.

Click to view attachmentHere's how it turned out. Thanks, everybody, for your input!!

Looks great -- congrats on a job well done!

you did an awesome job, congrats

Cute!