Deborah’s 100 Day Figure and Head Challenge

[Debbie H]

Day 83: Muscles of the face progress. I’m finding this really interesting – by making facial expressions, I can work out from this diagram which muscles I’m using and how the direction of the muscles dictate how we can or can’t make our faces move in particular ways. Fascinating!

[Bryan Mccabe]

Pretty cool Deborah 🙂. Which lesson are you using for this?

[Debbie H]

Thanks Bryan, it is. I watched Iliya’s muscles of the face videos and I’m drawing this diagram from one of his reference photos. In his lessons, he draws in a portraiture style from a model of a corpse and though it’s fantastic, I’m too squeamish about it at this stage, so have opted for this tamer reference instead. For now, it will have to do 🙂!

[Debbie H]

Day 84: I’m going to stop here with this one – it’s put enough into my knowledge bank for now I think.

[Debbie H]

Day 85: Today I started Iliya’s muscles of the neck videos. Today was very busy, so this is as far as I got. My apologies for the poor photo lighting. It’s evening here.

[Debbie H]

Day 86: Today I continued working on this study from Iliya’s Muscles of the Neck videos. Another busy day so I’ll work on rendering tomorrow.

[Debbie H]

Day 87: More progress. I haven’t finished watching the videos yet, so I’ll do that and add what I learn. I think a cast shadow would be good to add too.

[Bryan Mccabe]

Nice work Deborah. I’m learning from looking at your notes 🙂

[Shazad Madon]

Hi Deborah I really like your muscles of the face drawing. I would like to do this alternate version too (I drew he squeamish version :)) as they are even more clear on this diagram.

 

[Debbie H]

Day 88: I added the cast shadow and that’s all for today – it was a busy one. I learned a lot from this. Ignore my light direction arrow – I just realised it’s pointing the wrong way!

Thanks Bryan. I’m glad it’s useful 🙂. I’d like to do something to push my creative muscles soon like you’ve been doing. I just haven’t had time to focus on both.

Thanks Shazad. You’re braver than I am 😆! This one was good to do, though for portrait prep work, I think you chose better. The variety of formats and angles provided are all helpful in learning these complex forms. I certainly feel like I’m just barely skimming over the surface!

[Debbie H]

Day 89: I started the Russian Drawing portrait of model ‘Mark’ today. I’m working along with Iliya’s videos, trying to copy his process as closely as possible (except that I’ve drawn it a little too large for my page and have run out of room to fit the whole left shoulder in).  I think I can get the main information in…

[Bryan Mccabe]

Nice work so far Deborah. I saw this model on the website. Looks like you already have a good likeness 🙂.

[Debbie H]

Day 90: Progress. Sanguine Conté a Paris pastel

Thank you Bryan. I’m trying to stay true to Iliya’s drawing process and it’s beginning to make a lot of sense. For example, so far in this challenge, I’ve tried to put all the features in first, but as you see here, the eyes for example are kind of evolving gradually through the process. It really does come down to the skull and the planes of the head and it kind of just ‘appears.’ I’m really enjoying it. It makes me want to go back and keep learning.

[Christopher]

Hi Deborah,

Without looking at the reference it looks pretty solid but I think either the left eyeball could be to small or the right to big and maybe one of them is slightly displaced because the bottom of the eyeballs don’t align on the same axis compared to the brow ridge and base of the nose. The chin has also a slightly different angle.

But again I haven’t looked at the reference so ignore everything I said if the model has these angles 😅

I can’t wait to see how the likeness develops. In other portrait lectures this would happen through the shadow shapes, is Ilya’s approach different from that? I’m  still working on the skull so it will take me a while to get where you are right now 👋

[Debbie H]

Day 91: More progress. Sadly I’m stuck using a Contè pastel pencil – I bought a sanguine contè stick, but it’s a different tone, so can’t use it on this portrait.

Hi Christopher. Thanks for your feedback. How is this looking? I’m following along with Iliya and as of this post, we’re just beginning to indicate the details of features. I haven’t placed the model’s right eye yet so I’ll check the placement as I do. The model’s right nose wing isn’t visible from this angle, so I had the tip of the nose following the same axis but seem to have lost that line. There’s a bit to do still to make the shoulder girdle read properly – I’m finding that challenging. Iliya’s focus is always about the forms reading according to the skull, skeleton and muscles. The features are almost a byproduct of modelling the head. It’s a different approach, but one I’m really appreciating. You’ll definitely enjoy the videos – it’s a really enjoyable process.

 

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