What went wrong?:Potrait sketch

[srsanyal]

Hi,
I am an amateur artist ,tried this graphite and charcoal potrait of leonardo di caprio but lost the likeness ,would much appreciate a critique.
Regards
Mr.Sanyal

[Mengu Gungor]

Hey Mr Sanyal, I can definitely recognize him, and I think the shapes of the features are very close to your reference, you did well there. However, a lot of the essence of likeness comes from the overall gesture, big shapes, placement and size of the features. We can recognize someone we know from a hundred feet away in a crowd from just a basic silhouette. So, though the individual features are important, we have to pay attention to the big picture all the time, to capture and maintain a likeness. I still struggle with this as well, but that is the advise I have gotten myself.

There are also steps you can take to check your work. Plum lines are very useful. For instance, if you draw a plum line down from the corner of the forehead through the eye and to the chin, you can see where some of the features are slightly off. I tried demonstrate this below. Also I felt the shoulder line needs to come up some, Mr DiCaprio has a little bit shorter neck, and camera angle can make a difference there. Also try to differentiate the front plane of the face from the side plane with a more distinct transition. This gives the face more structure, I tried to indicate that edge with the red line. And I felt he needed more room in the back of the head and the ear/jawline/neck connection could be clarified more, which I indicated in green. I tried to make those changes to show the difference in the middle picture. I also added a bit more tone to the background on the left side, to create a clearer silhouette. And I unified the values of the shadow side some more. I didn’t change the shapes of your features much, only the placements and size.

And in the third picture, I tried to show my thought process of how I’m placing the features, and the overall gesture I’m thinking of, for lining up the features structurally. Hope this helps. Keep drawing, and keep having others check your work. That’s what helps us improve. You did a wonderful job with this portait.

[srsanyal]

Hi Mengu
I am so very thankful for this valued feedback .
You have put real effort and time to explain me in great details the loopholes and correctly pointed out potential areas of improvement in my drawing.The example sketches with those coloured lines make it really easy to understand and relate. I will try working on these areas for improvement.
Thanks a ton again,for doing this critique,much appreciated.

Kind Regards.
Mr.Sanyal

[Joshua Jacobo]

Post title made me smile. There’s a lot that went RIGHT here! I agree with Mengu’s awesome critiques. Also you need to group your light side and dark side areas more clearly. The edge (terminator, core shadow) that separates them needs to be more clearly defined and it needs to better follow the form!

[srsanyal]

Thanks Joshua .I appreciate your valuable comments on my work.
Warm Regards.

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