Victorian girl

[Mathias]

Having trouble getting this girl to look 17, instead of 71.

Very WIP.

Will update soon . . .

[Puppet]

Okay so this is my first constructive post, let's hope I don't sound like an ass nor offend you.

I'm 17 years of age and hang round with quite a few girls aged 16-21. So I should technically know.. Well kind of.
Where to start, with the underneath of her lips it seems to be as if it's being dented inwards, most girls I've hung round with and or have seen don't really have a big indent as that. I'm not sure of the perspective view either, not sure if she's tilting her head down or not. Do you have any picture refferences?
I think they could be of good use to you.

Her eyebrows go to far down, most girls I've seen around my age have small and not so bushy nor dark eyebrows, so try to lighten it up a little maybe? And make it shorter instead of so long. Not sure if you understand what I mean.

Her hair is no how a 17ish year old would really have it, although it really does depend on the teenagers style, Scene, gothic, Chav, Skater ect. Once you figure out what kind of style you want to persue research it througholy.
Scene teenagers would have big and poofy hair with bright and attractive hair, well most of them do anyway.
Gothic, well usually it's straight and black or really dark brown.
Chav, usually short bob, Erm. Like what I mean by bob is like long fringe kind of like Rhiana. Not sure how to spell her name but she has a bob a few times where it's really short but same length from her neck to her fringe? Not sure if I described that well enough or not. Possibilty of just a ponytail or even curly fringe layers and rest of the hair is straight but goes over the shoulders.
Skater chicks from what I've seen in my town wear hat suchs as "beanies" and "flatpeaks" as well do the chavs but the skater chicks usually have straight and quite long hair.
Maybe me telling you what I see as a 17 year old may of be some use.

Your image of the girl also has quite large cheek bones, I'd cut them down a bit to maybe something more softer? Like roundish dependant of the weight of that teenager.
Look for popular female singers like Rhiana, Jessie J, Taylor Swift. Those are artists but try to portray the age of teenager. If you're going for the Scene, Emo look then try looking for The Pretty Wreckless, I'm not suere of the lead singers name but she has a youngface.

The nose seems a bit to wide but that's just my speculation.
Sorry for the wall of text, I just hope this helps you somehow.

[Batzy]

Well puppet said it i think. She reminds me hellama lot of that actor who was playing "lila" at dexter http://i2.cdnds.net/08/29/160x120_jaime_murray_1.jpg

[Mathias]

UPDATE



She looks younger but I still hate 'er.




Wwwhhhaaarrrrrrr Taylor Swift is a perfect reference match, dude! Thanks so much (not at all too much text). Perfect age, face, and even hair in many images.

Going for a Victorian era 17 yr old girl. Yes, supposed to have head tilted downward. Vertical light source. This is my first true attempt at a realistic human face close-up; way outside my comfort zone.

(chav, that a UK thing? Tried to figure out what it was but all I can conclude is chav = white trash?)


Thanks too, Batlorder.

[Mathias]

TAYLOR SWIFT: ACTIVATE

kill yer darlings; old face scraped off, new face sketched on, directly based on Taylor Swift:

[Mathias]

New sketch taken from Swift and then widened about 10%. Almost looks too young now.

[Mathias]

Mandatory workspace criteria

[Puppet]

Hmm I guess the Chav thing is a UK thing haha.
Basically a chav wears mostly football related brands such as adias, umbro and such, use slang like "init", "bruv", "blud" so terrible use of language really.
From your workspace I can see a picture of Salema Gomez. I believe she's actually 17.

Your newest face looks much better in my opinion, but I think the hair could be defined in it's curls and locks a bit more maybe so we can see where the hairs direction is instead of it being a pure blob? If you catch my drift.
I think you're focusing to much opun the left eye shadow / lins be the left of her nose that's next to her eye, in the picture of Taylor Swift she has shadow on her right part of her nose and not her left.
The cheekbone has been much improved as have the lips.
She looks much younger now then once you started.
And the bacon... Mmmm. Yummy!
As you can see in the picture also in Taylor swift she is using blusher (I think that's what it's called to make the cheeks rosey) Maybe you should adding a bit of pinkish red towards her cheeks.
That's a nice edit though Mathias.

[blumunkee]

Avoid shading with pure black like the plague! It makes things looks amateur airbrushy. Shades always have color from light and objects around them bleeding into them.

Just in case you haven't read these yet:
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=ps55paint

From the other thread I assume you are going for a painterly rather than airbrush look. Here's how I work in Photoshop:

Set your background color now. Put it on a different layer so you can tweak it later, but you need to set the mood.

Turn the hardness up high on the brush. Set size (and optionally flow) to pen pressure, disable opacity on pressure. Block in colors at around 80% opacity with a large brush, lower the opacity around 50-70% with a medium sized brush.

For gradients, pick your new color, lay it down gradually, then color sample with alt and paint back over the gradient to smooth things out. Keep picking new colors, sampling inside the gradient and smoothing things out. Keeping sampling and painting, sampling and painting. Like, you should be hitting alt once every 1 or 2 seconds.

But... don't gradient too much. You do want some texture in there. Flesh generally should be smoother, clothing you can get away with rougher shading.

As you move into the final detailing, you'll be using smaller and smaller brushes for eyelashes, strands of hair, lacing, etc. Try not to quibble too much on details other than the face. People just really look at the face, the other stuff is a given.

And for fucks sake, whatever you do, don't outline anything! You're painting, not drawing.

[yrizoud]

I remember reading on Wikipedia, long time ago, that the lines that start at the nose and end at corner of mouth generally appear around age 25. But I can't find the reference now, it's not on the article "nasolabial fold".