Portraits

[Retronator]

Hi everyone,

This is my first critique thread as I want to improve at drawing portraits. I'll post a new one every day, as well as iterate on the ones from the previous days based on the feedback. I'm going for a realistic look and proportions, but the shading might fluctuate between realistic and stylized. The palette is locked to Atari 2600.



To start off I looked at instructions from the Illustrators Guidebook, a book by 21 Draw I backed on Kickstarter. It was supposed to be a feminine face, but it turned out quite androgynous.

Here's the ref (a page from the book, so please don't share):
Spoiler

[MysteryMeat]

Two things: Eyes are very square and the bottom edge of the chin is too wide, giving it a square appearance. Try to slim it a bit, and reshape the eyes some!

[Retronator]

Thank you, both of the suggestions worked well!



Here's the updated front view and I've also added the side view today. Damn, it's hard, especially the mouth area. Maybe there are limits to what you can do at certain sizes so I'll also try bigger portraits in following days. But yeah, suggestions for profile of the face are very welcome.

[MysteryMeat]

Actually i think you're doing alright! Maybe you can try and tweak the nose to be less triangular, but the sprite looks proper feminine as is!

[Retronator]

Thanks!

Today I wanted to experiment so I tried MagicaVoxel for the first time and made a voxel model using the front/side from yesterday. This is the result:



Far from clean, but kind of cool.

[MysteryMeat]

That's pretty neato actually, can you do a quick how-to so I can replicate that? I have the program but it's not exactly intuitive to figure out, haha

[Retronator]

Certainly.

I took the two sprites from yesterday (front and side) and I imported them into MagicaVoxel. Then I opened them up as patterns and placed them into a plus (+) shape in the scene.

4 hours later or so I filled in all the cubes in between the two planes. I looked at 3D models on Sketchfab all the time to better understand the head geometry. Heads are hard when you're trying to nail the 3D structure (especially in voxels), so it was a lot of looking at models with emphasized head planes. Here is the result:



Then I opened the model in the viewer and rendered with 0 light bounces so it's flat shaded. I set the camera to orthographic and started from dead front. I rotated each frame by 15 degrees horizontally and exported individual images. Then I downscaled the renders so that 1 voxel height = 1 pixel. I didn't do any clean up so it's a bit rough around the edges.

[MysteryMeat]

I see! And how do you import images?

[Retronator]

You just open a png instead of a vox model.

[Retronator]

This time I went with a manga style just to break me out of the box and explore other styles so I don't get too wrapped up in the more realistic things. I also went for twice the head size since scale makes things so much different with pixel art. Good practice.



This is adapted from a b&w ink drawing in the Beginner's Guide to Creating Manga Art, which I took as a close reference.

[Retronator]

Another one referenced from the same book. Colors are added by me like the previous one.

[Curly]

I still read the first one as a male (and it looks pretty good)
I like the last ones, maybe it's jut me, but this part kind of bugs me:

Made an edit because I can't explain it properly.

[Retronator]

Yeah, I completely agree with the mouth shape being squished into that rectangle. Good edit!



Today I left manga behind and back to realism. This is a self-portrait based on a photo. Now that I'm looking at it, the top of the head is too pillow-shaded. From other shadows/shading the light is more on the top and doesn't warrant the same width of shading on top. (Why do I always notice this after I've uploaded things. Well, there's always tomorrow.)

I think at this point I need to start exploring other angles than front. Like 3/4 or even more dynamic stuff. I'm getting OK with getting proportions down and stylization into pixels, but the portraits lack character/dynamics.

[Retronator]

Didn't go explore new angles yet, I just worked more on the self-portrait.



I think next step is to try and make 75% and 50% version as well as animate it (blinking, smile variations).

[Retronator]

Animation!

[Retronator]

Today I made the 48px and 32px version in addition to the 64px.


Then I played around with the 32px some more and made this animation which is pretty much my cycle of life (well, that of my beard).



On the portraits above, especially the mouth is something I'm not satisfied with. It just looks so unnatural, forced, like he's not relaxed, but kind of squished together. I appreciate any advice or direction on that.