Afghani Girl

[NaCl]

Helm, that post was insightful and inspiring. Thank you, sincerely, for taking the time to post it. Your edit makes me weep with joy.

Looking between my version, yours, and the photo I am amazed at all the detail I threw away. I am less amazed, but more aware, of the way I got the facial features wrong. I fully understand your point about the skills involved in reproducing photos vs. creating unique images, and am with you 100% on that. I want to understand faces in the way you describe, and these reproductions of photos have been my attempt at that, in some way. I see now that it is not the way, though. You offered to explain your process of drawing a face, and if you feel like doing so I would eagerly listen and learn from it. I'm sure many other people who are learning this subject would find it helpful as well.

On the subject of making minor tweaks to an image that is flawed in a deeper way, you are correct again. I felt a little stupid making slight revisions over and over, but felt driven to capture this face. I am going to practice, and then attempt this image again in the future, from scratch.

A few questions and comments:

You say "counted incorrectly". This sounds like there is some technique you have for determining where things are on a face. Please share, if possible.

You say you brought in more contrast. I understand the term contrast, but what were you contrasting? Saturated vs. desaturated colors? Warm vs. cool colors? Dark vs. Light? Contrast has been an issue in most of the stuff I have done, yet I still don't fully understand the term.

When you say fundamental studies, I don't exactly know what that entails. Is it just drawing different faces with different light sources, with no reference?

[Helm]

Yes to count correctly you check relations between different parts of the image and you countercheck them in your version. Like, draw a vertical line from the corner of the mouth and see where it lands on the eye, so on. These are basics of life drawing, which is something you should either enroll in for, or buy a book and do it on your own!

Contrast is just an effect of putting large difference in value bodies of color together. Here we need contrast for example in the eyebrows/eyelashes (see how I used black) against the pure white I put in the eyes. There's no mystery to this, just look very closely and carefully at your reference and decide if how you replicated it is 'too bright' or perhaps 'doesn't have enough value range'. That sort of thing.

Perhaps we will talk more about face construction next year.

[Jim16]

Uh, I almost forgot that today was the last day of the year(according to our calender). Looking forward to this. I have looked into Anatomy, where I can draw the basics of a male and female, but I always battle with the head/face as I have no understanding dynamics erc.

So yeah, looking forward to it.

[ndchristie]

Fundamental generally involves drawing from observation of nature.  It is the "foundation" (root word) which is troublesome and unglamorous but generally considered to be required before you can begin properly expressing what you have imagined.

[NaCl]

So it is just drawing the things you see in the real world, not from photographs? And if I wanted to practice fundamentals then I should just grab a pencil and paper and draw things I see (faces in the case of a facial fundamental study)?

[ndchristie]

I mean....well more or less yes, although they also tend to be more guided it is mostly about understanding the world through observation.  The most common foundation is a formalist foundation, that is - one concerned with the observation and representation of space and form in two dimensions.  spraying color on a page because that's how an apple "feels" to you is still life-drawing but it's not formalist and will probably not provide a proper, traditional foundation.

[Chris2balls]

I think you should work with focus/out of focus, plus what was already said by Helm.

[Helm]

I think you should work with focus/out of focus

What do you mean?

[Chris2balls]

What I mean is like in photos, but I don't think I have the right terms nor knowledge to explain that . I believe there was a Weekly Challenge on that, and was looking for the winner's piece (can't remember by whom it's by nor its author, only that it was a cute little monkey), but I couldn't find it. Field of range I think it was called.
What he could do is have that effect and work on it in order to focus the piece on an element, for example the eyes, and everything around it slowly loses detail. That's what I mean.
Hope it's an interesting idea.

[NaCl]

In this update I intensified the eyes, added a little dithering, mainly on her right cheek, and tried to reduce the amount of colors used.