In early 2023 I started getting interested in portraits and drawing my own characters. After watching a lot of tutorials online, I decided to give it a go. I picked a reference, got some paper and a mechanical pencil, and drew.
I was super happy with this for a first try. Now, looking back on it, I see all sorts of things I would do differently now. But this spurred me on to try more.
The second attempt, although pleased with it, turned out much different than I intended. I had heard that 3/4 view of the face (slightly turned away) were extremely hard to get right, but hadn’t really believed it until now. While still better than my childhood stick figures and smiley faces, I was unsatisfied.
I did my third one in my sketchbook, rather than on loose paper. I tested out a bunch of techniques I had seen from online videos. One of my favorites is to hold the sketch up to a mirror to flip the design, allowing you to spot mistakes better. I spent a lot more time on this one, and had a blast making it! I think my favorite part was doing the shading on her hat.
After this I was excited. I really liked this piece and was super pleased. I didn’t waste any time and immediately started on another one. The fourth one turned out really well too.
Through all four of these pieces, I feel like I learned a lot each time. In the first two, I used my fingers to smudge the lines and make the skin look smooth. After learning that that can leave grease stains, I stopped. Instead, in the last two, I left the pencil marks and you can still see the ‘grain’ of the skin. What I should have probably done, was use a tissue or something to blend out some of the hard lines.
After all this, I was eager to do more!
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