/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Well, the last two days have been quite interesting for me. I started off with the only portrait as seen in the image and I kept wondering why I couldn't get it to look right after measuring for hours upon hours. I decided to then move to the page to the right and draw a bunch of eyes because those were the biggest problems on my portrait.

But as I kept drawing them I realized that I couldn't stop them from looking flat or just plain wrong. I kept trying to figure out what I could do as I kept drawing more and more eyes but only once in a blue moon would I get something that looked ok. That's when I decided to try out one of the the Bargue Plates I kept hearing around these threads and decided to perform my first "study", I quote study because I'm not 100% sure how to do a study.

I went back to the left page and copied the bargue plates trying to understand why his eyes made sense and mine didn't. I think that's when I reached the conclusion that I kept attempting to draw every single line I could find. Simply put, I kept thinking the more lines I placed the better my art would look, this was completely wrong and so I felt like over the last two days I learned something critical that might help me push forward into the future.

More lines != Better results

This following is just theory from a novice, but I think the overall theme here is that whether you're a line artist or someone who wants to do portraits, trying to remove lines that are hard to see. Those lines are probably subtle bends that could be best capture with shading.

I finally gave it my own shot after doing just 9 copies (the portrait on the bottom of the left page with the iris), I think the improvements already show after just doing that little and so I am eager to keep looking into more complex studies and devote myself to this methodology when I get stuck.