BEGS stop doing portraits!

[Anonymous No.4218543]

If you are a BEG or even starting INT and you don't like smashing your head against a wall with frustration, stop doing shaded portraits or photos.

Achieving likeness in any object is hard, but with faces it stands out even more because people can tell way more easily when a face is wrong. You can fucking make a couple lines crooked in drawing of a plant for example and no one will notice probably. But put Will Smith's eye four millimeters left and you'll make a monster. Faces are totally punishing when it comes to observation. Something that as a beg you probably highly lack.

Also it's very easy to symbol draw in a face because the volumes are very subtle and it depends on you really having a mastery of light-dark tones and awareness of slight volumes to look half-way decent.

So do what the masters did and fricking draw some bottles or some simpler objects like cookware or shoes at the start.

Do them right, light them right with values while observing them from life and THEN jump on to faces.

I'd rather see in the BEG thread a cup of tea done right than another icarus reaching at the sun with a portrait.

[Anonymous No.4218549]

But that's how you are supposed to learn.

[Anonymous No.4218553]

copying is useless
only use reference to examine 3d forms of objects
never copy the reference

[Anonymous No.4218559]

>not always aiming for perfection

ngmi

[Anonymous No.4218560]

>>4218549
In theory, you could just go for broke on faces until you create something kinda good. But chances are that you could improve the necesary skills to be a better artist and create future portraits better with simpler tasks. Shade a kettle. Construct a weirdly shaped bottle. sketch a tree.

It's much easier to see the improvements there than to keep making uncanny valley faces for a year.

[Anonymous No.4218565]

>>4218543
In the same sense: Do not go too detailed with hands when drawing bodies, a hand can be easily become as complex as a whole basic body and you are drawing a smaller version of it.

[Anonymous No.4218574]

>>4218543
I think most /beg/s here are misguided and they don't even know what they want to do, they just want to "get good" when there are 200 ways of getting good at drawing.
You can be a SHIT comic artist but a great portrait artist. Because the training is different depending on what you want to do. If you want to go for likenesses e.g. portraits in your career then it doesn't make much sense to study form, you should work atelier style and do shit like bargues. I see a lot of people try to get good at classical drawing stuff with the aim of going animu afterwards which makes no sense. Train yourself based on what you want to achieve and ignore everything else.

[Anonymous No.4218575]

>>4218565
Hard disagree.
Detailed hands are really sexy, too many people slack off while drawing them and make them look like dough

[Anonymous No.4218591]

>>4218575
It is counter productive for beginngers though and you more likely incorporating wrong ways of drawing them instead of using your time more wisely.

[Anonymous No.4218592]

>>4218575
i don't think anything a /beg does is or should be sexy

[Anonymous No.4218598]

>>4218574
OP here. While I agree that there is specificity in the arts, there is also familiar task transfer.

By that I mean that just as like 2+2=4, it is a reality that being good at drawing (forms, proportions, values and background) is almost universal.

Think of it this way, I have Picasso, Kim Jung and Murata in a room with a nude model and 2 hours. All of them, despite doing different things are going to be able to make a damn good piece after those 2 hours because being a good drawer is being a good drawer.

And if you are a beg, you'll get WAY less frustraded not doing complicated shit than realistic faces and seeing the improvements in those easier forms.

[Anonymous No.4218612]

>>4218598
is the pic in the OP yours?

[Anonymous No.4218617]

>>4218612
I think it's a criminal sketch of a rapist I found online and I lazily tried to remove some of the flatness. The result looks creppy enough that it was a must to have as OP photo.

[Anonymous No.4218625]

>>4218617
I don't get what prompts people who struggle with something to urge other people to stop doing what they struggle with. Worry about your own drawings, don't worry about what other anons do. As I said you should really just do what you like doing and find the learning path that will allow you to do that the best.

[Anonymous No.4218634]

>>4218625
My goal with the thread is not to make people stop but to reduce frustration. Now a days, people use a portrait as a drawing skill measure, which is total nonsense. A good drawer should be able to draw anything.

But if you are a BEG and you see people doing awesome portraits but yours is "janky" you might say "I SUCK I HAVE NO TALENT ALL MY FACES LOOK OUT OF MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA".

Which is a lie. So to avoid that frustration my honest recomendation is, untill you have a good grasp of forms and values, don't give yourself a kick in the nuts by doing something harder than you are currently capable.

[Anonymous No.4218642]

>that feel when you intensely train with head drawing and figure drawing using NMA videos and then you go down to still life and just blow them away effortlessly

[Anonymous No.4218645]

>>4218634
Anon, I don't mean to berate you, but all this reasoning is just a veiled complaint about yourself, it's not about reducing other anons' frustrations. There are things that get more attention even if you think it's not fair. This is OK. You don't have to be frustrated about it, just focus on your artwork and learning what you need to learn to express yourself.

[Anonymous No.4218647]

just draw three quarter if you're starting out and want to do head drawing. it's so much easier than straight on and even if it's done poorly it still won't look flat, so you don't beat yourself up as much over it

[Anonymous No.4218650]

>>4218575
based and handpilled

[Anonymous No.4218680]

>>4218650
>>4218575
Show your drawn hands.

[Anonymous No.4218818]

That’s Mel Gibson

[Anonymous No.4218846]

>>4218642
ngl, this is me. I study faces and figures religiously then try to draw landscapes or still life and nail that fucking shit. OP isn't wrong about faces and figures and hands being the hardest goddamn thing to improve on, but he's wrong about not doing them. There's nothing wrong with doing something hard as long as you can leaen from your failures.

It's like you've been grinding random encounters for three days then go fight a boss and you 1 hit KO him. It's fucking beautiful.

[Anonymous No.4218876]

>>4218846
Ngl, I'd love to see this work where you've KO your grinding encounter.

[Anonymous No.4218887]

>>4218680
>>4218650
>>4218575

[Anonymous No.4219162]

>>4218680
I'm a real beginner