Utilize Andrew Loomis’s approach to drawing heads. This involves establishing a sphere for the cranium and adding a plane for the jaw, helping you understand the head as a three-dimensional object in space.
Use basic geometric shapes to imply personality traits.
When stylizing, maintain these relative shifts. If you are painting a blue alien, make the cheeks a slightly warmer purple and the jaw a cooler cyan to mimic this natural vitality. 5. Edge Control and Simplification
Use crisp boundaries for structural areas like the jawline, the bridge of the nose, and graphic hair shapes. Utilize Andrew Loomis’s approach to drawing heads
Every successful exaggeration relies on an underlying understanding of reality. To distort a face beautifully, you must first know how it is built. Structural Landmarks
Week 4 — Color & Palette
: Learn the underlying skull structure and standard head proportions before attempting to distort them. This prevents your work from looking "wonky" even when features are exaggerated. Form and Value When stylizing, maintain these relative shifts
Embrace the medium. Let underlying brush strokes show through. Layering transparent glazes over opaque block-ins creates visual depth that cannot be replicated by flat color fills. 6. Navigating Class Work and Critiques
Here are the fundamental pillars to mastering stylized portrait painting: 1. Shape Language and Simplification
Completing class work means working within specific timelines. A structured workflow prevents you from getting stuck at critical stages. Description Loose, gestural lines establishing anatomy. Proportions and placement. 2. Block-In Laying down flat, local colors or values. Silhouette and big shapes. 3. Ambient Occlusion Adding the darkest darks where surfaces meet. Defining depth and contact points. 4. Rendering Blending, carving planes, and refining edges. Form and material texture. 5. Highlights & Polish Placing final specular highlights and color corrections. Drawing focus to the eyes and focal points. 7. Critiques and Iteration Edge Control and Simplification Use crisp boundaries for
Let’s assume you have your sketch. You have your shapes. Now, how do you execute the paint to look professional, not flat?
or developing your own practice, the journey from a reference photo to a unique character involves several key pillars. 1. Structural Anatomy and Construction