230 Head Demo

Hey there folks.

I just wanted to do a little video
about how I would approach

this drawing of the head,
this assignment that you have.

Remember that the goal
is to work from general towards the specifics

so I'm thinking
structure and gesture here.

So I'm thinking about how
if I were sculpting this out of clay,

I would start with a giant mass
in the front that would be like an egg,

and then kind of a ball-like form
in the back.

And then the neck is basically a cylinder.

Now I'm drawing a line across the brow,

and the bottom of the nose,

and the middle of the lips,
between the lips.

This is the central axis that runs

through the middle of the nose,
middle of the mouth.

That's going to avoid a common problem
which is having the nose at one angle

and then the mouth pushed off
to the side at another angle.

Now I'm carving out, again,
the side of the head.

I'm thinking about this mouth barrel.

I'm thinking about the roundness
of the form of the chin.

Drawing the eyeline now,
just roughly placing the eye.

But I'm not getting into little details.
Just trying to see about where it would go.

There's that side plane
of the temple, the hairline.

Don't want to ignore things like
the hairline and the forehead.

I don't want to get too caught up
in facial features and looking at eyes,

nose, mouth too soon because these things,

these big, big masses
are the most important.

The features are going to develop
out of those major masses of the skull.

The first part was real time.

I've sped it up now a little bit just so,
it makes this video a little bit shorter.

Okay, I don't want to forget the shoulders,
either, because I need something

for this head to sit on.

Now I'm going back in and
I'm looking at some of those secondary forms.

So I've started out with, you know, a chainsaw,
and now I'm going in with a chisel,

and I'm getting a little bit more refinement.

I'm looking at things like
the shapes of shadow

between one thing and another.

I'm trying to see what's the space like
between the tip of the nose to the cheek.

I think it's really important that
you don't get too tied down

to one little area at a time.

Think general, work around the whole thing.
It's easier to keep your proportions that way.

So I'm looking at these shapes
of light and shadow that I'm seeing

next to the nose, below the nose.

That's helpful, really, somewhat for structure,
but also it helps me to see shape

of light next to shape of dark.

I can sort of compare that size
of one shape to the size of another.

Looking at shapes of lights and shadows,
just another kind of a right brained approach

where you're trying to think
of the shape of a light,

and the shape of a dark,
and they're fitting together

like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,
and if those shapes are both correct,

and they fit together right,
then that's your proportion.

So it's a wonderful way to draw the head
without really thinking so much about the head.

So it's kind of back and forth
thinking about structure,

but then also thinking in a,
in a more right brained kind of way also.

And now, it's important to think
about horizontal relationships.

So I'm noticing that the top of the ear
is just below the brow line.

That the earlobe is even, more or less,
with the bottom of the nose.

It's pretty much the rule of thumb.

I'm coming back, I'm just
refining these shapes a little bit.

I'm getting the planar quality
of the nose more.

Really important to remember
that the lids wrap around the eyeballs.

So you gotta make those lower lids
curve around that ball of the eye.

The tip of the nose is also very ball like,
a little more angular, but like a ball.

And the wing of the nose
is also like a ball.

Good idea to look at the eyes
at the same time.

Draw a little bit on one eye,
and then look at the other one.

That way you avoid that problem
of getting one eye perfect,

and then you realize that it's too far over
to the right

when you compare it
to the other one.

So when you work on them
at the same time,

it's easier to keep the proportion,

it's easier to make sure
the two go together well.

So still trying to think big picture here.
I'm refining things.

I'm carving out those little forms
a little bit more,

but always comparing one thing to another,
trying not to get too tunnel visioned

in getting caught up
in one little area at a time.

Trying to think of this nose

as a 3 dimensional cylinder,
like a rounded form.

So trying to draw around the form.

The whites of the eyes are
almost always in shadows.

If you squint at Bill, here,

you notice that his eyeballs
are, really disappear into the shadows.

I could keep going with this,

but just for time's sake,
I'm going to leave it at that.

If I were to keep going,
I would just continue

to refine all of those details,
but I feel like the structure is pretty good.

Of course, as you go,

things are always going to be adjusted
and modified as you find new information.

But for the most part, that structure is there.

So the details will be just refining
these things more and more.

In a sense, that's the easy part is refining.

Once you get everything in place,
all those little details will just fall into place.

Okay, thanks for watching
and have fun with this.