Jordan Gallaway
K'rul's Bar, Darujhistan
An old guy in deep existential need of a career change. Aspire to illustrate eventually, finishing the last 2 years of a military contract for now.
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Jordan Gallaway
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3yr
added comment inFinished Ahmed Aldoori's 100 heads challenge. I'd appreciate some tips
Is it possible that you're either just perceiving this "cartoonish" look on your younger faces due to the fact that some stylistic choices which we associate with cartoons (larger eyes, simpler silhouettes, etc.) are actually a natural distinguishing aspect of youth as opposed to age? Or, further, that you actually make such stylistic deviations unconsciously due to the fact that those subjects actually do possess those variations, and you're just unconsciously exaggerating those bits just a little bit more than is accounted for by the age difference?
I don't want to discount what you've specified, that this occurs even when you measure perfectly and nail the shapes and proportions, just thought I'd throw out those considerations as possibilities. I would try to use a process of elimination to work through all of the possible reasons this is occurring; suppose you eliminate shape and proportion issues, what else could it be? Perhaps you could use finer/subtler mark-making, as it makes sense that bold and sketchy technique would lend itself to the weathered visage of an aged person, while a younger face would be better served with more careful, gentle linework. If you do some studies and find that making that change doesn't positively affect your results like you're looking for, move on to the next item for elimination, and so forth.
Iterating on the same subject while only making limited changes to your process each time might help you isolate what it is that's causing your dissatisfaction. I hope you're able to puzzle it out!
Yanislav Ivanov
3yr
This is exactly what I'm kinda getting at too!
While studying Ahmed Aldoori's style of sketching I noticed that line art and values play a huge role. Before that I mostly outlined everything in a technical approach, like I'm outlining a robot's plane changes and not an organic blob with smooth transitions.
The "cartoonish" look, I think, mostly comes from the need to use mostly line art to cover small details: unless you blow up the size and have a head on a whole page, you just can't add those tiny details like the tear ducts, eyelids and skin folds, resulting in a need to convey many things in 1 stroke. But if you can add value, then there's a possibility to make it more realistic. Unfortunately most young people have just a smooth blend on top of diffused lighting, resulting in a comic/cartoon-styled cell shading and lineweight.
But when it comes to old people, as you said - a messy, strong values approach works because it's more similar to painting with tones rather than capturing form with line only. Using tone instead of lineweight as the driving force.
Wait, I think I got it.... a hypothesis:
Inherently, using line as indication of form makes things look cartoonish (flat). On top of that, the scenario of a young person with diffused light kills the chances for adding impactful tones to convey form.
Inherently, using values as indication of form makes thing look realistic (3d). On top of that, the scenario of an old person with high contrast gives more chances for adding impactful tones to convey form.
So, old people are easier to make realistic on smaller sized canvases since there are conditions to use values as indication of form. Young people do not give such conditions, resulting in a comic/cartoonish style of a sketch.
Unless you blow up the size to add tiny details to make younger heads realistic or add more contrast, you would end up with a comic-esk face even if you've captured correct proportion and likeness.
Maybe I'm just spilling crap, but this the most I can make out of it lol.
