Regarding big drawing boards: Slice a section of a styrofoam "pool noodle" or water-pipe insulator lengthwise along one side and stick the edge of the drawing board into it (then it won't jab into your thighs). I also re-purposed the acrylic from a very cheap poster frame and glued it to my drawing board because it's lightweight yet provides a flawlessly smooth surface under my paper. I agree that binder-clips are the way to go, because the hinges fold flat, you can reposition the clips wherever you like, and you can clip more to the bottom sides if it's windy etc.

Third try, have definitely improved since the first. Happy with this one.

Did another practice, I needed to lower the eyes a bit but other than that I think I got it almost right...

I did another practice of measuring proportions using a reference I found. I got the angle of the face wrong, and its true what Stan said. Our brains wants to naturally straighten the face. Ugh I felt I was doing good but I was off. Good practice though.

I did my first practice not using the reference Stan gave for this one. This was really hard for me, I tried my best to get the proportions right. Took me about little over 2 hours to finish. I tried my best to make her look pretty like in the picture.

i love feed back and this exercise was fun!

This is my additional example. After creating 4 pieces, I noticed that I always drew the brow too low and had issues with the angle of the eyes. I'll try to focus on these areas next time

This is my first time doing anything like this, so I picked the musketeer for my project. I think I made my portrait's face a little too wide, but overall I'm proud of myself.

2 more portraits the first I put the nose off which shifted the mouth down and the second placements were quite closeout I got some of the forms wrong I need to do some more practice but I feel as if I have become more competent. Any advice is appreciated thanks.

I took what I learned from the criqtue and reattempted I think I've been getting better from my pervious ones and with additional help.

Did a few more studies. Focusing on only using straight lines makes this process much easier than the "burden" of having to worry about hitting the curves just right. Excited to keep practicing this, then move on to molding these into even more accurate portraits with detailed features.

I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it, but measuring still takes up so much time. And one small mistake can just throw off the angles of large sections of the drawing. I noticed I have a tendency to "flatten" the tilts of the angles, which I shall try to mitigate in future drawings.

Sorry i don't know how to apply mask the software im using is kinda cooked

This project was a difficult one. My first attempt was more accurate, since I checked my proportions in Photoshop every time before I would begin the next step. However, I got tunnel-visioned on the measurements and ended up with an unflattering composition in the bottom right. For my second attempt, I tried using my gut for some of the later measurements so I wouldn't use Photoshop as a crutch. A mistake that I see with both attempts is that I over-dramatized the angle of the eyes, which in turned messed with the proportion of the ear. Overall, I am happy with my attempts, since this is the first time I have committed myself to such strict measurements. I am eager to come back to this assignment continually while I progress through the course. Also, I would like some help on how to get better results with the level adjustments; my layovers are barely visible.

I love all the different portraits people chose for reference. I stuck with the musketeer simply because I've never really done it before and it felt more instructive to do that one and discover things along the way, that someone had already kinda discovered, to get a feel for it. I've done way too many things by the seat of my pants, blazing my own trail because I think it's important to discover things on your own, but I've been doing that my whole life, only to realize there's a GD expressway half a click north of me going pretty much where I wanna go but thought it was better to find my own way. Tiny Gods I'm tired of that.

I always struggle with kind of front face portraits. If you miss the angles for just the little then everything just looks super imbalanced and weird. Anyways… another Murray portrait practice.

My drawing looks like crap and I don't care anymore. I think I need a break...

Tried to add details and realized I needed a 4th adjustment. I’ll do a detailed version tomorrow…

It is really hard when your reference is cute and you keep looking at his features instead of proportions… will add details tomorrow. Too late tonight.

Hi ! I loved that assignment :) I took a couple hours to do the lay in and proportions, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it because i was so into it and ended up shading .. 5 hours later here is the result. Any feedback would be great :)