Project - Measure Proportions

Lesson by

7.3K

Assignments 807Lesson NotesDownloads 6

Project - Measure Proportions

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

7.3K

Assignments 807Lesson NotesDownloads 6

Deadline: Submit your assignment by 07/25/2023 for a chance to be featured in the next critique video!

Use the reference photo and all the measuring methods you learned in the previous lesson to practice drawing a portrait with accurate proportion.

Keep in mind that your layin will get harder as you move from big shapes to smaller details. Don't draw too small, otherwise the shapes of the features will be too small and harder to draw accurate. Keep the photo next to or in front of your paper to avoid distortion.

Expect a careful layin to take about an hour. Don't rush. Worry about accuracy, not time.

Remember - big to small, use straight lines, measure units, double check, find plumb lines, judge angles. Try to have fun!

Level 2, you're doing the same thing for this one. This exercise doesn't change no matter what your experience level is.

The Musketeer photo reference is from the Musketeer Model Pack by Grafit Studio

@veryartthing

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Tried doing faces with observing measurements rather than... uh measuring them. Results are worse but way less tedious to do. Main issue is I keep messing up the eyes and I dunno what to do about that really, I always get the angle wrong no matter how hard I try not too.

@veryartthing

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Its been ages since I've done measuring like this. I usually just use eyeballing techniques, because frankly drawing like this is agony for me. Its soooooo difficult and tedious. I recognize that its helpful though, its just hard to motivate oneself to consistently do something this draining.

@silver847

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I’ve done some of this before so I decided to include it as well. This musketeer proved to be very challenging for me and a reminder that I have to get better at drawing facial features

Aimee

•

Man this was difficult, lol. I feel like I did a somewhat decent job and I am somewhat happy with it. I also sort of feel like my lines are messy but that's alright. Will just do better next time. I'm gonna try another attempt or two tomorrow I think. I can see now that I made him a bit long just cause I messed my measurements up a little, that's alright though. If anyone has any feedback or tips I would appreciate it.

Aimee

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Todays attempt. Honestly feeling like I did a lot worse, lol. My measurements were pretty off and I placed a lot of her features too high and just made everything sort of big. Everything is just very off, feeling a bit bad about it but maybe I will give it another shot tomorrow. I also have no idea how I messed the hair up that bad, making me laugh a bit.

Melanie Scearce

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Very nice job here. Your vertical measurement look good. Like you said, he's a bit long but that can be easily fixed by finding the correct horizontal proportions. One thing that may be contributing to the longness is the angles of the features -- you nailed the angle of the relationship between the eyes, but the nose and the mouth aren't on the same tracks. It's a subtle effect but it can draw the face down. Hope that helps!

Oscar de Luna

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This was so hard omg. I quit for some time because I could not handle those proportions but, anyway, I'm back, everyone gansgsta until eyes and noses appear isn't it? Let's do it better next time!

Melanie Scearce

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You did a great job!

Lost 247365

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13d

I kinda misunderstood that we were supposed to be simplifying and went all out on the details. So I redid the simplified version. That said, I wanted to include my high detailed drawing as well so I am including it at the end.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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10d

Really really great practice! Very strong work! Nice job simplifying it.

Daniel Rodriguez

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17d

@Martha Muniz Any and all constructive criticism would be appreciated. I followed both lessons as close as possible.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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16d

Nice work! The proportions look close to the reference. I like how dimensional the eyes look. I think one think that could help you out is to use more tapered marks. Practicing ‘drawing through’ will help you out a lot along your artist journey. Good stuff. Keep it up!

Michael Koch

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19d

Daniel Rodriguez

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10d

Well, done!

@goobish

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23d

My submission for the Proportions project. It took me many tries to get this result though I know this is still probably not perfectly accurate. When practicing proportions is it better to do many quicker measuring + eye balling portraits for quick feed back on a range of faces with varying proportions or would it be better to focus on a single portrait at a time and do the photoshop self critique many times as you go and slowly try and chisel away at the face to train your eyes that way? Thanks very much any advise or critiques would be greatly appreciated.

@arthiecio

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1mo

Tried to understand more about how to quickly put some placeholders but take me 3 hours to end the measures.

Melanie Scearce

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1mo

Don't worry too much about how long it takes you -- speed with come with practice. You did a nice job filling in the details and it looks like you followed the simple to complex process. Really focus on the angles of the landmarks like the angle between the eyes, and the angle between the eye and the top of the ear. Finding those angles will be very useful to you in determining the placement of the nose, mouth, and overall angle of the face. Overlaying your drawing over the reference image shows that the angle between the eyes is a bit off, which give the effect of the face tilting in the opposite direction. Hope that helps :)

@dangerousnor

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1mo

Made some erorross. Also need to focus and be more conscious about my angles.

Greg Low

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1mo

First go (and this is my first time submitting homework - yay!). Not sure I did a goo enough job of simplifying the shapes. They are quite complicated! And this likely made it harder to get it accurate. Also this took me significantly longer than an hour... phew! I’d like to have another go at simplifying further once I've reviewed the demo + critiques.

Michael Longhurst

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1mo

Second attempt . This was after some back and forth checking and correcting. I was pretty good on the head and face, but the shoulders were way off so I corrected. Need to be more careful with the “less important” proportions!

ANX804U

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1mo

Nice work, though I will suggest using a better reference where light and dark has much more contrast, so you can actually see shapes and that help you if you draw that pose again or from imagination. Though really great work, the angles are perfect you are just missing some shapes in between shapes, but that's not a problem from measurements, it's just anatomy problem. Master piece michael

Michael Longhurst

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1mo

First attempt. The facial features were proportionate to each other, but too low on the face. Hat was too big, which may have been a part of my struggle.

ANX804U

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1mo

I don't know if it's any better, I would totally love a critique. my doubt after doing it second time is : I spend 50 percent of time in eyes, why even in second time I could not tilt it more, how can I make it more clean like its in video. Thanks a lot again. sayonara until next time but todays I am gonna do at least 3 projects.

Josh Fiddler

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1mo

100% you're main issue is line quality. Confidence primarily, but also going dark makes moving and fixing mistakes very challenging, leaving behind a lot of muddying smudges. try to pull a line like the left edge of the hat in one stroke, the next line toward the peak. of the hat again in one stroke. maybe you over shoot, maybe you undershoot, meh. The goal is angle and direction. For the long edge of the face, a couple pulls should do it. Agonizing over getting it exactly right may also be a source of troubles.

Dipede Doodle

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1mo

This is my attemp it took 3 hours. I am pretty happy with it.Obviously my main goal was to hit the spot and keeping the proportions right. Please let me know what I can improve, leave a critique or hit the like button. Thank you!

Dipede Doodle

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1mo

Did you ever seen someone portraiing while using a transparent ruler? I didn't and I didn't use it for this drawing but I am just wondering. I mean you can use it but still have to keep a proportional relation (like the head) but it seems to be easier with a transparent ruler. For those who have a hard time meassuring with the pencil as I do. I use a hard strip of paper for meassurement this gives me a wider edge on top so I dont have to be that pointy. It helps me keeping on track.

@jflores

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1mo

Here is my assigment. This was a difficult one for me.

ANX804U

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1mo

let me try one more time 😤, without tonal values 😭

ANX804U

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1mo

its freaking bad, i need my tonal values lessons right now, it was looking acceptable until i started putting those tonal values 😭

@luiscubal

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2mo

My attempt to draw the portrait. In general, I think it came out decent, though some measurements about the size of the body turned out to be off. In the face, the eyes turned out a bit too close and the ears a bit too big. The arm shaking a bit while trying to measure stuff with my pencil also made some measurements less reliable than I'd like.

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.