i drew the musketeer three times, on various paper sizes. I am always a bit off.

Tried this today . I switched to A3. It felt slightly better, but my proportions were still off. I used a unit from the portrait to establish vertical and horizontal placement, then combined plumb lines and a lot of eyeballing. I followed the "big > medium > small" breakdown like in the lesson. That said, I have basically 0.005% knowledge of anatomy, so once I got to the features I felt kinda lost. Things looked okay from a distance, but the moment I started refining — the eyes, nose, mouth — everything went off. Sizes felt inconsistent with the rest of the head. Not sure where I'm going wrong maybe too much eyeballing, or maybe I’m jumping into features before locking structure better. I’ll watch the next demo later today hoping it’ll help. Would love some critique if anyone’s willing 🙏

2nd try:

Would love some feedback on this. was it too simple?

1st try. Drew on paper mostly following along with Stan’s demo, especially in the beginning, then traced my own drawing in Procreate. I should try it again picking my own measuring points. Great exercise. My brain hurts!

so far the toughest assignment, it was very interesting that portrait coming together starting with the big shapes and than scaling down - toughest part were the eyes, I've felt that smallest mistake was ruining the whole reception of the face. If you have any more tricks, please share.

RAHHHHHHH THE NOSE WAS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO DRAW AHHHHHHHHH (On a serious note, this was a really fun Project to do, and like I always say, Im not going to beat myself up over me not drawing the eyes (and especially the nose) exactly how I wanted, but honestly I cant wait to do more in the future.................. . (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

This was really difficult for me; here are some pictures I took during the process. Any and all advice or feedback is appreciated!!

I've been doing a lot in the perspective part of the course which has been quite difficult for me so I've been slowing down a fair bit in terms of new stuff. So I wanted to return to a project that I had a lot of fun with. I did my best to apply some of my new knowledge of perspective to this portrait. It was actually a fairly easy example as the the strands of hair appear roughly to be equal lengths and so they create a face plane to use as reference. As usual I had the proportions of the brow line higher than it was in the reference but less so than I had before. I also seem to have issues laying in the position of the ears, but in this case I did get the hight of the ear correctly. I then decided to do a very rough lay in of value. I started in a lot of value on the right side of the face but I didn't like where it was going so I stopped there. It actually created an interesting contrast to the portrait which I've come to like. I'm excited to to get to the shading portion of the course but doing my best to appreciate all the perspective portion. Also I should add that the image was sourced from Proko's "Portraits and Expressions Reference Bundle." I decided to get it as I was struggling to find high quality images with camera angles and expressions that I find interesting. There are many examples of extremely emotive faces which I have also tried but at the moment didn't do a great job of doing correctly. I think I'm finding that the more extreme the expression is the more important small deviations are. Whereas in a portrait like this that is in a resting face I think that a small deviation say in the width of the mouth may just make it appear as if the model is smirking for instance. But a small deviation in the mouth in an already exaggerated expression can take the portrait to looking unphysical.

i have three things that bug me off 1. the facial expression, it was supposed to be serious but he came off angry, he has little visible eyebrows so its kinda hard for me to express his face 2. it doesnt read like they are the same guy tho i did try to focus on that. 3. the eyes dont look at the direction i wanted them to be proportion wise, i dont feel very bad about it, but as you can see i used only the hat to measure vertically only i eyeballed them a bit more than measuring, mostly because i dont really know how to measure in this software. but i think he looks... okay? i hope, any advice is appreciated

This was very insightful, I've never taken line guides to this levels and often struggle a little bit with proportion since I eyeball it. It took me 2 hours to lay the lines to structure the drawing and even though I still have some issues I think practicing this method more will help me improve with getting the right proportions. Open to feedback!

Here we are. Probably leaned too far into detail but needed to express dark values like the beard.

This is my first attempt after weeks of avoiding and finally having the courage to try it. For the proportion I tried using just my pencil and eyeballing it. Could be better, will do another attempt soon. Any feedback and advice would be greatly appreciated!

I am quite proud just of the fact that I didn't quit this time around, and actually completed the assignment! It was really challenging and fun to do a portrait layin this way, as I have been prone to simply use grids in the past.

Hello, I believe I may have gone too far, and I also think the face should be more refined. What are your thoughts? Thank you for your feedback : )

Drawn with grid method.

This assignment was very challenging for me. Even as I followed the how-to that Stan did, I struggled. And my ability to eyeball without any kind of measurement is very undeveloped. I corrected over and over as I went along. It took well over an hour to lay it in initially; I had a bit better of a time with creating the shapes, and then, creating the shapes/detail for the face was, again, challenging. I will not be discouraged by this, she said hopefully.

Had to boost contrast since original was too light to see. I think this project is easily the most frustrating time I've ever had drawing anything. This was my second attempt and I stopped halfway. I definitely understand the point of guidelines and measuring, and how important they are. But when I draw a grid, or guides, my brain doesn't understand how to use them as guides. Instead I turn them into invisible constraints and can't seem to draw with any fluidity anymore. The guides make the page feel claustrophobic and my lines reflect that. It's as if my brain tricks itself into making the situation worse than it is. has anyone else felt the same way, and if so, how do you get over that feeling? Thanks.

I feel like I have so many thoughts in my head that getting them on paper turns out messier than expected. I hope my attempt shows through all my measuring by eye.