Day 11: Getting the geometry of the face right

Day 11: Getting the geometry of the face right

This morning I spent few hours watching couple of Youtube videos about caricature drawing. It's an interesting subject in itself and when linked to drawing traditional portraits (something I focus at the moment on) is especially interesting for me, because it appears to be twice or even more difficult when compared to drawing traditional portraits, yet many artists seem to succeed in drawing amazing caricatures which still have a resemblance of original characters. In other words, I was looking for some tips.

When making the house, start from good foundation.

This was what I was thinking when looking for tips. When following skillful artist's work, one can see - they know what they are doing. They have the vision, solid foundation, and usually know where things should be even before the actual drawing has started. So. There's no use in inventing the wheel twice. Learning is about making mistakes, but if someone has made those mistakes before you, figured out how to draw effectively and has some insight about the technique and approach, make sure you follow.

So, I was watching few youtube videos, when I bumped into one by Jonathan Appleby focusing on measurements of the face. You can go and watch that, I recommend it highly as it provides some background on how to structure the face and once you learn that, this knowledge can serve you later.
You can also check omy own notes as well.

It all starts from the circle

You can see the length of the face, as well as hairline.

The diagonal line, divided into 3 parts 

This helps in determing places for eyebrows and the nose

Eyes and lips

The place for the eyes is got by dividing the whole length of the face into half.
The place of lips is got by dividing the line between the nose and chin into 3 parts and the lip-line is the 2nd line from the bottom.

The width of eyes, nose and lips

The exact width of eyes is got, when the eye line is divided into 5 parts. The width of nose and lips uses the width of eyes as the reference.

The face

So, even though the result is quite squarish, somewhat generic and doesn't have the "life" in it yet, it does prove the point. If you're not sure where to place the features of the face while drawing, use this or similar approach. There's no harm in knowing the basics.