This week we continue our study of head and neck anatomy by adding in shadow shapes guided by our simplified head shape model. I’m using different references this time around, to keep things fresh. There are a couple celebrities and one Aftyn reference. This was a fun exercise! However, I found it hard to stay in the spirit of the assignment, which asked us to include features without worrying about likeness. I am highly focused on likeness in my portrait work and found it basically impossible to quiet that voice in my head as I continued. The latter 5 images were easier to keep that up with, given the dramatic shadows involved.
I built these up in phases. In the first phase, I traced what I’ve started referring to as “the Kenzo head” on top of the references.
I then hid the references and used the traced shapes to make a set of freehand copies.
Finally I painted the rendered heads you see at the top over the freehand sketches.
I’m pretty happy with the results, particularly with number 7. That was a tricky angle, and the sketches don’t exactly fill me with confidence. At the end of the day, though, they all look good as heads, and for the most part even capture likeness.