Your new character is adorable, and I'm really liking all the drawings of her that your doing. You can really see her personality in some of these drawings, without you needing to say a word about her. I especially like the
one from day 339. The expression is great, and you did a good job on the lighting.


On the grind: Heads are hard. I can see some definite improvement over the course of this grind. I think you mentioned how you were having some trouble with the traditional method of drawing heads (draw head shape, draw lines across it for the eyes and the middle of the face). I had trouble with it as well, and what helped me was the method presented in this tutorial. It's a big tutorial that covers a lot more than just heads, but the way to get to the bit on heads is People -> Drawing a head. The method isn't hugely different, and I'm not sure if it'll help you or not, but it lead to a major breakthrough for me.

Another thing that you can do with drawing heads would be either ask a female friend or two if you can take some pictures of their heads from various different angles, with various different expressions, or you could draw from reference some female characters from a live action tv show that you watch a lot. The point of that would be so that you can actually recognize the friend/character in your drawing, and you'll end up thinking about what makes that particular person's face unique, which will help you with making the faces of your own characters more unique and consistent.



Quote Originally Posted by Thanqol View Post
GENERAL QUESTION

From time to time, I see things like this and I'm just left kind of speechless. I have no idea what the possible advantages are to a pencil sketch so complicated could be. Do you just keep adding lines until you've somehow got a vague structure and then take the median lines or what? Why do people do this? How does it help? Should I be doing this?
That's exactly how I sketch. I admit, I'm probably really biased towards this kind of sketching, but I'll do my best to describe why and how I do it, and how it helps. I don't really remember when I started sketching like that, but the moment I did, my art improved dramatically. It both helps you flesh out the image in your head if it isn't super clear, and it also feels so much more . . . fluid. After I started sketching like that, it was like everything I drew had so much more life and movement to it. While it looks like it would be a pain to deal with all those extra lines, it actually isn't. They way I do it is I draw the basic lines very lightly, which are generally super chaotic, and slowly start to refine them, using darker and darker lines. The lighter lines just sort of . . . fade away. I erase them a bit as I go, and I think that some also just get smudged away. I've never had any problems with taking a rough sketch like the one you linked and turning it into a completely finished, clean drawing, on the same piece of paper, with no tracing or anything. This is why I usually sketch with paper and pencil, even if the final product is going to be digital. It just feels so much freer, and is part of why I enjoy sketching so much. If you'd like, I can upload some of my sketches in various states of chaotic-ness or refined-ness, to better show how it works.

I personally would recommend that you try out sketching like that, but like I said earlier, I'm very biased.


Quote Originally Posted by Story Time View Post
Well, Thanqol must be learning some-thing. He's starting to sound like a vorlon.
I actually laughed out loud at this, because I thought the exact same thing when I saw that. A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from the bristles . . .