Original taken from tolstnev c Drawing a black and white pattern when processing a portrait or Dodge&Burn.
This is one of the stages when processing a portrait in Photoshop. A few words about what it is needed for. I'll start from afar.
About five hundred years ago the great Leonardo Da Vinci created the ideal proportions of the human face. We perceive such a face as the most harmonious and beautiful.
But in reality, people with such ideal faces simply do not exist. There are only those more or less close to such an ideal. In life, we often see round, square, rectangular, elongated, etc. faces, wide or long noses, wide or narrow eyes... The list of such features can be continued endlessly. But as you know, people have long learned to use cosmetics. The task of which is not only to emphasize the accents on the eyes and lips, but also to correct the geometry of the face and hide its imperfections. And ideally, the makeup artist should apply corrective makeup in such a way that the retoucher does not have to correct anything later. But this is in ideal. In life, everything is far from being like that. The makeup may have been applied incorrectly, or the person may have been photographed without any makeup at all. But even correct makeup can deteriorate during the shooting process, “float”, a person can sweat, etc. So the retoucher then has to correct all this. By the way, a makeup artist and a retoucher do much the same work. They just have different tools. Therefore, I highly recommend that a retoucher involved in portrait processing take a make-up artist course and practice applying makeup on real faces. No, I don't recommend it, I think it's a must!
So! The tasks of the stage of drawing the cut-off pattern are:
- Correction of the shape and proportions of the face.
- Elimination of defects, irregularities, glare and spots on the face.
Moreover, we are not talking about eliminating the smallest defects, such as pimples or any small spots. It is easier to remove them using the Healing brush or Patch tools. But let's move on directly to processing. I have divided this article into several steps.
Stage No. 1. Preparation.
Open the photo. First in a RAW converter. If necessary, we will adjust the engines responsible for shadows and highlights, exposure and white balance. But I noticed that a studio portrait, shot with technically competent lighting, rarely requires manipulation at the conversion stage. Unless you adjust the white balance to your taste.
Then click “open” and open the image in Photoshop.
Now you need to create two additional copies of the layer on top. One light and one dark. There are as many as three options for how this can be done. More precisely, of course, there are more of them, but I will describe three.
Option #1.
Required in cases where the photo has failed dark areas and knocked out light areas. And they need to be “pulled out”.
Open the same photo again in a RAW converter. There we make only 2 movements - raise Exposure by +1 step, and reduce Saturation by -15.
And open this light image in Photoshop. Then, select - the key combination Ctrl+A, copy to the clipboard - Ctrl+C, close - Ctrl+W (without saving). Being on our initially open image with a normal exposure, press Ctrl+V - insert a light photo as the top layer.
Next, open the photo in the RAW converter for the third time. And we do everything exactly the opposite - we reduce Exposure by -1 step, and increase Saturation by +15. It is clear that you can not limit yourself to just one exposure level, especially considering that we are dealing with a rather “rubbery” RAW format, and if necessary, expand the exposure pair of these layers much more. You just need to be careful with noise, which is likely to appear with excessive lightening, and, if necessary, suppress it in the Detail tab.
And just like with the light picture, we repeat all the steps to insert this dark image as a third layer. In what order these two additional layers will appear is absolutely unimportant. But I made the following rule for myself: dark layer on top, light layer below. Just to avoid confusion and work faster. Now you need to cover these two layers with black masks. While on this layer, click the create layer mask button (at the bottom of the layers palette) + Alt. We will work in these two layers. But we need to create two more layers, in which, however, we will not work. They serve only for control. Copy the bottom layer Background (background) Ctrl+J, drag it to the very top and turn it off. During the processing process, we will sometimes turn on this layer to see what was and what has become. Now, let's create a Channel mixer adjustment layer using the button at the bottom of the layers palette. You should end up with a layer cake like this.
When you create an adjustment layer, a window with sliders will open. There you need to check the Monochrome checkbox and move the red slider to the left to about -20. The image will darken. Now move the blue slider to the right to such a value as to restore the brightness of the picture to normal, but without the appearance of overexposure. Like this:
Although we won't do anything else in this layer, it is very important to us. With its help, we “kill” two birds with one stone. The first hare is that we see the picture in a colorless version. This is extremely important. When drawing chiaroscuro, we should under no circumstances be distracted or misled by color. Often spots in the image differ not only in brightness, but also in color. When working with photographs, I follow the rule: first deal with brightness, and then color. This works not only for portraits, but for any image. First we adjust the brightness, then the color! By the way, in the RAW converter I follow the same algorithm. And our second hare - we increased the contrast of the portrait, and now we see all the defects and irregularities more clearly. This helps a lot to see problem areas when drawing.
Option #2. In cases where the photo does not have highlights or failures, there is no need to use a RAW converter to create a dark and light layer. To do this, just copy the Background twice, set one layer to the Multiply blending mode, and the second to the Screen mode. As a result, we will get the same light and dark layers. Next, we’ll also cover them with black masks, create a copy of the background and an adjustment layer as in the first option.
Option #3. The disadvantage of the previous options is that each additional layer significantly increases the file size. After all, in essence, layers are the same images. Another inconvenience is that if you do something with the background layer, for example, remove pimples, and then start drawing on the upper layers, then these same pimples will appear on you again. And if the use of real layers in the first option is still justified by the ability of the RAW format to pull pictures out of highlights and shadows, then the second seems useless to me. That's why I never use the second option. All this can be made even simpler and more convenient for further work using adjustment layers. Instead of copying the background, let's create two adjustment layers on top. Any will do, except those that themselves change the picture, for example Black&White (black and white). I'm used to using Curves. But again, others will do. We transfer these adjustment layers, as in the second option, the top one to the Multiply mode, which I will rename to Dark. And the bottom layer is in Screen (screen), and accordingly I will call it Light. When you create an adjustment layer, a white mask is automatically created. Let's invert it. Click on this mask to select it (a frame will appear around the mask) and press Ctrl+I. She will turn black.
The volume of adjustment layers is literally kilobytes and, no matter how many of them you create, the weight of the file almost does not increase. And you can safely remove pimples on the background layer, without fear that when drawing the upper layers they will appear again. I wrote this operation into an Action, and now creating this “layer cake” takes me no more than a second.
Now we need to prepare the brush for work. In the Edit-Preferences-Cursors menu, I check the Full Size Brush Tip checkbox. This allows you to see what kind of this moment brush - hard or soft. This is not critical, and not at all necessary, but it’s much more convenient for me to work this way. Next, you need to set the Opacity (opacity) and Fill (fill) values to 20%. These values are always equal for me; in my opinion, the brush works softer and smoother this way. To avoid having to manually change these values every time, use hotkeys. Key 2 for example sets Opacity to 20%, 3 to 30%. If you need 25%, quickly press 2 and 5. If you need 100%, press 0. Fill values change in the same way, only through the Shift key. I advise you to get used to it, it will save a lot of your time in future work.
The next step is to remove minor defects using a Healing Brush or Patch. The operation of these tools is straightforward and simple. I think that it makes no sense to describe in detail how to work with them. I will only note that it is better to make the tip of the healing brush oval. In this case, the risk of leaving traces of the influence of this tool is reduced. I usually set the brush hardness to 15-20%.
Stage No. 2. Drawing a light-shadow drawing of a portrait. Removing stains.
Everything that I described above is just a technical component of the process of preparing a portrait for high-quality retouching. For a person who already has some knowledge of FS, most likely all this is already familiar. There is a lot of similar information on the Internet and, just for this reason, I would not write this article. Perhaps the most important and at the same time the most difficult stage is to draw the light and shadow correctly. Having some experience in teaching, I can say that it is at this stage that people have difficulties and make mistakes. Especially for beginners. Therefore, here I will try to describe in more detail each step and all the principles of the process.
First, be patient. Be prepared to spend between an hour and five hours drawing. And perhaps more if you are just learning to work in Photoshop. For comparison, for example, if other stages of retouching, repeated over and over again, seem to be automated in the brain, and with experience they require less and less time, and for some you can even write down Actions, then drawing light and shadow cannot be automated in any way, and not you'll speed it up. Here the result is directly proportional to the amount of time spent. Although, of course, skill is a great thing, and in half a year or a year, you will be drawing a little faster.
Secondly, buy a Wacom graphics tablet - your most faithful assistant in this matter. Of course, you can also draw with a mouse, but believe me, it’s just masochism!
Thirdly, work on a normal calibrated monitor. On some 15-inch laptop with a regular (non-IPS) matrix, you simply won’t see anything, and you will “paint” such horror!
And fourthly, take care of the normal workplace lighting.
So what do we have? Lots of bumps and spots, which I marked with arrows. Black arrows are dark spots, white arrows are correspondingly light. At first glance, everything seems simple: light spots need to be darkened, and dark ones need to be lightened. But in practice, many, especially beginners, not only remove stains, but add them even more. Faces become spotted, striped, and angular. But let's take things in order.
To lighten the dark spot, click on the Light layer mask. And with a white soft brush of the appropriate size, lighten the stain so that it disappears. Here keywords are "appropriately sized". It is very important! I paint by constantly changing the brush size depending on the size of the spot. Even more often, it happens that when removing one spot, I will change the size of the brush many times, depending on its shape and character, blurring of the boundaries. After all, one spot can seem to consist of many spots within itself. Do not remove a large stain with a small brush while trying to paint over it. It's better to do it big. The easiest and fastest way to change a brush is to use the “square brackets” keys. This is also important. I once tried to work by adjusting the brush size in other ways. This seemed so inconvenient to me that it even affected the quality of the drawings - extraneous spots began to appear.
We do the same with the Dark layer, in which we darken the light spots accordingly. In this case, it is very important to take into account the direction of the highlighting light. In this case, you can see that I used a softbox (which I usually rarely use) that was on the right as a key light. Accordingly, I will draw taking into account the direction of the shadows. Also, we can’t make our face flat. You need to save and, if necessary, add volume to the image. It's easiest with the forehead.
It is not at all necessary to try to level out the smallest irregularities here. The method deals with them easier, faster and better frequency decomposition . Moreover, while maintaining the texture of the skin. This method is the next step for me, after drawing light and shadow. Now let's continue. Eye area. This is where the knowledge I gained at the makeup artist courses helped me. The basic rule is this: the shadows visually move away, making them “deeper,” while the lights, on the contrary, bring them closer and “stick out” certain areas. If necessary, I add shadows and light to the places indicated by arrows (black arrows are shadows, white arrows are lights). Nastya has enough eyes correct form, so I added just a little bit of highlights and shadows. I also deepened my eyeliner a little and darkened my eyebrows. Next, remove the circles under the eyes. For now, we focus only on the brightness component. As the stains are removed, excessive leather texture may appear in their place. This happens especially often in areas of glare. Let's leave it allfrequency decomposition .
The nose most often looks wide at the bridge of the nose. We correct this by applying dark strokes to these places. The nose visually becomes narrower. I also lightened the shadow from the nasolabial fold a little.
On the area of the face to the left of the nose (white arrow), I lightened it a little so that it was approximately the same as on the right side. But not exactly like there, I left it a little darker - don’t forget that this part of the face is located further from the light source. And the part marked with a black arrow was darkened so that this protruding part of her face would not be conspicuous. Moreover, he did it with a fairly large brush - after all, it was necessary to treat a fairly large area. At the same time, the large brush caught part of the background behind the model, and it also darkened. It’s easy to fix this - change the color of the brush to the opposite, that is, black - press the X key, set the Opacity and Flow to 100%, and erase the excess blackness from the background. In this case, we select the hardness of the brush depending on the degree of blurring of the border of the face area in this place. The sharper the outline, the harder the brush. In this case I chose 25%.
Lips. In this case, everything is fine with them. But, if the lower lip is flat, then you can darken it a little underneath. And you will immediately get the impression of a fuller lip. After all, a shadow is cast from something.
Chin. The shape of chins can be very diverse. Also, we adjust its shape with light and shadow, if necessary, make it more convex, remove spots and highlights.
It happens like this: you see a dark and light area nearby that need to be aligned. Sometimes you can immediately see that you need to, for example, lighten a dark area, and everything will fall into place. Or vice versa. And sometimes it’s not obvious. Should I darken the light or lighten the dark? Then I recommend taking the middle path - lighten the dark a little, and darken the light a little. I recommend periodically working on different layers, light and dark, and constantly alternating them. Also alternate sections of the image so that the eye does not become blurred. It is necessary to constantly zoom in and out to view the photo. If you work for more than an hour, you should definitely give your eyes a rest. Your eyes get tired from working for a long time, and you will make such mistakes that you will surprise yourself later.
It also happens: you draw, but nothing happens. Or things don't happen as they should. Check everything in order:
- The mask of the desired layer is currently active.
- Opacity of all layers 100%
- Background copy layer disabled
- The Brush tool is currently active
- Brush settings - round, soft, desired color, Opacity and Flow parameters, Normal brush mode.
And this is the image I ended up with. The spots are leveled out, the volume remains. Please note that the wide jaw began to visually look a little narrower. Or rather, it is no longer so striking. Often I also add color to my hair to get extra volume. But I didn’t do this here, because I thought that the hair would draw more attention to itself.
And here’s what happened after a full processing cycle, which includes plastics, frequency decomposition, working with color, curves, background replacement, contour sharpening...
See more photos with this processing on my website http://www.staspozitiv.ru
I provide training in photo processing, including online
I teach courses on studio photography at the Baikal Academy of Photography in Irkutsk
If you dream of drawing realistic portraits, you cannot do without knowing how to draw individual facial details. In this article, artist and teacher Lee Hammond shares tips and techniques for drawing realistic faces in pencil.
Learning to draw facial details
Before you draw faces, you must learn how to depict their individual features. As you go through drawing each feature in turn, you will study the structure of the face and understand what to look for in the drawing.
Consider a ball. Its shape is constantly visible in the contours of the human face: in roundness and curved lines, especially in the cheeks, nose and chin. And, like a ball, the chiaroscuro of each facial feature consists of five elements: the falling shadow, the edge of the shadow, the penumbra, the reflected light and the highlight.
In the three images below you will see how the shape of the ball is clearly visible on different parts faces. Remember that chiaroscuro should be visible in everything you draw.
Nose
The shape of the nose is close to spherical. In fact, three spheres are visible in the outline of the nose: the tip and the nostrils.
Chin
The shape of the chin is also spherical. See how the light reflects along it and creates a shadow on the neck.
Cheeks
Spheres are visible in all roundness of the cheek. The five elements of chiaroscuro are clearly visible.
Now let's move on to drawing facial features. Let's start with the nose.
You need:
- Drawing paper
- Eraser
- Simple pencil
- Ruler
- Tortillion
Drawing the nose
Of all the facial features, the nose is the least difficult to draw and most closely resembles a sphere. It is easy to see the five elements of chiaroscuro. It is important to learn to draw facial features from different angles.
Drawing the nose from the front and profile will give you enough experience. Follow the step-by-step instructions for drawing the nose from both angles.
Front view
1. Creating a contour line
Using the markings, draw a line of the nose from the front with a pencil.
2. Image of chiaroscuro
Draw highlights at the wings and the tip of the nose. Add shadows at the bottom of the nose to make it look 3D. Draw a shadow under the nose.
3. Mixing
Lightly blend the pencil tones using a tortillion. Leave a little white. Many artists, when painting light skin tones, leave only the highlights as white as paper.
Blend from darker tones to lighter ones, just like you did in the sphere drawing exercise. This will give the drawing realism.
Profile view
1. Sketch the contour line
Using markings, use a pencil to draw a line for the nose in profile.
2. Image of chiaroscuro
When you are confident that the outline is accurate, erase the mesh. Mark the light and shade with a pencil. Remember to respect the shape of the sphere.
3. Mixing
Gently blend the tones using a tortillion. A dark background will help highlight the contour of the nose.
Lighting plays a decisive role. Against a dark background, the drawing looks completely different.
Drawing a mouth
Drawing a mouth can be difficult. Many beginning artists emphasize it too much. But this is necessary when cosmetics are used on the lips that clearly outline its contour.
When learning how to draw a mouth, pay attention to the fact that the upper lip is smaller and darker than the lower. Its shape resembles the letter M.
Male and female lips differ from each other. Women's lips are more clearly defined and appear fuller and brighter. Men's lips are thinner and less noticeable on the face.
Drawing female lips
1. Drawing a contour line
Using markings, draw a lip line with a pencil.
2. Dimming
The upper lip is depicted darker because it is turned inward, and the lower lip is drawn outward.
3. Mixing
Gently blend the tones using a tortillion. Draw skin around the lips to make the drawing look more realistic. Use an eraser to create highlights on your lower lip so it will look shiny.
Drawing male lips
1. Creating a contour line
Using a marking line, use a pencil to outline the line of the lips.
2. Dimming
When you are confident that the outline is accurate, carefully erase the markings. Use a pencil to add dark areas.
3. Blending and brightening
Mix tones by the tortillion. Do not leave white spots on the paper. Deepen the color of the dark areas with a pencil, then use an eraser to lighten the highlights.
Drawing a smile
It is much more difficult to draw a mouth if the teeth are visible. When drawing teeth, do not press hard on the pencil. Too expressive lines will look like chips.
It is also necessary to depict chiaroscuro. Teeth are voluminous, and without light and shade they will look flat. The deeper the tooth is in the mouth, the darker the shadows will be. The lower teeth are also depicted as darker, as they protrude less forward.
1. Creating a contour line
Using markings, use a pencil to draw the outlines of the mouth and teeth. Strive to achieve as close a resemblance as possible.
Avoid pressing hard on the pencil. To achieve greater accuracy, draw both the outline of the gums and the outline of the teeth.
2. Dimming
When you are confident that the outline is accurate, erase the markings. Use a pencil to add dark tones. The darkest tones are inside the mouth. The upper lip is darker than the lower lip, and there are no bright highlights on it.
3. Mixing and drawing chiaroscuro
Lightly blend the tones using a tortillion. Apply a little shadow to each tooth to add dimension. Add a highlight to your lower lip to make it look voluminous and shiny.
The lines between the teeth should remain barely noticeable. This can be achieved using an eraser.
Drawing Facial Hair
When drawing a man, the question of depicting facial hair: mustache and beard may arise. At first glance, this is difficult, but in fact it is very similar to drawing animal fur.
Facial hair, like animal fur, is drawn with strokes in several layers.
1. Creating a contour line
Using the markings, draw the lines of the nose, lips and mustache with a pencil.
2. Drawing and blending
Once you are confident that the outline is accurate, carefully erase the marking lines. Add dark colors with a pencil.
Using a pencil, draw the mustache hairs in the direction of growth. Mix by the tortillion and then draw the next layer of hair.
3. Deepening tone, blending
Deepen your tone. When you reach the desired color depth, use the eraser to create some highlights. This way you will achieve the volume of the drawing.
Drawing eyes
The eye has a complex structure, and when drawing each element it is necessary to take into account a lot of nuances:
- The iris and pupil have a perfect circle shape when the gaze is directed straight ahead. If the eye is depicted at an angle or looking up or down, then they take an oval shape.
- The center of the pupil coincides with the center of the iris.
- The pupil is the darkest element of the eye. Color it as dark a shade as possible. Don't forget to draw a highlight.
- Half of the highlight is on the pupil, the other half is on the iris. Reduce the glare if it occupies more than half of the pupil in the photo from which you are drawing.
- A very important detail is the drawing of the skin fold of the lower eyelid. To make the drawing look realistic, you should not limit yourself to just the line under the eye.
- The patterns of the iris differ from each other depending on the color of the eyes and are similar to rays diverging in different directions.
- It is necessary to slightly shade the white of the eye. This will give it a spherical shape. Never leave it pure white.
- The eyelashes of the upper eyelid, layered on top of each other, look like a thick dark line.
- The upper eyelid hugs the eyeball.
Now let's move on to drawing the eyes.
1. Creating a contour line
Using the markings, draw the outline of the eye with a pencil.
2. Drawing the iris and blending
When you are sure of the accuracy of the outline, erase the marking lines. Draw the iris pattern. The lines should resemble rays diverging in different directions, or the spokes of a wheel.
Leave some room for the highlight (half of it should be on the pupil and half on the iris). Mix gently using a tortillion. Use an eraser to create highlights on the iris.
3. Further blending, drawing eyelashes
Draw the skin, creating a distinct outline. Shade the white of the eye to give it a spherical shape.
Draw eyelashes with quick strokes. They should be pointed at the ends. They grow in several layers, so don't draw them at the same distance from each other.
Note that eyelashes grow on the inner surface of the lower eyelid. Thanks to this, the eye looks more voluminous.
Drawing the nose and eyes together
Once you've learned the structure of the eyes and learned how to draw them realistically, you need to figure out how to depict them along with other parts of the face, such as the nose.
Here are some tips:
- The width between the eyes is equal to the width of one eye.
- Both eyes should be on the same line.
- If you draw a vertical line from the corner of the eye, it should touch the edge of the nose. (This rule may not apply if you are drawing someone of a different race)
- Both eyes should look in the same direction. The pupils and irises should be the same.
- The highlight should be placed in the same place in each eye (half in the pupil, half in the iris).
1. Creating a contour line
Using markings, draw the outline of the eyes and nose. Notice the vertical lines drawn from the corners of the eyes and touching the wings of the nose. Place your eyes at the same level as each other.
2. Shading and drawing eyebrows
When you are sure of the accuracy of the result, carefully erase the marking line. Use a pencil to draw dark colors.
The darkest element of the eye is the pupil. Highlight the shadowed areas and eyebrows. Before drawing the hair, do some shading inside the outline.
3. Blending and Highlighting Highlights
Mix tones by the tortillion. Only small areas of the paper should remain white, including the whites of the eyes. Use an eraser to create small highlights on the eyebrows and eyes.
Half-turned eyes
There are different rules for drawing a person from an angled perspective. This diagram will help you learn to see an object from different angles.
Due to perspective, facial features appear distorted. In the example drawing, the nose covers one eye; this side of the face is only partially visible.
1. Creating a contour line
Using markings, use a pencil to draw the outline of the eyes at a slight angle. Please note that part of the face at an angle is not visible.
The gaze is no longer directed straight ahead, and the irises and pupils take the form of vertical ovals. Perspective changes their perfectly round shape.
2. Shading and blending eyebrows, drawing shadows
When you are confident that the outline is accurate, erase the markings. Use a pencil to shade the shaded areas. The darkest elements are the pupils. Blend your brows to achieve a gray tone.
3. Blending and creating highlights
Use a tortillion to mix the pattern. Use an eraser to create highlights on the eyebrows. Draw the pattern of the iris and the sparkle in the eyes.
Ears
Ears are one of the most difficult body parts to draw. They contain multiple bizarre shapes. If the ears are not noticeable because of earrings or large size, we pay little attention to them. But they are not formless, as we often think.
To draw portraits and make them look realistic, you need to study their structure. Good idea– draw ears from different angles if you want to succeed in drawing portraits.
Front view of the ear
Below is a typical close-up of the ear in a portrait. Most of it is hidden behind the hair. Only part of the lobe is visible.
Posterior view of the ear at an angle
This picture conveys the subtleties of the structure of the ear. The angle of the image is not typical, but perhaps someday you will have to draw a person in such an unusual pose.
Drawing ears
This exercise will help you learn the anatomy of the ear. It consists of intricate lines that harmoniously connect with each other. The markings will help you understand the composition of this mosaic.
Here are some things to keep in mind when drawing ears:
- The outer surface of the ear seems to fit around the inner surface.
- The shape of the inner surface of the ear resembles the letter U.
- The skin of the ear has its own characteristics. It is fatter, so the highlights can be very bright.
- The inside of the ear has a tubercle resembling a cup.
- The earlobe is spherical.
1. Creating a contour line
Using markings, draw the outline of the ear with a pencil. It is like a puzzle whose pieces are interconnected.
2. Shading
When you are sure that the outline is correct, carefully remove the markings with an eraser. Apply shading with a pencil.
Apply shadow on the inner surface of the ear. Don't shade too much.
3. Blending and brightening
Mix the pattern using a tortillion. To achieve a realistic image, use the eraser to create highlights.
The skin of the ear shines more, so the highlights should be bright. Don't forget about the five elements of light and shade and that the lobe is spherical.
Drawing a portrait
Once you've learned how to draw each facial feature, it's time to combine them into a portrait. Don't try this until you've had enough practice. First, master drawing facial features individually.
Before moving on to the instructions for drawing a portrait, learn how to draw hair as well. This topic is discussed in another article.
Here are tips for drawing portraits:
- Start drawing from the eyes. This will help create an association with a specific person.
- After you draw the eyes, move on to drawing the nose, then the mouth.
- Let darker hair color help highlight your facial contours. By shading the background, the face looks more natural and the contour is smoother.
- Draw the hair in the direction it grows.
- In every drawing, remember the five elements of chiaroscuro.
1. Creating a contour line
Using the markings, draw an outline with a pencil female face. Be careful, take your time and watch the cells carefully.
2. Hatching and marking the direction of hair growth
When you are sure that the outline is correct, erase the marking line. Add dark tones.
Start with the eyes, then move to the nose and then to the mouth. Paying attention to the angle of the light, add dark strokes around the face. Use long pencil strokes to outline the direction of hair growth.
3. Blending and brightening
Let's move on to the final stage. It is necessary to mix the face pattern with a tortillion very carefully. White spots: There should be some glare left in the eyes and nose. Use the skills learned in the individual feature drawing exercises. Remember the five elements of chiaroscuro.
Drawing hair takes a lot of time. Convey length using long pencil strokes. Mix gently and then use an eraser to create thread-like highlights.
Practice
You've learned the basics of drawing facial features, now you need more practice. Lee Hammond's The Big New Book of Drawing has plenty of... step by step instructions for beginners in drawing graphic and color images. It describes the processes of drawing both human faces and animals.
So make sure you draw them well. I will describe a method that I sometimes use myself and think that it gives good results.
In order to start drawing shadows, you will need basically the same tools that you usually use:
- Pencils. Of the entire line of pencil hardnesses for drawing shadows, it is better to use markings from 3B to 5B. At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize the shadows with a pencil with a hardness of B2.
- Grout paper.For rubbing a pencil, I mostly use only napkins, although in fact other products, such as soft paper towels or toilet paper, are also suitable. It is worth paying attention to the quality of the paper, however, because it should not be too soft, like most low-quality handkerchiefs. In addition, handkerchiefs or napkins should not contain any impregnation, as it stains the paper.
- Blender. This is a special pencil or paper rolled into a roll, as shown in the picture below.
- Eraser.Usually the eraser “collects” excessively shaded areas and wipes away streaks of light.
Toning
The first step in painting a portrait is preparing a sketch. Then you should outline all the main shadow spots.
Shading always begins with the application of an initial tone that covers everything - a flat gray color. Of course it must be light shade, because its role is to highlight the body tone on paper. I use an H3 or H2 pencil for this, and draw very carefully with it, holding the pencil at a sharp enough angle so that the flat side of the sharpened pencil touches. As shown in the picture below.
After I have covered the entire face with an even tone, I should start looking for those places where the shadow on the face is darker. And then outline these areas again, so that in some places on the paper you end up with 2 layers of pencil. After which my drawing looks like this.
The next step is a strong choice of shadows. For this I usually use a pencil with a hardness of HB and, as before, I hold it at a wide angle. You should constantly compare the drawing with the photograph, adding characteristic shadows. At this stage we need a lot of patience, don't try to do it all at once. It is better to wait for 5 minutes and then evaluate all the work with a fresh look, such an analysis will give top scores. Shading is done slowly, I personally very often correct those things that do not fit into the overall tonal picture.
The shadow on the face depends on the direction of the light, so at this stage it is worth imagining where that person is. who you're painting, whether the lighting is intense, where the light is coming from, and where the shadow is falling. By the way, very often your gaze is “blurred” at the image you are drawing. Personally, I have a way to achieve more productive results: I place a printed grayscale image next to each one and quickly look from one to the other. This allows me to see where I'm making the shadow too dark, where I'm making it too bright, and where the highlights and highlights actually are. 
Grinding
Now it’s time to move on to further transformation of the portrait—grinding. In particular, I use a simple paper handkerchief for this. It's very easy, I wrap the paper around my finger and gently rub the shadows. There is no need to worry that you will go beyond the outline of the face, because, as a rule, the rest of the background of the picture is darker, and also the rubbed pencil is very easy to erase with an eraser. Remember that the paper you use for sanding quickly becomes dirty and begins to leave a dirty mark. That's why I often change where I blend the pencil layers, otherwise the shadows may turn out too strong.
The next step is to add shadows and midtones, which should be applied in the same way as described above, constantly comparing the resulting pattern with the standard. In order to complete the missing elements, there are two ways: either first complete the shadow and rub it; or use “dirty” previously used handkerchiefs. This way you can draw the tones and shadows of almost all elements of the portrait. But sometimes there are places left that are quite small in size and difficult to shade with your finger. In such cases, it is not possible to use a paper handkerchief; you should use a special blender. 
Creating highlights
The final stage of the face treatment is to wipe away light spots in areas where the face is serene, which is usually the nose, cheeks, forehead and chin. How to do it? Using a clipped eraser, gently rub the pencil layer to obtain more clean slate. Please note that the main thing here is not to overdo it, and that the “light spots” do not have sharp edges!
Draw all the other details: hair, eyebrows, eyes, mouth, earrings. Try to make them as similar as possible, this will add believability to the portrait.
Of course, in addition to the face, you need to draw the visible part of the body and clothing.
Don't be afraid to practice your skills, make mistakes and correct them, listen to advice. In any case, after you draw a large enough volume of portraits, you will be able to do it very well. I personally noticed that with each drawing, I learn something new, correct mistakes and next time I don’t make them again.
Therefore, I will note again that the most important thing is experience, in other words, practice, practice and more practice.
Choose what you especially liked and get to work.
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Compare the chiaroscuro on the face with the chiaroscuro on the ball. The face and head are rounded, so the same shading principles apply here. Remember! Shadows are created by light. Shadows change depending on where the light comes from. |
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We will look later on how to apply light and shade to the face, since first you need to master some techniques in drawing the details of the face: nose, mouth, eyes and eyebrows.
2. Nose.
Before you start drawing the whole picture, practice drawing individual elements of the face separately. It is best to find drawings for exercises in magazines. Each drawing is different from the other, but take a closer look at them. Consider different turns of the head, noticing how the appearance and lighting of the nose, mouth, etc. changes.
Practice drawing noses using a grid.
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| Let's use this example to study in detail the application of light and shade on the nose. | Draw a 25mm grid (4 cells). Draw a line drawing. make sure it is accurate. | |
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| Using a dark tone of No. 1, shade the nostrils and the falling shadow on the left. | Apply shadow #2 to the areas indicated here. | Using feathering, create penumbra No. 3. Shadows No. 2 soften at the same time. |
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We need to make the skin a little darker, so apply the shadow again. |
Blend the tonal transitions again. Don't forget to squint. If you see small light areas, shade them. If you see small dark areas, lighten them using the sharp edge of the rubber band (if the edge is blunt, make a cut; the scrap can also be used as this). |
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3. Mouth.
A closed mouth is easier to draw than an open one. For the latter, I recommend a finer mesh - lots of small details. Each tooth must be the proper size, shape, and in place.
When drawing a mouth, follow these rules:
1. The upper lip is usually darker than the lower lip.
2. The lower lip contains highlights.
3. There are light shadows around the mouth.
4. Never outline your finished mouth.
5. The line dividing the lips is very uneven. It is thick in some places and very thin in others. The corners of the mouth are shaped like a quotation mark or a teardrop. It is very important to depict them - the mouth looks like it goes inward, rather than lying flat on the surface of the face.
6. Men's lips are sometimes very light. Their shape is then determined not by outlines, but by shadows above and below.
We will now draw a closed mouth. I recommend practicing with photos from magazines.
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| Study the location of this mouth in the grid cells. Note that it is slightly rotated to the right. See how the last vertical grid line runs through the middle of the upper lip? Your memory will incline you to believe that this middle should be in the center of the picture, and not to the right. |
Always draw what you see in front of you, and not what your memory tells you! This is why using a grid is so important. It allows you to draw shapes exactly where they should be. | |
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| Apply dark tone No. 1 on the line between the lips and in the left corner where the lips diverge. | Apply taupe shade #2 to the upper lip and under the lower lip. | Apply Penumbra No. 3 to the lower lip, leaving room for highlight. Make the left side of the lower lip darker, closer to #2. |
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| Using a “sharp” eraser, identify highlights: make a light stroke with the eraser and get a highlight. | Left: 1 - reflected light; 2 - glare. |
4. Eyes, eyelashes and eyebrows.
The entire drawing can be just a background for one eye, so you should pay special attention to drawing the eye.
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| Eyebrows can be of any shape and thickness. First just apply the mold. | Start drawing the hairs. Follow the original in which direction they grow and move the pencil accordingly. | Continue drawing the hairs until they begin to blend in and then use a blending brush. |
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| Finish the hairs, giving them the desired blackness. |
To soften the tone a little, use quick and light movements to “remove” |
Never Do not fill in your eyebrows with thick pencil lines. |
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| These lines are fine. They are curved, becoming thinner towards the end, more like real hairs. |
This is better, but the lines still look sharp and too straight. |
Eyelashes too Not should be drawn with hard lines. These lines are too hard and straight. In addition, eyelashes do not grow individually. |
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| Eyelashes grow in approximately these groups. Watch in which direction they bend. | Never Do not draw the outline of the eye with such lower eyelashes. | This is how the lower eyelashes should be drawn. They grow from the lower edge of the lower eyelid thickness, and they are shorter than the upper eyelashes. Do you see that some of them are longer than others? The lower eyelashes also grow in bushes. |
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| Redraw this eye onto graphite paper. | The pupil and iris are, by nature, perfect circles. Underestimation of this is the reason why many images of people are implausible. | Erase the mesh. Using a thin line, draw circles in the eye using a thin line. Then refine these circles using a circle template. If you are drawing two eyes, both should be drawn using the same template. Start drawing the eyebrow with a pencil and draw in the pupil. |
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| Apply some of the darker shade (#1) around the outer edge of the iris and around the pupil. Shade your brow. |
Blend the iris to penumbra no. 3. |
Lighten the iris a little with the eraser to make it look shiny and increase the highlight. |
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| Paint the eyelashes with shades No. 1 and No. 2 (the tone above the iris is slightly lighter). | Apply some dark color above the eye. Lightly blend the white of the eye to give it volume. A little lighten the eyebrow (as if drawing hairs). In this case, the eyelashes are almost not shown - only those that go to the sides. |
6. Apply shadows to the face.
| Some people think that if the hair is drawn last, then this is the finale. Yes, this is indeed the final touch, but it is far from the fastest. |
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| Apply quick strokes with a pencil in the directions indicated by the arrows. Continue drawing the lines until they begin to merge. Where there are no pencil strokes on the surface of the hair, you can see the beginning of the formation of a “stripe of light”. Draw the lines evenly, avoid scribbling. | ||
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| Blend everything out. Move the blend in the same directions as you did with the pencil. Never shade across the strokes. | Shade some areas a little more. The pencil moves in the same directions. | Using a “sharp” eraser, quickly apply light strokes in the hair (see picture). If something doesn’t work out right away, you can always go back and correct your drawing - adding a tone with a pencil, and removing it with an eraser. |
And here is the finished portrait.
In this lesson we will clearly look at how to construct a falling/cast shadow correctly using two-point perspective.
Light is important
Light asserts its need for drawing through its value. Value means the darkness or lightness of the tone of an object. In most cases, a darker value is used for shadows, and a lighter value, respectively, for illuminated areas. The value that falls between these extremes is usually called a semitone.
Valeur- in painting and graphics: a shade of tone that determines the light-and-shadow ratio within one color. The value system is a gradation of light and shadow of any color in a certain sequence.
From Wiki.
It is necessary to create the illusion of light in the drawing, since light is the determining factor in distinguishing objects outside world. If we want to learn how to create illusions in drawings, the most important illusion will be the creation of light.
Light is active in two locations - the illuminated side and halftones. Our brain imprints their position and amplifies their intensity, just like the intensity of shadows.
Light and shadow
Shadows are usually divided into “own” and “cast” shadows. A self-shadow is the shadow of the object itself, while a cast shadow is the result of the obstruction of light in the object. Thus, the shadow “falls” on nearby surfaces.
A self-shadow can tell the observer information about the shape of an object, while cast shadows shape the object and the direction of light.
Cast shadows
The shape of the cast shadow is important, since the observer gets an idea of the shape of the object from its outline. Some artists use this feature if they want to make shadows "speak" in a special way by controlling the light source. However, this approach requires some skill and knowledge of perspective theory.
For most life drawings, the shadows of objects are obvious and can be drawn based on the comparison between positive and negative space. However, if you draw imaginary objects, this skill will come in handy.
In the video below we look at using derivative perspective to be able to create cast shadow shapes in the form of simple rectangles and spheres.
How to use "perspective" to position cast/fall shadows
Let's start by analyzing the process of casting shadows from rectangular objects.
First we will draw a simple rectangle, for this we will use two-point perspective. It is important to include the horizon line in the plan of the painting - for us this will be the “shadow attenuation point”.
Once the rectangle is ready, we will define a light source above the horizon. The closer the light source is to the horizon, the longer the shadows will be.
You can draw a line from the light source to the horizon. The point where these two lines intersect (the line from the light source and the horizon line) will be the “shadow attenuation point.”
Now we can draw three lines from the light source, spreading out to the top corners of our shape. In this case, we mean the three angles closest to the observer.
Next, we'll draw lines from the shadow's fade point to the bottom three corners of our shape. They should be long enough - the same as the lines to the upper corners.
The intersection points help determine the shape of the cast shadow.
We can use the resulting shape as a base to fill the shadow with color.
Drawing Cast Shadows of a Sphere Using Perspective
Now that we've looked at the process of creating cast shadows using perspective using a rectangle as an example, let's look at the strategy for creating a shadow for a sphere. (There are several ways to create a shadow for a sphere, but this is the simplest, in my opinion).
As in the previous example, we will have to define the horizon line, since they will be useful to us in determining the point at which the shadow fades. We will also need to determine the light source and the drop point of the shadow.
Then we will draw a circle, which will later become a sphere. To make it easier to determine the shape of the cast shadow, let's fit a circle into a square.
Let's draw lines from the light source to the two upper corners of the square that fits the circle.
Now let's draw lines from the shadow fading point to the two lower corners of the square.
The resulting intersection points can be used to determine the shape of the square cast shadow.
Now we need to create an oval shape for the actual spherical shadow. First you need to determine where the curves will touch the edges. To find these points, we need to draw lines from the light source to the middle of the sides of the square on each side.
Then, using these intersection points, we determine the shape of the shadow cast from the sphere.
Now you can add color and value to the sphere itself and the cast shadow to complete the design. You have all the guidelines for this.
I hope the article was useful to you! Leave your comments, suggestions and questions!
