I have a WIP project which wants to be my husband's portrait and I am very embarassed to call it anything but a failure.Any help will do since I am incapable to figure it out myself.I guess that maybe the nose and jaws are too long. I really don't have a clue.Here it is.

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Thank you.

Hi
Nice work
What kind o' help do u need??
U think that measures aint right?
which method do u work to draw?

Ramos
Brazil
Thxx

Hi ElemaM,

Yes, i think you got the space between his cheeks and eyes too far apart. This also makes his nose too long. From his eyebrows to the top of his head is too far also. His smile also needs to be widened on his right side. Look closely at his cheeks.

You could also try putting it away for a while and then comparing it to the photo.

Hope this helps. Just keep trying.

BRB.

Thank you guys.It's a shame i ruined this one but this serves me right for not measuring. The nose is too thin and long in my drawing.It's a shame because this was my first mouth with teeth that i could ever draw. I might choose to try it all over again. Ramos and Bobby thanks.

We all go though this. It is through our mistakes that we learn. You surely have the ability and should continue to try.

I still have trouble with shadowed areas and i get the area between the eyes too far apart and I have to measure points to get it right.

BRB

ElenaM, I hope you don't mind. . . .I pulled your drawing off and took it into Photoshop and just changed a few things. I think overall you had a good drawing, just a few problems with proportions. Portraits are one of the hardest things to do and, personally, I think doing a portrait of someone you know is even harder. You see them in so many different ways and when you try to capture them from one photo they just don't look right.
Anyway, you had all of the parts, you just had some minor problems with creating distance and space.
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Bob, thanks a lot for the encouragement and the fact that you belive i have the ability of doing portraiture. After all i have an excuse for not getting things right from the first try. I only did this for a month now.

Bkluver i appreciate the time and effort you invested in my drawing.It definitely looks better and shows the way i should do it. By the way last night I erased almost the whole face except for the eyes area. I plan to try it again. This is the first time i erase my work of several hours.
Thanks you both again.Your support is precious especially for a beginner like me.

I'm glad you are going after it! You do have the ability - as I said, you had the drawing with all of it's parts. All I did in Photoshop was to move things a little. I didn't add anything that you didn't already have.

Goodluck Elena,

lately, I tried an autoportrait. After more than 4 hours I decided there was no way I could make it right. But like you did, I started over again, taking a specific attention to proportions and measurements. I finally was really happy with the results. I can recognize myself.

Hang on, you'll get it too. And then you'll feel sooo good

Merci, Nathalie. C'est dr?le, c'est a pr?mi?re fois que j'ai rat??!

Still incapable of drawing my husband.
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So here it is the original, first drawing, second drawing. The upper lip is a mystery to me.
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I must look for a picture without a smile because i have the feeling the problem is his smile.

For me I'd say the whole face it a little long - but it's mainly across the cheeks/nose/ears

If I open the photo & your last pic in two windows and flick between them - the chin, mouth & tip of the nose are pretty much in the same place - but the eyes/top of the ears quite abit higher, showing that area between is too long

Also the shape of his head, from the center to his right eye is more of a slope, you have it quite rounded (whole thing could come down some more too)

hope it helps a little :

I do really like how youve done the eyebrows - mine always come out like two black strips

Andy you're right about all things mentioned above only that i don't feel like soending more time on it since i get nowhere obviously.I will try again in a few weeks maybe the same pic maybe some other photo.Thanks a lot, everybody!

Elena,

next time you try, and make sure you do, use another picture with that nice smile, and follow BRB's advice.

I'm sending you positive thinking.

Merci, Nathalie. I just printed a grayscale pic of hubby with smile and everything and these days i will do it Bobby's way.

Elena, don't get discouraged, you're almost there. He'll love it.

John

I know, John he will be happy with a portrait from me, right now he is hiding pretty well his disappointment.Thanks for the encouragement!

Here is my new portrait with measurements;yet the likeness escapes me.

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I really don't know where is the problem.

There is no mistaking that the man in the photo is the same person that you have drawn. And I don?t think your husband has any disappointment to hide.

I couldn?t see where the problem was either so I did some measurements in photoshop ? hope you don?t mind. The only thing I can see is that the corners of his mouth are slightly out and the line of his left pupil catches the top lid and not pass through the other pupil.

I echo what lance has said

I think youve done a great job, compare your first and the new one

I agree that it?s his right side of the face?.. it just looks a bit high, because in the photo his head is at a slight tilt.....but its small

Elena,

This is what I see: I think your nose is bigger than it really is. Is it your perception because he snores? Also your shadows are a bit strong. More value gradation would give his features a smoother look. But the overall look is there,you can just work a few things to make it perfect.

However, let me tell you that you have done a very good drawing of him. And all the things you have learn doing it will stay with you.That's what I found out whenI struggled on mine.

I agree it's a recognizable likeness. There are some things that could be helped by more careful measurement.

Take a ruler and place it on the photo so it goes through the corners of the eyes; you'll see that it slopes downwards towards the left. If you do the same thing on the drawing, though, it's more or less straight across. The same with the mouth. Finally, the upper left part of the head is protruding too much. Basically what's happened is that in the photo, the head is turned away to our left, but you've tried (unconsciously) to turn it back towards us. This is a pretty common problem that people have. The cure is more measurement and concentrating on drawing what you see, not what you think you should see.

The length of the septum area (from the tip of the nose to the wings) is also exaggerated in the drawing.

Lance, Andy, Nathalie, Ernest I appreciate your time, help and support.It's true that i didn't measure the eyes, eyebrows, but the nose is curious that in my drawing shows bigger because is the same size as in the photo.I still don't shade properly and it shows, so the conclusion is that i will try another portrait later, in a month or so when i get more practice. yesterday i completed a month since i joined drawspace and became more aware of value drawing.Time in which I completed around 15 portraits more or less accurate and accomplished.Thank you all for your precious feed back.My progress wouldn't have been possible without you.

[attachmentid=10122]Here I am happy to announce that Selo's artwork called "half" was inspirational for me and helped me get a first half almost right. I think it's great to separate a photo in two and place one half on the drawing board while measuring for accuracy the half you are drawing. This is what I did. It's not perfect because i am in hurry to share it with you. Now I have one scan of the half drawn and half photo and i can continue my drawing on the paper measuring and completing the portrait. It's great for beginners like me and is basically what Bobby said about measuring only that you can check the correspondance better this way.
I know my eye(the drawn one) looks bigger i will have to ckeck it again.

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THis is now.Needs polishing though.