Ponythread Learns to Draw! Together!

[Kindablue]

It looks to me like the main odditys from his face are perspective issues. He's looking in a not very common way (body upright, head tilted away and down) so it's a very hard pose to start with. While his chin is drawn right, the rest of his face is made to look more level, as if he's head's being held vertical like a traditional portrait.
For instance in the photo he's got his eyes open, but downcast to look at his cigarette - in your's due to the various facial cues he looks like he's closed his eyes. Things to note are the way the eyebrows curve down in the photo, and the position of his chin relative to the tip of his nose, the centre of his hairline and the right edge of his forehead.
His chin is in line with the bridge of his nose, while the tip of his nose is in line with the right visible edge of his forehead.

The general shape of the back of the head should be much rounder too. I've blathered on a bit in Thanquol's thread in regards to drawing people too.


That said, his shirt is done very well, and the only thing there is that his tie is perhaps a bit too thick. Overall the elements are done fine, and the linework is generally smooth, just not quite in the right spots.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll take care to plan these out more before I start from now on.

B means Black, and H means Hard - so a 6B is very black and will leave a dark mark easily, while a 6H is very hard and probably won't ever go as dark as the 6B, even with tons of shading.

This pic illustrates the different grades and how they shade from a light touch to dark:

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So you can see that an HB at its darkest is about as dark as a lightly applied 9B. The darker pencils are very soft so wear down quickly and do smudge more easily. Harder pencils stay sharp longer, but it's also easier to make marks in the paper if you press too hard.

Thanks, I'll remember that.

One tip I got here was to wear white cotton gloves with a few fingers cut out to reduce smudging.

Yeah, I had to redo some things completely because I kept smudging them with my sweaty ape hands. I was definitely planning on wearing a pair of gloves from now on.

That said, having a wide assortment of (good) pencils really does make things easier. Derwent make a set of 12 shades that's reasonably priced. A gum eraser is also a good piece of kit to start using early on too as it helps tremendously with cleaning up small mistakes.

For instance in this pic of mine:

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I used a 6 or 8B for the darker areas, but the shading on the faces was mostly done with an HB or 2B. I did do some fine spots with a 4B. Just using a HB wouldn't give as much depth. I did the initial skeletal outlines and basic body shapes with a 4H, so it was suitably faint and easy to erase.

Thanks for the recommendation.