28 days later

[Straight Edge Ryan]

Reasonable pleased with it so far. I'm sure there are some anatomy issues, and I know I need to blend the colors a little bit. But I also feel as if I need to add more to it. Any reccommendations for ways to improve the piece are greatly appreciated

[J Wilson]

It's an odd way to crop the image, but I'm assuming that's how the photo you are working from is? I think first thing is the face is too saturated. It is just too much color, too pink. If you can tone the color down it will look more realistic. It probably also need more of a value range.

If you can post the photo you were working from we can critique your piece better. I see things that aren't clear, like what is going on with his other eye. I see some shading and I'm not sure if that is a fold of flesh from a snarling nose, or if it's an indication of the corner of the other eye, or maybe even just some shading of the side of the nose. Either wasy, seeing the photo would let us show you a few things you may have missed, or didn't represent the way they could be. I will say that your basic proportions on the face looks good, and you probably only need a few pointers to get on track.

[Straight Edge Ryan]

Thanks for the reply! Here's the pic I was working off of:


As you can tell I've still got a long way to go before it looks a whole lot like the picture haha. Yes, the angle I chose was intentional, I wanted a sort of "off to the side" sort of look to it (plus the left side of the picture is a real bastard to draw haha). I do plan on drawing the neck/body, primarily because I noticed that the face looks a bit awkward without other body parts to give it a more grounded look

You're absolutely right about it being too pink. I was mostly just trying to get down a base color to give me an idea of whether or not I was on the right path, but when comparing it with the actual picture I can see I was a bit too heavy on the contrast

[J Wilson]

Thanks for including the picture, that helps. I've blown the pic up a little, cropped it to mimic your lay out, and then added a couple of guidelines. The blue guideline shows the corner of the mouth should fall at about the same mark as the corner of the eye, and the tip of the nose falls pretty close to that too. The far nostril of the nose should line up with the big red iris of the eye. When drawing you should often compare the position of every element versus the other elements so that they end up where they should. I think you came close, but were just a little off.

I think you chose a very challenging image to try to copy. There's a lot going on. Blood, grime, and a fairly direct light on his face which flattens it some. For learning purposes you'd probably be better off trying something else. On the other hand it's a fun picture, so anything that gets you painting is good!

[Straight Edge Ryan]

Update. I decided to use the "grid" method with the reference pic and the drawing since it was hard to determine where things go based on looks alone.

As you can tell, it already looks a little better. But I obviously have more shading/detail work before I move onto coloring. The difficult thing is going to be getting those suttle color and shading changes like on his forehead