Just a warning. I spell very badly, if you see any spelling errors and want to help me out please pm me what I mistyped. Id greatly appreciate it
Ok maybe its not appropriate to call it the watts style, since its not a style per say, but its how I've been taught at watts, so its how I am going to teach it here
Ok first off you have to know the basics of what make a good drawing
Every drawing should be able to read in 2 values. You should be able to take out all the mid tones in a piece, and it should still be able to read. If not, it wont be as successful
Keep it simple, the simpler you go with your values the better. 5 values are where you want to be. True you going to get more with the transitions, but your going to want to stay within 5 values.
There are only 3 types of edges. Hard, firm, and soft. Again keep it simple. Over using any of these and they will lose their value. A few hard edges look great, all hard edges and it will look bad. Get the idea?
Break everything into shapes. In theory, you get all the shapes right, you get a successful drawing. Again keep it simple. When you start try using only straights. Makes for a cleaner drawing in the long run.
I’ve already talked about the different edges, now I’ll talk about the lines them selves. Again, keep it simple. There are 3 types of line. Straight, C curve, S curve. Anything more drastic and your over doing it. A C curve looks like a C, same with the S curve.
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Ok I bet your all wondering why I posted this picture with two dots. Well its very simple. I am marking the top and bottom of the page. This early one you want to make sure your going to make the portrait the right size. Makes for a simple scale too
Ok here I am just finding the basic shape of the head. Do not get this confused with the contour. For now, I just want the basic shape of the head shape. If you can, incorporate some indications like the lower plane of the jaw, ear, and what not. You may also want to get a basic idea of how you want to design out the neck at this time, but only in a very basic way.
Ok here your going to find the interior shapes. Mainly the face and basic hairline, and also the middle line, and the thirds line. The rule of thirds is that "all" faces can be broken into thirds. The top of the forehead to the brow line, brow line to the bottom of your nose, nose to your chin. It varies from person to person, but in general it works.
Ok here I am finding the interior shadow patern. It also doubles as finding the eye socket shape. Now if you nail the eye socket shape, you get a better likeness, due to in part, the human tendency to focus on the eyes. I also went for the nose shadow pattern too, for placement of the nose and to judge the side contour more easily. I also put in a quick indication of the zygomatic arch (cheek bone).
Same step as above, just not in the lips. Its a lot trickier here though, since the lips are all flesh, and there is no true rule on where they ride that can work for everyone. But one thing to note, is that the lips rid on the tooth cylinder, which is round like a soda can.
Again same thing as before, but this time I am working the ear. And before I forget, I tend to block in with thin lines, and then fill them in as soon as I can. Its easier to judge the shape of something as a blocked in shape, then a line, its just how the human eye works
Ok here I did a light block in of my main shadow pattern, including the hair. I got a little ahead of myself by putting in some dark and lighter spots in the hair/ notice how I kept in the lines for the jaw line. This is just so I remember for later.
Here I start to refine. Mainly in the spot I want the majority of my focus, and in this case, the eye on the left. Mainly it consists of refining the shape, and getting the overall read of the eye, and in this case I added in some darker tones to help that read. I also went into the nose and forehead a bit.
Here I started to block in the basic midtone. nothing too exciting.
Here is the same step, but not I am going in with some lighting tones (for the first time in the image) to really pop some form out. I also realized that the lips where too small, so I made them larger. Your eye often does this. It sees something wrong but you cant put your finger on it, then once you have more info in, you can see more clearly what was off, in this case the lips. Easy fix though
Here I started to focus on the background a bit. Since the image has a very strong light source, its good to have the a darker tone on the side of the face in shadow. The reason is that it’s easier on the eyes. Also helps compositionally, by making your eye go to the focus point. I drew in the contour just so I can keep in eye on it and use it to judge other parts of the drawing. Also started a little bit of rendering in the eye, and darkened up the core shadow a little bit, it wasn’t too obvious in the reference I used, so I tried not to go overboard
Just more rendering going on in here. Mainly just getting forms to "roll" in a way that is pleasant to the eye. Also a bit of a hint of highlight is coming up on the eye. One of the main focuses here was edge work. Keeping cast shadows harder, and form shadows in the firm to soft range. A good way to think it is this. Bony areas get hard to firm edges, soft fleshly areas get firm to soft edges.
Ok more rendering, this time the ear. The ear is interesting, but not too important. Keep the darks and mid tones less punchy, and you eye will be less drawn to it, making it more successful in the long run. Keep that in mind for anything you don’t want to be the focus, but still needs info to make it read
Here I went into the background a bit. I was it to kind of fade with the face and neck. Gives it a cool atmosphere effect. Makes it more "3d" if you will. Also punched up the darks in the hair.
Here more background work. Before it was too foggy, not I defined it more with the collar shape. Still very soft to not bring any unwanted attention. Went over the mid tones a bit. Just more refining and blocking in a more correct look for the mid tones.
Here is just more rendeing and touching up. I am almost done with the portrait, but I dont want to miss any needed information.
Again just more refining and touching up. Making sure everything reads the way I want it too.
Ok and here is the finished product.
Feel free to leave any comments, critiques, and or any information I fogot or missed. I am still very novice but I thought I might be able to shed some light on doing protraits. Hope this helped and that you have enjoyed this little tutorial of mine.
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Originally Posted by dogfood
. i could probally render it out a bit more, and i might still do it, but the main purpose was to make the tut, and since i think it holds up not being super tight, i left it how it is right now. charcoal would have been nice too, but i dont have a printer to print off any images and didnt want to wrok from the comp to do a charcoal drawing
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