Let's learn to draw portraits in 7 days
My experience with tutorial "Learn to draw faces in 7 DAYS" by Marc Brunet
Hi, kitties 👋
Recently I found an interesting video - something like a small tutorial/challenge for drawing portraits in 7 days (I will leave a link to it below). It is aimed at helping us improve our skills and get better at understanding the principles of drawing portraits in the style we like. Of course, I had to try it and I liked the result very much. It works! 😄 I suggest you also try your strength and get a little boost 💪
So, DAY ONE
It's a test day. Yes, right away 🤓
Our task is to draw a portrait (or several). No rendering or anything like that. Only lines. To not get distracted by unnecessary things. The main goal here is to draw how we can do it right now. Without peeking anywhere and without copying. Just off the top of our heads.
Let's call it a "sample piece". That way we'll have something to compare our final result to after seven days of effort (and maybe quite a bit of suffering 😅).
For myself, I decided to draw four different characters with unique traits to practice drawing something else besides the same-faced pretty girls (no matter how tempting it was 😁).
DAY TWO
Let's move on to proportions 🙂
The task of this day is to learn exactly where, and which parts go. Here is a step-by-step example for you 👇
Practice drawing this scheme (it's a simplified Loomis method) until you remember how it is built, and you can draw everything by yourself without peeking. 2-3-6 times. As much as you need.
Don't think about facial features at all yet.
And if you want a bonus task, you can try to add another scheme of the side view and 3/4 (or just one of them).
What conclusions did I draw for myself while drawing this?
1. The front view looks pretty cool. If I don't get lazy and pay attention to the proportions. Even here I somehow managed to draw mannequins with emotions 😅 My emotionality just can't be stopped 😆
2. 3/4 and the profile still needs work. It's ok, but nothing too exciting. I will try to find a good tutorial for portrait angles for later 😉
DAY THREE
It gets a little bit more interesting.
Now that we have figured (more or less) out the standard proportions of the head, let's go find exactly the heads we like 😁
Our task is to find an artist who draws in a style we would like to learn. Then let's take examples of his characters and analyse the heads according to proportions. Where and how exactly do they differ from the standard we have learned? What proportions are changed? Thinking about this also will help us better understand why the chosen style seems so attractive to us 🙂
Let's pick several examples and redraw the general shape of the head. You can loosely mark the position of the eyes, nose and other features (as in the previous exercise). No detailed facial features or emotions yet.
It will be great if you can draw three different angles - front, profile and 3/4 (depends on how lucky you'll get with the references, I guess 🤷♀️).
The result should be something like this 👇
I chose the artist Marc Brunet (the author of this tutorial). I really like how he draws portraits 😊
DAY FOUR
Are you ready? It's time to finish our heads from the previous homework 😶
The task for today is to take the same mannequins that we got by studying the proportions of our favourite artist's work and finally give them proper noses, eyes and other features 🙂 Exactly as we see them on our references. While doing this, notice exactly how the artist simplifies the features of the characters. What he exaggerates. Or plays down. And what rejects completely.
You can compare these features with other artists you like and with the photos of real people to get a better feel for the difference.
If it is difficult to draw the whole face at once, first practice drawing each part separately and then move on to portraits.
As a result, we should get something similar 👇
Here's what I got:
DAY FIVE
Today we will combine the tasks from the previous two days and add some difficulty on top 🙂
Our task is to draw several heads using the proportions we learned on the third day and complete them with facial features as on the fourth day. But this time do it from memory. Peeking is allowed only if we get completely confused 🫣 So let's keep character references from our chosen artist close (but not in front of us). Just in case 😉
It is when we try to recall new information that it sticks much better in our long-term memory. So, let's try not to cheat doing this task, okay? Otherwise, we will only cheat ourselves 😇
I offer you two ways of doing this homework to choose from:
1. Normal difficulty - draw the same portraits as yesterday. This way you will also see how good your memory is 🙂
2. Increased difficulty (or, as I call it, "art maniac" level (that's me 🤪)) - draw several completely new portraits but be sure to stick to the proportions and style of the artist you studied. Here you can peek a little bit more. I allow it 😉
Guess which option I chose? 😅
DAY SIX
We are almost at the finish line! 🥳
The task for today is almost the same as for the fifth day - we draw several heads, using the already studied proportions and stylization of facial features. But this time we will try to add a little emotion 😉 Shifted eyebrows, a smile, a different eye direction... The main thing is to not overdo it. Too extreme emotions often deform the shape of the face and this greatly complicates the learning.
Let's not jump over our heads 🙂
Here are the same two options to choose from:
1. Redraw the same faces, slightly changing their emotions, gaze, etc. Try to peek even less.
2. Well, you know - let's go crazy 😂 New faces, but also with emotions on top. Let's go!
Here is my result 👇
DAY SEVEN
That's it! This is what we've trained for so hard 🙂
Do you remember the portraits from the first day? The ones we drew from the top of our heads as best we could? It's time to apply all the knowledge gained and redraw them 🤩 This time, no peeking and no cheating. Completely by yourself.
And this time we'll add hair! That's enough of making a hitmen army (sorry, agent 47) 😆
But since we haven't practised hair yet, I found a good short tutorial from the same artist: click here
Good luck 💪
Here is my final Final 😁
I'm leaving you a link to Marc's original video, as promised: click here
I hope you enjoyed reading my loose retelling of this drawing challenge 😁 Good luck with it if you decide to do it yourself. And happy drawing 💙