This month I spent a bunch of my free time working on a shiny new revamp of my website (and it’s almost done!). I’ll have a longer blog post about that topic next month, but in the mean time; MORE PORTRAITS! It was fun creating the last batch a couple months ago, so I thought I’d give it another go! I really wanted to dive a bit more into facial expressions with some of these.

I typically use the Loomis method to establish proportions of the face. This usually gives me a good idea of where to place some of the key facial landmarks. But when we emote (open our mouths, squint our eyes, scrunch up our nose) the relationship between our brows, nose, and chin (the landmarks used for the Loomis method) can change quite a bit. With a few of these new portrait sketches, the subjects are doing just that. When first sketching out the Loomis head, I’ll lower the chin landmark to account for an open mouth or reduce the distance between the brow landmark and the nose landmark to account for squinting eyes or a scrunched up nose. Take a look:

I also have a little timelapse to show how I use the Loomis method at the beginning of my sketches. The video goes a bit fast, but there should be a speed adjustment option within the video player if you want to see it slowed down a little.

And there they are! Another set of portraits that got me a little closer to drawing faces intuitively. And there are more portraits on the way! Next batch will focus on interesting angles and perspective. Thanks so much for taking a look!

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