LEARNING HEAD PROPORTIONS

        The first lecture of creative thinking introduced me to drawing the head. Through drawing techniques learned in class, the structure of the head, the position of the eyes, the nose, the mouth and ears became natural to draw through the use proportion. After practicing the head in its most basic form repeatedly, I could draw the head confidently - all I needed to add were facial features. Below is my attempt at drawing heads for the first time, ignore the main drawing on the first page, it was an ice breaker for the beginning of the semester to gain insight into our own ability up to that point. It is also important to note that the first page has been developed upon since thus, they are more detailed than they originally were. 

   Here I began with the basics - drawing a circle for the skull, then a trapezium that would eventually become the jaw. From this I was taught to draw a line that interconnects both shapes for the eye-line, as they land exactly half way down the head. Half way between the eye-line and the bottom of the head another line is drawn that marks the tip of the nose, and then finally a line is drawn in between the nose and the bottom of the head for the lips. From this you could draw the facial features at their basics and then place the ears in-between the nose and eye-line. I was told not to worry about having the ears protrude from the head, and it was an effective tip.

   As you can see I experimented with the shapes and sizes of the circle and trapezium that made up the head and came out with various characters distinguishable from one another.

   Next we were taught to draw heads from the side, which in terms proportion were identical to the front view of a head - the difference here was the original shapes that make up the head. Starting with an oval rather than a circle, and a line drawn down from the side of the oval (in this case the left-side), then upwards at an angle to create a triangle for the jaw line, the head from the side was almost complete. Finally through drawing a short diagonal line from the back of the head at the same angle as the jawline then continuing it on in the opposite direction to create the back of the head and the shoulder line. Again if you look at the the image above, I experimented and came up with more characters.

   As you can also see on the scan above, I was taught how to draw eyes successfully. This is something I still haven't mastered, however, regardless of my inability to perfect the eye I believe my attempts were admirable. My last quick attempt at drawing the head was to ensure both the front and side view of the head were identical in character, shape and proportion - this way when it came to character sheets I could develop accomplished pieces of concept art. This last attempt is below;

Finally we were given the task of drawing a full head utilizing all the techniques we had learnt in the workshop. The result is below.

After learning the simple techniques to get the proportions right for the front and side of the head . In all I learnt and practiced;

FRONT-VIEW OF HEAD

• Made up of circle and trapezium
• Eye-line falls exactly half way down the head
• Noise falls half way between eye-line and tip of the chin
• Mouth falls half way between the nose and the tip of the chin
• Ears lie between nose-line and eye-line
• Ears can protrude from head

SIDE-VIEW OF HEAD

• Made up of oval and triangle

NEXT POST: LEARNING BODY PROPORTIONS