First thing you need to improve on is your human anatomy, specifically proportions of the face, your character has several issues with positioning of parts and proportions of certain parts, for example, his nose is much too far down.

Take a look at this and look at where each piece of the face is on the grid.
http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj50/innisart/Blog%20Images/Beauty/gc_1.jpg


Edited by Xamllew - 31 July 2010 at 5:52pm

Sorry, please ignore the style change, thick lines, and scratchyness of my edit.

Essentially what I was trying to show you is that you need to shorten the widht of the head, line up the ear halfway across the head, move the eve down, straighten the jaw, and add a little cotrast/hue shifting in your picture.

My edit is far from refined, but hopefully it shows the proper positioning of most of the facial features.


Edited by W M - 31 July 2010 at 9:56pm

looks much better now... but i think u should go smaller, maybe half the size

Edited by onek - 01 August 2010 at 10:39am

looks tons better. did you use a reference?
quick edit:

Here's a bit of an edit, working off of cure's edit.
What I did:
1 - The nose. Yours curves rather a lot, and flattens out below the eye. If you look at most people in profile, you'll see that the nose is much straighter and doesn't flatten out before the eye. In fact, the nose slopes all the way to your brow line.
2 - The forehead. I made is slant backwards more. If you look at most people in profile, you'll see that foreheads do slant a bit.
3 - The lips/mouth. First, I made the mouth line much shorter, because in profile the lips don't extend that far back.

I didn't mess with the chin (looks nice) or the neck (at this stage it looks fine) or the hair (I'm useless on hair) or the ear. The ear I think is a bit big and too far back on the head, but I didn't want to tackle that on the edit (ears are hard...)

Looking good so far! Keep improving on the basic shape, then work on the shading. There's no point in shading until the shape looks correct, right? The best way to keep improving is to look at lots of references! Try an image search for people in profile, I'm sure you'll find plenty.

id leave the mouth as it was...., looks kinda strange now

i think i agree with the mouth so i took it back.

Edited by Froppe - 03 August 2010 at 6:26am

oh i tought he meant i should shade that part.

i think you've made the head a lot smaller in your edit, and the eye placement was better before.
nevertheless, the ear and neck changes stand.

I would pay attention to what ekobar's saying about the skull. always keep the underlying anatomy in mind, especially the skeletal structure. drawing a good bust/head means knowing what the skull and jaw look like and how the skull relates to the spine.

it wouldn't be a bad idea. when/if you do restart, draw out the underlying forms of the anatomy then post that before adding coloring, detail, hair, etc if you want us to adjust any issues at their source and not have to rework areas later.
we realize that different members have different skill levels, which is why we're imparting our knowledge to you. with proper guidance you should (and will) be able to construct a good human head.

It definately looks better, but there are a few things that catch my eye.

1, the head still semms a bit thick maybe reduce its width.
2, the angle of the forhead dosen't look sharp enough, as if it will touch the top of his har (which would mean he would have a bald spot, i don't think that's what you're going for)
3, the nose seems a little small compared to the rest of the features of the face.
4, the ear seems a little far into the back of the head.
5, the neck and chin could use a bit more curving to them.

Seeing improvement, keep it up!

here is an update again

i tried to do everything that you said. looks good to me but a aint to expert :P.

also its feels like im not getting anywhere. i can see that i improve but im still at the begining. but i guess i get better the more i do.

also thanks again for all your help

i think the shape is good now. honestly i think i should continue with the others things. because even if it have som small mistakes it dosent really looks so wierd. it dosent need to be a perfect human. because nobody is perfect ^^

His head resembles a fortune-cookie in terms of shape. Should be more circular. ):

update......

Edited by Froppe - 05 August 2010 at 2:11pm

very useful overlay. you can see that the jawline doesn't cut straight back, cut curves up to meet the ear. you see that the mouth you've got cuts back as far as the molars.
here is an edit:

i totally agree...

Edited by onek - 06 August 2010 at 3:02pm

we're not asking him to make it as realistic as our edits, he's free to stylize as he wishes- but abstraction is most efficient when there is a clear understanding of the forms on which the abstractions are based. which anatomy crit applies only to realism, and not to anime? (in fact, every anatomy crit i've seen thus far applies to the reference that the artist says he's attempting to emulate)

and why make it look just like the reference? you should make it your own way, and only use the reference as, well, a reference. if you're trying to make fanart of a specific character, then I can see where you're coming from (which is why it's important to state your intended goal in the beginning, so we know what you're trying to achieve). Even then, I think it'd be more interesting to do a pre-existing character in your own way, but if you want to achieve a very specific style, then we should know that, so that we don't point you in the wrong direction.

Much improved. Before you get into the fine details, maybe just smooth out the jaggedy/sharp pixels? The shading on the ear is quite awkward as well.

i'd either lose the outlines or make them much darker, they're barely visible atm. if the shading is not visible, it's due to low contrast and not a lack of colors.
sharp pixels are jaggies. trace over the outline in your mind, notice where there are little jumps in the outline that make it jagged and form tiny angles? try smoothing those out.

ear is still really far back, the jawline shouldn't just dive out to meet the ear, the ear should be adjusted to fit the jawline. right now the back of the jaw slopes far back, it should be more vertical



tbh i still think it'd be advantageous to work a bit smaller (especially since you're a beginner- forces you to focus on the pixels). understandable if you wouldn't want to start over yet again though (although you wouldn't lose much work resizing, the outlines will need to be fixed up a lot anyway)


Edited by cure - 08 August 2010 at 4:30pm

i dont think i should fix the ear because then it looks all wierd so i need to fix the other parts. and then i could just restart.

well, it looks weird now, moving it would actually make it less weird. i don't think it's that you feel you shouldn't, but that you don't want to, because you forsee the work that will be required. this is probably not the best way to approach a wip, but I understand that you've been stuck at this stage for a while and you're anxious to continue. If the piece were smaller (it is best for all newcomers to work with small canvases until they've gained some mastery of pixeltech) then it would take less work to readjust, which is one reason smaller canvases are recommended.

as it is the ear is nowhere near that far from the eye, so you've got a very large side of the head. the hair placement conceals this empty expanse of skin, so perhaps that is what makes it look more "correct" than it really is.

I think it's a large enough problem to warrant fixing, but if you'd like to proceed and get this piece over with i definitely see where you're coming from, you shouldn't get worn out and bored with a piece too early. so if you're really unwilling to fix it, just keep this knowledge in mind for next time and proceed as you wish.

-also, focus on the forms of the face (cheekbones, brow, etc etc) and work them out with shadow and highlight, colors can be easily adjusted towards the end. you can work on color and form at the same time of course, but form (the mounds and valleys of the head and face) should be the primary focus at this point



Edited by cure - 09 August 2010 at 5:01pm

it's useful to know where certain features line up in relation to others. if you look in the mirror, you'll notice the top of your ears match up with the eyes, and the bottom of the ears match up with the bottom of the nose. due to the curvature of the spine and where it meets the skull, the back of the neck should slope up to meet the skull. right now, the ear is positioned the way it would be if the head were looking directly forward, but since the head is tilted down, i rotated the ear to fit it. i think the forehead could still slope back a bit more, so i drew the shape of the head on my edit in case you find it helpful. remember that the jaw doesn't cut straight back, but slopes up at an angle, until it's more or less under the ear, at which point it travels straight up to meet it (the slope may not always be as extreme as that in my edit, however)

useful results from googling "head in profile"/related terms:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

edit:

and though it isn't shown in my edit, i think the way the ponytail pulls the mass of hair could be altered, right now there's a general unfocused mass toward the back of the head, but i think it would look better if the mass toward the ponytail remained the same, but you lost some mass toward the top of the back of the head, so that it's obvious the ponytail is 'pulling' the hair with its weight (see my last couple reference images, or google something similar to "ponytail profile" to see what i mean).


Edited by cure - 10 August 2010 at 8:24am

Don't give up! I did on a crapload of projects, and now I regret it! This has potential, just DON'T GIVE UP!

Now...First, his nose is at a 90 degree angle. Look in the mirror at your own nose. Does it really do that?

Second, I'm actually going to congratulate you on making the neck too thick, 'cause people tend to make them too thin. :P Anyway, if I were you, I'd erase the hair and draw the head bald, and then do the hair. It'll make it look a lot better. :)

fixed the hair abit also the neck.

Edited by Froppe - 11 August 2010 at 12:28pm