Portrait-0021.png
The most common mistake beginners like me make is getting caught up in details from the start.
Especially when you get mesmerized by the reference — yeah, you get carried away by the beautiful lines, the eyes, the lips, all of it.
But here's the thing: those come later.
The first thing you get right is the big shapes. Don't carve anything yet. Just blunt, big shapes.
Only once those big shapes already look good do you start carving.
See that box over her head? You carve in from there — the ball for the cranium, the jaw built off it, and so on.
It took a couple thousand portraits before I realized that drilling the basic shapes actually matters.
Darn it. I still forget.
Portrait-0021-big-shapes.png
Portrait-0021-ref.png
Portrait-0021-ref-with-loomis.png