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Art Study: Headshots

A set of headshot drawings drawn digitally of a young woman with long ginger hair, blue-grey eyes and upward-curving horns. Each of the six drawings depicts the same character with a different expression: smiling (face forward), smiling some more (three-quarter view), sticking her tongue out while dipping her head slightly, pointing her thumb at the previous headshot with a bemused expression, face-palming, and playfully looking out through a mask made with her hands. In all the drawings she's wearing a bright yellow jacket with puffed shoulders. She's wearing a simple golden circlet and earrings.

One of my major weaknesses as an artist has been an inability to draw the same face twice. Another is a general lack of expression on my character's faces—too often I fall back on the same bland, faint smile. So I've been working to rectify both of those things by finding headshot photographs of the same subject with different expressions and in different poses, and then using them as drawing references.

I started with one set, of a blonde-haired woman in a leather jacket pulling faces for the camera. In this case I was feeling adventurous enough to vary the colour scheme with each drawing, but that only accentuated the facial variations between each attempt, making them look like a different woman each time! (It didn't help that I kept changing how I drew her fringe.)

Four digital drawings of the upper body of the same woman, each time with a different pose, expression and colour scheme. The woman has long straight hair, pointed ears and is wearing a leather jacket over a tanktop. The upper-left variant has green hair, slightly dusky skin and golden eyes. She's wearing a brown jacket over black. She's smiling softly while winding some of her hair around her hand. The upper-right variant has blonde hair, pale skin and blue eyes. She's wearing a dark green jacket over black. She's hiding the lower half of her face under her jacket's collar, held up by her hands. The lower-left variant has red hair, brown skin and green eyes. She's wearing an ivory-coloured jacket over green. She's leaning forward, head inclined, a finger held up to her lip. The lower-right variant had pink hair, pale skin and lilac eyes. She's wearing a dark blue-grey jacket over blue. She's smiling, head turned slightly while gesturing to herself with her hands.
Incredibly, these are all supposed to be the same woman.

I did at least manage some differences in expression, though not always quite the same expression as in the reference photos. The difficulty is that how we interpret each other's expression depends on some very subtle variations around the eyes and mouth, which aren't easy to replicate in a more abstract drawing style—and in addition, the best way to communicate those variations in such styles doesn't necessarily have to truly conform to reality.

I'm still working that out.

So I tried again, from the same reference pool, with four more drawings.

Four digital drawings of the upper body of the same woman, each time with a different pose, expression and colour scheme. The woman has long straight hair, pointed ears and is wearing a leather jacket over a tanktop. The upper-left variant has blue hair, pale skin and lilac eyes. She's wearing a pale gold jacket over pink. She's grinning cheekily while pulling at her collar with one hand. The upper-right variant has ginger hair, pale skin and green eyes. She's wearing a dark brown jacket over red. She's holding both sides of her head while tilting it to one side while smiling. The lower-left variant has brown hair, brown skin and yellow eyes. She's wearing a yellow jacket over maroon. Her head is tilted back as she flips up the collar of her jacket with both hands while holding it open. The lower-right variant has teal hair, pale skin and blue eyes. She's wearing a dark blue-grey jacket over yellow. She's holding one hand in front of her right eye, peering through a ring formed by her forefinger and thumb.
Four more drawings of the woman in the leather jacket, with even more colours to choose from!

Not too bad, except for the final drawing, who looks like she's holding her glass eye in the crook of her forefinger and thumb (but I suppose that's more a shading problem—put that aside for now). Still a big problem with the drawings looking like different women, and the colour scheme variation, though fun, wasn't really helping.

So I decided for the next batch to choose a consistent colour scheme throughout. I also decided to streamline my process by skipping over the rather tedious process of adding shadows and highlights (both areas where I need to rethink my approach anyway—but one problem at a time!). So here's a set of headshot studies of the same character, a tiefling/devil-girl (I just can't go long without adding horns to my characters). She turned out very pink, so I decided to call her Rose.

A set of digital headshot drawings of a young woman with pink hair, yellow eyes and horns. Each of the twelve drawings shows the same character in a different pose with a different expression. In most of the drawings she is wearing a jacket over a tank-top; in a few drawings she is wearing a halter-top dress. The overall composition is very pink.
The twelve faces of Rose.

As expected, some expressions came out better than others, and her face was definitely not staying wholly consistent from drawing to drawing, but I could see improvement. I was also geting the hang of defining a 'pattern' for a character's hair that I could replicate by hand from drawing to drawing, which was nice.

A little later I decided to have another go with another subject. More practice at drawing a consistent face, more practice conveying different expressions. Another 'tiefling' type, of course, though this one clearly had a much more sunny disposition than Rose, so I named her Summer.

A set of headshot drawings drawn digitally of a young woman with long ginger hair, blue-grey eyes and upward-curving horns. Each of the six drawings depicts the same character with a different expression: smiling (face forward), smiling some more (three-quarter view), sticking her tongue out while dipping her head slightly, pointing her thumb at the previous headshot with a bemused expression, face-palming, and playfully looking out through a mask made with her hands. In all the drawings she's wearing a bright yellow jacket with puffed shoulders. She's wearing a simple golden circlet and earrings.
The six faces of Summer (twelve being too much for me this time).

Observations: long hair is challenging but fun; drawing horns in perspective is a pain; hands make less sense the more you look at them.

I expect I'll do more of these studies in future—they're a basic tool for a character artist, and it's frankly embarrassing that I've never put in the effort before.

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