From the Sketchbook - Face Studies from Photo, Frazetta and Mind

The human face is truly one of the most challenging (and fascinating) things to draw. Here are some face studies I did the other day. I tried drawing first a simple line drawing of a face and then a "mass" version, adding tone and values.

The first and third of these were drawn from fashion photos, second is a master study of a face from a Frazetta painting. Fourth and fifth were two quick attempts at drawing completely without reference. This clearly shows the importance of using references for your work if aiming for a correct, realistic rendering while learning the anatomy of various body parts.

There are so many shortcomings in the last unreferenced face that if this had been a sketch for a painting, I would probably redraw it from skratch. I include it here for instructive reasons. Notice how I have managed to misplace the features and also made the torso much too small in the second one.

It is important that you do not become too discouraged when one of your sketches "fail" like this. Remember:

Mistakes are actually what teach you the most - if you learn from them, make sure you don't keep repeating them and use the new knowledge to adjust and improve your next attempt. This is true for drawing as well as life.

(0.7 HB in sketchbook)