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Friendly Entrepreneur

I think I did pretty okay. Lemme know your thoughts?

Original:
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My painting:
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Friendly Entrepreneur

Well, your self-portrait painting is lookin' a bit flat due to a lack of some shadows from the directional lighting to the left in your photo. She's looking rather "doll"-ish.
Notice in the photo, the deep dark shadows in your hair separating the outline of your face, and how your hair has elements of gradience. There's the form shadows at your temple down to your cheekbone, and that of your eyelids, and the darker outline separating your upper & bottom lip. You didn't really include your nostril either, plus the nose bridge is supposed to curve (you drew it almost straight). Overall though, don't be afraid to push your values - particularly don't be afraid to get darker. Right now, everything is really light, giving it a flat look.
I'd also caution about emphasizing the eyes so significantly much. Especially in portrait painting, some beginners tend to do so, and then "slack" on the rest of the portrait. Right now, it contributes to the "doll" look 'cause they're looking rather glassy. You don't make some common mistakes though - you got shadows in the eyes (from the eyelashes and eye's roundness) and the scleras aren't pure white either, which is good. I'd also caution about getting too detailed on hair, try to avoid showing the strands all over every part of hair. Notice that the white light and dark shadows will make hair lose its visible strands -- visible strands are OK in the "mid" of light. Right now, that's the busiest part of your painting, and aside the eyes, it almost draws attention away from the rest of your face.
Your painting technique doesn't seem too bad though... a good sense of direction and blend. It feels natural, if a bit rather fuzzy in certain places.

Painting over a photo maybe isn't the best way to learn, but I can understand it was probably a fun lil' thing to do. =3
Keep it up!!
Shadowolf brings up a good point. Painting over a photo doesn't really teach you anything. There is a big difference between looking at a photo and painting on top of a photo.

I highly, hiiiighly suggest that you keep the photo open and paint your self-portrait on a separate and blank canvas. This is a much better way to learn! And while self-portraits are a great way to practice, I also highly recommend painting landscape photos. Grab a couple of your favorite images from the gallery below and paint some of those. Trust me, if you do this you will be leaps and bounds beyond anyone else your age!

http://imgur.com/r/earthporn

You can PM me directly with your landscape paintings if you want! I want to see them! biggrin

Friendly Entrepreneur

Shadowolf

Thank you for the feedback! I can definitely see what you mean about how flat it looks. I suppose I was trying to do a more 'simple' shading technique but it it kinda didn't work lol. I normally draw anime, not realism, and I've never really used just the paintbrush tool on paint tool sai to 'paint' a picture either. The reason I just literally painted over the picture was to practice a painting technique more so than how to draw a portrait. Although this was a fun little project, I don't think I'm going to do much more with it. I know with time I could work on it and make it look much better but I never really was a big fan of realism anyway sweatdrop Thanks again for all the feedback, and I will definitely keep it in mind for my other works too~!

Absinthe and Ink

You should probably read that top paragraph too, because most of it applies to what I was going to say to you as well haha. I do know I need to work on backgrounds for my other works, maybe I will expand more on this style for painting a landscape/background for those? I just hope it doesn't clash with my style anime. Any tips for creating a full picture that doesn't look out of place with two different techniques..?

Invisible Genius

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i feel the face could need more shadowing, but I disagree with what people are saying about "painting over a photo and how it doesn't teach you anything or take much skill"...
it takes skill to paint. if I did what you did, I'd have a sloppy mess, uneven lines all over the place, paint piled on to think, watered down dull colors, and colors running together forming a mud look. I'd probably make myself look 5 pounds heavier.

I'm impressed and you did good.

Friendly Entrepreneur

NeonHazardSign
i feel the face could need more shadowing, but I disagree with what people are saying about "painting over a photo and how it doesn't teach you anything or take much skill"...
it takes skill to paint. if I did what you did, I'd have a sloppy mess, uneven lines all over the place, paint piled on to think, watered down dull colors, and colors running together forming a mud look. I'd probably make myself look 5 pounds heavier.

I'm impressed and you did good.

Aww thank you~! heart

And I love your avi!

Dedicated Grabber

If you ever wanted to pursue close interpretation art again, I would suggest this- autographing your art or tracing the picture and tracing all different values of color on your face and then coloring based on those shapes and looking at the original photo, it will help you see all the values in a person and help you in the future when it comes to values in skin and so on.

Angelic Muse

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Painting over a photo will not teach you as much as trying to draw on your own. Tracing may look better at first but I think you should try just looking at the picture. You may think this is too hard but there is an easy way to do it. Making something beautiful from a blank canvas always makes me feel happy and proud. Try it. ^_^

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