Planes of the Face

Because I had so much trouble with my faces in my last illustration, I decided to do some exercises to help me better understand how the planes of the face work.  I first did some tracing, drawing over photographs and trying to figure out the contours of different faces. Then I found this post by artist Daniel Helzer, wher he shows off this statue of a face that clearly shows off the different planes.  It's actually a learning tool for sculptors, but Daniel found it handy for visualizing the planes of the face, and so did I.  I used his photograph of the sculpture and traced over the contours of the face, and then afterwards painted it.  I'll probably do more of these over the course of the week.  I wish I could get this statue locally so I can tweak the lighting myself, but for now working with photos will have to do.

original photo

contours

paint