In the past, artists had to depend on paper and pencils to draw portraits of people. But in this digital age, things are a bit different. You can draw with paper and pencils as you like, and also transfer the same to your digital devices with new technologies. When using these devices, a little orientation on their capabilities and functions is needed to get the best from them. This helps you avoid the long process of trial and error and also perform your tasks with ease.
When you want to draw faces with a drawing tablet like repaper drawing tablet, there are three major tablet features you need to take into account before you start. They are :
- Tablet and Pen sensitivity ;
- Screen size ;
- RAM size.
The reason why you consider these things is because of how they affect the drawing that you are doing. If the screen size isn’t big enough, then you will be uncomfortable while trying to draw. Furthermore, the tablet and pen need to be sensitive enough to give you a smooth drawing because if they are not sensitive enough to pressure, you will have to struggle with making the drawing appear. Finally, the RAM size affects the tablet because it determines how fast or how slow the image being drawn will translate to the secondary device screen.
When you take these into account and get a tablet that can perform the necessary functions efficiently, you can now begin the steps to drawing a realistic face.
How to Use a Drawing Tablet to Draw Faces ?
To draw faces with a tablet, you need to focus on the individual features like the shapes of the face, nose, eyes, and ears, the size of the nose and ears, thickness of the eyebrows, etc. These characteristic features are what make up a face.
You can draw using two methods :
Grid Method
When using the grid method, you create small squares on your drawing tablet and on the image of the face you want to reproduce. After this is done, you then label these grid lines alphabetically at the top and numerically at the sides. By doing this you, have a way to know where the features are positioned. You can start sketching whatever part you want to, using their positions in the original image’s grid line as a basis. This helps to guide you when you draw.
Guidelines Method
Unlike the grid method, with guidelines, you draw a circular or oval shape first and draw guidelines within the shape to bring out the eyes, nose, and mouth. After this is done, you start highlighting the key features and using more guidelines to bring out the shape of the face. You can draw the hair and eyebrows after you are done with the face or while drawing the features of the face. When you are done with that, you can erase the faint guidelines and color or save the one you have drawn.
When using both methods, the hairline of the model needs to be sketched out so it won’t be difficult to draw when the features are done.
An important thing to know is if you aren’t confident in your skills, you can also draw gridlines to sketch out the features.
How to Use Gridlines to Draw Facial Features ?
When drawing facial features, the grid method is best because it gives you a more accurate depiction of the features. You can crop each one out as an individual image and determine the number of grid lines that suit you before you begin to draw. When you do this, you can now create a center point (if you are using the guideline method) and draw your mid-grid line from there. Then you can now divide it and draw all the other lines.
When you finish highlighting the grids, you can begin to draw out the lines to bring out the image of the part you are drawing. If you are creating a brand new drawing from your imagination, after deciding what features you want the face to have, you can sketch them out on paper to have a physical guideline.
Another way to draw the features is to sketch out the overall shape of the features, then blend in the shadows and highlights to accentuate them and make them look more natural and part of the face.
When drawing teeth, use soft, thin lines between each tooth, shade the dark areas, and use perspectives to show that the teeth are towards the back on the same line.
When drawing hair, try to start with thin lines and strokes and use your drawing tablet pen in the marker or pen function to highlight areas with thicker hair.
Remember to choose a tablet with a responsive screen so it can reflect properly in the digital copy. Also choose one that has multiple functions to help you draw better.
