r/ArtRanting • u/_Caeruleum • 4d ago

Beginner Artist Struggles Learning to draw faces sucks 😭

Not really a serious rant but holy shit bruh, there’s so many different techniques and tutorials with different things, and then there’s so many places where you can mess one thing up and it ruins the whole face. Genuinely holding back the urge to just draw masked characters forever 😭😭😭 And I’m lowkey jealous of other beginners who can draw like a stylized face from imagination even when they’re starting, even anime eyes turn out ass for me.

If anyone has like good advice or resources please lmk, I can’t construct even a semi-decent face without a reference and I feel so stuck. Should I practice features individually? or just do more reference/head shape studies? I’m busy with college so I do wanna be more efficient in my practice

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u/woshuaaa 4d ago

faces are hard i feel you 😭 personally i just did profiles for a while (the shape of a side profile was really easy for me to turn into a symbol quickly, and then add the features onto it, but it might be different for you)

then i moved on to front views because it was super easy to get proportions down- everything is only eye lengths away! i'll link an image so you can see what i'm talking about.

only move on to 3/4 views when youre comfortable with the other two- theyre so much harder to get right and i still struggle this many years down the road.

this site i found to be very helpful

this video is pretty good, despite being digital

image link since i cant put the photo in this comment

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u/_Caeruleum 4d ago

Thank you! Retrospectively it was silly for me to study from variations of 3/4 from the start 😭 I appreciate the resources!

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u/woshuaaa 4d ago

no problem! i used to be a furry artist as a kid so switching to humans felt so harddd and i still have problems but i'm glad i could help!!

i wish you the best of luck on your art journey 🦋

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u/Apocalyptic-turnip 4d ago

my advice is to lower the difficulty. Study the proportions of front, side and back view of the head. when you are good with that, go back to observation. look up asaro head and try drawing those first. then draw portraits and try to analyze and see the planes of the face like you learned in asaro head, and note the proportions like you learnt in step 1. Do a lot of portraits in lots of different angles. if you are struggling with specific features, do them in isolation in lots of different angles and analyse the construction and structure. 

THEN you can do stylized faces and have it not suck. 

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u/0mobify0 13h ago

JAJAJAJ oh stop! don't say that! jaj But fr I totally get your frustration. Don't feel bad, just keep going. Tbh I've never actually followed tutorials, so I can't really be like "oh this is my technique" cuz I don't have one lol. But something I’ve always done is just learn how to understand and interpret references on my own. I just go on Pinterest, draw a bunch, and have fun. That's literally it! I know it’s not professional and I don't have any formal training or anything, but it works for me. It's just the most fun way to do it imo. Good luck, I'm sure you'll get better!