Made Mistakes

PaperFaces portrait of @juleshughan

2013-05-17T00:00:00+01:00

At the salon.

PaperFaces portrait of @juleshughan was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 17, 2013.

Drawing Faces without Faces

2013-05-16T00:00:00+01:00

Shape the Canvas
Apply a Background
Ghost the Face
Build a Face
Pencil in Detail
Cross the Face

I hate cutting the grass because it’s a chore, and chores suck. Drawing a portrait every day for the last 10 months could have turned into a royal chore, but I kept it fun by setting a few restraints. These restrictions had a big effect on my style and time investment. Not exactly the most busy dude in the world, but working full time, tinkering with side projects, finding time for my wife, and helping to raise my twin girls doesn’t leave much open.

I can’t draw and I’m not an artist — that’s the real reason most of my PaperFaces illustrations don’t have facial features. Capturing a likeness is tough business yo! Omitting the trickiest part (the face) frees up all kinds of time, which circles back to how I’ve been able to maintain a daily drawing rhythm. A technically precise illustration that might have taken 8 hours is now squashed down to 30–60 minutes. Half an hour is fun, 10 hours is a chore!

Brevity is at the heart of every one of my portraits. Can’t draw facial features well? Imply a face with intersecting lines that cross the face instead. Don’t have time to shade and blend skin tones? Paint a few strategically placed gray blobs instead. Can’t wrap your head around drawing realistic hair? Drop some black ink and pencil over it with brown for an effect that is sure to wow your mom.

Still confused? Here are the general steps I follow for every portrait I draw. Don’t worry if you’re just starting out — almost anything you create with Paper by 53 will look beautiful. Just experiment with the tools and have fun with your journey — the rest will come naturally.

Shape the Canvas

I decided on a square frame for my project, but you might want to experiment with the shape and canvas placement to better suit your needs. I like to draw the frame freehand with black ink to give it character, but you can use pencil if you want to hide it easier.

Protip: Don’t want to bother drawing the same frame each time? Then make a template of it that you can copy at will. To do this: draw the frame or whatever else you want on all your pages, pinch the page to zoom out, tap and hold on the (+) until the duplicate button appears, then tap that. Now you’re free to move this new page around, copy it to another sketchbook, or duplicate it again.

Apply a Background

Paint from light to dark with watercolors and add detail with a pencil.

Typically, I spend way more time drawing or painting the background. No one is going to notice if a wall or some tree doesn’t match the original — they’re way more forgiving than a mouth or nose. Adding detail here instead of the face adds a sense of tension that I quite enjoy.

Whether I’m working on clouds, a landscape, or a face, I follow the same process:

Rough blobs of watercolor to define major shapes.
Layer shape after shape after shape with watercolor until dark and opaque.
Add detail with a pencil.
Layer even more watercolor strokes over the pencil.
Finish with the pencil to cleanup edges or apply highlights and shadows.

Ghost the Face

The background should be nice and heavy now. Using a white pencil, outline the face or blob it out with watercolor instead. On the rare chance the background is really light, use flesh tones (light brown/pink/orange) instead. The marker or fountain pen are appropriate for face lightening, but you can’t layer them as much. Watercolor allows you to progressively lighten and soften edges, which helps enhance the realism.

Use white to outline and lighten the figure's shape or face.

A white mixed with a hint of orange or yellow works great too. Experiment with the amount of color you mix because if you add too much the opaque nature of white is removed and it won’t “erase” the background beneath.

Build a Face

The trick here is to gradually apply smooth layers of a light color using the watercolor brush. First few layers are to fill the entire face with whatever skin color you’re trying to match. For areas that are in shadow, mix in a dull (almost gray) red or blue and then quickly paint half of the face. Shape really matters — if you don’t get it right just two finger rewind and try again. Move fast and avoid lingering in one spot to keep your edges soft and avoid going too dark.

Move quick and deliberate with watercolor.

Pencil in Detail

Same deal as the background, select the pencil tool and start refining edges that are deep in shadow (hair line, necks, clothing, etc). This will help tighten things up and fix the less than precise strokes of watercolor you laid down earlier.

Now is a great time to pencil in the hair, mustache, or beard whiskers using black as your base and a bright brown or yellow over the top. For a detailed Paper by 53 hair tutorial, check this out one time.

Use black and white pencils to shade and highlight.

Cross the Face

To finish the face take care to observe the direction and tilt of the head. Carefully draw a line from the forehead down to where the lips should be, following the same curve of your subject. You could keep it really straight, but I find following this natural curve helps make it look more three-dimensional. For the horizontal line, make it eye to eye in length. A fun tip for exaggerating what a face might be looking at — extending the horizontal line off the face and into the background on one side.

Cross your face and then you're done.

Download Drawing PaperFaces Cheat Sheet

PS: I wrote two short articles describing some more drawing with Paper tips and techniques and how to draw realistic hair. If there are other Paper by 53 tips or tutorials you’d like to see hit me up on the Twitter and I’ll see what I can do.

Drawing Faces without Faces was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 16, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @chadtafolla

2013-05-16T00:00:00+01:00

Scarf beard.

PaperFaces portrait of @chadtafolla was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 16, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @christynicol

2013-05-15T00:00:00+01:00

Put a bird on it… or your shoulder in the case of this illustration.

PaperFaces portrait of @christynicol was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 15, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @skinny_whiteguy

2013-05-14T00:00:00+01:00

Deal with it.

PaperFaces portrait of @skinny_whiteguy was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 14, 2013.

A Mother's Day PaperFaces portrait of @veganwendy

2013-05-12T00:00:00+01:00

For her first Mother’s Day as a new mom, a drawing of my wife and twin girls. Babies without faces kind of look extra creepy huh?

A Mother's Day PaperFaces portrait of @veganwendy was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 12, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @toblr

2013-05-11T00:00:00+01:00

Hold the iPhone steady as you frame your shot.

PaperFaces portrait of @toblr was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 11, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @Garlick_1989

2013-05-11T00:00:00+01:00

A couple of war paint faces.

PaperFaces portrait of @Garlick_1989 was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 11, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @xoalexo

2013-05-10T00:00:00+01:00

Project Donator. Muted tones in a cozy sweater.

PaperFaces portrait of @xoalexo was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 10, 2013.

How to Draw Realistic Hair with Paper by 53

2013-05-10T00:00:00+01:00

Block Out the Hair
Draw Each Strand
Dark Strokes Add Definition
Watercolor for Dimension

Block Out the Hair

I like to rough out a general shape of the subject’s hair using watercolor loaded with black or dark brown. Depending on what the overall palette is I might adjust the brown — usually mixing in red to warm it up or blue to cool it down.

When working with the watercolor brush remember to layer numerous strokes to get a rich dark base. Just painting one coat of black won’t give great results needed for the next step.

Draw Each Strand

The key here is observation — look at how each strand(or section) of hair moves, where they start, and where they end. Using the pencil draw each strand of hair from root to tip, following the same paths you observed. For these initial strokes use midtones to shape the major hair sections and parts. Then gradually brighten the color as you draw in hair with highlights. Adding small strokes of white and light yellow can really bring life to the hair, just be careful not to over do it.

For those new to the app I suggest drawing in grays — limiting your palette to get a feel for the tools and how they behave. Working with a limitless selection of color could complicate and distract you from learning the tools. Thankfully FiftyThree’s excellent color mixer just works when you’re ready to exploit it.

The browns in this default palette are good to start with before mixing your own.

On the subject of palettes… I stick with the default sets. Since I draw a ton of portraits, it’s much quicker for me to adjust a color on the fly. But I do see the benefit of setting up a predetermined palette beforehand to give your illustration a feeling of cohesion. Before the color mixer existed you had to get inventive if you wanted additional colors. A limitation that encouraged experimentation and sometimes unexpected results.

Some of my favorite color presets for drawing hair.

Dark Strokes Add Definition

Working an area too much with the pencil can cause your hair to flatten out. To fix this, draw dark pencil strokes over the problematic areas. If you follow the hair paths, drawing root to tip again — these dark strokes can help add detail back to the hair. Make your strokes quick and try not to go over the same line twice or else it might darken too much.

Watercolor for Dimension

If you’re a maniac with the pencil and prefer to draw in all the gradations then feel free to omit this step. I’m much too lazy for that and prefer to paint over the strokes to achieve the same effect. A warm light gray works great for brunettes and a light orange or pink for redheads. Experimentation is the key here. If you don’t like the result just two finger rewind that noise and try another color. Lighter layers of watercolor that are built up gradually allow for subtler tones than a stroke of black would.

Drawing hair with Paper by 53 cheat sheet.

PS: I wrote another short article/tutorial describing some more drawing with Paper tips and techniques, if you’re interested.

How to Draw Realistic Hair with Paper by 53 was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 10, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @VanessaTSmiles

2013-05-08T00:00:00+01:00

Project Donator. Long hair with a slight curl. First illustration done with the newly updated Paper by 53 app. Really like how zoom was implemented and the explore feature.

I also recorded my iPad’s screen for this portrait that shows the new zoom tool in action. ~~Just have to edit the raw capture in Adobe AfterEffects and then post to YouTube. Should be up soon…~~

PaperFaces portrait of @VanessaTSmiles was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 08, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of Iron Man

2013-05-08T00:00:00+01:00

Saw Iron Man 3 last night and figured I’d challenge myself by drawing the Iron Man himself — Tony Stark. Those post credit scenes always leave me wanting more Marvel film goodness…

Work in progress sketches.

PaperFaces portrait of Iron Man was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 08, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @mmoutenot

2013-05-07T00:00:00+01:00

Remember to always wear a helmet.

PaperFaces portrait of @mmoutenot was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 07, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @du_vs_ich

2013-05-06T00:00:00+01:00

Long flowing fire hair. If I drew this two days later, the new zoom tool added to Paper by 53 would have made my life a million times easier when working on the hair.

PaperFaces portrait of @du_vs_ich was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 06, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @xochristianna

2013-05-05T00:00:00+01:00

Project Donator. Dressed up all fancy.

PaperFaces portrait of @xochristianna was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 05, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @prasad84

2013-05-05T00:00:00+01:00

Mute colored wall.

PaperFaces portrait of @prasad84 was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 05, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of @asthehosptuRNs

2013-05-05T00:00:00+01:00

Thumbs up Giants.

PaperFaces portrait of @asthehosptuRNs was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 05, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of Yoda and Luke Skywalker

2013-05-04T00:00:00+01:00

Luke Skywalker training with Jedi Master Yoda down in Nilbog, I mean the Dagoba system. May the 4th be with you!

PaperFaces portrait of Yoda and Luke Skywalker was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 04, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of Slave Leia and Jabba the Hutt

2013-05-04T00:00:00+01:00

“Yang chas Solo chone Wookiee!” May the 4th be with you!

PaperFaces portrait of Slave Leia and Jabba the Hutt was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 04, 2013.

PaperFaces portrait of Darth Vader

2013-05-04T00:00:00+01:00

May the 4th be with you!

PaperFaces portrait of Darth Vader was originally published by Michael Rose at Made Mistakes on May 04, 2013.

Made Mistakes

PaperFaces portrait of @juleshughan

Drawing Faces without Faces

Contents

Shape the Canvas

Apply a Background

Ghost the Face

Build a Face

Pencil in Detail

Cross the Face

PaperFaces portrait of @chadtafolla

PaperFaces portrait of @christynicol

PaperFaces portrait of @skinny_whiteguy

A Mother's Day PaperFaces portrait of @veganwendy

PaperFaces portrait of @toblr

PaperFaces portrait of @Garlick_1989

PaperFaces portrait of @xoalexo

How to Draw Realistic Hair with Paper by 53

Contents

Block Out the Hair

Draw Each Strand

Dark Strokes Add Definition

Watercolor for Dimension

PaperFaces portrait of @VanessaTSmiles

PaperFaces portrait of Iron Man

PaperFaces portrait of @mmoutenot

PaperFaces portrait of @du_vs_ich

PaperFaces portrait of @xochristianna

PaperFaces portrait of @prasad84

PaperFaces portrait of @asthehosptuRNs

PaperFaces portrait of Yoda and Luke Skywalker

PaperFaces portrait of Slave Leia and Jabba the Hutt

PaperFaces portrait of Darth Vader