Self Portrait

[MasterClock]

I drew myself. In a world where I have no freckles, acne, and insanely straight hair: this is what I look like.

Some fun facts:
-My second drawing (not doodle) in Photoshop.
-My first color drawing in Photoshop.
-My first attempt at a somewhat-realistic human drawing.
-Arrow helped with some subtle shading criticism
-go away

[WiiClock]

lmao oh my god

[AbsintheClock]

It's a bit waxy, and the eyebrows and eye lashes just aren't right at all. Try just flat out drawing what you generally see in one big mess, and then clean it up along the way. That's the beauty of these programs is you can screw up all you want but you can still go and change it up. Also there's more than one brush in the program. At least shape-wise.

[IvysaurClock]

The shadows are pretty good, but the nostril area needs some work. The greyness of the shadows makes it look a little dirty. Try shading in a more blue shade of pink, rather than a grey shade of pink.

The area around the iris is a little blurry, too - try making it a bit sharper around the outside of the green.

Could we see the photo you used for reference?

[Loki Clock]

The more distant side of the nose needs to be shrunk (specifically the nostril).

Contrast the shading a little bit more, it will help clearly distinguish the jaw.

[LeekClock]

Why blur everything?

[shit for brains]

care to post a pic of yourself for comparison?

[MasterClock]

It's a bit waxy, and the eyebrows and eye lashes just aren't right at all.

Yeah, I kinda had a ridiculously hard time with those.

Also there's more than one brush in the program. At least shape-wise.

All I did was use the solid and smooth brushes at different sizes :s

The area around the iris is a little blurry, too - try making it a bit sharper around the outside of the green.

Any tips on how to do that?  I tried doing the sharpen tool but that kinda just fucked up the pixels that were blending the iris with the white part.

Could we see the photo you used for reference?

In before "you don't look 17 you look 6"

It's not really an accurate self portrait though, since I left out the hair cowlicks, freckles, and acne.

Why blur everything?

Because when I draw sharper images I don't like the lumpy result I get, mostly due to Photoshop inexperience.

[AbsintheClock]

Yeah that's the same brush as far as I'm concerned. You can get the same effect with a soft brush, and a solid one just by playing with the opacity levels. Even then there are so many other textures, and hair is a texture. Another thing your nostrils are holes in your face. This means they're openings with shadows. That doesn't mean they're grey spots that hover on your face.

[Loki Clock]

Add the shadows on your eyes and give your hair the form it had in the photo, not just a bowl haircut.

[Topcatyo]

You shouldn't be using the blur in Photoshop as a crutch.  You may think it makes it looks less rough and aliased, but it makes me check to see if my contact prescription is up to date.
Practice drawing lineart in Photoshop and cleaning it up.  Then apply the same effect to the rest of your Photoshop drawings.  It makes all the different and you'll be singing "I Can See Clearly Now".

[Munglai]

You're much more interesting than your picture is! You should exaggerate the imperfections like the darkness around the eyes and the natural curl of the hair, not smoothen them out and stuff.

on the plus side I think the shading around the mouth is nice

mostly I think you just need to look harder at the picture you're working from. Really really really look, don't think that you can just glance at it and remember.

[WarCorrespondentClock]

When I drew myself, I did all my facial hair aswell, looked pretty fricken sweet. Got 2 ticks from my art teacher.

[Loki Clock]

all my facial hair

Nice try.

[CrustClock]

you're better looking in real life than in your self-portrait. the picture is boring. needs more style.

[LoquatClock]

For a first effort, seriously that is awesome.

Aswell as what others have said, I also think the drawing is a bit tone flat... The dark areas need to be darker and the highlights areas need to be lighter. E.g. Eyelashes are black, so make them black, and i'm sure the nostril holes are much darker than that too!

I'd recommend (when starting a digital painting) blocking out 2 or 3 sections of colour, using one colour for the highlights, one for shadows, and one for the base colour, and begin to blend from there.

[Loki Clock]

And blend really, through tons of layering of fine gradations in color, perhaps at alpha levels. Don't use blur to blend for you. What I like to do a lot is draw, color, and shade something without using alpha, layers, or blur.