The Mentor Experiment: Week 4: Barry’s Critique

My visual notes for Barry’s critique are in the drawing below. Click to embiggen.

Barry is showing the horizontal axis line in his drawings, which is good – but the eyes and nose need to rest on the horizontal axis line. In the case of a long nose, the stem of the nose should originate from the intersection of the horizontal and vertical axis lines. All of Barry’s characters are confined to a simple circular / elliptical shape. This is a good starting point, but additional tweaks are needed for the characters to exhibit a clearer silhouette. Try moving the horizontal axis line (the eye line) up to the top of the head or towards the bottom. Exaggerate the position of the eyebrows to make the character’s expression more readable.

Noses are just as unique as fingerprints – take a closer look at the nose and break it down into a cylindrical shape – this will give the nose form and anchor it better on the character’s face. Eyes are the windows into our soul – and they should be expressive and unique as the character itself. Barry’s using the same eye shape for all his characters; my suggestion would be to experiment with different eye shapes and their placement on the horizontal axis line. Also, ears in a 3/4 view should be further back on the character’s head.

Chins and cheeks make the character more visually interesting, and the best part is, they can be built right ontop of the round shape Barry is using. Here are three characters from Barry’s submission that I’ve provided additional notes on.

More practice and study in head construction is needed, but I am confident Barry will get there. Keep it up, Barry!!

-Krishna