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Portrait Drawing Fundamentals – How to Draw Realistic Heads & Faces

This portrait drawingcourse will teach you how to draw beautiful, realisticportraits that capture the subject's likeness. What makes this course unique from ...
4.7
4.7/5
(144 reviews)
9,690 students
Created by

9.2

Classbaze Grade®

8.7

Freshness

8.8

Popularity

9.5

Material

Platform: Skillshare
Video: 5h 45m
Language: English
Next start: On Demand

Best Portrait Drawing classes:

Classbaze Rating

Classbaze Grade®

9.2 / 10

CourseMarks Score® helps students to find the best classes. We aggregate 18 factors, including freshness, student feedback and content diversity.

Freshness

8.7 / 10
This course was last updated on 10/2020.

Course content can become outdated quite quickly. After analysing 71,530 courses, we found that the highest rated courses are updated every year. If a course has not been updated for more than 2 years, you should carefully evaluate the course before enrolling.

Popularity

8.8 / 10
We analyzed factors such as the rating (4.7/5) and the ratio between the number of reviews and the number of students, which is a great signal of student commitment.

New courses are hard to evaluate because there are no or just a few student ratings, but Student Feedback Score helps you find great courses even with fewer reviews.

Material

9.5 / 10
Video Score: 8.4 / 10
The course includes 5h 45m video content. Courses with more videos usually have a higher average rating. We have found that the sweet spot is 16 hours of video, which is long enough to teach a topic comprehensively, but not overwhelming. Courses over 16 hours of video gets the maximum score.
The average video length is 2 hours 18 minutes of 12 Portrait Drawing courses on Skillshare.
Detail Score: 10.0 / 10

The top online course contains a detailed description of the course, what you will learn and also a detailed description about the instructor.

Extra Content Score: 10.0 / 10

Tests, exercises, articles and other resources help students to better understand and deepen their understanding of the topic.

This course contains:

0 article.
0 resource.
0 exercise.
0 tests or quizzes.

In this page

About the course

This portrait drawing course will teach you how to draw beautiful, realistic portraits that capture the subject’s likeness.

What makes this course unique from all the others out there, is how it breaks down the complex topic of portrait drawing into manageable concepts and step-by-step exercises.  

You’ll begin by learning simple concepts and practicing basic drawing exercises. As you’re hand dexterity and understanding improve, the lessons will gradually increase in difficulty until, by the end of the course, you will have drawn your very own realistic portrait.

Even if you are a beginner with no drawing experience, you’ll find the lessons and exercises easy to understand and enjoyable, while still learning critical drawing skills.  

Key things you will learn:

  • How to simplify the head into basic shapes so you can draw it more easily
  • How to draw the head from different angles to create more dynamic portraits
  • How to draw the planes of the head in order to create a three-dimensional effect
  • Understanding the rules of lighting in order to make your drawing look realistic 
  • Understanding the basic anatomy of each of the facial features so you can draw them better
  • A simple step-by-step process for drawing a realistic portrait from start to finish
  • And a whole lot more!

At this end of this course, students will have a better understanding of how to draw the head from various angles, how to shade realistic features, and how to draw a complete realistic portrait.

Course Material List

I buy a ton of art supply online and these links are the best prices I was able to find for these items & where I buy them myself.

Full disclosure, these are referral links so if you buy something through them, I may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you!)

  • Proportional Divider
  • Pencil Set
  • Staedtler Mars 780 Technical Mechanical Pencil, 2mm

  • Staedtler Mars Rotary Action Lead Pointer for 2mm Leads (To sharpen the pencil, just insert the pencil tip into the sharpener and turn the pencil clockwise)

  • Staedtler Mars Carbon Lead, 2mm, B

  • Kneaded Eraser

  • Regular Printing paper (or whatever scrap paper you have at home)
  • Large Format Printing Paper
  • Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Paper (Vellum)

  • Strathmore 300 Series Bristol Paper (Smooth)

  • Tortillions or Blending Stumps

  • Workable Spray Fixative (to seal your finished drawing and prevent smudges)

Special Thanks

Everything I know I’ve learned from someone else. And this course is a combination of my own personal experience, the things I’ve learned from all my teachers, and the many, many hours of research I’ve done in preparation for making it.

I’ve tried to combine all the best elements from many different sources and put my own take on it wherever I can.

So, before we begin, I’d like to give a special “Thank you!” to all the amazing artists whose works and teachings help made this course possible.

The list (in no particular order) includes, but is not limited to:

Andrew Loomis
Jeff Watts
Stan Prokopenko
Lee Hammond
John Asaro
Mark Crilley
And many more…

Also, be sure to check out the my courses so you don’t miss out on any important skills:

  • Drawing Fundamentals Part 1 – Basics Skills & Drawing Accurately
  • Drawing Fundamentals Part 2 – Perspective Basics & 3D Sketching
  • Drawing Fundamentals Part 3 – Realistic Shading Techniques

What can you learn from this course?

After practicing and becoming comfortable with drawing the Loomis head, the Head Planes, and the individual facial features follow the final portrait drawing lesson to draw a complete realistic portrait. 

You can use the reference provided (the reference has been provided at 3 contrast levels, select the one that works best for you) and drawing the exact same portrait as in the lesson.

Or, if you’d like, you can choose your own reference (either from the internet or elsewhere) and draw that instead. 

I’ve attached all the reference images and course asset you’d need to go through all the lessons.

What you need to start the course?

There is no prerequisite, anyone can begin this course.. This course is also great for beginners without any Portrait Drawing knowledge.

Who is this course is made for?

This course is suitable for beginners.

Are there coupons or discounts for Portrait Drawing Fundamentals - How to Draw Realistic Heads & Faces ? What is the current price?

You can enrol in this course with a Skillshare subscription that costs $8/month, but you start with a FREE 7-day trial. You can also enrol in thousands of courses on a variety of topics with your subscription, including several Portrait Drawing courses.

Will I be refunded if I'm not satisfied with the Portrait Drawing Fundamentals - How to Draw Realistic Heads & Faces course?

There is no money-back guarantee with Skillshare, but you can start with a free one-week trial to learn without risk. With the subscription, you can download classes to your tablet or phone using the Skillshare app.

Are there any financial aid for this course?

At the moment we couldn't find any available scholarship forPortrait Drawing Fundamentals - How to Draw Realistic Heads & Faces, but you can access more than 30 thousand classes for $8/month on Skillshare, including this one!

Who will teach this course? Can I trust Ethan Nguyen?

Ethan Nguyen has created 14 courses that got 2,814 reviews which are generally positive. Ethan Nguyen has taught 33,755 students and received a 4.8 average review out of 2,814 reviews. Depending on the information available, we think that Ethan Nguyen is an instructor that you can trust.
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Browse all courses by on Classbaze.

9.2

Classbaze Grade®

8.7

Freshness

8.8

Popularity

9.5

Material

Platform: Skillshare
Video: 5h 45m
Language: English
Next start: On Demand

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