Inktober 2019 Retrospective | Day 4: Bearded

While age fluctuates throughout my litany of male characters, they are often coded as ambiguously children. So when I draw adult men, more specifically men with beards, they don't look... quite... right. Like there's a shape eating their big round baby face.

Fortunately, that is not the case with this man! The secret was making his head long enough to incorporate the beard. Usually, I just give everyone ball heads, maybe with a little cheek or chin, the latter being possibly more substantial, but yeah. Pulling his face down gives me the real state to flesh out the sideburns, mustache, etc. This is definitely a technique I'll be using in the future.

It's good when something just clicks. Especially when you've been banging your head against the wall for some time trying to figure it out. I was not going to change how I draw heads (ball head). Why? Not sure. I'd imagine out of an unwillingness to change my habits. Maybe thinking it could work if I just tried that same thing that wasn't working hard enough. No, a new method was necessary. I like pictures of men with beards, so now I can finally do that.

Obviously, nothing manmade is perfect. His mustache looks rather blunt. There ought to be more hairs tapering away towards his nose. Had the style been simpler, this would suffice, but the detail given to the strands of hair elsewhere on his head suggest his mustache would benefit from similar strandiness. Plus, while the shading's not bad, I wish I'd committed to smoother, darker values. But overall, a success, and for that, I'm relieved. Last Inktober I did, the guys with beards ranged from a hot mess to very okay.

Eating tortilla chips whilst wearing headphones is extremely noisy.

Thanks for reading.

#man #beard #blackhair #inktober #ink