Drawing Will Smith: Process with Description

Hello Everyone! :)
with this post i would like to show a drawing of Will Smith that i did, and i took pictures of the Process and will explain all the steps that i did and how i reached the final drawing. The whole drawing was done with a pen, of that the thickness of the line was 0,2mm.

Here you can see the drawing on an A4 sized paper together with the pen that i used. It is all drawn with black ink and i used hatching to show the shadow in the face. I chose a picture where he was smiling as template, because it shows some expression and was important for me in the drawing of him. At the end of the post i will show a picture of the final result where the photo is more close of the portrait.

Here you can see the first approach. I don't feel really secure at the beginning, especially not when i draw portraits, so i started just with the outlines with a pencil. After this i start with the pen and adjust the lines that i drew with pencil and start already with the hair, eyebrows and beard with short lines that show really the hair and not the outlines of it. You can also see that this lines are not the final ones, the teeth for example are much more rough and not in the real shape.

In the next step i start with the eyes and already with the eyebrows and beard a little bit more detailed. They are not finished yet, they get more black and more shadow later, but it is important for me to see already how it looks detailed.
And i already started to draw a part of the hair, which was not too easy in Will's case. And in this picture you already can see the difference of the teeth compared to the first step, in which i used a pencil to draw. You can still see some lines of the pencil underneath the pen lines.

In this next step i drew the whole hair in a very rough and first structure, detailed the ears a little bit more and started with some first shadowing under nose and mouth. Also i hatched the whole in the mouth to see how the teeth come out to the front. I always start with the whole face and detailing everything just a little bit at first, before i come to the final hatching and lines. I know that some people start with the eyes and detail them to the final appearance but for me it is easier to see the whole face and approach with all parts almost equally to the final result.

This drawing shows the next shadings that i did. I made the pupils of the eyes more dark and started with the first layer of some hatching around the eyes and at the edges of the face. Under the nose you can already see the second layer of hatching, that starts directly under the nose and stops more early than the first layer, to get a course from really dark to more light. For the pupils i started the direction of the lines in the middle of the circle and went to the outside.

This next step shows a huge difference to the step before in the shadowing. Some part of the hair and especially the eyebrows got much more lines and ink. Also the hatching of the face got another layer and differences in the density of the lines, which bring more depth and contrast to the drawing. You can see that not the whole eyebrows got more dark, just the parts where the hair is more dense, like in reality. Also the lips got their first texture and shadowing. The nose especially got more shadowing too.

This picture shows how the whole hair got more black, which makes it appear more in the background than the face, that comes more to the front because it is much more light. Also the beard got a little bit more dark.

In the next step the course of the hair got more accurate. The shadowing of the whole face got more detailed and expecially the beard got more dense and more dark again. Finally also the ears got some lines to show the shadow. The portrait is almost finished here. For me it is a little bit strange how the drawing changes so much with just adding some lines. At the beginning it looked very abstract and with all the shadowing and detailing it gets its own flair, where it was without ''soul'' at the beginning. At the end i can see more the style that i also have in other drawings.

This picture shows the final result of the drawing process. The biggest difference that you see directly is the shadowing of the neck and the clothes under the head, so that it appears more in the background and makes the lower part of the face also come more to the front. Also all the shadowing got more precise. The hair got more dark at the edge too, the ears got more detailed and a stronger shadow.
It was really interesting for me because it was one of the first portraits that i did, that were so detailed.
The aim wasn't to make a photorealistic drawing, of course this portrait is a little bit more abstract.
For me it was important that you clearly can see that it is still a drawing and the drawing has it's own language.
But i guess you can see that it is Will Smith and i like that you still can see the lines, that are much more detailed in some parts than in others. One of the most difficult parts in the process was the hair, because it had a really special texture.
And at last of course the signature and the date haha.

Thank you very much for watching, maybe you learnd something new or at least got inspirated!
Greetings to everyone! :)