WOW thats amazing!

DANG POP OFF HAILEY

@razberry20 @Empyreal Haha! thanks guys x,D

@cherry-tea BAHAHA xD
that was some reaction! Thank you cherry! Im not sure if i can explain exactly how i did this?? You can always watch the playback if you're really curious lolll. Just keep practicing..! i know thats cliché, but thats all i got TuT

@cherry-tea Thanks! 0u0

*dies*
'THIS IS SO GOOOOOD! HOW?

@InkDrawz WAA TY!! QuQ

This is amazing!

Dang this is awesome!!

GURL JUST POPPED OFF WHAT?!

@TB_studios Did I catch you online??

*gasp*

WOW SO GOOD!! The backround kinda reminds me of stranger things lol

@razrdraws sorry I'm back didn't mean to leave you hangin' but you know, life

I see you used the method of throwing down color first rather then using a sketch reference, that is probably my favorite way

That is great! Good use of the grid also. I forgot to mention that in the portrait tips. Feel free to add it if you like.
I think less blending works well here. The more tiled look makes it a bit more bold.
And of course I am partial to the method of going right to shapes rather than lines, and you got them right rather quickly.

@Road_Pizza @TB_studios @AutumnColors @kitticat98 @Mr_Kurt Thank you guys so much! :,D

@tall73 Thanks!
I usually dont feel very confident going right in with color. But i thought I'd give it a go with the help of a grid. :D

@TB_studios Yeah, i actually kind of liked this method a lot! Sketching usually takes me about an hour to get the proportions right.. So it was kinda nice to just jump right in and see how it would turn out xD

@Lydi072 Noooo not an oc! :0
She's an actor, i dont know her real name off the top of my head, but her name was Liv in the show. She was in a short horror series on Netflix called "elves" lolll. It sounds cheesy but the monsters were done so well :0

@Pastrys_N_Milk ohhh you're right she kinda does! :0

i love watching your painting process, so impressive as always hails!!!

@hailsss @TB_Studios we definitely need to start a line-free revolution!

@ponopzop Thank u! And you're so supportive as always TuT <3

@tall73 Wheres the petition?!? I'LL SIGN IT.

HOMIE... HOWWWWWWW

**** GIVE US ALL A CHANE ATLEAST LMFAOOOOO

@CallMeCrazyArt LOLLLL!!! The other entries are really good though! I dont see an obvious winner yet :P

How do you get so many likes? Is it because of how many followers you have? (and because your art style's cool lol)

i only just started getting at least 2-5 likes per painting lol
if i'm lucky i get 5-10 xD

Great portrait! I like the strong light hitting her face. I'm never that brave when it comes to intense lights and darks

really nice work, and honestly I always thought less blending looks better anyway - after all it gives us a chance to appreciate the craftmanship when those brushstrokes are on display in their full glory!

ur an inspiration

@tall73 I AGREE!! No more lines lol! But I think it is cool to see the different types of ways that people draw realistic portraits, just gives that extra variety.

NOOOOOOO
I LIKE MY LINESSSS @TB_studios @Hailsss

Hailey... is this you??!!!

@razrdraws xD nooo it kinda looks like me though. I showed it to my grandpa today and he thought it was a self portrait xD

@razrdraws But i still look quite a bit different than this. might do a self portrait soon but idk :P

@mcollins @jaames @ichiqwerty Thank you guys so much!! I'll probably still experiment with different ways of doing portraits, but i really like how it looks with less blending :)

@CipherDragon idk man, try not to get too wrapped up in likes and followers ;)
Although you could always challenge yourself to make more finished pieces. You can draw bill really well! You could try adding color or shading? :P
Either way, i love your artwork, just draw what you enjoy!

OMG you are so incredible, I think I just passed out in shock! Wow!

Thank you for submitting this for the Realism Discussion Group Feedback tag.
There is a lot that is working well with this. Contrast between the darkest dark and lightiest light is very good. The clothing is not overly detailed so that the face gets the attention. The bright highlight on the one side of the face draws the attention to that area, as the highest contrast is with that highlight and the dark of the dominant eye. The other eye being more in shadow keeps them from conflicting as areas of interest.
The only thing that throws me off with this is that the face seems to sit just a bit too far to our left, so that it is not on the shoulders quite centered, making the neck look like it kind of cranes out a bit. I know you cannot go to the group, etc. but this is just an image that shows your painting with lines coming straight down from the edges of the face to kind of highlight the issue a bit.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/936380340430327857/973300091500765264/unknown.png

The neck may also be just a bit long, which adds to this effect. It extends up some distance from the rather large turtle neck.

Now it is possible that the person had their neck somewhat out and to the side like that in the reference, and they have a rather long neck. If so it might be good to slightly modify the reference. Some things that show up in photos don't necessarily work as paintings if they seem like they are not looking natural.
Thank you for entering the contest!
Also, you definitely have a hat theme going on. All of your cartoon self-portraits, and your actual self-portrait had this. Not a critique, just something I noted!

@tall73 Sweet! Thanks for the feedback tall.
In the reference photo i used, some of her hair on the left side was overlaping her neck a bit. Although its accurate to the original photo it does looks a bit off in the painting like you said. I've never considered editing the reference photo. :o And yeaahhhh, im a beanie fan lol (aka the hat im always wearing) xD

I frequently make changes from the reference photo, either just by not painting everything the way it is shown, or actually editing the photo reference ahead of time to get the look I want to paint. A good goal to have with reference is to make something better than the original photo, or use multiple photos, so that the composition is improved, or the color, etc. In this case the looser look is obviously a different from the photo which makes it distinct.

@tall73 ohhhh i didn't even know using multiple ref photos was a thing :0 I'll try that out next time! Thanks again!

Well it can be. Especially if you don't find exactly what you want in one reference..

Sometimes these are called reference clouds. This is especially true when you are working on a larger scene with multiple elements. You might have some photos that have elements of the mood you want (lighting, color, etc. ) You might have a painting of someone's style you like to give you the feel of the brush strokes you want. You might have one reference for a type of clothing you want, but a different one for the pose.
If you have a specific pose in mind, but can't find that exact pose in reference photo sites, you can take several similar ones from slightly different angles to piece together what it is likely to look like.
Some will save images they like to draw inspiration from for a particular work in a Pinterest group, Keep in mind you don't want to copy actual paintings from others. But you can see what elements you like of how they do things.
As to the hair, I think the shadow of the hair adds to the craning neck look in this case. Even slightly modifying the shadow shape is unlikely to cause an issue for the shadow itself, but would help with how the overall reads. So you don't have to paint just what you see, but what you want to see.

The photographer curates what they want from what is around them. They crop with the photo frame, and sometimes even after. You can again change the cropping to emphasize composition, etc. And you can modify any element within it to get the look you want.
It will often adjust levels on a photo reference to get more pop. Or I might make both color and black and white to see how much contrast it has, You can adjust the hue, or paint on color on the reference to see how you might inject cool light into shadows, or warm light into areas, etc.

@tall73 ahhh i see, that all makes sense.
I guess im a bit hesitant to try and tweak things to look how i think they should.. Only because that means I'd be working from my head and not so much the reference photo. Although not that every portrait has to turn out perfect, so its probably worth a shot! :P

hat girl! I see what @tall73 means but I think this neck is alright, because a neck is very flexible, it's that overlap neck/hair that is misleading the analyzing viewer :P

interesting I was curious to know if you adjust and manipulate references before painting , photoshop or maybe some mobile photo editing app? adding a 'paint' filter effect to the reference can help with getting a nice result. but you already make nice results so this is not a suggestion for you and if maybe you already use photo editing, that is fine, keep mastering your secret techniques :)

@Madwurmz and I analyzed this for way too long, and I have determined using a dimension measuring program, overlaying it with one of Madwurm'z model dolls, etc. that the shoulder on our right, her left shoulder, is approximately 13 percent wider than it should be in this post.
Madwurmz thinks he could dispute this, but we would need the original reference to know for sure.

@tall73 Sure! This girl is from a series on Netflix called elves lol. Her name in it was Liv.. So based on that info you could probably find the ref photo i used?

Ah yes, found it right away, thanks!

Yes, the grid method worked well, it is not 13 percent too long! It matches up. to the rerference.

So in that case I think it is the line in the shadow from the hair giving the kind of craning effect, which agrees with @Madwurmz' assessment.
Interesting experiment.

yes ok I mostly just like give rebutal to @tall73 because i dont feel scared even when you call youself tall hehe

beany girl painting a beany girl.
it is very good , fluent confident brushes strokes. to be sure and to subvert this topic, the$t* is the same person as @madwurmz that is me, in case you didnt know :)

@tall73 ayyy at least i got the proportions right! lol

I did SORTA notice how her neck looked a bit off while i painted this. So i added that tiny little strand of hair over the neck, trying to make it look less like the background showing through.. Although it probably would have looked better to maybe lighten the shadow under her hair?

@the$t* HAHA xD yup, beanie girl, thats me lol.
And yeah, i figured this was wurmz talking because theres "madwurmz.com" in your bio ;P

@Hailsss That explains why the hair is there! I think, in this case, while it makes it clear it is not the background, it has the effect of changing the perception of the shape. If you use a very dark dark next to a light then the brain thends to interpret that as the edge of the form. And in this case the brain is not accustomed to reading the neck as that strange shape!
At the same time I wasn't sure if it was that shape causing it, or something else. There are times we know something looks off, but are not sure why. That is why I was looking at possible issues with the proportions, etc. But looking at the reference it is clearly not that.
It may take a bit of investigation to know what would fix it. I usually just create a new copy of the painting and try several things to see if it resolves it. It is possible changing the darkness of the shadow in the hair would help. Or it might even need reshaping the hair, etc.
Sometimes lines that we think will fix things cause the eye to conflate. If you were on discord I would refer you to Twarda's discussion on artistic tangent lines in composition (for any who are on discord you can look it up). But you may also be able to google search art tangent line and read up on it.

@tall73 w0w.
Thanks for putting so much time into your feedback, i really appreciate it! Im going to mess around with this painting a bit and see if i can correct the odd parts. And i will definitely be looking into this "Art tangent line" you mentioned! :P

love your paint @Hailsss

@jpparr aw ty! :)