When A Portrait Goes Wrong

What else am I to do on a Monday entirely to myself? Why, return to my love of portraits, of course! I haven't done a portrait for about four months, but I used to draw them all of the time. And, since I've never gone through step-by-step to document my portrait process, I thought I would for this quick one and explain what went wrong and what I learned from it.

My subject is Min Yoon Gi, or Suga, one of the members of BTS, a Korean hip hop group. My sister introduced me to their music, and though I don't love all of their music, I really like Look Here. It has some great harmonies.

Anyhow, onto the portrait! Here is my primary reference, and here is my secondary reference, used mainly for details on his shirt.

This was my original line art. It took roughly 20 minutes to sketch this out and looking back on it now it seems incredibly creepy. 

My portraiting station, AKA my kitchen table. 

A little further along in the process. I began shading and the hair; note here the incredible struggle I had with his eyes. I redrew them several time and even in the finished portrait I don't think they look quite right. 

Portraiting station update!

A sweet smile. Eh he he. 

Further progress.

The finished product! Note my awful Hangul. 

My supplies. 

A well spent 2 hours. 

So, what exactly went wrong with this portrait? 

Well, for starters, when I drew it I wasn't looking straight down at the page, but at an angle. I think this caused some of my lines to be warped or just off enough that he doesn't look quite right. 

I also could have used better pencils than my BIC mechanical pencil and Ticonderoga wooden #2. Yes, these pencils are fine, but probably not what I needed for a portrait with such deep darks. 

The eyes still don't look quite right to me, even after several redos. I suspect that with a different picture where Suga's eyes didn't look so dark, I could have drawn them a bit better. It's also more difficult to draw eyeliner than I suspected! 

Hopefully with more practice, I can draw a portrait of Suga that actually does him justice. In the mean time, we have this. I hope if any ARMYs see this they won't be too terribly offended!