Charcoal Drawing - critics welcomed

jcortezjr1068

This is my first portrait commission for a family memeber that love these actors.
I welcome critics, willing to learn from my mistakes and build on them.

ArtGal

This is very nice drawing, the likeness and  the details in suits are amazing

StephanHM

This is a great drawing, I can definitely tell who they are!! The transition from light to dark up tom hardy's blazer is very rich, very nice to look at.

My critique would be that it looks like you may be missing some shadows around the collars of their shirts, particularly the right side of hardy's shirt. the collar sticks out a bit because from what I can see it just looks like an outline instead of being massed in like the rest of the drawing.

The other thing is that hardy's clothing looks a lot more reflective than dicaprio's, and I suspect it is also like that in your photo as well but it leaves dicaprio looking just a little bit less excellent than hardy. maybe a touch lighter on the highlights of the wrinkles on dicaprio's jacket would help?

Overall it is really beautiful and i love how you did the buttons on hardy's vest, they really sparkle.

jcortezjr1068

Thank you both ArtGal and StephanHM for your comments. I sure will make some changes on this sketch as per Stephan. I sprayed workable fixative so I can go back and make edits anytime.
Thanks again much appreciate it.

GTO

Working from photos has got to be difficult.  This shows you have the drawing skills you need for great works.  

My suggestion is to observe where you have only a line for the edges of fabric.  For example the shirt collars.  There should be a thickness to the edge and therefore a some value changes at the edge that shows the edge dimensions.  There should also be a small bit of shadow under those edges where the light doesn’t reach. You’ve done that to some extent in decaprio’s collar but not much elsewhere.
Overall  it’s a very cool double portrait. 

jcortezjr1068

Thank you GTO for your suggestions.
I will go back to my drawing and look at making those adjustments.

oilpainter1950

This drawing is high quality.  Doing the changes to the collars as suggested, will take it over the top.

ConnorDios

@jcortezjr1068 This is a very nice drawing and you have definitely attained high realism. One thing I notice is that in Leo’s collar, you have done a very nice ambient occlusion shadow, but the collar on hardy is more of an outline, the shadow being very light. I think if you shade in the ambient occlusion under his collar like you did with Leo’s it will make the collar fit better Into the picture and not stand out as much but honestly even without changing anything I feel you have captured both their likenesses almost perfectly and in very high realism! Great job!

jcortezjr1068

Thank you so much oilpanter1950 and ConnerDios for your input. I appreciate your critics and will definitely make the edit to Tom Hardy’s collar.

tassieguy

This is an excellent charcoal drawing. The suggested small alterations to the shirt collars is all that is needed to finish it off. 

jcortezjr1068

Thank you tassieguy!!!