Recent Portrait (while waiting for supplies)

jdfick

I'm new here and about to try my hand at painting (which I've never done). While waiting for my supplies to arrive I finished a portrait for my sister. The subject is my brother in law. I'm pretty happy with the face and hat (considering the grainy webcam selfie I was working from), but he was in a t-shirt in the reference photo and she wanted him in a suit so I had to improvise. Not so happy with the suit. I do alright drawing what I see, but struggle to create stuff out of thin air that has the same realistic quality. I still have the portrait and am open to suggestions and willing to revise before I send it off.

Cheers!
Joel

dencal

Joel

Nice work! The suit is credible, even though imaginary. I agree the hat and face are the strong elements.

Often you can pick an image from Google to help with drawing.
Check these: https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=979&q=bow+tie+and+suit+casual&oq=Bow+tie+and+suit&gs_l=img.1.1.0l3j0i5.6465.19883.0.24634.17.12.0.5.1.1.318.2864.1j0j10j1.12.0....0...1ac.1.31.img..6.11.2576.RIa0CAW1Na0

Denis

gfish

Joel, this nice work but the suit is a bit contrived. I would suggest that you consider the face the focal point and soften the edges on the suit. The seem lines are a little bold. I agree that representational drawing is difficult when created in ones mind.

Ron

I think there's plenty of research material out there that you might get to help with the suit, but, try just vignetting the suit.

Ronna

I think it's quite good!

Castillo

I like the face & bowler hat, based on the photo the suit is looking too light and in order to make it look more realistic those outlines need to go away. I also advise you to go darker on the shadows and fix the proportions on his right shoulder.

I played with the image a bit in Photoshop just to show you what I mean and attached this photo of Chaplin which has very similar lighting as your ref.

jdfick

Thanks for the helpful comments everyone. Ron, I thought about vignetting the suit, but this picture is actually being done in the style of several other portraits of some of his major influence (which are all basically in this pose in a suit), so the suit and bust need to stay pretty much as is. Castillo, wow thanks for "spitballing" that. It helped alot. I've uploaded a reworked version. I think it definitely looks less contrived. I've also uploaded the source photo for comparison.

Ron

Good job!

dreamlight66

You obviously have a talent, you should be proud of this work, the likeness is very good. I struggle with imagination too, practice makes perfect.