At some point during your career,
there's a good chance you have asked, How do I draw ahead?personally,
for the hundredth time, I'm going to ask that question again
today. and to get my answer, I'm going to dive deeper into learning
Frank Reilly's head drawing method. Hey, it's Leighann! I'm a self-taught artist trying to learn and study
more about art this year and im bringing you all along
the way. So let's get down to it. What is the Reilly method? I talked a bit about Frank Reilly
in my head Drawing Methods Video, which I will link for the curious, but I'll also do a quick recap
here. Frank J. Reilly was born in 1906
and 21 years later. He started studying at the Art
Students League in New York, a school known for being free
from a set curriculum and for not having any restrictive
grading systems there. He took an admissions test
so that he could join George Bridgman's drawing class,
who I know by his chunky anatomy. And Reilly also studied painting
under the influential painter Frank Vincent Dumond. after the Art Students League. He went on to become a painter muralist illustrator
and most notably a teacher. In 1933, Reilly began lecturing
at the Art Students League, where apparently
he was one popular teacher. It said that he had students
crowded from Wall to Wall. Later,
he taught illustration at Moore College of Art and Design
and Pratt Institute. He taught drawing and painting
at Grand Central School of Art, and mural painting
at the National Academy of Design. And now for the method itself, Reilly never wrote
his process down, so the notes we do
have are from his students. This means
that there are many versions and takes on how to create
the Reilly head abstraction But what exactly is it? Reilly's head
abstraction breaks down the anatomy into groups of rhythmic planes, mapping out
the major elements of the face. It shouldn't be used
as an exact formula, but it's great for finding face proportions and the rhythmic lines
in your subject. Mostly, though,
it helps in simplifying the complexity of the head. It's a great way to study head
anatomy or to check your drawings
for proportional errors. Alright,
now let's get into the steps for creating Reilly's head
abstraction. You don't have to do the steps
in this exact order, but it might be helpful
if this is your first time. You're going to start
by drawing a circle with a vertical and horizontal line
down the middle. You don't have to be exact
with this. I'm just using a ruler to
make it easier for you all to see. Now I'm going to slice the sides off with a vertical line
and about the one eighth mark on each side of the circle. These lines will represent
the edge of the face, and the circle will extend
beyond that. As you can see here. for step three, we will add a horizontal line
on the top and on the bottom, connecting those lines
we made in step two, which will create a square
inside of our circle. The top line represents the hairline and the bottom line
represents the bottom of the nose. The face is divided into thirds
vertically. The first section will be
from the hairline to the brow line. The second section is from the brow
line to the bottom of the nose, and the third section is from
the nose to the chin. Here's what that looks like
with a finished face. You, of course, don't have
to draw out these one third marks. I'm just adding them here
for your reference. Moving on to step four:
we're going to add the jaw starting at that middle brow line. You're going to draw a line down,
ending at that bottom one third. This will give the chin its shape, which is dependent on each person's
face. Now, I'm going to divide that middle third
from the brow lines at the bottom of the nose
into thirds again. I'm going to add a line
going across which will represent
the bottom of the eyes. And now for the fun part,
adding the nose. But first, it's important to note that the head is separated
into fifths horizontally. The first fifth
is the side of the face. And then we have the first eye. Then we have the nose, the second
eye and the other side of the face. So in that middle third,
we're going to add two vertical lines
to mark the width of the nose. a small way up from our nose line.,
You're going to add a curved line to represent the tip of the nose. between the tip
and the width of the nose, You're going to add another curved line on both sides,
which will be the nostril flare. Then draw a line that arches
underneath the nose line to connect the two nostrils. Then you will draw
the ridge of the nose. This starts at the tip and goes up to the brow line,
curving in slightly at the bottom eye line. Then draw a curved line from the bottom
eye line down to the corner of the nostrils. Here's that process again
of how to draw the nose. Don't forget that everyone's nose
is going to be a little different. So if you're using a reference,
you may need to adjust accordingly. Next,
I'm going to divide my bottom third between the nose line
and the chin line. Into thirds again. At this point, I do recommend
drawing the mouth line, but I don't do that until step 16. For step 13, We're
going to connect these two lines with a sort of oval shape
This is the inner muzzle, which shows you where
the teeth and the laugh lines go. Next is the outer muzzle,
which is a semi-circle starting at the bottom of the eyes
line, going down to the jaw. Now, we will create the main
part of the chin, which is an oval starting
at the very bottom of the face and extending it just a little bit beyond the bottom of that inner
muzzle line. Here's another look at all
those lines we just made. We have the inner muzzle, outer muzzle and then chin. The mouth is drawn
on the first one, third line under the nose line. The corners usually match up
with about the center of the eyes. But it's going to depend
on the person. Next, we're going to work on these three lines,
which will help us with the cheeks. This first line establishes
the top part of the cheekbone. The line starts from the brow line
and curves down to the intersection of your outer muzzle
and the very first circle we drew to form the bottom
of the cheekbones. We're going to take a line
from the corner of the mouth to the edge of the head. At the bottom of the eye line. Now, this next
one is a little more tricky. It's going to start at the corner
of the mouth, curve beside the nostrils, and then go up to that
same intersection of the side of the head
and the brow line. All right. And for step 20, we're
going to create that temple line. This is going to start
at the corner of our hairline and then move down
to the intersection of the bottom of the eyeline and that tricky curved line
that we just made. And then here I'm just rounding off
the sides of my head a little bit. Okay, I promise we're almost done,
But first we got to add in some lines for our eyes. At this
intersection we have created, We're going to start
drawing the eye arch. The height of this is going to be
depending on the person's eye size. And as you can now see, we have created
the outer corner of the eye. And now we're going to define the inner corner
by creating a curved line that starts at the nose width line
that we originally made. Next, we're going to create a line that shows
where the forehead muscle goes. It starts at the temple
and brow line Intersection, curves up about one quarter
of the way to the hairline and then goes back down. From one third of the way between
our brow line and our nose line. We're going to start creating an
oval that goes up to the hairline. Congrats. You have finished the main components
of the Reilly abstraction The rest of the things
we're going to do are either details or just
optional things that you can add. I'm just adding
in the shape of the mouth. And though I don't do it here, you can go ahead and start adding
some of those details in the eyes. You can also make a circle around the eyes
to show where the eye socket goes. And then for ears, they come in all kinds of different shapes
and sizes, but generally they would start around the brow
line in and around the nose line. So let's recap
some of these important measurements
that we have talked about. The head is divided into thirds
vertically. Starting with the hairline
in the brow line, then the nose line
and then the bottom of the chin. The head is divided into fifths
horizontally. within your vertical divisions. You can also separate them
into even more divisions. I find that it's helpful
to divide the bottom and middle sections
into thirds again and then to divide the top and
the middle section into fourths. And you can also divide
the width of the circle into eighths horizontally. Okay. So now you're probably thinking, "Leighann,
what about the fact that heads turn and don't stay looking
straight on?" No worries. The Reilly method
works on any angle, and I'm not going to leave
you hanging. We're going to look at how the abstraction changes
when the angle, the head changes. Starting
with one of the most popular head angles that artist
use: the three quarter view. when working with angles,
A lot of your lines are going to be more curved
than they were before. So this first line we make
is not down the middle of the circle anymore. It runs
down the middle of the face. So you'll need to place it
at whatever angle that needs to be. The next change is that you will not be making
a straight line to slice the sides of the circle off. Instead, you will use an oval
everything inside of this oval is the side of the head. Now, remember, as you're
making these horizontal lines that you're working
with a 3D sphere and they might
need to be slightly curved, the shape of the jaw changes too. Generally,
it will look something like this, but of course it will depend
on the face you're drawing. the lines for the width of the nose
are about the same, but finding the tip of the nose
is going to be a lot trickier. You have to place it off center from the nose width lines
you just made. And then it's also important
to note the nostril lines here, the one that's furthest away from
us curves past the nose width line And then back in. You'll also start to notice here
that all the lines that are further away from us
are condensed down a little bit. But it's not as tricky as it seems. You're just going to be connecting the lines to the same spots
we did with the front view. A lot of the changes that have to be made here
are just going to take practice so if you're having a hard time
with this, I recommend working off of a reference photo
until you get the hang of it. Okay. Moving on, let's test out
another angle This one is the profile view. like with the front view, We're going to add both a horizontal and vertical line
down the middle of the circle. If your head is at an angle
like mine is, then you'll need to make them
slightly diagonal. And the first change
you're going to notice is that instead of chopping up
the sides of the circle, we're adding another circle inside
to represent the side of the head. Then you'll just add your normal horizontal lines
to mark the thirds of the face. Okay. Now we're going to draw a line down the front of the face,
starting at the brow line. The ear is going to be placed
along the back half of the vertical line. The jaw is going to extend down and
over from the bottom of the ear. And then one thing that a lot of people miss here
is that extra part below the jaw. Now I'm going to divide the bottom
third section into thirds again. Also, the blue line
represents the halfway point, which is actually where the bottom
of the lip goes. Now, I'm just roughly sketching out the nose
and adding a line for the mouth. And then I'm going to add those main abstraction lines
that we added with the other views. These don't change that much. You just want to remember
what points you're connecting to each other. So go ahead and add in your muzzle
lines, the circle for your chin and then all the lines
on your cheeks. Okay. Now let's get into
how the nose changes. You're
not going to see much of that top plane on the ridge of the nose. You should probably draw even
more narrow than what I did here. But as you can see,
the other lines around the nose are going to hit
at the same marks. Like the width of the nose
is still going to be from the outside
corner of the nostril to the inner corner of the eye. Now, we're going to add in some of
those lines around the eyes. We have the one that represent
the top of the eyes. And then we also have one
to represent that forehead muscle. I also added a line
for the front of the eye as well as the bottom eyelid. All right. And then about covers
all the main features. I did forget
to add the oval on the forehead but you can go ahead
and do that now. So here are some measurements
you might want to take note of. First of all,
the outer corner of the eye is actually going to line up where
the front part of the neck starts. The line that goes from the nose
to the bottom of the ear is also going to be where the cranium ends
and the back of the neck begins. And lastly, don't forget
about the placement of your ears. The top lines up with your brow
lining, the bottom
lines up with your nose line. Now, let's
talk about three different ways that you can use the Ryley head
abstraction. The first way you can use
it is as a starting point for your drawings,
like I'm doing here by turning my profile abstraction
into a sketch. But don't forget, if you're not using your reference
photo, you'll need to add some changes
and variety to your features so that they don't
all end up too perfect without any variety
in the features. You'll just be drawing the exact
same face over and over again. The second way you can use
it is to fix your rough sketches. Just create your rough sketch,
add the abstraction over top of it, decide
what changes you may want to make and then re sketch over top of
all of that for your final drawing. If you're not doing digital art, you can just use tracing paper
for this. Here's a drawing I did
without using the Reilly method. When I added
the Reilly method on top of it, I realized that I wanted the mouth
and the nose to be higher up and that I needed
to fix to the left eye. You can also apply the Reilly
method onto your caricature drawings. This will help you decide
what features you want to purposefully exaggerate versus
which ones you want to have
the correct proportions. The third way that you can use
the Reilly method to help you is to just keep it as a reference
close to your workstation. That way you can be more confident
in creating a face is more anatomically correct without going
through the full process of creating the Reilly abstraction, since
it also outlines plans of the face, it can be helpful to use
it as a reference for shading If you specifically want to learn
more about playing to the face in regards to shading, I suggest
checking out the Asaro head. This is created by Jon Asaro,
who is actually one of Frank Reilly's students. But instead of using circles for the planes of the face,
Asaro uses panels. There are quite a few 3D models
out there that you can check out. They would be really helpful This one that I'm looking at here actually has a light on it
that you can move around to see where the shadows
and highlights land. I'll link some options below. All right. I hope
this has been helpful to you. I've really enjoyed diving deeper
into the Reilly method and I can't wait to keep studying
and putting it into practice. Don't forget to like this
video and subscribe if you'd like to see more content
like this. Thanks for watching
