The first thing to say is try not to overthink the Loomis head. The Loomis method is a guide to help you understand the head as a 3D object. Reason I say don’t overthink it is because you need to get comfortable with manipulating and changing the proportions based on the character you’re drawing. When I’m practicing the Loomis method from reference I start with the sphere and then I look for the brow line. The sphere represents the cranial mass so from the front of the forehead to the back of the head is how big the sphere should be. Normally the brow line cuts the sphere in half and it’s a good starting point. Once you have the brow line, everything else should be matched to it. The eye line, the nose and the chin when the mouth is closed, will all be parallel to the brow line. The brow line also gives you the top of the ear (note this can differ as some people have ears that are smaller or larger. Again this comes down to being able to adjust the proportions to match the character rather than trying to make the character match the idealized Loomis proportions). In regards to the side plane of the head, make your circle a little bigger. Loomis describes the circle as ‘cutting off the side of the sphere’ which represents the side plane. Looking at the reference you can see that the side plane starts where the eyebrow bends. So what I do when I’m drawing from reference is to establish the brow line and the have the circle the side plane of the head. The cross on the side circle should indicate the position of the ear (remember the brow line and the top of the ear should usually line up). As a general rule, the ear sits in the bottom rear most quarter of the cross on the side circle. The main thing you need to work on is how you observe the reference. Pay attention to the angles of the face and how the features relate to each other. So proportions and perspective. | Artwod Feedback