the world is about to have a war

try not to think about it.

I based the skulls off of early synapsid, allosaurus, crocodillian, giraffe, and canine skulls.

Unless you're drawing explicit realism, in my opinion, expressions should be exaggerated to some degree. If you aren't doing a 1:1 recreation, the point is to get the FEELING across. Try making the expression you want to draw and feeling how your face pinches and stretches.

Skin doesn't just "disappear" when your face moves it around --- that's where wrinkles come from! Pay attention to where your skin creases when you emote, and use it to your benefit. It's a fine line between overdoing it and underdoing it -- find your own balance.

Ultimately, every expression has a little bit of push and pull, unless your face is completely neutral (and even then, there are still some wrinkles...). Learning to think of expressions as actions and reactions is VERY helpful in learning to draw them without needing a reference, and in learning how to stylize and push expressions based on references as well!

I think a lot of people end up with stiff or unexpressive emotions in their art because they're just trying to recreate a picture instead of understanding WHY and HOW the face is moving --- and it's a tough thing that takes a while to really pick up and learn. Hopefully is helpful in showing a way of thinking about it that can influence your process and approach to emotions!!!

Also, bonus: even without the lines, the planes alone still show a LOT of emotion.

ended up making a whole painting just to break it down and explain my general process for subjects lit from behind so heres that + a timelapse!

main thing for drawing anything with a strong light source behind is to make the main subject Darker and more desaturated to convey that the light is behind them rather than to their sides (face cant be properly lit if the light is behind). Also making the Main highlight the brightest hue in the image helps to intensify it. I tend to use teeth/eyes as a good comparison point

im not entirely sure what this is asking so apologies if I misunderstood but rendering as a term for (2d) art is pretty broad. It mostly just means "refining/taking the art to its final state" which means vastly different things to different artists depending on their process

for me personally i do a lot of painting and not a lot of lineart so anything past the thumbnail->cleaner sketch-> flat colors stage is rendering in my process. everything from cleaning up my sketch lines to adding texture, shading, & detail get lumped into that because of how loose my work flow tends to be.

i assume this message is cuz i mentioned in a previous ask that i love drawing hair but not so much rendering. in that case its because while you can imply hair texture and flow through a relatively small amount of lines while drawing, there's much more effort that goes into painting and making any hair texture believable because of how hair specifically layers and builds upon itself to create form