nostalgic teddyy

🤓

Some of my faves are included but not limited to:

@uptownlowdown

@googieghoul

@art-retr0

@bimboopo

@nostalgic-teddyy

@renlo

Shit I see when I’m already irritated 

2026:

she means everything to me. i want to see cute Black women who are also smart and stylish and overtly feminine and also have ridiculously long hair. maiyei brings a smile to my face and i hope she at least makes another person smile too. thank you for everything you do, mrs. ice <3

Recently I've been experimenting with my style a little and I've done some monochrome portraiture, so I decided to give it another try today, since I was quite happy with the result last time.

I picked this reference from pinterest. The original was in color but I prefer to turn the picture in b&w to get a better grasp at the values

I do my sketch

And I was pretty happy with it here. Sure, it doesn't look exactly like the reference but none of my portraits do despite my best attempts🫠 So I outline with a blue pen, fill in the darkest areas with a blue marker (like her eyes, her hair, her nostrils, the cast shadow on her neck and at the jawline), shade with a blue pencil and...

And I'm not so sure about it anymore🫠

In my opinion it doesn't look like the reference at all. That's a whole other person to me. Plus I'm not sure about the contrast here, if it needs stronger shadows and highlights. I initially laid down a light base layer and attempted to work my way from dark to light, but for some reason it was turning muddy/blurry, so I laid down a darker base layer, worked on the shadows and used a kneaded eraser and a pencil eraser for the highlights. I do think I did a good job differentiating the planes of the face but that's about it. In my opinion it looks good only if you don't know what the reference looks like (which can be said about pretty much all my portraits). What do you think? Do the shadows ans highlights need more work? Shall I work on the contrast? Did I completely butcher the resemblance with the shading or was the problem starting to arise way earlier? Do you have any tips on how to make the technique work with darker skintones? And if anyone else has some advice too I'm glad to receive it.

Thank you in advance for the help and I wish you, Mr.CBC and Jojo a wonderful sunday.