Drawing ethnic people

[blackrose89]

I haven't drawn ethnic/dark toned people before. I hae tried, but the results are usually big time failures.

My best friend has been begging for me years to draw her. She's hatian. I have tried, but it never looks good. She made another plea as she saw I drew a picture of my sister. So I agreed to try again. I really want to get it right this time. The difficult part is, with my sketching style I don't add a whole lot of midtones. So that's where the challenge comes in with ethnic people.

Any advice would be great!!! Here is her photo she wants me to draw.....

[Zindy]

That's a very beautiful girl.
Maybe it's time to try doing midtones then. I think you will do good, just try and shade softly and catch all the shadings etc. The shading/softening with kleenex would work really well with this one.
This photo would be so amazing with charcoal.

[blackrose89]

Thanks. I started on it. I used the Kleenex and did a lot of shading. I'm quite pleased with the results. It's not perfect, but it's definitely presentable, and I think its going well. It will be a while until I am done due to the braids. I look forward to posting it.


She is very pretty. Feel free to use this photo as a reference for a charcoal drawing. She would be utterly thrilled. As long as its not a nude or anything haha!