TAYLOR LAUTNER

Having studies and majored in Art, and being a designer myself, I feel like I am quite qualified to give a critique.

For the first critiques, I absolutely must address the issue of bias in their critiques. "Twilight" was massively popular and there was complete media saturation of both the characters and the actors -- they were everywhere, showing up in ads, movie trailers, tv, etc. There is a subtle hint of negative bias in both critiques towards both the actor Taylor Lautner and the movies, and it affected their critiques of this drawing. For this, I believe their critiques to be unjustly negatively biased. The artist does not deserve their bias.

SUBJECT: As for the drawing itself, it may take a moment, but it is fairly clear that it is Taylor Lautner. It is apparent in the hair (which is absolutely stunningly well-done), and the eyes. Though the smile is slightly lop-sided, I believe it is the artist's intention, whether he is copying from a photo or video, it is part of the subject's smile. I would take half a star off for the teeth, because Taylor has pretty straight and tightly-gapped teeth, and it appears his individual teeth are not as tightly-gapped.

TECHNIQUE: As said before, the hair is magnificiently well-done, it looks gorgeous and realistic. Hair is incredibly difficult to draw, and I believe the artist has mastered it. The eyes look alive and life-like, and more importantly, they are "moist" -- as eyes are always moving, there is a certain liquidity to them. They are hard to draw, but the artist has made them very lifelike. The eyebrows and eyelashes, while not difficult to draw, as each individual hair is captured gorgeously to create the eyebrow and the eyelashes in their entirety. The lips, while not as well done as the rest of the face, are realistically quite good, and one can tell the curve of the lips as well as the flesh "cells" that make up the lips in general. The nose does not blend in nor does it stand out, it is well-proportioned to the rest of the face, with all the curves and shadings in the right places -- it is pretty realistic, as you feel like you could reach out and squeeze his nostrils, if one wanted. The shirt and ears are faded but still original and lifelike, and do not have sharp edges, as it should be -- as the focus of the work is on his face. Leaving the best for last -- the skin, it is wonderfully spectactular. On drawings, skin is usually left to be part of the background, part of the canvas, and shaded possibly to bring curves to life, but nothing more. However, the artist really deserves kudos, as we, the viewers, feel like we could reach out and touch the smooth skin of his face. One can almost make out individual pores, occuring naturally in men's faces, that make up the texture of the skin. The texture of the skin is just magnificient. The lighting is quite pretty, uniform and quite well-done, as it really brings Taylor's face to life.

Overall, I would say this is a grand piece of work, carefully crafted and shaded, with wonderfully real textures, spot-on lighting techniques, as the artist really paid attention to every detail of Taylor's face.

Stunning! 9.9/10.