Upping the InkTober Challenge

Despite my claim of seeking laziness, I was feeling bored and unchallenged by my InkTober mouth theme. What’s the point of doing any drawing challenge if I’m not challenged? It was time to up my game – with exposed teeth! Anyone who has ever made a smiling portrait knows that one of the hardest features to render are the teeth without getting the jack-o-lantern look. It’s a worthy challenge.

I especially enjoyed rendering the unusual
view and lovely backlighting of Oct. 10.

In particular, I’ve become intrigued by the complex values involved in these close-up, small studies of the mouth. In addition to the usual form shadows of the lips, the upper lip usually casts a subtle shadow on the teeth. If the tongue is visible, the teeth may be casting a shadow on it, too. And the darkest value always belongs to the deep cavern of nothingness behind (or between) the teeth.

As always, my thanks to Earthsworld for an endless source of reference photos. Now that I’m looking specifically for exposed teeth, I have to scroll a bit sometimes to find what I need, but I’m still trying to be as random as possible by picking the first one I see.