Learn how to draw a Nightmare Before Christmas Self-Portrait with an easy step by step tutorial video. It imitates the style of Tim Burton, an American film director known for his style shared in The Nightmare before Christmas.
Nightmare Before Christmas Portrait Drawing
Nightmare Before Christmas Video
It only takes a few simple supplies and a couple of drawing tips to learn how to draw a Nightmare before Christmas Self Portrait. The project name is in the style of Tim Burton, the artist and director of “The Nightmare before Christmas” movie, which has the famous style of skinny figures with large white eyes.
There are some professional artists around who will make a Nightmare drawing of you for a fee, but who needs that when you can make your own? A few exaggerations in a couple of places will result in something that captures the look, and provide some good pencil drawing practice for young artists too.
Drawing Project Tips
For best results, it’s really helpful to draw on some kind of colored paper. This sample was done on a Paper Source card stock that was called Gravel, but any kind of light gray or brown would work too. The most important reason is that the added color allows students to fill in those big eyes with a white pencil crayon. They are the key feature of this self portrait and the bright white eyes popping off the shadowy background really helps to accentuates them.
Lastly, to help students make their drawing as original as possible, this drawing tutorial comes with an added tip sheet. The main tutorial will show what order to draw the portrait shapes in, but an additional sheet offers more options for the shape of the head, and the large eyes and tiny mouth. And maybe most importantly, some ideas on how to draw different styles of hair, which is what stumps a lot of students. The idea is that they have a little help in visualizing their own faces, so they come up with their own original Nightmare Self Portrait.
Note: For those that want to go all out, I’ve included a fun frame template in the download, and a sample drawing of how I used it. It just seemed like a fun option and a place to add even more creativity, which is always a good thing. Scroll down to see a little preview of it.
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Materials to Draw a Nightmare Self Portrait
Directions to make a Nightmare Self Portrait
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