Hi there and welcome to my video on how to achieve accurate proportions in your artwork. This is my go-to method if I want to make sure that what I am drawing or painting is as accurate as possible, which is important for me as I am a pet portrait artist and the true likeness is a must. This method can also be used for the vast majority of drawing and painting surfaces. Today I will be talking about the grid method and transferring outlines. The grid method involves placing a grid over your reference photo. Then, drawing a replica grid over your drawing or painting surface. When you come to draw out the composition outlines of whatever you're drawing on your paper, you can focus on each individual square at a time to see where things are meant to go. It breaks the drawing up into small pieces that you can put together by following the lines of the grid and using them as easy to follow reference points. Here you can see how I use each line of the grid to pinpoint where my pencil marks need to overlap. I focus heavily on where the start and finish points are located along each line. It's important to make sure that your reference photo is the same ratio to your paper. For example, if your drawing reference is square, one by one, you'll need your paper to be the same size. Alternatively, if you want your own custom size paper that's different to your reference photo, you can upload your picture to Photoshop and crop it to the exact dimensions of your paper. By using the website griddrawingtool.com, I am able to place a grid over my reference photo. Depending on how much assistance I may need, I can choose a higher number of boxes for more help. The more lines the guide you will be beneficial if you need the most help, but also be aware that too many lines can be overkill and distracting. This method is traditionally done straight onto the surface that you're working on, but my method is to draw it out on tracing paper first and then transfer the outlines of the drawing that I need onto my surface. I achieve this by using carbon transfer sheets. This way, it keeps the messy grid off of my drawing surface, and in this case, off my pastel matte paper, which is very unforgiven at erasing lines. To begin the process of drawing my grid out onto the tracing paper, I first need to take the paper size in centimeters and divide it by how many lines are on the grid. In this case, my grid measures 10 lines vertically and 8 lines horizontally. If I take the vertical measurement of my paper which is 30 centimeters, I divide that by 10, which gives me 3. If I take the horizontal measurement of my paper which is 24 centimeters and divide that by 8, it gives me 3. This tells me that I need to place a line each 3 centimeters. They should equal out to the same as each line forms a square. This is where it becomes apparent that having the reference photo and drawing surface the same ratio is needed. If they were not the same ratio, the measurements would not line up correctly. As you can see, I use a ruler to dot each 3 centimeters mark which I will use to attach each grid line to. This all may sound slightly confusing right now, but after you've done it a couple of times, I promise you that it's really, really easy. After the grid is drawn out on my tracing paper, I am then able to look back at the reference photo that also has this same grid on top and use it to follow each outline that I need. It's important to take your time and to really focus on where the lines of your drawings and grid overlap. After about 10 minutes or so of connecting up each squares, I'm left with this completed outline. This very thin sheet I have here is the carbon transfer paper. They are very affordable and I think I purchased a pack of 100 for about £5 on eBay and you can use each one multiple times. I placed this carbon paper between my tracing paper and drawing surface, making sure that my tracing paper is taped firmly to my drawing surface so that the lines are transferred exactly where I need them to be. You're going to want to go over your outlines with a pen or pencil by applying a light pressure. Not too light or not too hard. A small amount of trial and error practice will show you how hard you need to press. And just like that, you have accurate outlines ready for you to begin your drawing or painting process. The rest of this video will feature a quick timelapse of me drawing out this portrait. It's part of how to draw a human face tutorial which is now live on my Patreon channel. You can also find the link to this in the description. I hope this video has been useful to you. Please ask any questions in the comments if you wish to know anything else. Please also check the description for my blog post on extra ways you can achieve accurate proportions in your artworks.