EXHOESS

Disclaimer: This is not a serious guide, but to the best of my knowledge, it's an accurate one. I also spent like, 10 minutes tops on this, so, you know, be warned

drew this when tohma was only seen in leaks so this is based off his beta model. but now 2.0 is announced i can post this now!

Inspired by The Female Armor Bingo, I present to you my short guide to armor bust areas, to better help you decide what to wear :P

Any resemblance to particular armors, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Well… mostly.

So awesome human being @smallpumpkinboi​ posted an wonderful WIP sketch earlier and said ‘Can someone please explain to my why, everytime, without fail, my eyes are always too high??’ I offered to give my two cents, and asked if it was ok for me to make it a public post- they said yes :) This ended up going long- but hopefully it’ll be handy for people. :D 

BEFORE YOU DRAW- some tips to keep in mind:

1) do some warm ups! (sketches and drawing exercises)  yup! artists need warm-ups just like athletes! :D)

2) Get the structure drawn first!  don’t get into details, shading, or color until you have the structure DRAWN (Aka, the major features are all placed, the pose is in place etc)

So let’s look at some heads, y’all! :D

what’s with that ball so many people draw before they do a portrait? You know the one:

In and of itself it’s confusing. It’s like,  Faces aren’t shaped like this. Where am I supposed to put the eyes? The mouth? The nose??  HERE ARE SOME HEADS I VERY QUICKLY DREW USING THE ‘CIRCLE METHOD’

Wait a moment! Do you see what’s going on? Do you see how I messed up? OH NOOOO - I wasn’t using the circle method consistently! Look at those proportions!!! Look at the placements! There’s all using different ratios!

Look at how the noses were placed in different ways

Omg! And the eyes too. 

Oh my gosh! What do I do to fix this? How can I do it the same every time? Which is the RIGHT way to draw a face?

Want to know how to draw using the PERFECT ratio?

Here’s THE secret:

Hey so I’ve worked out a pretty reliable way of drawing slightly simplified facial features that works for basically any shapes/sizes of ears/nose/eyes/lips so I thought I’d share it! Complete with lighting and profile references! (Click for quality!)

Text reads:

Ears

Made of 3 lines

bottom meets with the end of the jaw

top & bottom level with guidelines for eyes & mouth

also works for pointy ears!

Eyes

Defined outside corner, iris usually touches the top, bottom is usually flat, and don’t line the inside corner.

Play around with high and low corners

Pupils tend towards the middle (but not too much!)

upper lid follows brow

partially covered by nose in semi profile

Noses

Defined bridge, end, and sides

Play with size/shape, can point up or down

Example of button, wide, ski slope, and hooked noses

Imagine a ball on the end of the bridge

Mouths

Usually not totally symmetrical, corners point down, only line the very top and bottom to avoid weirdly overlined (read: racist) lips

Both lip lines aren’t always needed

I’m not sure what specific part you’re wondering about, so here’s a run-through of my process from sketching to painting!

1) The first thing I do is simplify the nose into a few basic shapes to get a prism-like block, like so:

2) I can now easily draw the prism shape in three-dimensional space depending on the angle and rotation of the head.

3) Using the guidelines/planes I can draw a proper nose in any angle! There aren’t many tricks or shortcuts for this step, unfortunately (other than practicing lots). I recommend using references, they’re always helpful :)

4) Really important to note: all noses vary greatly, especially from different ethnicities! A high-bridge “aristocratic” sort of nose or a ski-slope button nose might be accurate for some people, but definitely not everyone. Compare differences in size, width, a hooked or button nose tip, high or low nose bridge, and so on:

5) Then I paint! I have a skin tone tutorial here, if it helps. Take note of the lighting, skin tone, etc. Here are some things I keep in mind:

For pale skin tones, the nose sometimes has a redder colouration than the rest of the face because of increased blood flow.

The nose also usually has highlights (due to oil). These are located on the tip of the nose, the nostril groove, and where the base of the nose meets the flat area of skin around it!