Drawing Faces (A Collage of Tips)
Hey hey! We just drew a cute sketch of one of the alters in our system (Ava) and, since we’re really happy with it, we’ll share some proportion and facial construction tips that will hopefully help you with drawing too.
Picture for example above, explanation/details are below each picture.
The center of the eye almost always lines up with the corners of the lips (approximately–some people have slightly smaller or larger lips). If you’re confused about the size of the mouth, but the eyes look great, just draw a line down from the center of each eye and you’ll have the exact size of the mouth you need!
It’s approximately five eyes that go across the face (depending on your style, play with this a little). The head wraps in a circle, so if the end eyes go over that’s cool, especially when drawing the face at an angle or in a semi-realistic style like this.
The key part is that one eye width is in between both eyes. This helps remain as a guide for typical eye-to-eye distance. Then, if you have a character who has wider or closer together eyes, you can change that consciously!
Enticing eyelashes have movement! They essentially work like arrows from the center of the eye. Upper eyelashes curve in the opposite direction of the lower eyelashes (directions are on the left side of the above picture).
Just make sure they curve, no one has straight eye lashes (unless you’re deliberately using that for stylistic effect)!
Hair has lots of movement too! Drawing arrows to start getting a sense of direction can be a great place to start. Start the arrow where the hair is attached to the head or pinned (like with a clip or hair tie) and then fan out from there.
Draw hair in sections/chunks that vary in size. See how some are thin sections and others are thicker? Typically on the edges of hair it’s thiner (like by the face, edges of the hair/outline) and in the center of sections it’s thicker.
As always, don’t be afraid to use references so you can see how hair falls on the shape of a human head!
A little neck trick: There is a V of muscles that connects near the collarbones and all the way up to under the ear. Make sure this V is something you draw (even if you erase it because your character has a thicker neck). The thinnest part of the neck cannot be thinner than this V.
Also, shoulder muscles start pretty soon after the neck, so see that thick red line on the side? That’s where the V and the shoulder muscles (the ones that get really sore on all of us) coming around the back connect. This gentle V will add a much more realistic look to the necks you draw and help the head look properly supported!
Best wishes with your drawing!
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