Okay, I find myself with time to do another tutorial! There was a pretty large number of requests for faces, so I’ll do that one. I’m always anxious when I make these tutorials, but since you guys seemed to react positively to the hand tutorial, I’ll try again!
Anyway, insert my usual disclaimers here: Art is subjective, so I am in no way saying that my way of doing things is the best way. This is just how I personally approach the drawing and designing process. I won’t draw a bunch of faces for you to copy, but just talk about things I’ve observed and think about while I draw.
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Faces! Phew.. I don’t even know where to START. I’m going to assume that we all know the anatomy of a face, what with the fact that we all have one and stare at other people’s faces.
But, for the sake of saying it: all faces are made up of the same things, but if you tweak even one feature, you can change the way a person’s face looks. Often, if a character doesn’t look right, all I have to do is change one little thing (make the nose a little smaller, make the eyes a little larger) and suddenly they look the way they are supposed to. So keep in mind when you are drawing a character how you want their features to be.
For example: Do they have a round nose or a flat one? Do they have round eyes or narrow? Do they have large ears that stick out a bit or little ones? Are their lips full and pouty or thin? Is their lower lip bigger than the top? Is their jawline strong or delicate? These are all things to consider and will greatly effect how your character looks.
Faces that have smoother curves tend to look younger and more feminine. While harder lines and square jaws lean towards a manlier face.
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Every little feature in the face can be altered in major or minor ways. So it’s a little hard for me to explain every single one of them.. The problem is, while a feature, all on it’s own, can have one result. When you combine it with the rest of the features of the face, it can have a completely different effect. For example, lets start with lips.
When lips are soft and plush (this is for both guys and girls) it can have two different results. It can make a character look young and innocent OR it can make them look totally sexy and kissable. It depends completely on the rest of the character’s features.
So keep that in mind throughout the tutorial. Mixing and matching features will completely change the personality that comes across through the character’s face. Obviously, it all depends on the look you’re going for.
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Eyes. There are all types. I’ll admit that I have certain standard types of eye shapes that I stick to, but there are all sorts of subtle variations that you can try. I’m not going to draw them all out for you, but here are some tips!
Narrow eyes can be used for asian features, but, they also can give a character a less innocent look. The narrow, slender eyes give someone, I think, a more keen intelligent and sometimes sneaky look in drawings. While larger eyes tend to remind us of things like puppies and deer with there big sweetness.
This isn’t always true of course, and it’s fun to purposefully do the opposite, like make a sneaky evil character with a sweet face. I’m just saying that’s what those types of eye shapes typically make us think of.
Eyes can also be difficult because the shape of your eyes will change depending on your expression. This makes continuity in comics particularly difficult, but not impossible, so long as you remember the basics of the shape you chose.
And don’t forget the anatomy of the eye either. Eyes are located in deep round eye-sockets. And the eye itself is also a sphere (not flat!!). This is something more prominent when drawing a profile, but it’s still there any time. The area beneath your eyebrows and around your eyes is full of little dips and lines. You dont have to draw them all, but I like to show hints of this part of the anatomy. It adds character to your image, and helps define the character’s face. Such as, some characters having more sunken in eyes and heavy lines beneath their eyes, some characters having very low eyebrows, and some having prominent cheekbones. Things like that.
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When angry, the face crinkles up. (Your face will also crinkle for other reasons, like if you smell something bad or are feeling annoyed) So if you want a character to look really angry, remember that your eyebrows draw together, your nose wrinkles and eyes narrow. This creates a whole mess of lines around your forehead/between the eyes.
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And also, just a note on general anatomy of the head. Although things will vary from person to person. This is the GENERAL proportions of the face. I say -general- because everything is different for everyone. Some people have eyes close together, or far apart. Some people have longer noses, some have tiny noses. Some people have wide lips and other’s small. Some people have high foreheads, some people have sharper chins. The face is hard to give a tutorial on because there is SO MUCH VARIATION. But, like I said, this is the general anatomy of the face.
I hope you found this tutorial useful! I’m sure there was more that I could have covered, but it’s a little hard to think of everything… Anyway! Enjoy~
Tutorial #3: Faces
Published
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