please do a tutorial on how you draw dragon faces! there’s something so alive to them
of course - Thank you so much!
Is this you? Even if it isn't, pretend it is.
Is this you again, trying to put some soul into those draconic eyes?
if so, fear not - drawing dragon expressions is a simple, painless process as soon as you learn these three foundational rules!
Like other animals, dragons do not possess the same facial muscles as humans and have trouble making expressive faces while still remaining within these constraints. This can make drawing emotive dragons difficult, and so the most important rule of making a good expression is to HUMANIZE! No matter what artstyle/realism level you use, translating human expressions onto dragon faces is the easiest way to make them emotive.
Humanizing a dragon's face is much easier than you might think, and it all starts with feature spotting. Here, I've annotated my doodle and labelled what I view as the most important shapes of the expression: The huge eyes, dramatic curves and tooth-shaped mouth. Since all of these important shapes have been applied to the dragon, their expression looks exactly like the one I was trying to copy!
In order to fully explain how you actually DO that, I'm going to use a live example. If you're trying to work on your dragon expressions, you may as well do this exercise with me! I've already annotated this expression to highlight the most important shapes.
First, I'm going to draw the angle of the dragon's head. If you don't like drawing dragon heads, this handy reference sheet I made might be of use.
Next, I added the eye. I kept it very close to the snout in order to mimic the angle a little better.
Finally, the smile! But wait, something isn't right...
After a second glance, I decided to pull the forehead out using the 'liquify' tool and redid the eye so it had hollow pupils. I didn't think coloring in the eye would've made such a big difference, but it did! Either way, we now have one beautiful expression full of life and character.
2 - Beware of the Micro-expressions
This is especially important when drawing your characters in a scene/with any context at all, but remember to focus on micro-expressions! Subtle changes to the same face can produce entirely different results: and even though micro-expressions often slip by unnoticed, they are CRUCIAL in building your character's 'vibe!' My two OCs Seigel and Bigfin handily happen to have the same emotion on their reference sheets, however both dragons present it in extremely different ways - all thanks to the use of a few subtle artistic choices, such as changing posture or head angle.
Although this post is about facial expressions, it's important to remember your dragon's head doesn't just exist in a void. Pose is equally as important to building a certain emotion in a character, and different poses can completely change the vibe of your character.
That's all from me! Happy drawing! ୧((#Φ益Φ#))୨
