Faces! Part 2- Guidelines & Features
Part 1 for Faces: “The Circle Thing”
There are very few true shortcuts to the placement of facial features. Not only is it changeable per person, but it is also hard to determine as all the existing ‘shortcuts’ are all in reference to other parts of the face.
In general, however, these are the guidelines for the placement of the facial features:
each eye is 1 eye width apart from each other & one eye width from the jawline (somewhat dependable on art style as well)
nose is the same length as the ears (remember to take into account perspective)
chin-to tip of nose is aprox. the same height as top of hairline-to-bridge of nose
lips take up half or less of the space as the chin-to-nosetip area.
These will, of course, change slightly depending on character design and art style, and comes from my perspective given my usual stylistic choices. Look at references! Draw your own guidelines on top of photos to get a feel for where features are placed on the face. Practice will make it easier.
In general, my style of eyes allows more expression in the eyes and a lot more focus on this feature. Drawing two eyes that mirror each other in shape but align in eye-lines takes practice. Here are some pointers:
Draw both eyes at the same time. Draw the upper lid of both eyes and go back and draw the lower lid and then add the irises and pupils.
If they are looking somewhere in particular, lightly use a ruler/line to connect each eye to triangulate where they are looking and draw the pupil and irises from that point.
On profiles, the eye is curved and the pupil sits in the middle of the iris.
Don’t hide the other eye! Challenge yourself or you’ll never get better.
Another way I’ve seen used that is helpful is using a “ball” method. The eye within the skull is a ball, so, drawing the whole eye as it would be in the skull and then drawing the lids around it helps some people conceptualize the eye better and where to position it on the face. I don’t personally use it, but, I thought it would be helpful to include.
Draw the inner line of the mouth first! The one that every style needs if they give their characters a mouth. It helps show emotion and motion, and, becomes a reference point for the lips and other features of the mouth.
Use the nose and chin as a reference point. lips tend to only go about half or less of the distance as the nose.
remember people have teeth behind those lips!
It may help to ‘wrap’ your mouth around a sketch of the teeth placement. Particularly helpful for yelling and often best for a cartoonish mouth. Again, I don’t use this method too often, but, maybe you find some help from it!
(Fun fact, in non-realistic/semi-realistic styles, the more you define individual teeth, the creepier/scarier it gets. Nothing’s creepier than cute eyes and sharp teeth!)
They come in all shapes and sizes and look very weird. It’s earssss. The bane of my facial-existence. I’ve decided these things about ears:
Look at ALLL the References.
Seriously if you don’t understand ears just use like, 10 pages to draw every kind and perspective of ear you can get your hands on.
In profile they kinda look like a really tall C with a y inside.
Feel your own ear (yes sounds weird but it helps a little if you can conceptualize objects in your brain in 3D from touch) and try to use that as a guide to how the ear looks in 3D, use that to figure out those random perspectives that make no sense.
One thing that may help is to imagine them as two parts, the ‘cone’ of the ear (if that has an actual name idk what it is) and the earlobe. You can flatten your circles and it will help break down that thing that is the ear.
Noses are both very basic and very hard. Noses are one of the only features of the face that are purely contour- meaning they are only visible as strong lines. (look up contur drawings. they’re pretty cool). My favorite way of drawing noses is to break it down into the ‘bulb’ (again, is there a real name?), nostrils and bridge. Sometimes I draw circles for just the lower part of the nose, sometimes I draw a circle for the bridge. It all depends on the shape and feel I’m looking for.
There are a million noses and I only included a few in my examples, but I don’t think there’s a true limit to what a nose can look like.
That about wraps this up!
Look at different ethnicities, ages, genders and people overall to get a feel for all the various features that can be put on one’s face and just have fun! I also suggest using yourself, family, and friends as references. Use that opportunity when people see you drawing and ask ‘can you draw me?’ USE IT. (Or don’t. It can get annoying)
Want to see more tutorials? Tell me what you’d like to see me cover. This confuse you or you’re stuck on something? Tell me and maybe show me what you’re working on and I can help to the best of my ability!
