How To Draw Heads 3/4 View

I bet you're sick and tired of drawing tutorials telling you to start with a basic circle, huh? Haha, so am I. But we artists are stuck with these irritating little things, so get used to them! They're a great building block, and as much as you might despise them, they'll help you quite often. And they're EXTREMELY useful for those artists that can mentally break down their subjects into basic shapes.

So get drawing that circle already! And try to do a better job than I did here <_<






Using that circle as a skull base, draw the center line of your characters face, splitting the circle in half at the top and down the front... THEN draw the jaw line and outer edge of the face. Or do the jaw line first and the center line second... I forget and my head hurts.

Realize that this step is probably the most difficult because it defines the general shape and look of your character. And don't be too upset if you have to do this step over and over and over before you get it right! Everything takes practice, and this step is no exception (it's where I screw up most often.)

So, from the looks of what I've drawn here you can tell that my character will have some cutesy cheeks, a strong feminie jaw line, and a petite chin... As for her ear... just throw it in there on the right and try to make sure it's somewhat in the middle vertically (that includes the top of the circle to the bottom of the chin!)

Okay, okay, next step.





These next steps are pretty easy (#3 & #4), but I'm going to show them each seperately since things tend to get a little messy with them...

What you'll want to do here is very similar to what you did in step #2 with the center line of the face. Except here, you'll be drawing the center line of your characters eyes! So split that head into two more halves, following the imaginary shape of the skull and chin lines... Once you're done, be sure that they look roughly even. But you'll need to remember that the line farthest away from you will need to be a little closer to the center line than the other. This means that we'll be drawing THAT part of the face a bit thinner than the other part.

Does that sound okay?





And now you see why it's getting messy, right? Those horizontal face lines make it look as if we're dicing our characters face like that hellraiser fella... <_< accupuncture >_>

Putting that ugly mug out of our minds, I'll go a head and explain what each of the three horizontal lines represent (starting from the top).

Horizontal Line #1: This here is your buh, abuh, a BROW line. But not the top or the bottom. It's in fact the very CENTER of your brow line (that's eyebrow... sorry) So don't place it in the center of the face, place it slightly above, and in line with the ear (or in this case slightly above the ear >:[~] ).

Horizontal Line #2: This line is the center of your character's beautiful eyes which just so ends up being the center of your characters BEAUTIFUL face... *o* So take care to slap that bad boy on there real good!

Horizontal Line #3: Finally, this is your mouth line. And once again, not the top or the bottom. It is in fact the center. And in my case, its where the corners of her mouth meet. You can do the same, but remember there is always room for change





Now that we've defined the construction lines all over out characters beautiful face, we get to start adding the details. And why not start with the eyebrows!? They're easy to draw, and they should help you begin to see you character's personality and help you imagine how she will look once you're finished.

Notice that the eyebrows I've drawn here are horizontally centered on the vertical lines, and vertically centered on the horizontal lines... Yours should be similar, although you may change it up a bit depending on the expression you're going for... But the basics are there






Next we draw the nose, and what the heck: let's draw the basic neck lines too

As far as the nose is concerned, it will sit to the far side of the faces center line. That means that this simple nose will not cross over the center line onto the right side of the face. You may notice that mine touches the center line (and yours can too for a nominal fee), but it'll never go past it... You may also notice that the very top of the nose seems to connect with the eyebrows line, right? That's a VERY good thing. Those two pieces are interconnected on us humans, and therefore must be interconnectified on our arts :] Don't draw them as the same line though! Make sure there is a little gap between the two... Otherwise, there will be heck to pay (heck I tell ya.)

And the neck... well it's two vertical lines... not much of a "step". Just make sure that the left neck-line is to the right of the chin's center line. And make sure that the right neck-line is vertical with the ear/ chin edge. You can nudge it a bit more to the right if you'd like, but don't go too far or your character will seem to have some HUGE neck muscles.








Now for the mouth. That's right, no eyes for you!

Take note that the mouth is very simplistic. I draw the upper lip (starting in-line with the nose area), sweep to the right along the horizontal mouth line, then swoop back down, left, and up. And to top it all off, I draw a little mark underneath to signify a slight shadow under her lip. You may want to experiment with mouths, but for this tutorial I'm keeping it simple and won't bother with expression, teeth, or anything of that manner.

Next step is the eyes (be afraid)



Here's where your image will either sink or swim, and while the eyes are the most difficult part for most people, I won't be getting into "how to draw them" in this tutorial... So give it your best shot, make them cute, and follow a few pointers I have below:

#1: Start with the LEFT eye!!! That is, unless you're left handed. The reason is simple: if you start with the left eye and get it right, it's easy to look back and forth in comparison when working on the right eye. But if you start with the right eye, your hand will be covering it when you begin working on the left. That'll make things a bit more difficult to perfect.

#2: Do not draw the pupils until both eyes are finished! If you draw the pupils (and I'm sure you already have ><) you'll be committed because you like your pupils too much. And now your mistakes will be more difficult to erase because you are so proud of yourself and your newly drawn pupil. SO DON'T DRAW THEM YET! I had to kick my own butt in order to get out of that habbit... Don't make me kick yours too! >:[]

#3: Try to center your eyes/ lashes/ and lids both vertically and horizontally on your guidelines. And remember that it may help to draw a circle first (very lightly).

#4: Don't OUTLINE the entire eye. Try leaving a gap between the inner corner of the eye, and the bottom lashes. That'll make the eyes seem more refreshed and relaxed.

#5: Draw the eyes LIGHTLY! Because if you're like me you'll mess up again and again on this step, and you'll need to erase. And there's nothing worse than trying to draw over etched and darkened paper... So do yourself a favor and darken the eyes in the final step.

Good luck. This step will define your character's likeability so take your time, and don't be afraid to mess up!




Next draw the ear (I've got a comprehensive ear tutorial in the Advanced Traditional section of this site if you need help on this step: How To Draw Ears).

And once you're done with the ear, draw a quick line on the neck indicating the neck muscle. It should start from behind her ear and slant inward toward her collar bone. If you choose to ignore this line, it's no problem. But I ALWAYS include it, and so should everybody else because I say so



Okay, now that we've stepped away from our character's unfinished eyes for a moment, we can go back to them feeling refreshed and inspired, right?

As you can see here, I've drawn a large -unfinished- circle, outlining the iris and directing her vision toward the "camera". Then I draw the inner circle (her pupil), keeping it in the center of her iris. Notice how the eye farthest from us has very little room to draw the pupil? That's good. Yours should be exactly the same (if looking this direction). Now draw another smaller circle on center left of the iris, connecting the outer edge of the iris with the outer edge of the pupil. This will work as a simple highlight for your characters eyes. Cute huh?

If you choose to "fill" your eyes at this point, feel free. But I've chosen to do that later when I'm "finishing" the image. So for now the eyes will remain slightly creepy :}



Now because we're awesome, we'll be drawing a simple hairline for our character.

Of course we know hairlines can be a complex thing, and different people have different shapes... But for the sake of this tutorial we're going to keep it simple: We'll draw a straight line across her forehead, and bring it down to her ear... This will define our "minimum hair/ maximum forehead" area. Sound good? Just be sure you're not thinking of these lines as permanent. They're simply guides for us when drawing super-fantastic hair styles.

Draw a similar guide along the outer edge of your characters skull. This will represent the amount of hair that she has "padding" her head. Got that? If her hair is short (like I'm going to make it) this is the MINIMUM amount of hair she is required to have before she starts to look bald. Additionally, if you want her to have long hair, you'll make sure that you never draw inward past these lines. Always remain on the outside of them, and the hair will look natural and volumetric (Pro-V status son!)



And now it's hair time. The WORST time of year... I always have a difficult time deciding what hair styles to draw on my characters, and often times crack open my wifes "hair style" magazine to find inspiration. You might want to do the same, or google "totally fresh and awesome bombastic hair styles for mega cool people" to find inspiration of your own.

As you can see here, I sorta scribbled her hair... I drew it lightly of course, and will clean it up later. So I suggest you do the same. If you start taking the hair too seriously, you'll be in for a very long night. Just try to keep a loose wrist, and a light hand. Let the hair flow free (not like a hippie), and worry about details later. We're worried about basic shape ONLY, not finished product.

Also, take a look at the red arrows. They point out how the hair on both sides of her head (in the sideburn area) end at roughly the same horizontal point. You should keep a look out for this when drawing your own hair styles! We may be looking at a certain side of her head, but that doesn't mean her hair can't be symmetric (raise your hand if you agree.)



Now bust our your super spiffy kneaded eraser and lighten up your image a bit. If you're not sure what that is, check out amazon.com or google it. You'll find that the kneaded eraser is the artists best friend If you don't have a kneaded eraser, perhaps you can DARKEN your image, and trace it through to a fresh piece of paper in the next step.

To lighten my image, I rolled my eraser into a long rolling-pin, and ROLLED it up and down the image to lift the heavier graphite off. And when that TOTALLY failed to work the way I wanted, I smashed it into a blob and rubbed the paper with it.

Do the same until you're happy, but don't lose any of your important details! You'll need them for the final step.



Done.

I mean, here you see how my image ends up after lightening in the last step, and drawing over my lightened image in this step. What I did was take a darker pencil (not really, I just pressed harder), and made my details really dark. And since you've drawn a technically correct anime face, it's time for you to do the same. But for the love of beans don't trace your image EXACTLY. Because we all know that being "technically correct" isn't the same as being beautiful. In fact, you'll probably have to adjust a few things here and there, darken this spot, round that edge, smooth this area, etc, in order to make your drawing turn out the way you want. But with your lightened image as a guide, this will be easy. And once you scan your image into Photoshop, it'll be super easy to clean up the dust and dirt

Hope you can have fun with 3/4 view heads now! Just remember that everything takes practice, and DRAW LIGHTLY!!!!!!!!!!