Drawing Digital Comics – Head Shape Tutorial
It’s time for a new digital drawing tutorial. Today we’re going to focus on a basic fundamental of character drawing – head shapes. There are a number of different methods to drawing heads and faces, and in this tutorial, you’ll learn a few different ones than you may have seen before. Since we will be doing this entire sketch digitally, you’ll notice certain shortcuts and techniques you can use to speed up your workflow. As always, these tutorials are not meant to be taken as law – you can adapt the tips and tricks you learn here to fit your working style. Let’s get started!
Setting up your Drawing Area
Begin by creating a rectangular workspace. The ratio should be 2:3.
Using the guides, allow yourself some white space on the outside, like a margin. Then divide your page into four (4) equal quadrants.
Now, in the bottom half of the workspace, divide the space into three equal parts (thirds).
Drawing the Simplified Head Shape
Draw an ellipse that fits within the confines of the side margins, and reaches the first line of thirds you created with the guides.. You could make the top part of the head larger and the jaw smaller if you make this shape more “egg-like” and extend the ellipse to reach half way between the first and second lines you created for your thirds.
Draw a secondary curve that extends from the furthermost edges of the ellipse down to the second guide.
Lastly, draw another curve that extends from the point where the previously drawn curve touches the guideline down to the bottom of the drawing area indicated by your guides. This is a rough jaw line.
Drawing the Face
Now that we’ve drawn our head shape guide, we can begin by drawing the details of the head, starting with the face.
Reduce the opacity of your head shape guide layer. Create a new layer to begin drawing the elements to make your face.
Divide the head shape area vertically into five equal parts. Following the central horizontal guide you created, draw an eye in the space created by the dividing vertical lines. (You will be drawing your eye in the second “fifth” area)
Now copy this eye and paste it into a new layer. Flip the eye using the transform tool, and place it in the fourth space in the vertical dividing fifths. This is a common ratio found in head drawing. The face is divided vertically into fifths, and the space between your eyes from tear duct to tear duct is almost the exact same width as one of your eyes. Check it out in a mirror!
On the first guideline you created for your horizontal thirds, draw the nostrils and bottom part of the nose. Take note that the furthest edge of the nostril lines up vertically with the starting point of the eye.
Add in your upper and lower lips. The upper lip shape makes an M shape. The edges of the upper lip line up vertically with the center of the pupil in both eyes. The bottom lip lines up with the horizontal third guide.
Draw in your eyebrows. The points on the end of your eyebrows should curl downwards towards the eye.
Add your second eyebrow and draw in your ear. The top of the ear should line up with the bottom point of the curl of the eyebrow, or the space between the eyebrow and eye. This is where the eyelid would be. In the center of the shape you created, draw a semi circle which has the open end pointing towards the inner part of the face. This part of the ear is called the tragus.
Between the tragus and the outer edge of your drawn ear, draw in the pinna, which is the area that is recessed from the outer flap of skin on the ear. It looks like a backwards question mark, if you’re having trouble drawing it quickly.
Draw your other ear, or simply copy/paste and reshape to save time.
Following the basic head shape guide, draw a jaw line. You could slim the chin area if you’re drawing a woman or child, or create a defined jutting shape for a large headed brute or a man with a pronounced jaw.
Note the ends of the jaw meet the earlobes on either side of the head. You’ve now completed the basic part of the face. Now we’ll add some finishing details.
Finishing the Head Drawing
Draw a guide that divides the horizontal top half of your head shape. This is your hair line. Now you can get creative with your hairstyle and give your character some personality. For this tutorial, we’ll keep it simple. I’ll start with a wave in the front.
Adding in a few outlines for definition of the hair size.
A few changes in tone to designate the flow of the strands of hair, and where the ‘part‘ of the hair occurs.
Followed by some more volume and definition with the hair on the temples and short sideburns. The hair is done. Now let’s add a few features to the face.
Draw two lines that extend outwards from the edges of the nostrils. These lines indicate some slight definition to your character’s cheeks.
Now add two lines to indicate the bridge of the nose, a small curl beside the eye for the tear duct (it’s that lump in the corner of your eye) and one more line below the eye as a wrinkle in the bottom lid. You could put this on the top lid instead if you wish. Try to keep the number of lines on the face to a minimum, otherwise your character will look aged very quickly.
You’ve completed the basic head shape tutorial for your character, facing the front. Now we’ll go an extra step and show the side view.
Drawing the Side View
It is always good practice to draw your characters in different angles. The common angles are facing the front, side profile and 3/4 view. If you draw your character’s head in various poses enough times, you’ll easily master the proportions without having to rely on guides, since you will have the action of drawing committed to memory. This practice is common amongst numerous artists. They were just like you when they started out – only through repetitive action and practice did they master proportion and location and negative space. With enough tries, you’ll do the same. (Hell, I don’t even draw to correct proportions 100% of the time. I need practice just like you!)
Now we’ll attempt a side view of our head shape.
Start by creating a drawing area that is 1.5 times wider than the front view. Set up your dividing guides (quadrants) and draw your ellipse extending from the very top to the bottom of the nose (look at the guides!)
Pay careful attention to the front facing figure. Examine where the following parts are located – the bridge of the nose, the tip of the nose, the lips and the chin. Remember that the eyes are recessed somewhat and aren’t located at the furthest edge of the face in profile. There should be a small inward curvature there. Now determine where the space between the bottom of the nostril and the top of the upper lip is. That also curves inwards. Finally, there is a small indentation under the bottom lip before the chin. Adding in all these small anatomical details will add realism to your character’s face in side profile. Study your own face and other faces and locate these sections when you draw them.
The jaw line should touch the base of the ellipse in the exact center of the head shape. This is where the bottom of the ear lobe connects to the head.
Draw your ear shape and connect the bottom of it to the jaw line.
Add your details like the upper/lower lips, and the nostrils.
Draw the profile of the eye. Remember that the eye is receded slightly from the bridge of the nose, so leave a bit of space from the edge of the nose. See how the above drawing looks awkward.
With the eye pushed back somewhat, more definition is created for the bridge of the nose. Add your eyebrow in to complete that portion of the face.
Draw the tragus and pinna to complete your ear.
Now using your front facing drawing as reference, try and replicate the flow and form of the hair. Remember, consistency in your drawings are what create believable characters and elevates the level of accuracy and attention to detail in your work.
Draw in all the curves and volume in the hair, and add shadows in the appropriate spots.
Draw your character’s neck, and you’ve completed a digital drawing of a front and side profile head shape. Continue refining your drawing with additional details, but remember – a highly detailed drawing will be more time consuming to replicate in different poses. So think twice before you start adding a lot of features.
There you have it – keep drawing your studies of character heads in different profile views. Fill numerous pages of your sketchbooks with these practice sketches of your own characters or existing comic book heroes, and you’ll eventually be good enough to draw them without any visual reference at all. Practice makes perfect!
See you next time with more tutorials!
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Tags: Drawing, how-to, proportions, tutorial, Workflow
March 9th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Damn, I wouldn’t want to have such a face and head form…
June 28th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Very technical, but really interesting tutorial! It’s exhaustive and informative! Nice work!