Tutorial: Facial Features
It’s Tutorial Tuesday yet again, and this week we are going to look at facial features. This tutorial will focus on how to examine and draw parts such as the eyes, nose and mouth when you’re drawing characters for your digital comics. We will begin each facial feature by reviewing a real life photograph sample and the pieces involved in developing each part.
Drawing the Eyes
The eye is the most complicated out of the features we’re going to tackle today, so we’ll get it out of the way first. The above photo labels all the important parts of the eye. In order to have convincing looking eyes, rather than a couple of soul-less black dots on your character’s face, you should attempt to draw as many of the labeled parts as possible.
Let’s start with a simplified version.
Draw a circular shape with a thick outline. This shape will form the outer ring of the iris.
Leave a bit of space to the left of your iris shape, and draw a semi-circular shape with the opening facing towards your iris. This is where the tear duct will be located.
Next, draw an arc that extends from the tear duct at its thinnest point, over the top of the iris circle and ends in a thicker weight on the other side of the iris shape. The shape should look like an eyelid. You can thicken this line to make the eyes stand out even more. You can also adjust the arc, but remember it must begin at the tear duct and cover the top of the iris circle.
Create a second arc that begins at the tear duct and connects to the top eyelid. Make sure that the line gets progressively thicker at the opposite end of the eye. This will give the slight illusion of depth. The arc should also connect to the top eyelid before the edge of the line. This gives the appearance of a flap (which is the basic form of the eyelid) that folds ove he bottom eyelid.
Add a pupil in the center of the iris shape. You can make the pupil larger or smaller, but remember this will also affect your character’s appearance in an expression.
Above the eye, draw a thin line to show where the crease in the top eyelid is.
If you want to indicate if a person is tired, intense or simply older, add a second line as a crease for the bottom eyelid. Otherwise, leave it blank when drawing your characters. Too many lines on the face indicates wrinkles – we don’t want our young characters looking old and tired, do we?
On to the eyebrows. Draw a thick shape that begins a bit past the tear duct, and create an arc that goes past the eyelids. The eyebrow curls downwards at both ends. You can experiment with different shapes to enhance your character’s expressions – but this is the basic eyebrow form.
We will add some details to the inner eye, with a highlight. First, make your pupil a bit larger to accommodate.
Then add a small dot in the upper corner opposite to where the eye is looking. That’s it. This is a simple way of drawing eyes for your character. Take a look at some reference material and create different eyes – there are several different variations you can try. Check out the eyes of different races and ethnic backgrounds.
One last note I’ll make – the eye of a woman differs slightly. You can exaggerate a number of the features to make your eyes appear more ‘womanly‘ if you wish. These tricks are often used by comic book artists. By examining the sample above, you can see the following differences:
1) The shapes that define the edge of the eyelids are much thicker, indicating full lashes
2) The ends of the lashes are elongated and swept out
3) The eyebrow is thinned out significantly and elegantly curled.
These slight alterations can turn your standard eye into one that is more feminine.
Drawing the Nose
The nose is an interesting facial feature that also adds personality to your character. Many characters are defined by the shape of their nose, but a simplified set of lines and shapes are often sufficient to get the point across.
The nose is made up of a number of parts. The most common areas that are drawn are the bridge, tip and nostril. We will draw the basic nose shape, and then create an even simpler shape once we understand the positions better.
Start by drawing a simple half circle shape. This will act as the tip of the nose.
Next, draw an S shape that connects to the tip. The bottom part of the shape should trail off.
Draw a backwards S shape on the other side, and have the parts connect in the same fashion as the previous line.
You can fill in the nostril area slightly for depth.
Draw a single curved stroke to indicate the bridge of the nose. It is unnecessary to draw both sides of the nose. Having both lines make the nose appear more prominent and implies that the bridge sticks out pretty far.
You can indicate a slight wrinkle for the root of the nose where the bridge connects to the forehead. Again, this step isn’t necessary, but it can be drawn in for certain facial expressions.
You can also draw a small line to draw more attention to the tip of the nose. That is the basic construction of the nose. This version carries more details than some artists prefer. I’ll show you a couple of shapes you can use to simplify this process even further, now that you’re familiar with all the parts.
A simplified male nose is sharper on the wings (alar) and meet in the middle in a squarish, straight fashion. The tip of the nose is slightly hinted at, and the bridge is also very straight leading the eye into the bottom portion of the nose. Under the tip, a dark shape is filled in to indicate the philtrum, which is the small indentation directly above your lips.
A simplified female nose eliminates a number of lines in order to focus more on the eyes. The de-lineated female nose is extremely simple to draw. A small triangular shape is used to define the bottom part of the tip and nostrils. The wing is indicated by a small thin stroke, and the bridge is also delicately added with a thin stroke leading from the eyes downwards.
Piece of cake!
Drawing the Mouth
Mouths and lips come in different shapes and forms. We’ll start this part of the tutorial drawing the basic shapes, and then move on to the differences between males and females.
The mouth is comprised of five basic areas. The philtrum is the indentation under the nose and above the center of the lips. The vermillion is the outer edge of the lips. Then there are the upper and lower parts of the lips, and the opening of the mouth. The mouth is one of the most expressive facial features, and it can also be the easiest to draw, once you’ve mastered the basics. This tutorial is only going to touch on a closed mouth – we’ll dive deeper into specific expressions later.
Start by creating a shape that looks like a seagull in flight, or an overstretched M. This is the top part of the upper lip.
Next, draw a line that somewhat mirrors the first stroke you made. The ends should connect with the ends of the previous stroke. This is the space formed between the top and bottom lip.
Now add a tapered stroke that extends from the points, and curls below the second line you’ve drawn. Make sure the space between the last line and the second line is more pronounced than the one above it. Your lower lip is generally fuller than the upper lip.
That’s it. Three lines to create an open mouth. Now, you’ll see the differences between a man and a woman’s mouth.
A simplified male mouth (in this case, lips) comprise of two shapes. But instead of drawing lines to indicate forms, we will use filled in shadows. The upper lip is filled in solid, creating a thick defined shape. In order to complete the form, a shadow under the bottom lip is drawn. Your imagination fills in the rest. Notice how the lines are more squarish and strong.
A woman’s mouth uses shadows to create forms, but the shapes are curved and full. A woman’s lips are naturally thicker than a man, so this must be exaggerated in comics in order to create a difference visually. Start by creating the same contour lines as we did in the first sample, but soften the corners and round the shapes more.
Now add the bottom part of the lip, and ensure that it is filled in. You can leave a small gap between the two shapes to indicate the mouth opening. Make the bottom lip round and full as well. Compare the two mouths and you can see an obvious difference.
You can complete the look of your lips/mouth by adding creases in the lips (men) and highlights and glossy appearance (women).
There you have it – you’ve successfully learned how to draw three facial features. Use these basic tips to add details to your characters. You can use the pen tool to make precise shapes, or just freehand them on your WACOM tablet. Keep practicing and experimenting with different forms until you find a style of your own. Next week, we’ll study facial expressions and adapt them into our character sheets. See you next week with more tutorials for drawing digital comics!
