To learn to draw faces or any parts of human body, you need a solid understanding of human anatomy. Having the knowledge of bone structures, how muscles attach to the bones and skin envelope them all will allow you to draw realistic looking human body parts. To be anatomically accurate, human skull consists of twenty-two bones so you can imagine the intricacies that you are trying to capture when you draw faces. You do not have to know and memorize all the bones and how the skull is structured to draw faces, but it's a lot easier when you are familiar with them.
You are probably familiar with the technique of drawing a circle to approximate the size and shape of the face. All artists have different concepts and meanings of the proverbial circle, but personally I look at the circle representing the top part of the skull.
So the very first thing you want to do is draw a circle. Pencil in a cross middle of your circle. The point of the circle is to determine the direction of your face and as a guideline for all the facial features. For instance, if you are drawing a face that is facing left, draw your vertical line on the left side of the circle. To have your face look up, the horizontal line should be on the top part of the circle.
Slightly below the bottom of the circle, make a curved line parallel to the line of the bottom circle to be used as the bottom part of the chin. Bridge the gap between the middle of the circle and the bottom line and form a natural facial line.
After you've drawn in the outlines of your face, next step is to add the facial features in. The left side of the horizontal line will be your left eye while the right eye will go on the right side. Nose will be drawn in approximately middle and the mouth to the bottom of the circle. After your eyes, nose and mouth are done, draw rest of the details such as hair, eyebrows, and ears.
While you learn to draw faces, try not to fret over drawing exact replicas as that simply won't happen at first few attempts. Focus on drawing the outlines of the face and positions of the facial features and to get them all proportionate. Your skill of drawing faces will improve quickly if you keep at it with repetition and practice.
Quick Tip #1: Breaking It Down
Break the subject you are drawing into simple basic shapes such as square, oval, oblong, triangle, and circle. It doesn't matter whether you are drawing an apple or a dragon. If you break your model down into basic shapes and use them as an outline, you are greatly simplifying the process of drawing. |
Quick Tip #2: Outside In
Draw from outside in. What I mean by this is you should always draw the outlines of your models first then cramp all the details within those outlines. Drawing facial features such as eyes, nose and mouth before setting facial line is a huge no-no. |
Quick Tip #3: Upside-Down
One exercise that will improve your drawing skills is drawing an upside-down image. This may seem a bit weird at first but try it! It'll develop and improve your visual mode. |
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