Using Simple Faces to Learn How to Draw Facial Expressions!

One of the hardest things to do is draw facial expressions. In this lesson, we will learn simple facial drawings so you are able to build on the concepts of emotions.

The goal here is to make drawing expressions as clear as possible. To do that, we will need to exaggerate the facial features. We will learn around six common used facial features common in most works.

In the meantime, I want you to bring up your digital art program and do some simple sketches as a means to draw facial expressions.

You can follow along and may even use your own face as a reference. If that’s the case, it doesn’t hurt to have a mirror in front of you!

1. Sadness and happiness

Anytime a character exhibits a sad emotion, there are a few key characteristics that we need to be aware of. First off, the eyebrows bulge in together. When that happens, wrinkles are created near the bridge of the nose.

Likewise, the eyes are in a fairly stressed position. That means the eyes are usually pushed together as well.

The mouth itself can be opened or close. But when it’s open, you are able to sense the exaggeration of sadness more often than if the mouth is closed.

If your character is displaying signs of joy, then the overall shape changes too. Most noticeably, the eyebrows are more relaxed. The eyes are in a squint position because the cheeks are pushing up against it.

The reason for the pushed cheeks has to do with the smile. When a character smiles, the muscles expand the mouth and pushes up on the cheeks.

2. Anger and fear

Anger is a fairly easy facial expression to depict. Most of the time, you have to focus on the eyes as that is the facial feature that will give you the greatest effect.

Just like the sad face, the eyebrows get pushed in together. The only difference is where the slant comes from. On a sad face, the slant forms a triangle pointing up. However, the triangle points down on an angry face.

In addition, due to the eyebrows pointing downwards towards the nose, there will be additional wrinkles near the nose bridge.

As for the mouth, it can be open or close. One important thing to note is that if the mouth is open, both upper and bottom teeth are shown in a gritting manner. The exception is if the character is yelling angrily, in which case, just the upper teeth are more apparent.

Basically, the entire face is pushed into the center.

A scared face, on the other hand, shows the opposite effect. That is, the entire face is inched outwards instead of inwards. Here we have the eyebrows being pulled by the forehead.

The eyes are expanded outwards as a result as well. The mouth can also be either closed or shut. Regardless, it is mostly the eyes that will give you this facial expression of fear.

3. Disgust and surprise

The facial expression of disgust is relatively easy if you remember about the angry face as a lot of it is very similar.

For starters, the angle of the eyebrows remains the same as well as being squished in.

The difference is the eyes. Instead of opening up, the eyes are squished in like those found on the joyous face.

Similarly, the mouth is usually is a more tight position and less opened. The object is to create a type of frowning orifice.

This can be done by curving the lips into an arch, whereby the greater the arch, the greater the feeling of disgust.

The last important expression is the surprised look. Drawing facial expression in this state means that everything is opened up as much as possible.

Here we have raised eyebrows, well opened eyes, and a wide mouth in which teeth are not shown.

The best way to put surprise is that it’s a far more exaggerated form of the fear expression.

4. Continuing to draw facial expressions

These simple face drawings will help you understand what you need to look for when painting characters with a specific emotion.

Of course, since the face is a very dynamic feature of the head, there are unlimited numbers of expressions possible. What you need to look for is the different subtle changes that occur together.

For example, fear and surprise share quite a bit in common. It’s the same with disgust and anger. Figuring the subtle differences will help you distinguish what is what.

Once you are aware of these simple drawings, you can expand on it to create an actual recognizable face with your digital painting program.

I’ll discuss about each individual expression in more details in the future. For now, have fun with these simple exercises to help you understand how to draw facial expressions!

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