A Quick Overview of Drawing the Face on This Site!

This article will be an overview of drawing the face. Specifically, we will cover each individual features of the face from the forehead all the way to the chin.

If you have followed the learning on the site, understanding the head should have already given you a good grasp of where to put in the facial features so you don’t need to worry about proportions.

As such, I will assume your head measurements and proportions are correct and that you are ready to move into drawing the individual features.

I will start off explaining and drawing the features. After that, we will be painting the features with your digital brushes.

In order, this site will discuss:

1. Drawing the features

Besides the shape of the head, you will need to learn about the features as you paint faces and the expressions it gives off. There are few features that all of us are familiar with.

For starters, the eyes are windows to your character’s focus. What is he or she looking at? What is he or she expressing from those stares?

What about the nose? Though a body part that does not move very often, it is still an important feature that emphasizes certain expressions like rage.

Of course, we can’t neglect the mouth. Being the most flexible part of the human face, it can be hard to get the mouth right.

On the other side of things, there are the ears. Being static, it is still important to know how to draw the ears correctly.

This site will address each feature so you can concentrate on drawing the face correctly.

2. Painting the features

After you know the features, we will paint it with your digital art program. Painting on a computer is different from drawing it on the computer.

You should be always be focusing on how the light will hit the feature to get the shape. Sometimes it can get difficult as you’re dealing with multiple colors at the same time.

For example, when you paint the eyes, you need to switch to different brushes for the eyelashes, painting a light brown color underneath the eyes for the eye bags, adding light reflections to the pupil, etc.

Sounds like a lot but is actually easy once you know all the specifics of the eye.

3. The expressions

Once you are familiar with the common features found on any face, it’s time to manipulate it! Drawing the face with emotion means that you will have an opportunity to learn about how each individual feature will behave on its own.

Some common expressions we will be focusing on are drawing sad faces, happy faces, fear, surprised faces, angry faces, and disgust.

The goal is to get familiar with these expressions as it relates to the overall head and facial muscles. Understanding how each of the muscles move will allow you to draw additional emotions in free-form with few references.

On top of that, you will know the relationship of the facial features and how it affects other features. For example, a smile can raise the cheek and reduce the size of the eye openings.

As an extension, you can apply your new found knowledge into drawing the face on surreal and mythical characters. Thus, knowing how a human face operates can help you immensely for when it is time to be creative on your own terms.

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