It’s Time to Paint Face Muscles on Top of Your Skull!

That is, from your 2d digital art skull, you will build up the muscles on a separate layer.

You may be thinking: why learn the face muscles? Couldn’t I just draw the face on top of the skull and be done with it? Yes, you are correct to a point. It is easier to paint the skin.

However, the more you understand what governs our expressions, the more realistic you can make your characters. Unlike the muscles on our arms which move to one fixed motion, the facial muscles are independent.

It is due to the different parts of the face muscles moving at the same time that give us our expressions!

1. The important muscles

Our human face has about approximately 26 muscles in which 10 or so is responsible for expressions. Hence, when you start to paint the face muscles, you will only need to identify less than half of the available muscles:

The chart will give you an indication of what each muscle accomplishes in the grand scheme of facial expressions.

2. Locating the muscles

With your skull, it is time to paint face muscles on it! Using your digital brush, you will need to locate the main muscles and put them correctly on the skull. Start with a large brush so you can apply the location of where the muscles are.

Use the guide lines to help aid you finding out where the muscles should extend to.

It doesn’t have to be exactly where the muscles should be as long as you know the general location of it.

At this stage, it is pretty hard to see the muscle areas.

This is why we are going to refine the areas with simple shading and lighting. So, take out your digital brush, pick a smaller brush, and go over those areas to refine the muscles.

3. Refining the muscles

For example, I use two colors: dark red and white. When I need to alternate between colors, all I do is just hit the ‘x’ key on the keyboard.

Use what you know about your digital art program up to this point and apply it to paint face muscles!

Remember, the point of this exercise is to get you familiar with the face muscles responsible for the facial expressions.

When you go over and refine each individual muscle, keep in mind what it is called and what facial expressions it accomplishes. As well, make faces and compare it to your drawing to see how the muscles changes.

4. Creating mental images

The more you practice, the more you know about the face muscles. That is, the whole purpose of this exercise is to get you thinking about the face muscles and imagining how it changes before you even set your digital brush down.

It’s because you are already drawing the skull and the face muscles in your brain!

In the long run, the advantage is that you don’t always have to paint the face muscles before you add the facial characteristics. It’s the same reasoning as to why you don’t need to draw the skull all the time.

When you paint the face muscles in this lesson, rest assured that it will give you a solid foundation for facial expressions that you will use whenever you need it.

Even still, drawing it is not enough in this lesson. Sometimes, you will need to explore these muscles in closer detail by looking at medical illustrations and then comparing it to what you know.

Of course, once you learned these facial muscles, I will teach you how each of them move to create the proper expressions. Again, remember this lesson and the terminology as I will refer to it quite often in the future!

For now, keep up the motivation to learn and paint face muscles!

Return from Paint Face Muscles to Paint Faces.
Return from Paint Face Muscles Hair to the 2d Digital Art Guide.