How to Draw People > How to Draw Faces

I've been pouring over "how to draw a face" tutorials from my drawing books. There are two basic approaches - the oval method and the ball and plane method. Let's start with the oval, because its easiest.



You start by drawing an oval. Next you have an easy way to position the eyes of the face: the pupils of the eyes should be exactly on an imaginary line that is halfway between the top and the bottom of the oval.

You oval should look like this:
draw heads using an oval

The bottom of the nose is about halfway between the eye line and the bottom of the oval (the chin). The middle of the mouth (where the two lips touch... that line) is about halfway between the line that makes the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin.

Here are some more measurement rules you can use for your faces:

This is an excellent basic way to get your face proportions down fast. This approach also fits well with some more advanced techniques for getting all the different parts of the face fitting together. The three different face shapes described below may look very different, but they do all follow the same rules of proportion as described above.

straight face concave face convex face


As you can read from illustrations, these are straight, concave and convex face shapes. The straight face is the "ideal" GQ look. The concave face has a profile that bends in a little bit, making the chin point out just a little. The convex face is the opposite, with the profile arcing out just a bit, pushing the nose out. The convex face has a definite chubby look to it.

In addition to profil shape, you also should notice the width of your subject's face. Use this old rule of the eye/mouth triangle:
face width

Now that you know these different face types, you can help your portrait drawings a bit by checking your subject's profile and the shape of the eyes and mouth triangle before you start drawing. You'll be able to tell immediately what kind of head shape they have, and that will get you off to the right start with getting their head looking right.

But head shape, as you know, is just the beginning. I would leap into how to draw eyes, and noses and ears and whatnot, but I promised you another way to draw a head:

Ball and plane methodfor drawing a face



Human Anatomy
Muscles
Human Body Proportions
Proportions in men, women and children
Skeleton and superficial muscles
Drawing the head
How to draw eyes
How to draw the mouth
How to draw hands
How to draw feet
Figure drawing
Foreshortening in figure drawing
Poses in figure drawing
portrait drawing



ANOTHER COURSE IN DRAWING PEOPLE:
Introduction to Drawing People
Materials Needed to Draw People
The Essence of Drawing People
Posing the Sitter for a Portrait
Composition for a Portrait
Lighting
How to Draw Hands
How to Show Age and Character
Drawing Clothes
How to Convey Emotions
Using Planes to Render People
Using Humor to Show Character
Examples of Portraits: Mother
Examples of Portraits: Brother
Examples of Portraits: Little Brother
Examples of Portraits: Uncle
Drawing Groups of People
Line Drawings of People
Watercolors of People


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