FACE PARTS

FACE PARTS

It’s time for an exciting feature presentation — the face. In this chapter, you discover how to draw those distinct characteristics that help others identify you as . . . well, you! I explain how to draw the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

 In this chapter, I explain how to draw each individual feature, and then I show you how to put all those features together on the head. If you’re new to drawing facial features, I recommend first reading Chapter 4 on drawing the head. From my experience, it’s important to have an understanding of the foundation upon which the facial features rest. Think of the head as a canvas and the facial features as the actual painting. No matter how beautiful the actual artwork is, if the canvas isn’t prepared properly, the artwork may not last as long. In addition, if you aren’t familiar with drawing basic geometric shapes, you need to read Chapter 3 before continuing on.

Keeping Your Eye on the Prize

There’s a saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul. People establish meaningful communication through proper eye contact. Even pets, like dogs and cats, can’t help but look into your eyes when seeking attention. It’s no wonder that drawing the eyes is such a fascinating and popular part of building the figure! Take time in this section not to lose sight of how amazing the eyes are.

Beginning with the basic eye structure

In this section, I walk you through the steps to drawing the basic front view of the eye from start to finish. (I go over the three-quarter and side views later in this chapter.) I show you how to approach the eyeball, the iris, and the pupil, followed by the lids, lashes, and brows.

The eyeball The eyeball is essentially a spherical object that’s tucked into each eye socket in your skull. Don’t worry about making the shape perfectly circular; you’ll later cover about half of the entire structure with the bottom and upper lid shapes.

Although I don’t have any problem with students resorting to using circular object templates (such as a cap or lid) to create the eyeball, I strongly encourage you to take the plunge of faith and draw it freehand. Drawing freehand builds not only confidence in the way you handle your drawing tools, but also speed (after all, who wants to lug around all those tem- plates everywhere you go just so you can draw a “perfect” eyeball?).

 Drawing the eyeball itself is a snap. I make the size of the eyeball shape approximately 1 inch wide. The diameter of an infant’s eye is small (18 mm versus 25 mm for an adult), but the eye grows rapidly during the first years of development. At the center of your drawing paper, lightly sketch a sphere and a cross-hair guideline to locate the center of the basic eyeball structure, as shown in Figure 5-1. Keep the pencil cross-hair lines light. Doing so ensures that the darker lines you later draw for the rest of the eye structure stand out.

The iris and the pupil When you identify someone’s eye color, you look at the color of their iris. The pupil takes on a dark and almost black appearance, which is, for the most part, universal among humans.

 Think of the iris and the pupil as two separate, overlapping disks; the pupil is the smaller disk that rests above the larger iris. Follow these steps to draw them: