How to Draw a Face from any Angle _ Part 1 - Front & Side View

Hey , I'm Darlene .

And you're watching a rapid fire art tutorial in this two part video series , I'm gonna cover the Luis method for drawing the human head in any angle .

I'll show you step by step how to draw four different head positions .

In this video .

I'll cover the front and side view and leave the three quarter heads for part two .

These are the tools I'm gonna use a colored pencil for drawing construction lines and a graphite pencil for the finalized drawings .

If you want to create your own reference material , you'll need a styrofoam ball and marker to draw lines on it .

You'll need a toothpick and finally a need eraser .

We're gonna make some models with these to help us draw certain facial features .

If you don't have a Nable eraser , you can use play doh see recipe below .

Another handy reference would be a rottable human skull .

All of these tools will be linked up in the description .

Let's start with the easiest angle , the front view .

I'm using a colored pencil for the construction lines so you can still see the construction of the head after it's drawn .

The first step is to draw a circle , limit movement in your fingers and wrist and move your elbow and shoulder .

Instead just hover over your sketchbook , creating circular motions when the movement looks and feels right , lower your pencil to create a faint circle .

I'm making it dark .

So the instructions are clear but try to keep your construction lines very light .

The next step is to create a vertical and horizontal line that goes through the center of your circle .

This is the middle line and this one is the brow line where the eyebrows go .

Since the side of the human head is more flat .

Let's cut off the sides of our circle to cut off just the right amount , split this section into three equal spaces from the center of your circle to the top , do the same for the bottom half .

The top third will mark the top of our cut and the bottom third marks the bottom cut off the other side as well .

I can't erase pencil crayons .

So just imagine that the sides are gone , extend the middle line down so we can draw his feature lines .

We already know where the eyebrows are gonna go .

So next , we'll need to figure out the placement of the hairline , nose and chin .

In cutting off the sides of our sphere .

We've actually created the hairline and nose line already for an average male face , all of these features will be spaced evenly .

So to find the chin line simply take a measurement from brow to nose and bring it down here .

Now , we have four horizontal feature lines that are spaced evenly apart just doing a double check to complete our head shape .

We'll need to draw the jawline , extend the side of the head down a little and then curve into the chin .

When you draw the other side , make sure the corners of your jaw are lined up .

So one side isn't higher than the other .

Now , we have a complete head shape .

There are two more lines you might want to draw the eye line goes between the brow and nose and is about a third of the way down .

I know there's a lot of measuring , but if you practice a lot , you won't need to draw so many lines or make as many measurements anymore .

And then between the nose and chin , there is the mouth which is a little closer to the nose .

Let's start adding his features .

Now , the ears are attached to the sides of the head and go from the brow to nose , start your stroke near the eyeline , using the brow and nose as boundaries between where the ear shape started and ended .

Draw a bump , extend it down up to the right and then to the left .

Now we're gonna use this part of the ear shape as a guideline to draw a similar shape that runs close to the edge .

Now draw his other ear drawing the rest of his features can be very intimidating before we actually draw any of them .

We need to learn where each feature fits on the face .

Then we can worry about how to draw each one a good way to approach .

This is to first practice drawing the human skull because it really helps to understand the structure beneath all that skin study and draw the skull from many angles .

There are many apps and online references that you can use to study from like the one I showed you earlier .

So I'll leave that part up to you .

You can also learn how to draw the muscles which is covered in the book .

Learning how to draw a planner head will also come in handy .

It's basically a blocky simplified version of the head where it's broken down into simple shapes .

When you practice drawing this , it helps you better visualize where the facial features go and it will give you a better grasp of the subject in a three dimensional space .

With these two references , you can probably vividly picture where the features go already .

It takes some time to learn this .

But if you put in the time your drawing skills will level up dramatically , you can go right ahead and actually draw the planar head over your drawing very lightly to block out the different sections from one another .

There are many ways to draw a play in our head as you can tell from a quick Google search .

The Luis one is a little different from what I'm doing .

Now .

I like to do just the face and ignore the rest of the head .

But when you're practicing , it's probably a good idea to draw the whole thing .

Please refer to the book for more info on this along the brow line .

Let's draw his eyebrows , slant them up at the ends , draw the other eyebrow while making sure each corner is level with the first one .

Use your planar sketch to draw the nose .

I'm going to rest his nose on the line labeled nose and balance it along the middle line to keep his face looking symmetrical where the middle line and nose intersect , draw a small curve and then above that to the right and left draws nostrils .

I'm not gonna go into much detail on how to draw each individual feature because those will need to be covered in separate videos to place his eyes , draw a vertical line from the wing of the nose going up .

The eye will start there and each one will be about the same width as the nose .

For each eye .

You can draw a trapezoid like shape , something more around it though , or a football shape , draw his eyes right above the eyeline .

Let's add a crease at the top .

It just roughly follows the eye shape , make sure the corners of his eyes are level with each other to draw the lips I'm gonna use a different method from Andrew Loomis , sort of just making it up on the spot .

Draw a line where you want the opening of the mouth to go .

I'm gonna use a red line .

So you can see it better again , drawing it closer to the nose than the chin .

By the way , if you want to see the Lummi method for placing the mouth , you should pick up his book , which I'll link to down below .

Let me draw a large example .

So you can see more clearly in the middle , draw a curve to the sides , draw the corner of the mouth using small ticks , then connect the dots using a wavy line in the shape of your choice , draw the outline for his top lip , creating an M light shape .

The bottom lip is just sort of like a very wide U shape .

Let's draw it on the face .

Now , for the corners of the mouth , I like to align it somewhere between the end of the nose to the middle of the eye , let's draw his cheeks .

Now , if you want to really define his cheeks , but don't know where to start .

It helps to visualize his skull .

Also knowing where the cheekbones end will help you understand which areas you can hollow out for his job .

Use your construction lines as a rough guide .

I'm gonna give him a dimple chin for his neck , draw an invisible line from the end of your eye or eyebrow going down .

That's how thick I'll draw the neck , the side of the head is a little more rounded than this .

So round off the corners and make the straight line more curvy to draw his hair .

You can use the hairline as a reference point which will give him a medium sized forehead .

Draw above or below this to give him a larger or smaller forehead .

I'm gonna start here and bring my stroke up and out .

You can also draw this shape which is a little pointier , extend your stroke down along the side , going towards the eyebrow .

Stop before you get too close , bring your strokes out again along the ear and let it disappear .

I'm just making sure that these corners are level with each other .

You can leave it like this .

So he has a buzz cut or give his hair a lot more volume .

First , select where you want his parting line to be where he parts his hair , then draw hair on both sides .

I'm gonna brush most of it over to the left and that completes our head drawn from the front view .

We're gonna use the exact same method to draw the last three heads .

So you're gonna see the same patterns come up over and over again .

Now let's apply the same steps for a head in the side view , draw a circle , draw a straight vertical and horizontal line through the very center .

Since we're drawing ahead from the side .

Now , this line is now called the ear line and this is the middle line , extend your middle line straight down , creating the front of his face .

This one is still the brow line to find the hair , nose and chin lines split the top and bottom half of your circle in three , the top third will mark the hairline and the bottom third will mark the nose line .

The space in between each feature should be equal .

So to find the chin line , take the measurement between brow and nose and bring it down here , draw a full circle between the hair and nose line to represent the flat side of his head or the side plane .

That's the part we cut off .

When drawing the first head , it looks like a circle .

When viewed from the side .

The eye is about a third of the way down from brow to nose and then draw the mouth line which is slightly closer to the nose than the chin to complete the head shape .

Draw the jawline which runs from the bottom of the side plane to the chin .

The shape of his cranium is less of a circle and more of an oval to draw the back of his neck , roughly align your pencil with the nose line and the base of his cranium halfway between the front and center of his head , draw the front part of his neck .

Let's draw the ear between the brow and nose , placing it in this quadrant , it's actually slanted back like .

So instead of perfectly vertical , the ear shape is also kind of similar to an oval I find .

So if you want to have a rough guideline to draw within , create a faint oval between your first and last stroke , draw a bump extend down up to the right and then up to the left , duplicate the ear outline inside the ear .

And if you want to add more detail , draw shape , opposite of this one , let's draw his facial features , start out the brow by creating a large curve extend upwards to create the forehead .

I'm trying not to follow the circle .

Otherwise his head will look too round below the brow .

You can draw a light triangle , the simplified version of a nose to use as a guideline to draw a more detailed one experiment with different shapes to get a bunch of cool looking noses .

Let me switch back to my graphite pencil , use the triangle as a rough guide to draw a more detailed nose shape to the right side of the middle line , draw the nose wing .

And then for the nostril draw a rotated number six time to draw his mouth without going too far past the nose , a dry small tick to mark the corner of his lips , define the opening of the mouth by drawing a wavy line , then draw the upper and lower lips , bring your stroke out to create a nice full chin .

Then use the construction lines to draw the neck and jaw .

Let's draw his eyebrow along the brow line .

The tale kind of ends at the side plane here draw an imaginary line from the side of his nose , going up .

We draw his eye to the right of that , resting it on the eye line , start with the eyeball , then add the top and bottom lids .

It kind of resembles a triangle .

You can add a crease like this and eyelashes follow your construction lines to draw the rest of his head and neck .

Let's draw his hair .

Now go along the hairline .

We can use the side plane as a loose guide .

Draw toward the ear , draw his sideburn , wrap around the ear all the way back to the nape of his neck .

Let's give his hair more volume and that's pretty much how you draw ahead from the side view using the Lummi method .

This is the end of part one .

If you want to learn how to draw the other two heads , please click on the video in the end screen or in the description to watch part two before you go .

Don't forget to hit that like button , comment and subscribe .

I'll catch you later in part two .