How to draw a child's face and adapt it for a picture book illustration

Hello , My name's Lynn Chapman , and I'm an author and illustrator of Children's Pitch books .

And today I'd like to show you how to draw Children specifically their faces .

And then how I adapt those naturalistic kinds of proportions to create the sort of characterization that's suitable for a Children's pitch book .

The face of a child is rounder than the face of an adult , but it's still not completely round .

So a good starting shape is sort of an over a bit like that .

And if we draw a line along the top of the head and the bottom of the chin , the eyes are generally speaking .

Gonna be about halfway down .

I'll just pop them .

They're not too close together and the mouth , although this varies in individuals , the mouth not far off , halfway between those bottom two and the nose somewhere between so the mid point of a child's mouth .

It's not a straight line .

It tends to have quite an exaggerated dip in the middle there like that , and they have reasonably full lips .

And the the upper lip is usually going to be in shadow because naturally light is from above , and and also artificial light , largely speaking .

OK , so it sort of put some shape into these eyes .

Children have quite quite big viruses , and the bottom part of the eye isn't going to be as round .

It's more flattened from the top there , so maybe you guys give a feel for it .

Let's get my nose in .

It's just above the mouth , not quite half way between .

And Children have quite cute little button noses , don't they ?

So you don't have any sort of major lines here .

What you can usually do is just create a sense of shadow like that .

You can make the eyes far more realistic by putting just a little shadow there , eyebrows quite minimal on a child's .

So you want something quite light and understated , and everybody normally has an area of shadow under there .

OK , now , let's just shape this slightly more sort of .

It's a slight flattening there , slight rounding of the cheeks .

Now , obviously , all Children's faces are slightly different , so this is just generic just gives you an idea .

Ears start roughly around the point where the eyes start here and Children's ears again quite small , so they don't go too far .

They don't go as far down as the mouse , and then just sort of suggestion of hair starts to make it look a bit more realistic .

Here we go and the neck doesn't want to be as wide here as the face , but it doesn't want to be too narrow , either .

It's only just in from the edges of the cheeks , and that's still a bit too divide .

There we go , something about that , so that gives you the rough proportions of a face from the front .

However , I think sometimes that's quite a boring way to draw a face .

I think a profile can be far more interesting , and I would usually , if I'm trying to sketch something from my imagination rather from life , I would start a profile very differently .

I would start with a shake a bit like that , sort of like an oval on its side , and that represents the top of the head , almost like the brain , if you like , And then the face section is like another rounded shape that's slum underneath that so about like that in the neck , there's a sort of a rounding on the back of the head and the neck .

Then comes out here not just from the back and the sight rounding under the chin .

So it's coming out diagonally , interestingly rather than straight .

That's much more natural .

The ear is above the jawbone , so it's somewhere around there and the nose is gonna be about here and again .

Children have quite cute little turned up noses .

You don't want it to be too , too big , so you can start to see what we're doing .

The eye is going to be in from the edge and roughly at the bottom of this top shape here , And that sort of sideways V is quite a good way to get the basics for an eye on this in profile Now , a mouth is not just a smile drawing in the side .

It actually is quite three dimensional .

So particularly on a child that swings out that top lip , and then the bottom lip comes down and in and then just slightly round it for the chest .

There we go , probably quite big , for for the no , actually , and again it varies .

Sometimes Children's foreheads swing right in like that are now quite a proud for it .

Here .

Let's put that little bit under the eye that we added earlier , around there and again , Once you get the sort of the hair put in , you can really start to see how that shape works .

I'll make that next slightly wider there .

Any kind of colour would be here so that that is not gonna work as a drawing of every child , obviously , but if you're drawing a child from your imagination , you can then make variations on that theme .

But the basic shapes are in the right place .

However , when I'm creating an illustration of a child for a Children's picture book , I don't want realistic proportions .

For instance , that's a piece of artwork from a book I'm working on right at the moment .

I've literally just produced that , Um , it's called Swap , and it has this little character here .

Lucy .

As you see , the first obvious thing is her eyes are in completely the wrong place .

From what we were just talking about , they're right at the top , but that's fine when you're doing an illustration .

Part of adding character and individuality to your drawings is about playing around with proportions , so I'm just going to show you something .

If we start with our face shape .

And actually that's a good place to start because the one I drew was quite oval .

It was originally that shape , wasn't it ?

Sometimes I draw illustrations with quite round shapes .

Actually , Lucy , it's completely the other way .

She's actually more that way round the lozenges sideways and her eyes , instead of being in the middle , are right up here .

They actually come out the top of a almost like a a frog , if you like , just give her a little smile here .

Now where you put the nose is gonna make an enormous difference to the character for Lucy .

The nose is kind of about here , and the ears stick straight out of the side here .

And then she's got her her hair hair this way .

She had a butt on her head and my other illustrations , she tiny weeny neck and my Children's illustrations .

And the bodies are very much smaller than they would be .

Um , I know we're talking more about faces at the moment , just as a a matter of principle that works much better for that Skirts way too long .

Let's go for my work than a realistically proportioned body .

But It's quite interesting where you put the eyes and the nose and the mouth creates an enormous difference in personality .

So let's go back to that more normal shape .

Let's put some eyes at the top .

If you put the nose down here , look how different that is .

So if you put the nose that do it from that side so you can see up there two completely different characters .

If you put if you put the eyes in the middle , that's different again , put me down .

So as you can see a bit more what that looks like , so that compared to my other drawing that I did completely different just by moving the eyes halfway down .

If you move the eyes closer together , that also has another effect .

Let's do again .

Let's do that sideways .

Put her little ears on the side there now .

No .

So I had her originally with her eyes , kind of there .

Just put her eyes really close together .

That's really different again .

So when I'm designing a character , what I do is usually just start with a circle and play around with these different proportions and see , See what I get , really ?

And you can do that , too .

It's very easy , and it's amazing