How To Draw Character Faces

We got a little army going right here .

I've been diving into characters a little bit lately .

Let's walk through the process of how I developed it kind of from the , the ground up .

So I picked the most approachable character in the world , the human face .

Come on , you know , kind of given that caricature vibe here , it's a easy way to kind of make something that's approachable and everybody obviously understands what the face looks like .

So it's a good kind of practice ground and trial ground and then here for the eyeballs , you know , I , I definitely went easy on them , picking something like a closed eye here .

Kind of that sleepy look gives a super fast impression to the overall emotion of the character as well as it kind of is a little cheat there .

You don't have to draw the whole eyeball there .

Maybe as I I developed can get better , we can put eyeballs in there .

But for the time being , I'm , I'm liking that little sleepy vibe here , the mouth can follow suit with that with the expression you can do like a grimmest face or , or a happy smile , anything like that .

Plays in a ton to the overall piece and run with that , see what expression kind of suits your character best .

I always like to sketch mine in kind of this bald shape here .

It gives me a really good starting point to kind of mold in the hair .

The lines here on the left side of the face didn't really look so great the first time around .

So they will turn those into some dark shadows and , and just kind of correct them .

And by the end of this , I'm sure he won't even be able to pick out where the mistakes are .

Here's one of those funny things that I feel like when you have a shape to the head and you kind of mold it on there .

It's almost like clay , you can kind of see where it's supposed to land and you can kind of slowly just sketch it in there , really rough it in and you know , there are no mistakes with hair , it can go in any direction and there's probably somebody that's rocked that before .

So it's kind of one of those forgiving stakes that you can kind of get messy with it and , and let the setup of the character kind of tell you where to go with it .

And right now we got this funny , like after shave look so definitely gonna drop like some facial hair on here .

I don't know if that's part of the story of this character or not , but it's definitely a fun ad here where we can go at it again and , and see where kind of some facial hair and a beard would land on this guy having the chin and stuff already in place , gives me kind of a shape to , to mold off of again .

So it gives me , you know , areas where definitely it's gonna be longer , kind of down at the bottom of the chin and then kind of tuck it up maybe a little bit shorter as it comes around the bottom of the jaw .

And then of course , kind of now that I've got the chin in there , I can touch up the top , give him some more sideburns and kind of re inform the rest of the decisions about the hair .

Can't forget those eyebrows either at this stage in the character .

I like to add just some quick embellishments , maybe some wrinkles or some extra add-ons and half tones to give some depth to it , you know , characters that are just black and white are definitely my favorite and it kind of limits you as far as the contrast goes .

So having those extra hash marks in there definitely gives an added detail and brings it up a little bit .

And of course , the accessories on the character are some of the best this five panel here .

It is one of my favorites to draw a little drop shadow under it , a little doubled up on the bill .

Just a fun little add-on and something you can change each time over to give a little bit more emotion or a different direction to the habitat that this character is kind of existing in .

Let me know if you guys are feeling this little sleepy side guy , we'll see where he goes in the future .

Yeah .

And of course , nothing really exists with a big fat rectangle around it .

So we got a contour cut it .

Something that definitely is well worth the extra time .

You know , even if you're , you're just trading the slab , having that contour cut means that this is gonna be able to get just slapped up right next to anything and have a nice border to it .

It just makes that little extra clean kind of edge to it .

Nothing worse than having like a really sweet design and having to cut it out yourself or just that extra space looking super awkward on the background .

So give this a shot .

Maybe you pick something like your favorite animal to draw or maybe a human face just like this and give it a go see where you kind of land with it and very stuff up you can see here we got like skinnier heads , fatter heads , taller heads with something a little bit different .

You can throw a different hat on there and it definitely changes the vibe up .

I'll be honest here , I was drawing the same exact character each time over here and they all came out way different sometimes , you know , you get a funky line down and the nose looks weird this time around or the eyeballs look weird that time around you .

That variety is kind of your sketching platform to see what your favorite stuff is .

So I got this wood panel here , but I think I definitely want to buff it out white so we can have that same backdrop on there .

Definitely not feeling the brown here to the garage .

I got some leftover white puff paint here that I think I'll just roll over top of this wood panel to give us a nice background .

Can't use the sharpie on this one .

So let's refill some and , and get working with them .

Oh , it's really kind of interesting to see how the paint's actually laying up on this .

It's much darker , of course , way more opaque .

But I guess with the sharpie where you're getting a little bit of , you know , two tone with it , you know , a little bit darker section on the areas you double up with here , the opacity is so solid .

You're getting that solid lack .

I might have to uh play around here with the character and see how the half toning works a little bit better with maybe a larger size or , or maybe a thinner marker .

I don't know .

I think I might prefer the kind of that softer mid black than the full dark black , maybe next time I'll mix a little bit of white or , or another color into my black to just cut it a little bit .

Definitely hype on these really big ones and I think I might be digging these bucket hats a little bit more than the five panel .

What do you guys think ?

Let's go figure out a way to cut these out .

We got the first one loose .

Check that out looking so sweet .

I was able to like cut back in and get a little tighter profile on the left side there because it was still attached .

Maybe I'll bolt this back down and come in and clean up some of these edges .

Yeah .

So when I was cutting this one out , I chipped both the hat and the little end of the beard there .

So I think I'll just touch that up with a little bit of spray paint and draw right over it .

The under surface isn't quite as smooth .

Whoa , spraying out his brains .

So we'll see if it soaks in a little bit .

Probably end up doing the backside of these as well .

Tried a little test on painting this edge , but it kind of just set in too much .

So I think I'll just do a quick pass on the backs here .

I wanna make a couple of these into installs .

So what I'm gonna do with that drill , a couple of three ace holes and then be able to bolt through them .

Now , the most common spacing is one inch apart .

So I'm just gonna pick what lands kind of naturally on the design .

Hide it in the top of the head here as well as the beard .

If I have some clear coat , I'll throw some over top of this for sure .

The paint marker got pretty scratched up pretty easily , you know , was using power tools and all , but definitely want these to have a nice life span to them .

Some of the scratches look nice though , falls in line with the griminess .

Now that we're done touching them up , the silver bolts are definitely gonna stand out .

Let's hit them with black .

Look at that .

It's already camouflaged in there and I'll do some big washers on the backside and just tighten those down to set the front of the bolt in there .

The bulls could use a little bit half toning to disguise them just to touch more right on .

We got a little army going right here .

Definitely drop a like if you enjoyed the process and , and dig a little sleepy side character .

Subscribe if you enjoyed the content , that's gonna do it for me guys .

Peace .