How to draw - Facial Construction

Good day .

Ladies and gentlemen , this is draw with Jazz .

I'm Jazz .

And today we're talking about facial construction , facial construction or construction itself .

In drawing is essentially laying down the basics before you get into the details , let's say in the example of looking at a house , someone might look at the house and say , yeah , that's a beautiful house .

It's a finished product , it's great .

But knowing the details of how it came to be can get really complicated unless you look at it simplistically enough .

So kind of using that analogy with with drawings , there are a lot of details and a lot of , you know , big things that you can get lost in and sometimes you might focus too much on , you know , object orientation , foreshortening construction lines , all the , all these things um and actually lose sight of of the very basics and what is most important and that is the shape itself , that is the object , what you are drawing .

And so what we're gonna be doing today is looking at how to approach the very basics of constructing a face ahead as an example to show you what I mean , I'll , I'll work backwards with you from an image that I previously drew .

This is just some random superhero trick that I improvised uh drawing .

Um a very big , like a very early beginner might look at that and think , OK , well , I can't draw that if they're , you know , starting off .

Um And that's because you might look at it and see all the things that you can't do , like whether it be , you know , the magic flamy thing or the , the colors and the depth and things like that .

But when you break it down into smaller pieces and the simplicities , it's a lot easier to see how it comes about .

So you can see here in this image that uh essentially the line work itself has a lot of messy crap behind it .

That's the construction .

So if I go back to show just that they're my construction lines and before that are my earliest construction lines and that's how I begin drawing a figure .

So to put that into context , that's your example .

I'm going to show you how that's done with a face in terms of drawing whole bodies and stuff .

I'll , I'll get to that in a lesson of its own .

But for now , I want to talk about the face .

So interface where essentially with our construction lines , we're drawing a skull , right ?

So if I draw a skull on the right here , facing this way , right ?

We have the basics of the skull .

OK ?

That's my very roughly drawn skull .

My construction lines are a very simple form of that .

You're essentially echoing the simplest , most inner part of a human body .

And that is the bones unless you know you're going into stupid details .

Ok .

So that right there , I'm done .

That's my construction on the left for a , for a head and that's all you need .

Um What , what I generally do is I draw a circle to represent the large ball part of the head and then you add the jaw underneath .

Now , the cool thing is these can change shape , but I'll do a generic shape for now just to kind of show you how it comes together .

So you have the ball and then the jaw , then I add two other lines .

One is the direction line which which direction the face is .

So in that example , before it was here where I draw that line indicates where the middle of the head is facing .

The second line and draw is the eye level line .

Um that can be a horizontal line , weather up or , or lower on the face .

Um But the other thing that I use it for is to indicate which direction the head is facing um vertically .

So if I curve it up like that , you can see that the head is looking up .

If I curve it down like that , you can see that the head is looking down .

So for this example , I'll leave it straight on .

Then beyond that , I start to add the details .

So I construct where the eyes go .

So they're my construction lines for the eyes .

So you can see it kind of just falls into place exactly where , you know , these lines are dictating that they should go .

Next is the nose .

The nose is kind of like the arrow of the face .

And it doesn't matter if you draw the eyes or the nose first .

But they're generally the , the two things that I do first , either the eyes or the nose .

So I have the nose in there , then I like to add the ears in the mouth and then we get into the shaping .

So we're not gonna keep this shape exactly the way it is .

You actually tend to curve it around the shape of what the face is .

So we know that we always have a bit of a , a brow up here .

So we make that bump out a bit , make the bring the cheek out a bit and we jut the chin out a little bit too .

So using those construction lines , I can add a layer on top and do some refined drawing .

So I can go over my construction lines and add the details .

I will do tutorials later on about what I'm actually doing .

Go into details of how I approach drawing eyes and mouth and nose and all that jazz .

But for now I'm just showing you how it lays on top of the construction line .

There you go .

Next .

What I'd like to demonstrate is how the shape of these construction areas can completely change how the character looks .

So , for example , if I'd like to draw um , a sadistic evil sort of character , I'd start off with essentially the same sort of shape of the , the ball .

But I'd really work with the jawline and the , the face of the , the face shape .

So I'd have a really pointy chin like that .

I'll look enlarge this so you can see it a bit better and then I draw the direction line and for the interest of , of doing something slightly different , I'll tilt Tim down and having him facing down like that .

Next part , I'll do the eyes .

Now , I wanna angle this guy , he's , I wanna have a very pointy sort of face .

So I might actually change that chin .

I might pull that chin out a bit and point it like that .

So that's the face .

There you go .

Now , I'll add my eye construction .

My nose in my mouth is , and this guy can wear a hat because he's a very stereotypical looking villain .

There you go .

So they're my construction lines .

Now , let's go in and add the details .

Do the basic shape of the hat about going too crazy .

OK ?

I want to keep the features nice and pointed .

I wanna have the eyes a bit thinner than that .

So he's really squinting menacingly .

One of those he reminds me , reminds me slightly of the spy versus spy dudes .

Um One thing that you'll notice with very thin people is that their , their cheek juts out a lot more because there's no fat underneath it .

Um , as well as their chin .

So to , to accentuate someone's thin look , it's often quite good to give them a bit of a bony chin like this and then have it sink in straight away .

One thing I also find with mouths is when you show the upper gum in the corner of a mouth like that , that bit .

For some reason , it adds a lot of character depending on the attitude .

So a sort of sneer or yell at it .

I , I feel it kind of accentuates an emotion .

You don't want to do it all the time because it lo it'll lose its effect .

But for when you can use it in good situations , it's very , very cool .

So there you go .

Here .

We've got our first character in place there .

I should probably finish off the hat there .

A cool done .

So there's an example of how changing the construction lines can change the face entirely .

I'll just do a couple more quick examples without doing the uh proper line work after just because I don't want to waste too much of your time .

But I'll just do , let's say four different examples .

Let's get one really broad headed guy over here with a very salad and low .

I , so that dude will end up looking very cute .

The as a general rule when the eyes lo are lower on the head and there is more forehead space and less cheek and jaw space .

They tend to be a bit cute .

So Children often have lower eye , eye level on the face .

This one here .

Let's , let's do a uh , let me think .

Let's do what I call , well , I don't call them noodle heads , but they kind of look like noodles .

So I'm not giving this guy a jaw .

Generally I give a jaw and then Nick , but with this guy on the left here , his jaw merges into where his neck will be .

And I think that's a very , a very cool , effective look for dopey sort of characters .

Um I'm not being a very adventurous with my angles .

Now , am I ?

So let's have these guys look around a bit more .

Yeah , so left and right and let's give a uh let's have a very uh big lower jaw .

Make sure you only grab that one and widen it , make that lower jaw even higher up .

Have him looking up with a high eyeline and I'll get this , I get this guy look very brute and then I'll have someone over here looking down .

I have a looking down .

Are you here ?

So there you go .

We've got our basic construction lines .

Um I won't draw the construction details in , I , I'll just go in and do the line work straight away .

So I will do line work , but I won't construct it first .

All , it's essentially the same thing .

So if you don't wanna sketch in all the details before you start , you can just get straight into it once you get used to the process .

So let's start over here on the left .

So this guy , I didn't give him an eye line , so I should probably do that .

Oh , sorry , it was the wrong color .

Not that , that matters but O CD , you know , little obsessive compulsive .

All right .

Let's , let's give them rough nose shapes first as well .

So that's the rough nose shape here .

Uh Let's give this guy a point .

Let's give this guy a snout and let's give this girl just a normal girl knows , I think the head here needs more of a nose just to have something different .

So with a big fat nose .

So I'll lighten those so you can see the line work better .

Let's go with this guy first .

Let's give him little gum drop eyes , pointing eyes .

I'm drawing his details , back teeth .

So like I said , the uh the noodle shaped head can really had a bit of a soft look to a character .

So there's that hi there .

Let's do this guy here .

We can , well , let's open the mouth .

Perhaps you love keeping your hand on the , the undo keys .

Oops , turn the snoop .

Let's give this guy really broad eyebrows , broad brow , I should say , OK , give him a bit of a bum .

So there you go .

There's that guy on that angle .

You can see essentially how easily it comes together .

Once you get used to using the construction process , what we're essentially doing is um simplifying something that would be very complicated without doing .

So , um you can quite easily tell the difference between someone who does a lot of drawing professionally and someone who just kind of wings it by looking at their construction lines .

If they have construction lines and if they look like , you know , they're refined and they know what they're doing , then they know what they're doing .

But often people who don't use construction lines , their drawings end up having less form to them , they feel less tangible .

Let's drill this .

Oops , remember that when you draw eyes on a curve up or down , have the , have the eyes follow the curve line .

So you can see here , there's that big curve line there and the eyes actually fold around it , right ?

Same with here .

You know , it's both those eyes on the female and on that male at the bottom , they're quite tilted .

But that's because the construction is tilted as well .

And when I said before about those who use construction lines , their , their drawings end up having a lot more form .

That's exactly why because when you get the basics in and the basics are done well , the final drawing or shape or whatever it is , has depth , has dimension , but you can't really improvise without getting ready to put it in .

I just give her a little thingy .

So there you go .

There are three very short examples and you can see it quite easily how construction influences a character .

Um When people create a character that they want to be memorable or that they want to be able to draw over and over again on different angles , especially in animation .

Knowing the construction inside out is one of the most pivotal parts of that .

I hope that this lesson has been informative for you .

Thanks for joining .

I hope you enjoyed .

This video links are below to download the original files for reference .

Remember if you animate or draw something ?

Cool , be sure to share it on new grounds dot com .

The internet's best source for animations , games , art and music .

Until next time .

See you later .