Drawing Tips | The Story Elves - Help with writing, editing, illustrating and designing your own stories

- Tip -

Seeing eyes, noses and mouths all over again!

Before we get into how to draw a whole face, let me repeat that drawings turn out much better when you make good observations.

Unfortunately, we often draw very simplified parts that aren’t based on good observations, rather than taking the time to learn what each part actually looks like.

The eye on the left might be the eye you have drawn before.  But, look how different it is from the eye on the right.  Which do you think looks more real?

Seeing eyes, noses and mouths all over again! | The Story Elves - Help with writing, editing, illustrating and designing your own stories

A realistic eye has much more going on. It is a sphere set into skin and bone. The lids have thickness and the lashes are usually a mix of shapes.

You will want to rethink your noses, as well.  The cartilage, bone and skin of a nose rarely form a simple knob!

Seeing eyes, noses and mouths all over again! | The Story Elves - Help with writing, editing, illustrating and designing your own stories

Similarly, mouths are lips with form and shape, not just a line to represent happy or sad.

Seeing eyes, noses and mouths all over again! | The Story Elves - Help with writing, editing, illustrating and designing your own stories

Simplifying a face for a cartoon is great.  But the more you know about what is actually there, the better even your cartoons will be!

—By Scoble

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The Story Elves - Help with writing, editing, illustrating and designing your own stories