Make Comics Not Excuses

Welcome back! Today marks my attempt to resurrect my tutorial series. First on the docket is drawing the face at a 3/4 view!

Step 1: Draw the face from the front.

Drawing the face from the front is the begging step to draw the face from the 3/4 view.  So know the placement of the eyes, nose and mouth. Most importantly know where the middle of your face is. This might seem like a small detail that you can skip, but trust me it’s vitally important.

You’ll notice I drew the eyes nose and mouth straight on. That’s simply for your reference. When you draw your face at 3/4 view you will not draw the features yet. You’d simply draw the guidelines that you see on the left.

Step 2: Create a new center line for the face.

In this example we are going to draw our character looking to the left. So we are going to draw a new center line that will represent the new middle of the face as our character looks to  the left.

Step 3: Measure the distance between the old center line and new center line. Add it to the back of the head

Our heads are longer from front to back, than side to side. So as our head looks to the left or the right, we will see more of the back of the head. To determine how much to add we simple measure the distance between the old center of the head and the new. Add that distance to the back of the head.

You’ll notice the back of the head vertically starts at the top of the head and ends about where the nose line is. This will leave room for our neck later. Also note, the former side of the head now has become the jaw of our character.

Step 4: Add the features on the face.

Notice that the guides for the eyes, nose and mouth has not changed.  They will still be placed on the same lines. I personally like starting with the the nose. I do this because, as a general rule, the inside corner of the eyes are in line with the nostrils. So If I know where the nostrils are, I know where my eyes should be.

Everything’s coming together now. But despite having features my face still looks off….

Step 5: Draw the eye sockets, cheeks, and chin. (and the ears I guess.)

First the ear. Make sure that it sits behind the jaw, but not on the back of the head. Also make sure you place the ear between the eye and nose guideline. You don’t want it too high or too low on the head.

Next, we have to give our face the shape of the face which means the eye socket, cheeks and chin. Remember that our eyes sit, not on the surface of the face, but in a literal hole in our skull. Also known as the eye socket. So make sure you draw that. A trick that helps me is drawing an indentation that, at it’s deepest point, is on the eye guideline you’ve drawn previously.

When you’ve drawn the eye socket you’ll naturally be in the middle of drawing the cheeks of the face. They come in many shapes and sizes, but they all end about where the nose line is.

Finally the chin. Despite what most anime would have you think, your chin is not underneath your head, but it sticks out forward from your face. so give it a little curve outward to show this.

Finally Finally is the neck.  The neck connects underneath the jaw, and right behind the ears.

There you go, you now have a face in 3/4 view! Now It’s important to remember, people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some have tall skinny heads, some have puffy cheeks, some have narrow eyes and broad noses. But no matter how specific details may change, these general guidelines will remain true.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any questions!

And let me know if you have any requests for the next tutorial!

If you’d like to see more of my work you can read my comic Shadows of Oblivion and you can help support me by contributing to my Patreon.

Keep on drawing, and most importantly Make Comics, Not Excuses!