Beginner's Guide to Master Face Drawing | Anime and Manga

1. Class Trailer: Hey, I'm Dido, and this is the beginner's guide to master face drawing on anime style. We'll be learning a lot of very valuable information from the very basic stuff such as how to successfully draw circles and lines, to more advanced techniques such as how to draw the face proportions, structure and shapes. We will see what are the differences between male and female faces. Understand how to draw them without any guidelines. Create your own style, and dive into mastering every diverse faces style. The same principles taught in the class can be used into drawing anything else. Even if you're not a fan of anime, this class will teach you a lot. You don't need to know absolutely anything and even experienced artist will have a great opportunity to improve their fundamental skills. The overall goal of this class is to give you strong tools to initiate you in the world of full traits and head drawing. By the end of the class, you'll be completely capable of drawing your favorite faces from any gender, any reference, or your imagination, with guides, without guides, and with a lot of confidence. Everyone can learn this, so why don't you get your sketchbook, and let's start. 2. Master Circles: Circles are necessary to draw the whole time. They help to simplify, construct and deconstruct a stuff and that allow us to understand and learn to draw quickly. So let's understand how to draw good circles. I recommend taking this class with a video a day if you're a complete beginner. If you already draw but you're still learning the fundamentals, then take two video lessons per day and if you already have experience on drawing, then take it at your own pace. Getting back to the topic, which kind of circle would you like your drawings to have the most? A very loose, fluffy and dirty one, or one that looks as clean as you can possibly make. Of course, on regular conditions, the second choice is what most of us will like, isn't it so? But don't get me wrong, it's not you shouldn't make any circle. I think every artist has it's right to express as he or she wishes. I'm just focusing into the method that I'm teaching, which includes you to work on your confidence and save you a lot of time. We already have our intention clear but how do we actually make it right? Drawing circles as a beginner is not something you can immediately achieve, so here are some exercises I've used myself to master them. The first one is just to draw your circles by using two steady strokes. I'm seeing that learning here with red color one of the strokes so you can better see the difference between each other. You can draw them on any direction, from horizontal to vertical and even diagonal, just fill an entire page of circles and take your time doing it. A great way for you to improve your curvy strokes is to change your hand and pen position from which we usually have as beginners of somehow 45 degrees to 90 degrees or as straight as your pencil can get. Try it yourself and you'll see the improvement. The second way I want to teach you guys includes only one stroke. Use your hand with a straight and steady pen and practice completing yourself a circle. It shouldn't be perfect and that's not what we're aiming for, but yes, it should be as best as you can possibly do. Don't rush over this, allow your hand and mind to think as one, patiently. For the circle to look okay, try to start your stroke with a a line that's leads to be connected and not one that goes to the opposite direction, closing the circle before it even being complete. Practice this a few times and get a page full of all different size circles and you'll totally see that it will help you a lot. An extra quick exercise for you to warm up before the other two ones, includes you to trace some horizontal lines, preferably all of them with difference in spaces between each other and fill it with curved lines. Try to do it with red pen, don't do it too steady or too fast. That will definitely bring you great skill so you can become a master of circles. Again, circles shouldn't be perfect, they should be just as best as you can possibly make them, that will be enough. Use any of these techniques to make your own circles or even to come up with yours if that feels better to you and when every time you're drawing and you feel you would like your circles to get better, just get back to any of these exercises. 3. Improve your Lines: Lines are also a very crucial thing, since right next to the point, they are the simplest expression of a sketch favoring to actually create more complex forms if you know how to draw them well. So how do we actually draw them effectively? For example, which kind of line would you like to be able to do? Fake and chaotic, hazy or wonky or confident and clean? As I explained in circles, there's nothing right or wrong in here if your intention is to use them. But if you use them because you can draw them better, then please keep an eye on this explanation. First, be comfortable with your paper. It's not necessary to hold it to be 90 degrees or straight in front of you. Instead, keep it in angle as you please to make you feel better the drawing lines, which usually tends to be from 15 degrees to 30 degrees. Second thing, start tracing a straight and a steady horizontal lines that will increase its length after each stroke. This kind of exercise helps you to get ready to draw any kind of size when you need. Since they will probably be the first you tried to do consciously, there will be some missteps. So don't freak out, accept them and keep doing them as best as you can. No need to rush. Once you have completed the first set of horizontal lines, go to complete the page with vertical lines. Holding your pencil close to 90 degrees still holds true. It will increase your control over your line work. The third exercise to keep up with is to set two different points on different directions, and trace a steady, straight line to connect them. After that, go again with another line and repeat the process to at least ten times. Vary the direction and length of the lines trying from vertical, horizontal to diagonal at many degrees. Keep repeating it until you have tried whatever combination you came up with. You will soon starts seeing how much control you have gained over your lines. The last advice on lines, the longer your lines and the curvier it will get if you're using your wrists, which is the most problem we think. Instead of using your wrist, take advantage of your full arm. Imagine that from your hand to your elbow, there is a compact tool that you're using to your advantage. Your lines will be much more accurate despite the length. The whole time you'll be facing challenges on drawing lines, get back to any of these exercises and easily improve your skill. Just be mindful about the activity and focus on quality and understanding over quantity, you'll be recharge of experience and actionable knowledge. 4. Understanding the Face: We're finally into the juicy part of the class, drawing the face. To understand how to draw any subject, the best thing to do is to break it down into small pieces. You can give one bit to another until we can actually eat meal. You can't eat all at once. That's why we're going to focus on this class into only drawing the front view of the head, in order to be able to effectively understand such a complex subject, and then be able to rotate the forehead on different views in angles later with other classes. Drawing can be pretty alike to learn how to speak any other language, that's way by extrapolating language exercises, there is a great opportunity into understanding and easily memorizing shapes, structure, and proportions, which are extremely important to effectively draw anything. Let's take a look to the following exercise. When learning the Japanese writing systems, Japanese people their own to understand and memorize each character via a sequence of strokes, which will help them to break down a complex forums into something simpler. For example, the following characters represent how Japan is written by the Japanese and it's read Nihon. Each of these characters has a specific sequence as I'm display. You may think that this can be a bit squared thinking at first, but you'll find how effective it becomes the more you do it. Knowing the previous, let's take a look at how to understand and master the heads from your basic structure, shapes, and proportions. Basically, what you're going to do is to follow me as I draw on the demo by being conscious of the structure that you're watching. Don't rush and pause the video as many times as you need while drawing. We're going to start by drawing a simple circle, then we're going to add a vertical line right in the middle field, followed by a horizontal line, that it's going to divide the circle into four parts. Then we're going to take the previous foreign and trace to diagonal line that will break the circle into a more head like shape. Having completed this, we're halfway to now start actually locating the face features. Writing the horizontal line that divides the circle into two parts, we're going to place the eyebrows. Then we're going to place another line down to this one that will somehow create one fourth part of the space that is remaining of the half of this circle. This line is going to be known as the eye line. Over this line, we're going to look in her eyes. The line should be a reference for dyes to be well-placed. Not necessarily to exactly cross in the middle of the pupil. Please make sure that your eyes are in place right in the middle of this space, that's from the center line that divides they had vertically and the diagonal that chops the circle. Also, make sure that there is a width of another eye in the middle of the two eyes. The distance that is between the eyebrow line and the eye line is going to be key in the understanding of the whole phases proportion. We're going to call it one x. This will help us to calculate the other ones accurately. Now, if we take this distance and we duplicated twice down the circle, you'll find where the nose line is, which indicates where the nose will be located. Right down to the nose, there should be enough distance to the end of the circle to be the same as one x, where we will be placing the mouth. See here how I'm indicating the size of each distance. The chin is going to be located at the same distance that is from the eye line to the nose, which is two x. You're going to use the diagonal lines that are at each side of the structure, and by following the chin lines connected head to the chin, we're almost there. Now the only remaining thing to do is to add the ears, which are usually placed from where diagonal line is to the nose line. A distance of three x. Just follow this simple ear formula as I do in the demo, we'll take a better look at it in the following videos. Make sure again that your chin is actually two x from the mouth. Great. The last step is just to make again the whole process and see the results. Most probably thing is that you can now draw very well proportionate face. Isn't it nice? 5. The Scalp & the Neck: In order to complete our heads structure, we need to understand many of drawing here and hairstyles. Yet I consider there shall be another full class about it. So in this class, we'll only go into focus into understanding the placement of the lines that divide the phase and this cap of the head. That way we can have a basis from where the hair should go there. Also, drawing the neck from the front view, will allow us to start getting familiar race to the head placement connected to body. The closer we get to our final art, the better. I don't think many of you will actually want to draw a single head floating around, even if it's just a portrayed. So let's review the anatomies basic structure of the neck, the shapes and proportions. Start with drawing in a new paper, a simple head being guided by the nodes and drawings you made from the previous part of the class. Make sure you proportions are correct, by using the lines of this structure and checking with the help of the 1x distance. This is the basic structure of the eye that I use. Eyes can be changed to the guy that you like the most, but it may confuse you with proportions. So for now, please understand this basic shapes, so you can follow me as close as possible, to the classic samples. For the ear shape, as I'm doing on the demo draw apart, so you can become the basic shapes of how it is. He will change once we alter the angle,where we're drawing. But right now, visit what you should keep in mind. Now, let's begin with this cup. Trace a line from the middle of the ear, that is his likely inclined towards there. Then trace another diagonal line, that is almost in front of the eyebrows. Finally, a straight line that goes upwards. Try to memorize these kind of s-shape because that's what you will always have as a reference point, to place different hairstyles. To have a better understanding, simply watch yourself in the mirror, and located where there is division is. It helps a lot. So you may be wondering what's there a proportion of the final part of this cup, where both sides meet? Well, it's actually not very settled, but usually goes from two x to two x, and a half. It [inaudible] just pick up the one you like the most. That's it for the basic is carbon structure and shape guys. Let's now cover the network. So place two vertical lines that extend down to the chin, to 1x of distance, from there locate two-x and a half of this to superbly lines are that's an traced to diagonal lines. There indicating the muscles that connect the neck to the back and the chest. I'm going to be showing the neck in the demo with blue. So you can set up our, what's the anatomy and what will actually be shown in the final drawing. You can run this basic forum that indicates the collarbone. Then these two muscles that go right from the middle of the collarbone, to the top sides of the neck. Both known as district of Plato mysteries. You don't actually need to learn the names, is just enough for you to be able to recognize them. It's farmed goes from thin to thick in the middle, and then to a middle thickness compared to the previous ones. This muscle also has another part, which is attached right next to the main muscle and also follows the direction of it. Then there is the trapeziums, which is coming from the back to both sides, to attach the collarbone. To finish this, there's this mobile I'm located right down to the chin, that simulates peripheral tolerance. Must known as the Adam's Apple. I loved his muscular shapes, are very simplified and they may change when understanding the subject is volume. These are just the frontal view forums that we get. Knowing what actually lies under the whole structure, helps us to confidently put the proper forms that a human being displays. Final note in here, is to note that an egg with is related to the pupil. It shouldn't exceed the pupil's end. The trapeziums, which are indicated by the diagonal lines, shouldn't also exceed the length of day year lobes. 6. Master the Face: If we actually want to create enough confidence in us to draw without hesitating, we need to have a very clear intention and a very good understanding of the matter. This only comes when you completely know how to achieve something. To allow ourselves to actually master this topic, there are some things that at first glance doesn't seem to be much important, but are actually must dos. Let's take a look into some important stuff. When drawing the two diagonal lines that breaks down the circle and actually creates a head like form.You should calculate that most of an ear should be fitted in there. Inclination is also very important. As simple as it may seem, if done completely astray, that kind of shape will terribly deform the overall shape of the face. I've talked about the placement of the eyebrow before. But I want to leave no room for doubting this. It should go right in the middle of this space that is from the center line to the diagonal line at the extreme of the face. Moving it further from different point to any side will create an undesired expression. From there you'll be placing the eye line, which should be never confused with the eyebrow line. Most probable thing is that you will get confused about it at first. So don't freak out and just simply correct it. Please remember that the space between the eyebrow line and the eye line creates a 1x, which is crucial for constructing all of the remaining parts of the head and the face. 1x should be one-fourth of the distance that there is from the middle line or eyebrow line to the end of the circle.Now I'm placing the eyes should also follow the same logic as the placement of the eyebrows. The distance of the eyes to the extremes of the face could change depending on the style of the eye and its size. But what must always remain the same is an eye width between both of them. Anime is very recognizable because of the absence of [inaudible]. That's why the nose is usually displayed as something very simple. This is my stroke over here.Helps to nose shells to define nose better. And it can go any side, left or right. Something to quickly note in here is that the nose width doesn't usually go further from what they eye width have. Thus, the mouth doesn't display much detail on their leaves either. It just shows with lines where the division between leaves actually is. Mouth width goes to the maximum the length of the pupil center point.You can override the sizes as you please, as long as you don't make it outside the limit, which will make the mouth look completely out of proportion. On the other hand, when drawing the cheeks that will be connected to the chin, I always consider two general ways to make them that I like you guys to learn too. The first one is by extending these straight diagonal lines, then move one more than the other one towards the chin, leaving a bonny or a strong shape to the jaw and cheeks of the character. Yet the opposite feeling can also be achieved by very soft and rounded cheeks by extending another straight lines but curved ones. The two important things to consider in both cases are first that the extension of the cheeks to the chin starts right at the nose height where the diagonal lines that chopped out initial circle are ending. Second, that the most of this curvature of the neck that extends to the chin usually begins right down on the mouth. Changing the chin's width can also bring more variety to your character. Another very important thing here, the neck can actually make your character look much more older or younger depending on how thick you draw it. The thinner you make it, the younger your character, the wider you make it stronger or older he'll look. To conclude this series of notes, there are few things to always watch out for. One is the distance between the eye line and the nose because it will be the one that defines the length of the head. If you find yourself feeling your drawing to be way longer than expected, get back to right the propulsion of the nose, which is 2x and problem-solved. The other one, the nostrils form which should be slightly curved, reminding of actual nostrils and not just simple lines. The last one is likely division of the mouth that creates more style into it, making it look much more animal like. Okay guys, I know this has been a lot but knowledge without action is a total waste. Please draw a new face different than the notes and drawings you just made. Applying the explained features in the video and Signaling them with names and so many things that you have just learned, just like I'm showing in the demo. Once you're done with that, let's check out the next video. 7. Drawing without Guides: Drawing without guides is one of the ultimate goals of drawing. Which artist wouldn't like to show expertise and be quick when making their creations. But it cannot be effectively learnt without understanding first, the way we draw with guides. It's like when we learn how to drive a bike, most of us had to learn it by doing it first with little side wheels and then by removing them. At this stage of the class, you're fully capable of constructing the head from a front view with guides. It's time for you now to give it a try guideless. Here's a quick three-step process I've made to easily learn how to draw it myself, and also some quick mental notes to make it easier. The first step, draw the semicircle that comes from the top of the guide circle we previously learned. It's very useful to somehow imagine this circle is there, even if not visible. Then, the second step is to add the two diagonal lines that you used to do when chopping the guide circle. Last but not least, the third step is to calculate the distance from the nose to the chin, mentally, which it's proportion is of 3x of distance. This simple three step process, give us the most difficult part of the overall process, the head shape. Now what's left is to start placing the features the face has. Place a very slight vertical line right in the middle of the face and then another horizontal one right in the middle too. I'll make it red just for the sake of explanation. This cross here is for you to start training yourself to see where the features should be located. But you should start to look forward to imagine it instead of drawing it and directly going for the features once you have understood the method. This middle line when drawing the face without guides, it's where the eyes are going to be placed, it's the eye line. Thus, remember it shouldn't be confused with the eyebrow line. Then locate the eyes and the eyebrows, which are going to give you 1x of distance. Then just by replicating 1x every place you know it should be, you can get the nose position and the mouth. See how here I'm checking on its proportions to actually make sure the face is well proportioned. Then just add the ears, the scalp and the neck by remembering the proportions too. If you feel creative enough, add a hairstyle that you'd like to make it more interesting at the moment. Good. Now as an exercise, I'd like you to challenge yourself and draw the face without any guides. Practice it a couple of times before beginning so that you feel more prepared. Erase the strokes if you need but don't do it with guides. At the end, add any kind of hairstyle that you that you find cool for your favorite anime characters to make it more fun. 8. The Female Face: There is some difference between male and female faces, and we should know to draw them both effectively. The structure, it's pretty much the same, but the proportions and shapes usually vary. I'll keep the construction lines for the sake of a better understanding despite having learned how to construct the head without guides. So let's take a look at it. We begin by drawing exactly the same first steps as the male. Start with a circle, the cross lines, the chop out diagonals, and the eyebrow and the eye lines with a distance of 1x between them. Never forget that. Here we start seeing the first differences. As a general rule, girls have usual thinner eyebrows. You can vary it if you want, but it's not the common rule. The eyes are also a bit bigger than the standard male eyes and usually have simplified eyelashes to indicate femininity. The distance between the eye line and the nose holds the same of 2x. However, the nostrils tend to be slightly smaller to indicate also more femininity. The distance from the nose and the mouth gives also to be 1x as the male face, and the mouth shape tends to be a bit slighter to make her features to have more grace, but the distance from the mouth to the chin, it's a bit less than 2x. It's not like a female face couldn't have a proportion of 2x in here, same as the male. On real life, female faces are usually same proportion as male faces. They are just a bit smaller, but same proportioned. The cheeks are rounder and the chin's shape, if made pointier over squared, also it stylizes more the face. So as a way to reinforce a female face, these kind of shapes are a great way to go. For the ears, girls tend to have a bit smaller ones. So the length starts from the eyebrows as well, but ends a little before the nose line. The neck is also thinner than the male neck. The maximum width that I recommend, it's only to what the center of the pupil is, pass that, and she'll lose a lot of her femininity. The strokes that shows the collarbone and the sternocleidomastoids are also very slight. They shouldn't get too muscular, since women are usually more delicate. That's it guys. The skull holds the same as male's one, and the hairstyle is up to you. I'm going to add one of my favorite girly hairstyles just to complete the drawing. If you want to, pick up some hairstyles before getting deeper into learning how to draw hair. Get it from a referent, and make it yours. We'll see that in another video too soon. All right. Up to this point, you should be able to draw great circles, lines, well proportioned face to the neck, proportionate faces without guides, and now almost girl faces. So let's put into practice what we have just learned. Draws the demonstration, a new female face, and once you're done with that, proceed to indicate with another color pen all of the differences you have took on consideration that a female face has when compared to the male face. That's going to reinforce your knowledge and experience and truly make it part of you. 9. Draw All Kind of Proportions: Right now, you should be able to draw pretty decent general male and female from your heads or basic faces. But sure there are many other styles in anime and manga that include many other proportions that you're still unfamiliarized with. Those that are much more externalized from real life. If you're as curious as I am, I am sure that you like to find a way into harder, draw them with all of those different proportions in an easy and effective way. That's why I've made the following simple technique to my understanding, for our proportion characters. I love to transfer this knowledge to you too. So pay attention. The first method goes linked to the general rule that we have learned throughout the whole class and consists of simply making little twigs from it. For example, you can change the position of any feature by simply moving it a bit ahead or a big down from the reference line. But never too much apart. It applies to the eyebrows, the eyes, the nose, the ears, and the chin. See how I can create a perfectly believable character once I've made all of these twigs that are breaking the general rule of a proportion face. The thing here is, that we human beings are not perfectly proportionate always will have around little twig somewhere. But while we all share, is that we all tend to have this proportions and harmony all over our face and body. Having a general rule to understand proportions allow us to synthesize that wide range of variation, making it so much easier for us to draw it accurately and remembering this even helps to come up with more proportions like this method, which helps a lot to always know where to get back to where we need a point of reference to correct ourselves. The second one is to mainly create your own proportions for new characters by considering the first semicircle, the center cross line of the circle and the chop [inaudible] two alleles, the eye-line high as three and marvelous structural parts. Then may hold in a reference distance such as 1X, which usually covers from the eyebrow line to the eye-line to explore and locate the features and the chamber wherever you like to. But making sure that they are all relatable to that first distance of 1X. From there [inaudible] , these new proportions by calculating how much 1X they are. You can clearly identify them and replicate them again on later drawings. You can totally use both methods and they can totally be applicable if you want to draw without guides, your task is just to keep aware of the under structure and by holding it on my playlist features and chain of your face. Just remember that the semicircle of the top of the head, the first half of the diagonal lines the cross lines, and the distance from eyebrows to the eyes which is 1X , should always be the same despite any repulsion variation. 10. Create your style!: [MUSIC] All right guys, we're almost done. Our last topic to cover is how to absorb reference to create your own style. We can really enrich it by feeding ourselves with every feature from the smallest to the biggest from other artists we love. Here's a demonstration on how I do it myself to develop my own style, so it can be of help for you to develop your own. Creating your style will always be a fun quest. I hope you enjoy. Begin by finding out a couple of pictures from an artist you love. Then start paying attention into the specific things you want to learn from it and pick up one to begin with. Here, for example, I start by drawing all of these shapes the eyes of this character has, identifying which strokes are thinner, thicker, and what kind of proportions these features has overall. I'm not completely focused into the relationship of the face's proportion and the features. At this stage, I'm just studying the proportions each feature contains itself. Consequently, I analyze the proportions of the characters by finding a first point of reference, which is 1x. Remember that this distance is usually the same from eyebrow to the eye line and nose to the mouth. Then I just calculate how much of it there is in the face. Seeing that it perfectly matches with the general proportions of a female, 1x and 1/3 for the chin and 2x from the eye line to the nose. Lastly, I apply all of the learned information and venture to draw a face as similar as possible to the reference. Pay now attention to the relationship of the features and its placement over the face shape, and correcting myself all of the mistakes I find until I create the desired result. Great guys, that's it for this class. I hope you found out a lot of new interesting information that could have guided you to be a better artist. Practice and re-watch all of the videos that you feel you need to reinforce. Then when you feel you're ready, complete your class project. Your class project is to draw a couple of male and female faces, hopefully, guidelessly. If you need the guides at first, it's fine. You're still learning. On each of them, provide the proportions and features depending on the features you have observed from your favorite artists and or your imagination, just like we saw in the proportion variations part of the class. You can also find me on my personal art accounts on Instagram and Twitter. I may not be uploading a lot of art right now, but if you liked the class, there might be interesting things and content for you to see in the future. There are a lot of reference pictures that I have gathered for my own studies that may be of help for you to expand your visual library, meet cool new artists, find inspiration, and learn from different tutorials. You can find them all on my Pinterest profile, which you can click the below in the description. Finally, don't forget to leave a review if you found this class useful. To follow me, if you want to stay updated to all of the new classes that will be coming, or to ask me anything if you might need any help. I'm always happy to help. Thank you guys and see you next time. 11. Bonus: Examples: way, Theo.