Character Illustration: Drawing Female Portraits in Procreate

1. Introduction: My name is Gabrielle Becky, and I'm an artist and teacher. I loved drawing and painting the human face. One of my favorite subjects to draw are just simple female characters. Drawing female characters is so much fun. Today in class we'll be focusing on female characters and exploring different angles of the head. I want to share with you ways to approach new angles so that they're less intimidating to draw. Drawing simple front views is always fun. But when we have a good reference, we can feel competent drawing more unique views and when we feel comfortable drawing characters from our views, we can tell more stories in our art. Faces are exciting to draw and a great way to express your creativity. When you join the class, you'll get access to tons of class worksheets and hundreds of reference photos that you can use in your drawings. We'll talk about proportions, line quality, and how to draw each feature of the base step by step. We'll talk tips for drawing hair and how to create a story with the help of expressions and accessories. Then we'll go over how to sketch a character in front view, three quarter view, side view, and more. Through demos, I'll be sharing my experiences and techniques I use in drawing female characters, so that hopefully you can pick up some ideas for yourself and bring them back to your own work. I'm so excited to expand on the subject of character drawing. I hope you'll join me in class. Grab whatever drawing medium you're comfortable with, and let's get started. 2. Class Project: Thank you so much for joining this class. Your class project, is to draw a female character. This can be a character that develops as you sketch along with any of the demos, or it can be an original character you come up with, or just a favorite character we created in our own style. On a computer, on skill-share, you can share your work by going to the projects and resources section. Be sure to check out what everyone else is creating to. Now let's jump into materials. 3. Materials: For this class, I'll be drawing in the Procreate app on the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil.But you can use any drawing or painting medium for your characters.The bare necessities you'll probably already have lying around though, are a pencil, some paper, and an eraser. If you'd like a more specific look at traditional tools, here's what I'd recommend. For drawing paper, I prefer mine to be smooth and bright white. Right now, my favorite to use is the HP premium 32 paper.For pencil drawing, I love to use mechanical pencils because you can have a nice sharp point with just a click. I like draft line brand mechanical pencils and staedtler brand.But really any brand will do.I also love to use pinto lead.The lead is really the important part here.I think this one is nice and smooth and it feels really good on the paper.For light line work, I like to use a draft line, 0.3 millimeters pencil with 3H pinto lead.This pencil works well for light sketching as I plan a drawing. Delicate line work or for loose flyaway hairs and then for darker lines, I like to use the staedtler 0.5 millimeters pencil with 4B pinto lead. This pencil is perfect for darkening up eyeliner and for adding dark accents around the hair and face. I like this draft line, 0.9 millimeters 2B pencil for sketching too. You'll see that I use this pencil a lot in my traditional demo later. Any mechanical pencil really is fine well even a regular pencil. You can get a variety of lines, even from just one pencil, just vary up the pressure you put down to get both light and dark accents. Some additional tools I like to have are erasers. I like to use both a kneaded eraser and a pink pearl regular eraser. I also like to use blending stumps for blending the graphite. If you don't have blending stumps though, you can use cotton swabs. I love to use a white gel pen for the tiny little highlights in the eyes and sometimes on the tip of the nose. If you're interested in working with traditional pencil tools like this, you may want to take my class design a female character, sketching portraits with pencils first. As that will cover the basics of sketching characters with these traditional tools. I just wanted to give you a basic rundown on pencil tools I like in case that's what you have on hand or if you're interested in buying those. Like I said though, I'll be using procreate and the iPad Pro and Apple pencil for my demos in this class. Right now,I use a 12.9 Generation one iPad Pro for most of my work. For me, I really like this large-sized best. But I also have a 10.5 Generation 2 iPad Pro that I enjoy using and I use it for several screen cast demos you'll see in this class later. Since I get this question pretty often, I like two brands of screen protectors. On my 12.9, I have a spar and glass screen protector, and I love the smoothness of it. I'm in the minority of people who prefer the Apple pencil to glide over the screen.This one is super smooth so if you like that feeling to, I'd recommend that one. On my 10.5 I recently put on a paper like screen protector. At first I was bothered by the visual noise it added. But after using it a few times, I found that I really enjoyed the feel of the Apple pencil on the screen protector, it's quite appealing and natural feeling so these are the two brands I'd recommend since I've tried them and like them. I like a screen protector because when I don't have one , I find the Apple pencil seems to catch a little on the screen, but screen protectors will come down to personal preference so experiment if you can. As for brushes, I'll be using two basic brushes and procreate, this will attract our streamline brush for sketching and this cotton balls smudge brush for occasional blending with smudge tool. If you'd like to download these and use them yourself, I'll have them available for you on a computer in the projects and resources section. I'll also have links to where you can find all these materials mentioned online if you wish to purchase them. Again, use whatever medium you're comfortable with for this class. Hopefully, some part of the course can still be applied to your unique materials and workflow. 4. Line Quality: So with that willow charcoal streamline brush, I'm going to start off with a little bit of a warm-up inline quality. Warming up is good if you're new to drawing or if you've been drawing for years, but just haven't picked up a pencil in a while. It helps our hand form or gain back some muscle memory and also helps us loosen up a bit. For me, it also helps take some of that pressure off mentally. This is just a warm up, not a pretty picture. So experiment and see what different types of lines you can make. Try applying really light pressure for light lines and lots of pressure for darker lines. Again, light pressure for thin lines and harder pressure for thicker lines. Experiment with sketchy lines versus blended smooth patches. With mechanical pencils, you can angle your pencil to get a nice thick edge on the lead. This can help you make thicker strokes. To do this, just angle your pencil closer to the paper and hold it like this versus the way you'd hold it for detail work. Again, blending stumps will make for awesome blenders and can give you a variety of textures in your work. Play around with light and dark, thin and thick and sketchy and smooth lines. Change up the value and thickness of your lines by changing up the pressure you put down in your pencil, and experiment with tools in your chosen medium to give you different textures. Whatever medium you're working in, go ahead and give yourself some time right now to warm up. 5. Basic Proportions: You may find it helpful to pause the video for a bit and study this diagram of the basic real human head. If you're familiar with my classes, you've seen this breakdown before. If you're new to drawing faces, study in the general proportions of the head is invaluable. It's something you can fall back on if things ever look weird. This is not a cookie cutter by any means, and all faces are different. But the general measurements here and distances I found to be true from face to face. On female characters we can use this as our jumping off point, but we can also invite room for experimentation and deviation from the norm. This will bring style to our characters. Looking at something more stylized now, let's break down the basic proportions of a female character in a straight on view. It's important to note that this will be the general breakdown and a forward facing view where the heads not tilting up or down. As soon as the head tilts up or down, perspective is introduced and this basic breakdown won't be the same, so just keep that in mind. The face without the ears is about a 2-3 ratio in front view. It's about two units wide compared to about three units tall. Now let's break down where the features fall on the face. If you took a measurement from the top of the skull to the bottom of the chin and split that measurement about in half, you get where about the eyes land. The face also breaks down pretty nicely into thirds. From the top of the forehead to the brown line, to the brow line to the root of the nose, to the root of the nose, to the bottom of the chin are all about equal measurements. Looking at the space from the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin. We can also break that down into thirds, and at each third, an important landmark will fall. At the bottom of the first third, you'll get the part of the lips and at the bottom of the second third, you'll get where about the chin pops back out. You'll find that the ears fall somewhere between the brow line and the root of the nose and a straight on view. Sometimes they'll land lower than the brown line depending on the size of the ears. Also again as mentioned, the placement of the ears will appear to change when the character looks up or down. In these situations, you'll want to observe the relationship between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the ears. With the character looking upwards, the ears fall lower in comparison to the bottom of the nose. With the character looking downwards, you'll see the ears are placed higher compared to the bottom of the nose. You'll get used to all this with observation and practice. I've included a class worksheet to really put the ideas into action. This will help a lot and solidifying these ideas. Use the worksheet and rewatch the video as you draw if you want some extra practice. How do we bring uniqueness to our characters? There are so many different looks to characters that you'll see on the Internet. I think you can find your unique character look by experimenting with size, spacing and stylization of the features. Let's start with size. Think exaggeration, maybe you make the eyes bigger, the nose smaller, and their lips bigger than average. Play around on different character sketches to see what you like or take note of what other artists you admire do. Then we can think about spacing. You don't have to stay nailed down to the basic spatial distances from earlier. If you like something pushed a certain way, go ahead and push it there. Consider the placement of the features and how things move up and down. How far do they deviate from the general proportions we just learned. Then also we can consider stylization of the features. The way you uniquely designed shapes, and how you simplify and draw the features of the face. Do you draw eyes with angular lines to create the shapes, or maybe rounded shapes? Our nose is really round or do like to draw them more pointing? This pushes past the eyes, nose, and mouth too. Consider all your face shapes round or angular or your chin's pointy or soft, is the next super slender or more like reality. To discover what you like, you have to grab your pencil though and experiment to figure out your unique love of shapes and how you like to design the features. This will come down to a lot of practicing and playing around. Feel free to copy any of the examples you see in this class so that you can get an idea of what your into. You may also enjoy doing a study like this. Draw the same character a few times, but on each one, experiment with different feature sizing, spacing, and stylization. I want to share though what happens when proportions are unintentionally, wildly off. This can occur if you don't have that base knowledge of general human proportions of the face talked about earlier. Not knowing those basics can lead to unintentional decisions about spacing in particular. Here are some common mistakes I see beginners make. Keep these in the back of your head ,if this is all new to you. The eyes too close together. A good rule of thumb is to imagine the length of one more eye fitting between those two eyes, the philtrum too long. That space between the bottom of the nose and the top of the lips. I see this a lot. What can help is paying attention to that thirds breakdown. The root of the nose to the bottom of the chin, broken into thirds, should land you at the part of the lips when closed and to the bumped out of the chin. I've also seen before is the head shaped getting too wide or too narrow for the face. Keep that front view ratio of about 2-3 in mind. Cutting off the ears, the head straight on view is about two units wide to three units tall. Now let's run through a side profile. Now the ratio of the side profile is more like a square, a 1-1. The measurement from the top of the head to the chin is about the same as from the tip of the nose to the back of the skull. But of course this can vary depending on the head. The eye line will be at about the center of a head with no till. Again the face can be broken down into nearly equal thirds from top of the forehead to brow line, brow line to root of the nose and root of the nose to the bottom of the chin. Again the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin can be broken down into thirds when the mouth is closed. From the root of the nose to the part of the lips, part of lips to the bump out of the chin and bump out of the chin to the bottom of the chin. The ears will land at about the eyebrow line and the root of the nose. But as I mentioned, ears come in lots of sizes, so this can vary, especially on characters. This is a lot to think about if you're new to it. But I think you'll be glad you took the time to study all this. It'll help in all future drawings of faces. If you'd like additional practice, I've included class worksheets for this video so feel free to print them out or use them in procreate. 6. Using References: Using references is an excellent way to get comfortable drawing characters. The problem though is, who do you use as a reference for a cute female character? I found that sometimes photos of real people can work, but what I really like to use are photos of ball-jointed dolls. I bought a doll for this class and took hundreds of photos of her from different angles, so that we can use them as references and guides. She has really cute base features, but as you draw, you can manipulate them to better suit your style if you wish. If I want to draw a character that isn't in a basic front view or a basic three-quarter view, then I'll likely need a reference. I believe there's no shame in that. It's hard to memorize how things look and always draw from your head. You can use the references closely if you want, or just use them as a very general guide for angle. Change eyeball direction, hairstyle, and other details as you see fit. Looking at a reference will just give you a guide for the perspective of the head in space, so you don't have to try and imagine that perspective yourself. That's tough to do. On Skillshare on a computer, you'll be able to access these photo references in the Projects and Resources section. Also feel free to simply take screenshots of this class as I'll be sharing many of the references in the videos. Feel free to use the references provided however you choose. But as a note, if you're drawing from a ball-jointed doll that you found, say on Pinterest, and you're copying it closely, you'll want to ask the doll photographer for their permission before posting your work online or selling your work. If they say no, you should respect their answer. A great way to practice lots of heads from different angles is to make a face chart like this. You're welcome to draw from this one as reference or work directly from one of these face charts. 7. Constructing the Head: Now let's talk about drawing the head. In my previous course, we started right in with eyes. But when drawing the head from more difficult angles, I find it's easier to lean into more construction first. Constructing the head helps us set up a great foundation. The construction of the head consists of a couple of basic components. It's basically a ball with a jaw, a center line down the face, the eye line, the ears and the neck. With these simple lines, you can communicate the gesture of the pose. It'll tell us the direction the head is pointing and capture the action of the head. Let's take a look at a very basic straight on view to start. Grab a pencil and draw along if you'd like. First, draw a ball, or rather a simple circle. Then add on a jaw. It goes slightly inward, turns even more inward, and then connects at the bottom as something between a U-shape and a V-shape. Now I raise the bottom of the ball and place a vertical center line down the middle of the face. Imagine a line going through the center of the forehead, down the center of the nose, and through the center of the lips and chin. This will cut the face in half bilaterally. Then around the middle, draw a horizontal line to represent the eye line. Some artists mark the brow line instead. You'll find what you're comfortable with as you draw more. Then add on the ears, they'll likely start a bit above the eye line and a straight on view. Then add a neck. On female characters, I like to keep them pretty slender like this. Copy this a few times, step-by-step if you need to get the hang of this. We can use these same basic lines to draw up other poses too. Let's see how the head differs in a straight on view from a head tilting downward and one tilting upward. Here we draw the articles and add on the gel shapes. Already you can start to see the differences that begin to happen. In the downward facing head, the angle of the jaw gets a bit steeper. Whereas on the face pointing upwards, the bottom of the jaw line begins to flatten out. Then we can erase the bottom of the ball and add vertical center lines. Now for the eye line we'll start to see some changes again. For the face tilting downward, you'll want to create a downward arching eye line. For the face tilting upward, you'll want to create an upward arching eye line. See how we can already get an idea of how they said they're tilted, even just with these basic lines. On the downward facing head, the ears will land higher up. The ears will end a bit higher compared to the eye line. On the upward facing head, the ears will appear to land lower compared to the eye line. Adding on next we'll see less of it in the downward facing view, and more will be exposed in the upward facing view. Now let's run through these in a three-quarter view. Again, we draw three circles and then add on the jaws, which as you can see, all look slightly different in shape. On the downward tilting head, the jaw seems to be elongated. On the upward tilting head, the jaw appear shortened. Now we can erase the bottom of the circles and add the vertical center lines, which we can see arc now to help show at the turn of the head. Now we add in the horizontal lines which appear to arc now as they rhythmically connect to the eye line to about the upper to mid-ear. We can see the downward tilting heads arc bends downward, while the upward tilting heads eye line appears to arc upwards. Adding on next, we can see less in the downward facing view as the chin and jaw begin to cover up some of the neck. The upward facing view, the neck is extended and more exposed. Now let's take a look at the side profile. I like to construct a head inside profile with a slightly different set of lines and shapes. Let's go through these together. We can still use the ball with the draw idea. Let's start by drawing three circles, then we add on those jaw shapes. You can see how they're more V like in shape. Now we add on these little nose and mouth mountains. We can cut away at this later. I find this to be a helpful basic shape setup for drawing characters in a side view. A ball with a jaw, with a little nose and mouth mound. Now coming off the back of the jaw and a bit up is the ear. Be sure it conforms to the tilt of the head. Finally, from there we can add on the net. Note the differences in the curves of these lines. Let's take a look at some of our references and see how we can think about constructing different poses. Here on this head, the first thing I see is the ball of the head. I try to think through it. Then we can see, here's the jaw. With the ball the head, also consider the puff of the hair. Lots of hair styles will puff up, but you want to think through it with x-ray vision to where the top of the skull would be. Now I am thinking through the center of the face, through the center of the forehead, nose, lips, and chin. You can see the arc to it as arcs slightly left. This helps show the slight turn of the head. Now I think across her eye line to her ear, the arc bends slightly upward to reflect how her head is tilted slightly upwards. This would be a good way to think about this head. Looking at this one now, we see the cameras at a lower view, but she's also tilting upwards a bit. We're viewing a more dramatic three-quarter view. So we draw the circle or the ball of the head. This time it's easier to see where the top of the skull will be, since there's no hair. Then from there we add on the jaw and the upward angle toward the ear. Then I consider the arc of the vertical center line of the face as it goes through the middle of the features, cutting them bilaterally. Then we think through the arc of the eyes to about the middle upper ear. Since we're down lower and she's looking upward, we see the arc flows in that direction. Then we can draw the neck and the shoulders. It's good to get into the habit of drawing necks and shoulders too. Then you won't get stuck drawing floating heads. Looking at one more, here we see the ball with the jaw angling up slightly into the ear. Then a center line to show the direction the heads pointing, and an eye line which arcs downward. The arc of the eye line also shows the slight tilt overhead with the ear we see being closer to the floor. Let's try this freehand now. Doing a couple of trace overs like that, may be helpful to get the hang of the shapes and lines. Then try some free hand. It's okay if we're not perfect. That's what this construction is for, to plan and set the groundwork not to be perfect the first time. Continue to work it out. You can see I'm a bit more sketchy as I try and find my way. It's all about making sense of it in your brain. Not about drawing a pretty picture just yet. This is why I find sketching digitally helps, or sketching on a piece of paper first and then tracing my sketch over cleanly later once I've thought through some of this difficult construction. Now looking at this sketch, I see I got the basics, but I didn't push the tilt forward far enough. I lower the opacity of my layer, add another layer on top, and give it another go. I could still even push the tilt forward of the head more. I think this one captures the gesture better than the one before. Now looking at this one, I draw the ball, the jaw, and add-on that ear. Then I correct the shape of the head to better find that tilt. The center line down the face and the arc across the eye line help me point the head in the right direction. Again, I lower the opacity of the layer at a second and try to improve the construction. Stay in the construction phase as long as you want until you're happy with the action of the head. In my demos, you'll see how I experiment with this more. Like I said, this doesn't have to be some clear perfect thing. The lines are just meant to help you and some will eventually be erased. Take some time now to copy some of these heads. Even just copying alone will help you understand it better. Replay and pause the video if you'd like to work step-by-step. I think you'll find learning to draw some of these views will open up lots of opportunities for you and your character work. Be sure to grab the class worksheets for some extra guidance and practice. 8. Drawing Eyes: You can communicate a lot with eyes and eyebrows. The eyes are often what draw people into a portrait so we have to get good at drawing them. If you've seen my previous course, this beginning portion will be a review. But eyes come in all sorts of shapes and can be drawn in a variety of ways. Eyes can be angular or very soft and round. Eyes can be tiny compared to the rest of the features, or large compared to the rest of the features. Eyes can slant downwards or upwards. Eyes can be further apart from the standard distance or a bit closer together and any combination in-between. The more you draw and appreciate art, the more you'll discover the look you like and gravitate towards. But we also get different shapes depending on the angle we're viewing the eyes from. In front view, the eye is like a pumpkin seed but as the head and eyes turn to the side, the shape changes with the new perspective, becoming triangular in shape in side view. These shapes are really good to practice over and over again just by themselves. Let's draw over some of our references to get a closer look. When I'm loosely sketching, the first thing I'll put down for placement of the eyes are oval shapes. This helps me just get them up on the paper then I'd come back in and refine, making them more like pumpkin seed shapes. Now in a more three-quarter view, it helps me to consider the eye and angles. This angle here, this one here, and then the bottom lid, which you can angle off or join together. Over here on the far right, the shape is almost like a fat almond, rounder along the outer edge and pointier at the inner corner. Now with this head, she's turned even more. The closer eye can be drawn with angles and then the farther eye begins to look like a rounded triangle. In a side view, we get a triangular shape, almost like a pizza slice then there's a rhythmic connection here that happens to the eyebrow. You may want to trace over some of these doll eye references to get the hang of how the different shapes look depending on the view, then practice them freehand after. What helps me is to think, is it more rounded here or more angular? Now I'm going to demonstrate how I personally like to draw eyes in front view. If you'd like, watch this, and then we'll go through it again breaking down the process step-by-step. To start, the first thing I like to do is place the basic shapes. I like to draw two basic oval shapes then from there I add two triangular shapes coming off the edges of the ovals, and I color them in. Next, I added the eyelid creases then I go in adding the circular iris shapes. I work side to side the whole time while drawing, working on one side and then the other. This helps me with symmetry. Now I put in the basic shapes of the eyebrows, arching them upwards and then back down at the tip then once I like the shape, I add some stray hairs, considering the direction the hair grows. I continue to tweak the brows to get them more symmetrical. Now I add a new layer, bring the opacity of my brush down a bit, and add a cast shadow below the upper lid falling onto the eyeball. This will help add a little dimension to the drawing and I'll push the eyeball into place under the hood of the upper lids. I lower the opacity of the entire layer even a bit more to get a more subtle cast shadow. Now I add another layer and color in the irises. I will note that all of this can be done on one layer. I just used a couple of different layers so I could change the opacity of things if I wanted to but if I'm just doing quick sketches, often they'll be a bit messier and on one layer. Now I add in some eye shadow. This can be an optional part but I think sometimes it works to add some nice dimension to the eyes. I add a bit of shading on the bottom lid as well to make the bottom lid a bit more smoky. Now that I'm happy enough with this, I pinch and merge these layers together. Now erasing out the bottom inner corner. I like this look because it's like the bright white eye shadow you often see girls put there. In general, the area here is a bit lighter. I continue to try and find symmetry. It's one of those things you have to keep an eye out for and always try to hold on to because sometimes the symmetry can get away from you. Now I'm just darkening up her eyeliner and refining the shape. I think we're ready for lashes. Some tips I want to mention about eyelashes. The lashes spray out as you move around the roundness of the eye, and even just two or three on top will work. You don't need a ton of them. I find that nothing can work on the bottom or you can add a few on each side. But of course experiment. Basically drawing clumps of lashes and together they form these triangular shapes. Now I add a new layer and add in the pupil shape. I like to connect that shape to the darkness of the cast shadow so that it doesn't look like she's hypnotized. Now I add a new layer and darken the irises again a little. I darken some of the other areas as well to try and make the iris match up a bit better. Now I play around with the opacity of the marks I made. I'm happy enough with this so I merge the layers together. Now am darkening the pupils a bit more. Again, just searching for symmetry, tweaking things here and there, as I see fit. Looking back and forth between the eyes can help you see where you might need to change something, as well as stepping back from your work. Using the smudge tool, I decide I want to make this a little less defined and outlined up here. So I blend a bit with the smudge tool to soften it all up. Now feeling more confident in the look of these eyes, I'm ready to add final details. So I grab my eraser brush and add two simple dark highlights. I like to do simple highlights usually. The dot usually hangs off center of the pupil and into the iris. This would be the lighting, if the character will lit from the right side, from above. Finishing this up, I just tweak the shape of the browser a little more. Now let's go over these front view eyes step by step. If you've never drawn eyes before, draw along and pause the video when you need to. First, I like to draw two oval shapes. I like to slant them slightly upwards, and I have over the space of another oval in-between. Once we get the eyes drawn, it'll look more like an eye length in between. But on characters, I sometimes like to push the spacing a bit further apart than realistic human proportions. Next I add on two triangular shapes to the ends. This will be the cat-like eyeliner I like to draw on my characters. As you work and explore your style, I'm sure you'll find variations to this thing. Now I color that end, darkening the top two to define the upper eyeline. Now I add the hint of eyelid creases. They mimic the curves of the upper eye lines. Now I add in the circular shaped irises. With irises, their placement can make a huge difference in expression. Usually in a neutral pose like this, the irises will be partially covered by the upper lid and almost touching or grazing the bottom lid. If you draw a perfect circle, and expose the top of the circle, your character will instantly look shocked in their expression. So keep this in mind. For a neutral look, keep the top of the circle of the iris partially covered by that upper lid. I'd also like to note, eye direction can help tell a story and add to the composition. When you get into your pieces, you can also try the eyes looking left or right instead of straight on at the viewer. Also, you can change the size of the irises to fit your character. Try making the irises larger and the pupils larger too, for a really cute look. Now, add on some brows. The brows shape, arcs upward and then back downward. Do your best to capture the very basic shape. Once you have the shape down, then you can think about adding a couple individual hairs. Simple is sometimes what I find works best for this sort of sketch. With too many hairs, the brows can look too busy. Now I add a soft cast shadow under the upper lid. This will help that upper lid look like it's casting a shadow onto the eyeball. I find making my brush a bit bigger helps with this. Add soft eye shadow, if that's the look you're going for. I like to add a little along the lower lid as well to soften it up. If you like the look, erase out and lighten up the bottom inner corners of the eyes. Next, add a few eyelashes. Think about the stroke of the line. The lashes will be thicker at the roots and thinner at the tips. So think about that line quality as you draw. Like I said, a few can go a long way, but absolutely experiment with this and try as many lashes as you want. This can be a place to have a lot of fun. Now add in the pupils. I make sure mine are partially covered by that upper lid. This helps keep the character from looking shocked. Of course, remember though, if you ever want to draw a shocked character, expose the top of the pupils and irises. Now add in the eye highlights. Keep them simple like this or have some fun with them. Now let's draw a couple more pairs of eyes together from different views. For these slightly three-quarter eyes, we can start with the more angular eye closer to us, and the more round, almond-shaped eye further away. Next, add on the triangular shaped eyeliner, and color the shapes end. Next add the upper eyelid creases that flow in line with the upper eye line, and then add the basic circular iris shapes. Now we can add in eyebrows. The further brow was a bit rounder and the brow closure to us a bit more angular. Now I add in the cast shadows, and then I put in a tone for the irises, the eye shadow, and I soften the lower lid as well. This helps give the eyes a little more depth. Now I add in some lashes. You'll see how the lashes can form to the curve of the lids. Now add in the dark pupils in the highlights and tweak and refine until you're finished. Here I added some dark accents to make the eyes have more contrast. Now onto another three-quarter view where the heads turned even more away. Let's start again with the shapes of the eyes. Then draw the triangular eyeliner, color it in, add the creases, and the irises and brows, add the cast shadow, and add a tone on the irises, eye shadow and lower lash line. Next add on some lashes remembering that several lashes can clump together to form simple triangular shapes. Then add on the pupils. Take some time to get their placement and make sure the eyes are looking in the same direction. Then finally add highlights and tweak until you're happy with the look of the eyes. Finally, let's look at the side view. Start with this rounded triangular shape, almost like a piece of pizza. Then add on the slight S-curve that'll become the bottom of the forehead as it connects to the sweep of the nose. Note the distance between these two shapes. Next, add an eyelash shape. The shape is thick at the belly and then thinner at the tip. Next add on the crease of the upper eyelid, and add in that iris shape, which as you can see now is more oval in shape than circular. Now draw the shape of the brow, add a cast shadow under the upper lid, and add a tone to the iris and around the eyelids. Now add in a few more lashes. You may even be able to see one on the opposite side and add a highlight and finishing details. Feel free to use any of these eyes as references. I want to encourage you to draw from the door references as well and to experiment with all variations you can get with eyes. Have fun with size, shape, and different ways of representing them. You won't know all the options available to you until you experiment a bit. Also play around with different brows shapes. Make some thick and others thin. Make some arched high and others flatter and softer. It's all about experimentation to see what you like best. I have worksheets if you'd like to practice these ideas more. Also, if you're interested in learning techniques for pencil tools, be sure to check out my previous class, Design a Female Character, Sketching Portraits with Pencils. 9. Drawing Noses: Now let's talk about noses. There's so much variety when it comes to noses. So feel free to branch out from what I teach here and experiment with shape. But in this video, I'm going to teach you how I like to draw a cute little nose. In front view. I like to simplify the nose down into a squished oval on top of an upside-down triangle. So slightly above where the nostrils are here, I imagine is the top of the triangular shape. This simple shape has served me well in drawing noses. Then the oval can go right on top where the ball of the nose is. Then you can connect the shapes with the wings of the nostrils. This shape will often fall into shadow, making it a value, darker helps show the plane change that'll happen there on the nose. Then we can add in dark accent shapes of the nostrils, which are comma-shaped. So now I'm going to demo my process for drawing a nose free hand. Then we'll go through the process again step-by-step. So first, we start with that simple triangular shape. Note the angles of it. It's not a triangle where all the sides are equal. You'll notice that this side is longer than the other two. It's like a squished triangle. Now, I grab the Smart tool and I just blend the area and wrap towards the ball of the nose as I ago. Then I add in those comma-shaped nostrils, and the wings of the nose which are shaped like parentheses. Now, I lightly draw the oval shape to show the ball of the nose, and I smudge it out to make it more subtle. Now I'm using my Eraser tool to clean up a couple edges. I darken the nostrils just a bit more. So let's run through the basic steps together on this nose. Start first with that upside down squished triangle shape and color it in. Next, smudge with the cotton ball Smudge brush and Smudge tool wrapping towards the ball of the nose and bringing some of that tone up. Now, add the two comma-shaped nostrils. Don't go too dark here or the nostrils will appear flared. Then add the parentheses-shaped wings of the nose. Use a lighter touch so they don't become too outlining. Now if you want, add light indication of the shape of the oval, which will help show the cute ball of the nose. Then also if you'd like, erase out a highlight on the ball the nose. Often the nose has some oil on it, so sometimes it can catch a little highlight. This is the basic process I tend to use, but as we explore different angles, the starting shapes are different. Lets take a look at this three-quarter view. So we'll still get that triangular shape at the bottom only now it's a bit rounder. Then I add the ball of the nose and color that in. This is how I would start a nose in three-quarter view. Then I'd go in and add the nostril and the wing of the nose. So in three-quarter view, we draw a triangle, but observe the differences in the lengths of the sides. Again, I use the Smudge tool and draw the smudge up towards the ball of the nose. Then I add a comma-shaped nostril and refine the bottom of the ball, and add a parentheses-shaped mark, that's the wing of the nose. On three-quarter view noses, sometimes I like to also add a couple marks to the top of the ball. This can sometimes help to further show the roundness, although sometimes I'll leave it out if it becomes too many marks. So look to simplify into triangles if you can. I found this is a nice way to simplify noses for characters. It doesn't have to be some complex thing where all the details are included. In fact, in this type of simple character sketch, I think the more basic you can be, the better. The triangle is useful in most all nose poses, until the head tilts upwards. Then I find it's more like a trapezoid. See the trapezoid shape here? Looking at this view a bit closer, we see the trapezoid shape, but the top actually is rounded and the bottom has a slight arc too. Then you can hint at the balls of nose. For the nostrils I like to draw them darker at the top and then gradually fade off. Then you can define the wings of the nose as well and erase your helper lines. Then you can lightly draw this part in word. This view of the nose has always reminded me of Darth Vader's head for some reason. Now, let's take a look at drawing the nose in side view. Draw the bottom of the nose, which in this view is similar to a triangle with some slight curves in there. Then color it in. This is that under plane of the nose. Now begin to add the curve of the nose as the tip begins to point up. Then add another sweeping curve like this. This will vary a lot from nose to nose, and it's difficult to find the exact curve you like sometimes. So always be patient with yourself, and try again if you don't like what you get the first time. Now I softly smudge the bottom triangle shape to soften it up. I add a backward C swooping shape. This represents the shape between the bottom of the nose and the top of the lip called the philtrum. Next, I add the nostril. I find the middle of it lands at about the philtrum if we were to draw a line straight up from it. Then I add the wing of the nose, which is still a light parentheses shape. Here's our finished side view, composed of simple shapes and lines. So get to practicing some of these basic nose shapes and how they are different depending on the view. Grab the class worksheets for a little extra practice. 10. Drawing Mouths: Now, let's take a look at the mouth. There are all sorts of little expressions you can get with lips. They may look complex, but the foundational shapes are the same. One way to think about lips is to think about two trapezoids stacked on top of each other, with the wider edges touching. Usually, the bottom trapezoid will be larger compared to the top, but they can sometimes be closer to equal, or even the top could be larger, depending on the lips. Let's look at the mouth from different perspectives. Here, I'm looking at those shapes, turning curves into straights, and I'm also leaving out the break between the trapezoids. You could also think about the shape as something like a hexagon too. Thinking about this basic shape first can help you place the lips on your character. Often we get caught up in detail too soon. If we put in all the details first, only then to discover we have the lips in the wrong place, then it's mentally hard to have the drive to correct it, so think in simple shapes first, then add on details once placement is established. We can see the shape turning in perspective. When we start getting into side view, the shapes change. Now, it reminds me more of an angular heart shape. Then on the extreme side profile, it may be easier to think in terms of curves, so go ahead and become familiar with this basic angular shape of the lips. Once you get the hang of that, you can also consider the lips like this. Draw two dark, small ovals to represent the corners of the mouth. Then, draw a longer squished oval for the part of the lips, if there is one, then draw the angular top and draw a rounder bottom. This can be the next step to making them look more like lips. Let's draw some lips together. First, I'll demo live, and then we'll go through a few examples, step-by-step. You can think of in terms of trapezoids or a hexagon. But for this example, let's walk through another way of thinking. Let's consider the lips as two solved half ovals, just so you can see all the ways you can approach this. We don't have to stick to one strict formula. To start these lips, I draw two squished ovals to represent the dark corners of the mouth, then I draw basically a little line or a dash in between to be the part of the lips. This helps to subtly show the separation. Now, I go in and color in a half oval shape like this and at the bottom, I start with the shadow shape under the bottom lip and then go into another mound. You can leave this lip lighter in value. In most lighting scenarios, this bottom lip will receive more light. Now, taking the smudge tool and the cotton ball smudge brush, I blend them out. Then, with the willow charcoal streamline brush, I go in and refine, adding a bit more clarity to the top lip and filling it in with a darker value. Now, I go back and redefine the part of the lips and below the lips where the lips would cast a shadow on the skin. Then, with an eraser, you can also add a little highlight on the bottom lip if you want. I add a little dip here at the cupid's bow. Let's draw a couple lips together and experiment with the process of how we go about it. Starting with these, let's draw two dark oval shapes for the corners of the mouth, then let's add a little dash in between. Now, let's add a value for the top mound, add this shape for the shadow shape under the bottom lip, and then add the bottom mound. Now use the cotton ball smudge brush in the smudge tool to lightly smooth the two, then go ahead and soften up the corners and bottom shadow as well. Now lightly redefine the top lip, many lips will dip in a bit here at the cupid's bow. Add a tone to darken up the top lip. I do this because in most lighting scenarios, unless the subject is lit from below, this top lip will be darker in value. Now, redefine the dark accents a little more and add a little highlight on the lower lip if you wish. If you'd like to make thinner lips, simply make your shaped smaller. Here I start with two tiny dark ovals for the corners, and this time I make one slightly higher because I want the lips to pool in a soft smile. Since it will be a smile, I connect them with a full line this time. Then, I add a thin mound to the top, the bottom outline of the bottom lip, and color it in, and now we have a little smile. There are even still more ways to approach drawing mouths. You can even start with a soft blob of tone. Draw out a large oval shape lightly or use the cotton ball smudge tool to blend and soften it. Add on the dark ovals at the corners, connect them with a shape in the middle, define the edges of the top and bottom a bit better and use the eraser tool if you need to, too.Then darken the top lip and the bottom of the bottom lip, and add a couple highlights. You can use real-life references as general guides for drawing lips, if you want some ideas on shapes. Moving into some different angles here, I begin by drawing two dark oval shapes. I tilt them upward slightly because I want this to be a slight smile. Then I connect them with a mound at the top. It sways left since the mouth is in three-quarter view. Now I add a soft round line at the bottom, remember you don't have to connect it to the dots. When we add a tone, it'll do it itself. Now I add a clean value for the top lip and add a value to the bottom lip, as well. Then I smudge with the cotton ball smudge brush, make the top lip darker, and add some shading to the bottom of the bottom lip, I smudge with the cotton ball smudge brush, define a couple of edges, and add a highlight. Inside view, the approach is different. Now we'll deal a bit more with lines than shapes. Start by drawing this little hook-like line, and then another C curve which falls under and pushes inward. Then draw a sort of S curve for the chin. Now, draw a line slightly downward from the first two lines and end it with a dark little oval, which will be the corner of the mouth. Hint at the edge of the top lip with a light line, and the bottom lip as well. Then color in both the top and bottom lips. Soften the strokes and add a little bit of a dark accent where the top and bottom lips touch. Drawing lips in side view is tough, so don't be discouraged if you don't get it on the first try. With lots of practice, your hand will start to memorize how it feels to draw lips in the side view, so keep trying. With lips, you can also experiment with slight openings and more variations. It would be impossible for me to cover every type of lip variation, but as you can see most things come down to simple shapes, and lips are no different. Look at references of lips you like, and analyze them to discover what are the simple, basic shapes that make up these lips. Start there, and then work your way into it. Simplify into straights and curves and you'll be able to figure out any pair of lips. Let's run through one more simple three-quarters smile together. Start with this simple shape. It's straight on the one side, then tapers, and comes together on the other. Then draw two lines coming off like this and end each with a dark oval. Add this shape for the top lip and shade it in, and add this shape for the bottom lip and color it in. Smudge and blend the tones, or add back some of that sketchiness if you like the look. Of course, I have some worksheets if you'd like to print them out and use them. But experiment. The variety you can get with lips is endless, so practice and have fun with them. 11. Drawing Ears: Usually I find that ears are covered up in my pieces by hair. But here are a few tips for when they do make an appearance in your art. Remembering back to their placement again, in a straight on view, the land somewhere between the brow line and the root of the nose. Here on her though, the top of her ears land on the same horizontal as that space between the eye and the brows. Look out for variations. Sometimes the ears are bigger and sometimes they're smaller. When the head tilt upwards, we can see the ears from this, from few appear to move down. Of course they don't really, it's just the results of the new perspective. Now the relationship from the bottom of the ear to the bottom of the nose is an arc versus a straight horizontal. When the character looks down, we see the ears appear to go up. Keeping the relationship between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the ears in mind can help and placing them and of course, having a reference always helps. Now let's take a look at the shape of the ear. I like to keep ears very simple. If I just want to quickly mark out the placement of an ear, I'll often do it with a simple shape like this, a simple C curve. If you'd like a little more detailed though and sometimes I do depending on the drawing, then we can look at angles. The ear has an angle here that goes upwards, another that goes downwards here, and one that goes inward here and then you can add a curve for the Lob. Another line you may want to capture is this one here along the helix. This one here at the edge of the anti helix going into the contract. Then you can also erase this line and define this part of the ear a little more to. Just a couple of simple lines. I find usually does the trick. Again in front view you can keep the lines simple. The ears are rarely the star of the show, so I like to indicate them simply. Let's draw some basic front view ears together. First, start with a basic C-curve. Then lower the opacity and use this as a guide to place your angles. Add the first angle as it goes off from the head, and then add the second line as it turns downward. Now add this line, that angles more sharply inward and this one which connects again to the head. Now add a hook C curve to represent the inner edge of the helix and this other line which represents the edge of the anti-helix. Practice drawing ears and you'll discover your unique way of representing them. Grab the class worksheets if you'd like a little extra help. 12. Creating a Story: There are a few things that I think can really tell a story in your piece, and they are the character's expression, the hairstyle you choose, and the accessories you include. Let's start first by talking about expression. You can get so much expression in just the shape and direction of the eyebrows and corners of the mouth alone. Just the slightest change can make a huge difference. We talked about this in my previous course too. But let's take a look at some of these expressions again. Here, we have a simple representation of eyes and a nose. Let's play around with some arrows as we represent the brows and the mouth. Here the expression is instant and obvious, this is an unhappy, angry face, and it was achieved simply by slanting the brow shape sharply downward and arching the corners of the mouth downward too. Now with softer curving eyebrows and an upward curving mouth, the expression is immediately sweeter and more content, just by changing up the arc and direction of those arrows. Now with slightly U-shaped brows that point upward and a mouth that points downward, the character looks more worried or sad, and with mismatched arrows for the brows and a tilted shape for the smile. Right away, the character looks more mischievous. Now here with soft brows and a flat arrow for the mouth, we have a very neutral expression. See how expressive you can make your characters just by changing up the eyebrows and mouth. It's a lot of fun to play with expression. This is an excellent way to tell your story and communicate the emotion you want your audience to feel when they look at your character. You don't have to make your character super emotive. Oftentimes for my pieces, I like to use a very neutral expression, but having this in your back pocket is great when you want to use up. I've made a little class worksheet that I'd encourage you to experiment with. The eyes and nose are already drawn, but I want you to experiment and see what happens when you add different angled brows and lips. Keep it simple with arrows or add a bit more detail like this. I've also included this list of expressions that you can print out and reference if ever you need it, so check that out for inspiration as well. Now, let's talk about hairstyle. Hairstyle can say a lot about a person, so it's good to know how to draw lots of different styles. These are from my previous course, but feel free to screenshot and follow along with the steps. Let's share some quick tips now and review a couple of different types of hair. When you're drawing hair think in S-curves and C-curves and this can apply to most all hair types from straight to coiled. On straight hair, the curves will be really subtle and on coiled hair, the curls will be tight and numerous. Think in big shapes versus individual hairs. Don't get caught up drawing flyaway hairs or a bunch of lines piled up on top of each other like a haystack. Instead, look at the shape. Squinting your eyes down at the reference photo will help you see shape instead of details. The goal with character illustration is to simplify. So look at the shape of her hair. See all the S-curves happening in there. Use hair to enhance the composition and draw the viewer's eye around the picture. When I'm drawing flowy hair, I like to think of the hair as arrows, sort of pointing to the focal point and bringing the eye flow back into the picture. Think about hair like rhythm. It's like a visual beat pulling you through the piece. When in doubt, use a reference. So often I go to try to draw on my imagination, and sometimes it works. But when a more complicated hairstyle, take a minute or two to find an image to use as a general guide. Usually the hair will turn out better that way. Now I want to walk through how you could approach drawing a couple of different hairstyles. This isn't the only way to draw them, but maybe this will give you some ideas. For drawing straight hair, you may want to practice drawing these sorts of lines and shapes. Often straight hair will flow and then come together and bunch like over a shoulder or behind an ear. Bangs will make this sort of sweep too. Get the hang of drawing really, really loose S-curves and experiment on line quality too. Try drawing thinner at the ends and thicker at the body of the line. Do this by changing up the pressure you put down on your pencil as you draw the stroke. Now I will draw straight hairstyle. First, I map out the shape of the hairstyle, finding the general edges of the hair. Straight hair may have a bit more curve around the frame of the face but at the outer edge it often goes more vertical. Don't worry if the planning phase is a bit messy. You can always go back and clean it up. To show some dimension, I push these areas around the neck into shadow. Here we have a simple straight hairstyle. Now when you're drawing wavy hair, the S-curves become more apparent. Again, changing up the pressure you put on your pencil can give you a nice variety in your line quality. Press down hard in places for a bold stroke and then lighten up your pressure to smoothly move into a lighter part of the stroke. Practicing these sorts of shapes I found is helpful in drawing wavy hairstyles. First with this hairstyle, I very messily plan out the boundaries of the hair, finding my way. Remember that hair will prove a bit past the shape of the skull. Hair won't cling directly to the skull in this hairstyle. Now, I'm planning out some of my S curves and it's really a mess, but like I said, that's okay. We have to plan it out sometimes. Sometimes you can just nail it cleanly on the first time, but don't beat yourself up if you don't. Now I'm lowering the opacity to get some clear lines on here, again, thinking of S curves. Also make sure there's a variety to your S curves, make some of them bigger and others tighter and smaller. You may also want to flip your canvas in this hairstyle to make sure that the hair is balanced on both sides. Now for curly hair, you want to practice this sort of shape. Tight S curves that continue into another S curve below it. Again change up your pressure to add some dimension. For this hairstyle, I wanted to try a different approach where I erased out the shapes. Get experimental with the way you approach things because you won't know if it works until you try it. I map out the shape with gray paint and then I refine the edge with the eraser. Now again with the eraser, I draw in some of those curly shapes and at the top of her hair I use thinner eraser lines to add that sweep over off her hair. Then I go in with a darker gray and add some shadow shapes to give her hair more dimension. The areas around the face in particular are going a bit darker. Then I also draw some hairs around the outer edge, some shorter for a layered style. You can change up the width of your brush along the side to get some different size strokes, which can help add some nice variety. With a lot of longer hairstyles, I find that the hair puffs out most around here and then tends to taper inward. This is one way you could approach drawing curly hair, but the options are endless so experiment with new techniques as you draw. For coily hair, I like to use a thicker brush and I draw tight spirals. These are the types of shapes you might want to get to know for drawing this type of hair. So first, I draw out the shape of the hairstyle and then because I know I want this to be darker hair, I put a tone over the whole thing. Now I just go in with some of those spirals and it's okay if some of them go outside the boundary of the shape here. Now using the smudge tool and the cotton ball smudge brush, I smooth out the spirals a bit. I think the smudge brush adds a nice bit of texture to the hair. Now I go back in, add in a couple more random accent spirals and then I clean up some of the edges around the hair. It would be impossible to demo every type of hair style out there but I hope this list will be helpful in giving you ideas. There's so many fun hairstyles to play around with so give some of these a go-to. Now let's talk briefly about the third aspect of character drawing, which I think can lead to a more compelling story, accessories. Accessories helps show our viewer what the character story is and what they're all about. What type of person are they? What are they into? There are so many accessories you can add to your characters, from simple things like freckles and earrings, to more unique things like elf ears or tattoos. Here's a list of some accessories that may spark your interest. Have fun adding these to your characters. I think when we combine expression, hairstyle, and accessories, we can tell a great story with our characters and really make our audience feels something, if that's our wish. There's nothing wrong with the goal being to just draw a pretty picture though, I know that's my only goal a lot of the time. But looking at these lists inspires me to branch out and try some new ideas and I hope they'll do the same for you. 13. Notes on Process: Now I want to talk about the uniqueness of your process real quick. Specifically, I want to talk about the tools we use in our processes and also the approaches we use to start character drawings and all of my demos in this particular class, I'll be using Procreate and my iPad Pro as my drawing tool. But I wanted to give some ideas if you'd like to use traditional pencils instead. When I'm drawing characters traditionally from say a simple front view or a three-quarter view. I'll go on with my pencils and tools and complete the whole drawing on that one piece of paper. There's a sketchy charm that using one piece of paper gives a piece and because I have lots of practice with front view angles and three-quarter angles am comfortable doing that. But when I'm drawing characters from more complex angles I often have to do a lot more sketching to figure out how to get the character up on the page. This can often lead to a really messy under sketch since there are lots of experimental lines that have to go down in order for me to find my way. In these cases, the ball withdrawal approach plus cross lines is more than likely how I'll start. But when working with pencil and paper this approach may not come as easily. As I've found that you can only erase so much on a piece of paper before you start to ruin the tooth of the paper. The graphite doesn't lay down as well when the paper's been scrubbed multiple times with an eraser. In some of these more complex angle scenarios, I'll lean into another approach and different tools. For me, a process I enjoy is starting on my iPad, sketching out the character, and procreate and then printing out that sketch and tracing it with pencils to a nice clean piece of paper. This makes it so that I can scribble my way through to the character without the fear of tearing up my paper in the process. But you may say I don't have an iPad or any digital tools. In that case, you could sketch on a piece of paper, and then once you're ready, trace that sketch over to another clean piece of paper using a lightbox or a DIY light table or you may say, I don't care so much about my drawing looking super clean. I want to embrace a bit of sketchiness and use one piece of paper for the entire sketch and that would be a perfectly valid approach as well. What is often use tool? The point is this is your art and you can use whatever approach and tools you wish. There's no right or wrong way. It's just what you prefer and what gives you the look you're going for in the end. Now, a quick note about ways of starting your drawing. For realistic portraits, I always start with the structure of the head and never with the eyes and I encourage you all in my portrait classes to do this too. This is because in a realistic portrait, we're dealing with representing real things, real humans. In portrait paintings of real people, we want to make sure the structure of the head is established and solid before going into smaller features like eyes. But with something more stylized like character illustration, sometimes my approach is a bit more flexible. Sometimes I do start with eyes and I work my way from there. I allow myself to use this approach in this case because I reason a character has a more 2D look. I'm going for an illustrative vibe versus a three-dimensional portrait. I allow my approach to change. I start with the eyes sometimes because sometimes it feels better to start a sketch that way and Sometimes it can even turn out better. I allow myself some freedom in how I approach my starts for characters. Whether I start with the ball, with the jaw or with the eyes. In my past class, because the views were kept quite simple, we started with eyes. But in this class with more advanced angles, I like to start with a ball with the jaw method and cross hairs which we'll see as we get into the demos. But experiment and see what works right for you and what leads you to the results you want. With those couple of notes aside, let's jump into the demos. 14. Demo - Straight On View: Now, I'm going to demo my process for drawing characters. You'll be able to see how I approach different views and how I personally work through problems. I'll be sharing my thoughts as they work through each drawing. Feel free to adjust the speed of the videos to better suit your learning style. Also feel welcome to draw along with me in any of these demos and share your take on them. I think a good place to start would be with a basic front view. Have some references saved to your camera roll on your iPad, so you can easily place them on your canvas as reference. Getting started on this one, I press the wrench icon and insert a photo. Then I grab the face chart from my camera. Then making sure magnetics is on so that it doesn't stretch out the proportions, I zoom into the reference I want to use and place it on the canvas. As you move the picture around, it'll crop off anything that hangs off the canvas. I use the arrow tool to do that. As a note, these days as I'm setting up for drawing like this with my character on one side and my drawing on the other, I'll usually use 5,000 pixel by 3,500 pixel canvas at 300 DPI. Now, I'm going to add a new layer for my sketch to go on. I'm using that willow charcoal streamline brush. So the first thing I want to do is draw the simple ball of the head. I wind up and when I'm ready, I press down. Then I work into the draw shape. I'm trying to place the top of her skull and the bottom of our chin compared to the reference photo. When you make a one-to-one drawing compared to your reference, it makes getting proportions a bit easier. Now, I'm thinking about where the brow line would be, and where the eye sockets would hang off of that. Then I'm just placing some ovals for the eyes. So already you can see how I don't stick to strict formulas all the time. That's just what works for me. Giving myself a little freedom in the way I start. Now, you can see I've placed the nose by drawing an upside-down triangle. This will become the bottom of the nose. Then I place the lips with that hexagon oval shape. Here I'm hinting at the lashes and eyeliner. Now, I'm refining the jaw line and chin a bit more. Now, I'm erasing this line at the bottom of the circle since I don't need it anymore. Now, I add in the neck and shoulders. Now I add on that jugular notch and end at clavicles with simple lines. I add those two little dots on either side of the mouth to get that going. Because they're slightly lifted, it makes it look more like she's smiling a little. Now, I'm adding on the ears, be mindful of their placement in this straight on view. Now, I'm putting in a tone for the irises. I like the idea of her looking off to the side, so I draw them that way. Now, I'm just coloring in the mouth to make it a bit darker. I want to raise the nose hair, so I erase that out and draw it again. So now when I feel good about the placement of the features, I go to my layers and add a new layer to start experimenting with hairstyle. I decide to start with a short hairstyle with banks. At this point, I don't know if this will be the final hairstyle. Right now I'm just experimenting. Sometimes you can add little V's like this to break up the edge of the bottom of the hair. With hair, consider where the root of the hair starts and where gravity is pulling it towards. Think about that when you draw your lines. Filling happy enough with that, I go ahead and merge it down and lower the opacity. I add a new layer so I can start cleaning up the sketch. I start with the eyes going into those oval shapes. I'm just using the same basic process I used an eye drawing video. Now, I'm adding that triangular shapes of the eyeliner and I go ahead and color those in. Now I sketch in some soft arching eyebrows shapes. I think I want this expression to be something between neutral and sweet. Now I move to the nose, adding the start of the nostrils and the upside-down triangle shape. I add two dots at the outer corners of the lips and a little dash in the middle. Now, I'm refining the top lip and the bottom lip, and I color in the top-left to help show it going into shadow. Heading back to the eyes, I add in the irises. I'm bouncing around the features a bit, bringing them all up together. I'd like to do this so that I don't get fixated on one specific detail. Now, I'm defining her jaw and cheeks more. I like the idea of something a bit more angular than round. So I use more angular strokes for her. Now at this point, I decided I'm not liking the look of these bangs. So I go back to my undersketch and erase. Then I plan out something a bit different. This time drawing side swept bangs to see if I like that better. I use really, really lose the C curves to draw the flow of the banks. Here I'm adding in the helix shape of the ears. I decide I want change up this short hairstyle. So going back to the undersketch, I erase the hair. I'm thinking I want to do a side ponytail instead. I draw some loose hair's falling out to frame the face. Then I draw the roundness of the hair around the head, which will conform to the shape of the skull, but still puff out a bit beyond it. Then I use C curves and S curves to put in the sway of the ponytail coming over her shoulder. Now, I'm adding a couple little lashes, and I add in the eyelids as well. Now I'm just darkening and thickening enough that eyeliner a bit. Lowering that top lid over the iris a little, creates a slightly different look. Now, I want to redesign how some of these hairs fall. Now, I decide I want to add some hoop earrings to give her more personality. You can hold up your pencil on the screen for a beat at the end of a stroke, and it will create a quick shape. This is a pretty cool feature to play around with. Now I'm working on that flow of the hair, adding a couple more curves to the ponytail. Now that I'm happy with that I merged the layers together. Now, with just a couple more tweaks, this sketch is finished and it can be kept as a simple sketch, developed further, or even color it later. 15. Demo - Three Quarter View: So here on this three quarter view, I begin by winding up for the ball of the head, and then I press down and draw the circle, with the jaw hanging off of it. I bring that right into the ear. Then I place the neck as well. I place the shoulders. If you observe the negative space around her, it can help you place these things. Now I'm adding in the juggler notch and the rhythmical lines of the clavicles. Now I'm just redrawing this head shape a little. I start to fill out this eye on the left. I'm just trying to get a feel for these eye socket shapes. Now I roughly place the eyes. I place the nose with a little oval this time. Using more pressure on the bottom, than at the top. I roughly place a marker for the brows, and pull back the head shape a bit. I place the lips with the hexagon shape, and I lower the opacity. Then I go in a bit more confidently. Thinking about the shape of the eyes in three quarter view. I continue to mark in the other features with a bit more confidence. I'm just putting down basic shapes for now, to mark their placement, to see if I like the proportional distance between the features before I move on to more detail. I'm not spending too much time on any one feature just yet. Now I'm marking out the shape of the head, and the cheek and the jaw. Now I'm placing those irises. I decide to make her looking at us, instead of away. Now I'm adding a tone for the lips, and a little bit more detail on the ear. Now I add in the head shape, and the neck. Then I add in those clavicles more cleanly. Now I add a new layer, so I can start playing around with the hairstyle. I begin first with things, to see if I like the look. So I'm thinking about how these bends would pull from the root and curve downward. Now I'm trying out a short hairstyle. I don't love it, so I turn that layer off and add a new one to experiment again. Oftentimes I'll rotate through a couple of hairstyles before I find what I like. This time I try a long piece falling down, and I try out the look of a big loop on. I don't think this is going anywhere. So I undo to try again. I really didn't love any of the options I drew, so I delete them all. I head back to the eyes, as I try to decide on the hairstyle. I'm happy with the proportions of her face, so I'm okay now with going into a bit more detail. Now I'm just darkening up the upper eyeliner. Heading back to the hair, I start with the middle part, and I sweep this part to the side. Then I draw her loose hairs falling out, and I decide on two low buttons. Again, look at references, if you want less experimentation and want to just settle in on one thing, or free draw and see what happens. Now I'm refining the jaw shape a bit. I'm adjusting the shape of the head and hair. Now I'm darkening up her irises. I decide to erase the shoulders because I want to lift them up a little. It's always okay to change things up from the reference. I like to draw a V-shaped neckline in this portrait sketch. I find it is a nice way to end the shoulders and chest. Now I'm adjusting the shape of the bonds. Now I add lashes to her, remembering that they will flow around the curve of the lids. You can observe, realize to see how the direction of the lashes change. I'm feeling good about this sketch, so I lower the opacity, and add a new layer to clean her up. Now I zoom in and work on the eyes. I draw the top of the eyes using angular strokes. Now I'm adding the upper lids, and then I add the irises. You can see I'm using a slightly thinner brush size than I did before. My brush size will typically be larger when I play on my sketch, and then get thinner as I become more confident in the piece. Now I'm working on the triangular shape of the nose. Then I add a bit more detail on the lips, basically using the techniques talked about in the drawing mile section earlier. Now I add a cash shadow from the upper lid onto the eyeballs. Now I'm working out the shape of the hair, and face. Just working to make everything I drew earlier a bit more clean. I'm erasing out some of these construction lines from my under sketch that I don't need anymore. Now I'm back to working out the hair. I tried to use long, confident, flowing strokes. The hair is what crop up around this ear. Now I'm redrawing the ear and jaw line. You can see I often draw many lines to express one idea. I find this helps me come up with something more sketchy and free. So instead of drawing one slow line, I draw several quick lines to express my idea, and I think it works better for my style. I add a little choker necklace to give her more personality, sinking around the cylinder of the neck. Now I'm just adding the details back into the ear. Then I experiment with a couple different ways of drawing her hair over here. I have always liked the look of hairs falling out and framing the face. I think it works well compositionally. I also play around with the idea of adding little pums to her hair, but I decided against it. Now I'm adding in the clavicles again, raising them up from where they were before. Then I erase the neckline of the old under sketch, since I don't need it anymore. Now I'm redrawing the clavicles because I think these lines get a little to thin here. I merge the layer since I'm happy with them, then I add a new layer. I'm now adding on some longer lashes. You can add a couple of really light lines, like this over the nose, to help show the round this a bit. Now I decide to try out a different neckline top design. Adding two dark straps into V-shaped neckline. I darken her irises as well. So I think the t-shirt is a little too dark. So I take the selection tool, click free hand at the bottom, and select the shirt. Then I swipe down on the screen with three fingers to bring up this menu, and I press cut and paste. Now the shirt is on its own layer again. I lower down the opacity a bit. For now, here is the finished sketch. 16. Demo - Three Quarter View 2: Now I have another demo to show you. This time a three-quarter view with the slight tilt. Will talk more about tilts later. But for now what this one, I begin by starting with a circle for the head, then I add a jaw onto that and then I work into the shape of the ear, then I add a centerline down the face like this, and a line to help me find the top of the head. Then I add a marker for the nose and I place the eye sockets with a tone. Sometimes it's just easier to think in big shapes versus small lines. I place some thick lashes as well to get those up on the canvas. I think about this curve as it connects from eyebrow to nose. Always be looking for rhythmic connections in your piece. Now I place the irises, and I refine the shape of the head. Then I draw a loose shape for the lips and color them in, and I adjust the length of the chin because I saw it got too long. Now I'm adding in a shape for the hairline and I add in the neck as well. Don't worry if it's not a perfect match to the reference. The fun thing about character drawing is you're not trying to draw from something and have it be 100 percent accurate. Some of the fun is when it deviates from much there. So if you draw something and it's not quite right, but you like it, leave it. You don't have to copy this doll exactly, you can use the references provided in class 1 percent or 100 percent, that's totally up to you. Now I'm just playing around. I wanted to try out a little smirk instead, so I give that a go. Now am lifting up the chain and jaw a little bit, making her a bit more pointed. Now am just continuing to adjust and tweak the shapes and spacing of the facial features until I like them. I'm being experimental as I try out different looks and expressions. Because I left things free and sketchy, I don't have a hard time erasing and trying out new things because I don't have a ton of time invested just yet. Now finally, I think I'm getting there. So I move on to the hair. I decide on flowing long hair for this one. I figure since she's leaning this way, gravity would pull this hair down pretty straight and I add a little cash shadow on the neck where the head would cast a shadow. I do this on a lot of my character drawings because I find the lighting to be clean and simple, but also adding a little depth. I also sometimes add a little loop of shadow to the side of the nose. Now I'm just continuing to work on the hair. I draw some hair is falling over her shoulder while others fall behind her back. I think this adds some fun variety. Sometimes I'll draw hair on a separate layer and sometimes I'll just keep it with the face layer. No light around there. Now I'm trying out a half up, half-down hairstyle, pulling some hairs as if they're going around to the back of her head. I add some loose flowy hairs as well, that's break from the structure of the hairstyle as hair does and now I decide I want to experiment with making her eyes closed, giving her more dreamy look. I erase out what I drew and I add a lash line at the bottom. Now am smerging my lines a bit to smooth out the rough line work. Now I'm just erasing some construction lines and now I'm reshaping the eye and brow, now I'm just cleaning it up a little, I'm using the eraser here and there to tighten up the sketch. Now I add some light lashes going downwards. Now am just tweaking here and there, and now I add a little dangling star earring and I think that adds to the dreamy equality. Now that I feel good about the direction of a sketch, I lower the opacity and then work to clean her up. With the line art I don't just blindly trace, but I try to think about variation of line quality, getting in those thin and thick lines for some nice variety. I also like to make corrections and proving the under sketch as I go. Again, sometimes I'll use several lines for one stroke. I'm just redrawing this hair trying to be loose and flowy. Now I'm adding in some of these darker patches, to help show what falls in the shadow, so under the neck and in this locket of hair. Now I'm cleaning up and redrawing the eyes and brows. The shapes are quite simple for closed eyes. The shapes are similar to open eyes only you don't draw the irises, and the shape is more smoothed out because of the lid. Sometimes you really don't need much to describe a nose, I'm using just a couple lines here to show that this is a nose. I like how her mouth looks sweet here, so I keep the slight smile to keep the dreamy look going. I shade the top lip and that helps it fall in the shadow. I'm going to erase and redraw this earring a little better in a bit. I'm fixing up these hairs now, I don't love the way they're following so I'm going to redraw them, I think this flow is a little bit better. Now I'm drawing a couple more light hairs here, I think it's best to keep those lightened value. Now I'm erasing out a couple lines because it got a little busy over here. Sometimes hair takes a bit of experimentation in reworking until you get what you like. Now I'm working on the star earring, I zoom in to draw it a bit more clearly. Something you might also like experimenting with are simple backgrounds. I found that basic circles and squares do well behind simple characters like this. I add a little mole under her eye to add something unique to her look. Now I darken out the lines around the edges of her hair. Sometimes a couple of hairs sprouting up from the part can work well. I decide this hair doesn't really jive, so I erase it. Now I'm adding a new layer and dragging it below my sketch layer, and I lower the opacity down. If you want, you can add a tone to your character on the skin or hair to show a slight value change. I find keeping this light works best with the simpleness of the sketch. Now that I've added that tone to the skin, I find it looks better if I make the lips darker too, so I do that as well. Now just a couple more tweaks here and there, add in some dark accents. Now I'm just pushing this back in the shadow, and doing the same over here as well. For now, I'm going to call this sketch finished. 17. Demo - Side Profile: When we are drawing side profiles will want to remember that the proportions change a bit. The side profile is more square-like and proportion. The eye line is still about the center of the head and the face can be broken down into thirds. Forehead to brow line, brow line to root out the nose, and root of the nose to the bottom of the chin. From the root of the nose to the bottom of the chin can also be broken down into thirds. At the end of the first third, you'll end at about the part of the lips and at the end of the second, third, you'll end at about where the chin bumps back out. The ears will land somewhere between the brown line in the root of the nose. These proportions are good to keep in mind if things get away from you while drawing. Keep in mind that basic shape breakdown too, think the ball with a jaw and a nose and mouth mound, with the ear and neck attached on. To start with this drawing, I begin with the ball of the head. I'm over it and then I press down when I'm ready in use to the motion. Then I draw the front arch of the face and I go into the jaw connecting it to the ball and I draw the slope of the nose and mouth mound and I place the ear and the general shape of the eye socket. Now, I'm adjusting the placement of the ear, lowering it down a bit. Right now I'm looking back and forth a lot from my reference to my drawing. This will help me spot where things have gone off track. Now I enter the chin and I draw the neck end. Now I'm going in on the eyes a bit more loosely placing a few thick lashes. Then I look at the nose a bit closer. I tried to work quickly. I don't want to go too slow or be too delicate just yet. I keep things as general as my brain works to figure it out. Now I know this isn't perfect, but it's something to start with. I lower the opacity, add a new layer, and work on another take. Using my under sketch in the reference as a guide, I tried to copy her side profile. The forehead to nose is like an S curve, and coming down the profile of the face, we have lots of C curves as things go in now, more tiny C curves and S curves here. Note the inward general slant from nose to chin. This will be important to capture. As I work, I'm looking to improve the sketch and I think the location of the ear can be adjusted so I do that, moving it back a bit. I use long sweeping lines to connect the head to the neck. The doll kind of lacks in the head to neck connection since she's adult. So look at real-life references to get familiar with something more natural again. Now, I'm adding unsolved arching brows and I use a thick brush to add the top lashes. Now I'm just continuing to draw and make changes to the under sketches as I go, improving where I can and adding more information to push the sketch forward. Now, I add in the nostril to start pushing the nose alone and I had some tone to the lips as well so that it can keep pressing forward. It's not perfect, but I know I can add a new layer on top later to refine, now I erase out this construction lines since I no longer needed. I'm just adding the slash on the for eye, I just continuing to clean up and refine now, since the ear will be seen a lot in this view, I decided to add a bit more detail to it by using angles to draw it. Now, I add in the eye rush shape. Looking back and forth between sketch and reference, she needs a lot of work. I lower the opacity and add a new layer to try again. If I liked the photo reference significantly more than my drawing, then I know I haven't captured that special quality that the photo has. So I continue to work on it. I start with this forehead getting around this often, then to the back of the head, and to the jaw line. Now, I try my best to curve out the side profile. Looking at how it swoops in and out. You can change up the line quality on the lips and the nose till. Sometimes it works well to have the downward facing planes a bit thicker in line quality, like under the nose, under the top lip, and under the bottom lip. Now I'm adding that shadow on the neck. Now, I'm adding more details to the eyes and brows. Now, I'm adding a tone to the lips, and I'm adding a little more detail on the nose. Now, I'm jumping around a little, bringing everything together, tweaking here and there and trying things out until it looks like something like better. It's really a lot of experimentation when drawing characters. Now merging these two separate layers together so I can work on one. I'm someone who actually likes to use as few layers as possible. Feel free to use one layer or use a bunch that comes down to your individual workflow and how open-ended you want to keep your drawing. I like the unity of one layer though. Whenever I can, I like to work this way. Now I add some things to start experimenting with hair. They prove out a bit from her forehead. Again, I like to think of solved arcane S curves and C curves. I Like this hairstyle for side profiles. I tried to draw the hair as if it's bunching and flowing over the shoulder. I like how as long hair covers up the hair bit too. I don't like when hairs become too much of a focal point my pieces, but that's just a personal preference. I'm just continuing to play around with the hair design. Now I'm tweaking the nose. I decided this year doesn't really add to the piece so I take it out. I'm experimenting with adding some hair showing on the other side. Having the hair and face on the same layer is also nice because as you draw hairs on top of a face, you can easily erase the face underneath without stopping to change layers. But you have to be pretty committed to your hairstyle for this, were willing to redraw the face if you need to. Now am zooming to add some tweaks to the picture. I'm beginning to like where the sketch is adding. So I could keep it like this or even lower the opacity, add another layer and continue to refine be patient with yourself when it comes to draw side profiles, they're not an easy view to draw. The proportions of side profiles can be difficult to now, but with patients and practice, it will become easier and easier. With a little persistence, I think you'll get something you're happy with so give it a go and keep trying if it gets tough. 18. Demo - Head Tilting Up: On this head tilting upwards, I start with the ball with a jaw. Because she's tilting her head upwards, the eye line will also look upwards. I draw it like that and add a center line down the face. Then I draw the general nose, mouth, and eye socket shapes, just trying to get their placement. A lot of the neck is seen, so I draw that pretty long and indicate the shoulders and neck line as well. Now, I draw the general outline of the hair. I think I want to do a hairstyle similar to the one that's actually in the picture. I use it as a guide to play in the shapes. I add those little dots at the corners of the mouth and the shape below the bottom lip and then make her look a bit friendlier. Then I start mapping out the hair and the floral crown a bit more. Now, I'm bouncing around the features. I add a tone to the irises and lips. This helps me plant those features better. Now, we're finding the shape of the face. I add these two lines down to represent these neck muscles. Now, I'm erasing the bottom of the circle and the center line since they've served their purpose. I feel good about that so I lower the opacity, add a new layer, zoom in, and start refining. I go in with the ovals of the eyes and the trapezoid shape under the nose. Back to the eyes, I add the cat-like eyeliner that I'd like to do. Then I add a tone on the under plate of the nose and I add the dark accents at the corners of the mouth, at the part of the lips, and below the bottom lip, and then I refine the top of the top lip. This can be a great place to experiment and try out some really unique looks. Now, I define the cheeks, jaw line, and chin a bit and add a soft arcane brow. Now, I'm adding some lashes and the irises. This time I'll have her looking off to the side. Just bouncing around from feature to feature now. Now, I start to add the flowers, just representing them as simple spirals. Now, I'm working on coming up with the design for the waves of the hair. It's messy as I plan my idea. I am just considering this nose a bit more now, refining the shape. I'm still just working around the different features, trying to make it something that I like. Now, I lower the opacity and add a new layer ready to refine the sketch again. Sometimes you can refine in two takes, but sometimes it may take more. Take your time and work until you're happy with the result. I'm feeling more confident in the sketch now so I go in with my usual techniques. First is drawing the upper eyeliner. I like to do this nice and dark. Now, I'm drawing a few strokes for the brows. I continue to bounce around the piece, thinking about line quality and developing the character. At this point, you notice it's a lot of the same process as before. Now, working out the flow of the hair, being more deliberate with my stroke's now. Now, I'm drawing on some curly lashes. I add a bit more definition to the top of the lips to make them look more plum. I add a little shadow shape here where the hair might casts a shadow on the face. Then I work on the fluorochrome a bit more. Thinking about line quality as I draw the swirls, I keep some parts that are light and others thick and dark. Heading back to the hair, I add a few more S-curves. Now using a thicker brush, I add cat shadows to the eyes and I add a darker value where the lips meet as well. Now, I add a simple shadow shape under the head. I keep this much more simple and graphic than in the reference. I'm not copying the reference for this, but just using the essence and simplifying. Now, the lower opacity brush, I'm adding to my shadow to her lids. I add a little bit of shadow under her lips as well. Sometimes I put the pupils in all my characters and sometimes I leave them out. In this case, I decided to put them in. Sometimes I'll leave them out because occasionally they won't read well on my characters. Sometimes it can make them look a bit hypnotized, especially if they're drawn really tiny. Keep this in mind in your own work if you noticed the same thing. Now, I'm just continuing to work around the hair. Now with the eraser tool, I erase out some eye highlights. You can really have a lot of fun with eye highlights. Look at real-life references and experiment. You can keep it simple with a little dot or get more creative with it. Now, I'm adding a tone to the lips. I like how it looks like she has lipstick on. I also liked the idea of her teeth showing, so I erase out that very simple shape. I merged on the layers and erase again to show her teeth brighter. Just tweaking the nose now and the hair. Just looking around to see where I need to make corrections. I decided to tighten up her jaw line a little and I like the look of that better. Here, I'm just softening up that cast shadow and now I'm refining the chin. Now, I add in her collarbone and now I go back and refine the hair. Now, I'm adding a couple leaves into the floral crown. Just a couple more pieces of hair here and there and some freckles and this one is finished. 19. Demo - Head Tilting Down: For this one, I start by marking off the top and bottom of the head. I actually draw an egg shape, since that's the shape I'm seeing in the moment. Then I work into the roundness of the ball of the head. Now I'm adding in the hairline and I put down some marks to show how this puffs out. Now I put on the part of the hair and I grab my eraser to erase out the bottom of the circle. Now am going into the flow of the hair, planning out the silhouette. I want to make sure her face doesn't get too wide, so I bring that in some. Now I add in the shape of the eye sockets and I put in where about the nasal land, which will seem a bit lower than usual. Now I add the brows and I mark where the lips might be. I decide I'll make her looking off, so I put in those iris shapes. Now I had a couple of quick lashes and I mark out the corners of the mouth. Now I add an indication of a neck line and I continue to design the hair. Now I lower the opacity, add a new layer, and have another triadit. First I work out the face shape a little better and the hairline and I add a center line to help me with the symmetry. I start with the eyes drawn in angles to create the shapes. Then I indicate the nose with a couple of simple lines for now and I draw the silhouette of lips. Now back to the eyes just adding a couple more details there. Then I head to the brows. Remember with just the slightest arch, it can dramatically change the expression. Keep that in mind if your character is looking angry or sad and you don't want them to. Now I'm just refining the head shape and hair. I'm going draw a similar style to what she has in the reference photo. You can't see them in this pose because they're covered with hair, but remember that the placement of the ears will appear higher in this view where the character is tilted downwards. Just working on that hair, thinking in s-curves. Now I'm adding cast shadows on the eyeballs. I feel good about this, so I'm going to lower the opacity, add a new layer, zoom in and redraw. Remember that there's so much room for experimentation with your characters. Try making the eyes big on one character and more normal-sized on another. Try making a nose tinier or more simple and more normal one another. All of this experimentation will lead you to your style. I would also encourage you to save works that you see that you just love on Instagram or Pinterest or wherever. These can help inspire you and help develop your taste for art. I think style is a combination of all the things we admire and think are beautiful, plus a little something that we uniquely bring to the table. Embrace what you like and your unique style for drawing characters will come. As you can see, the process is the same. Just refining more and more with each new layer. Feel free to keep your drawings really sketchy and use only one layer or continue to refine like this. I like to use both methods in my own work. Now I'm working out this neckline a bit. I like the simple design of a neckline in the reference, so I think I'll go with that to, something squared off. Now just continuing to work on the curves of the hair, I'm using big shapes in combination with smaller shapes to give some variety. I like drawing this hairstyles where pieces wrap around the bowl of the head. This helps show the roundness of it. Now I draw this S curve for a piece falling off. Just adding a little separation of the lips here. I keep this line above the nose as super light if I draw it at all. You'll notice with the nose, I don't draw any lines to indicate the middle bridge of the nose for my style, I find that just don't need it. But experiment to find out what lines you find to be essential and which ones you can leave out. At the root of the hair, I like to put a couple of light thin lines. Look at the direction of the hairs here. They have a little curve to them before they head down. Now I'm adding a couple of triangular shaped lashes. They'll often group into little v shapes. Now I'm experimenting with the idea of adding flowers. Flowers are always a good go-to, but I decide against it for now. Now I'm coloring in the irises with a big brush. I think this gives some nice textural variety and gives the piece more contrast. I darken the top lip too and I add a shadow shape on the chin. Sometimes I'll crisp up the edge to make it a hard-edged cast shadow. Finishing this one up now I just add a couple more hairs. Some of these tinier hair shapes can do well along the edges. To finish her up, I just do a couple of really light flyaway hairs. 20. Demos (Part 1): Now for these next two videos, I want to share more examples with you. These will be screen recorded examples with a little music in the background to fill in for some spots where you already know what I'm doing. I'll pop in to share some tips and talk about my process when I have something to share. Here are the timestamps for these demos, if you'd like to watch specific ones and feel free to adjust the speed to better suit your needs. For this drawing, I wanted to draw a character with a dramatic tilt to her head. What helps me hang on to a tilt is to draw that center line going down the face. I wanted to draw a dreamy, content look, so I gave her a slight smile and had her looking off to the side. I also added a little tone of blush across her cheeks. Freckles too so she would look cute and youthful. Then I added the earrings to encourage the tilt and gravity. And to add a little more character. I added a couple hearts off to the side because I thought it added to the cute look. For this drawing, I started by tracing over the reference to learn about the structure of the pose a little more. Sometimes this can be a helpful exercise to do before a sketch. Then I went in free hand and work to set up the head. With this character, I wanted to try drawing a slight smile. If you ever need to, you can use the selection tool and transform arrow to move things around. Then I experimented with curly hair, but didn't like the look of it. Then I tried out a short slick look. Now I'm redrawing on a new layer, trying to clean it up a bit. Here I experiment with a new hairstyle, a bun with loose hair is coming out. I end up sticking with this hairstyle instead. Now I'm making a little adjustment to the features, using the selection tool to raise the nose and mouth a bit. You can use the selection tool to fix proportions, or you can always redraw. For this sketch, I start with the standard ball with a jaw and cross-hairs. Since it's a three-quarter view that I have more practice with, I experiment with the size and stylization of the facial features more right off the bat. I'm just working out the expression and the features. For this character, I decide to draw long wavy hair. The hair can sometimes pool with gravity on the area around the head and then get wavier as it moves downward, since there's less weight on the curls. Sometimes I'll turn the reference layer off if I want to just focus on the character. Sometimes this can help bring a little individuality to the character. This helps you from feeling like you need to copy the reference. Now I'm cleaning up the sketch on a second layer and drawing things in my stylized way. For this drawing, I start with the bow with the jaw and quickly map out the general placement of the features. I make the shoulders a bit more expressive by giving them a more dramatic tilt. Look at references of models, if you'd like some examples of more expressive poses for shoulders. Usually then you can get something more interesting to look at. I also decided to give her an Afro and star earrings to make her into a more unique character. We can see how different she looks from the reference, the pose and the character don't really match at all. But sometimes a reference just gives you that little bit of confidence. You sometimes need to get started. I'm selecting the hair so I can add a tone without fear of going outside the lines. Then I go in and add some spirals. I use the cotton balls smudge tool to smooth it out a little. I'm selecting the area over scan with the selection tool because I want to color them. Add a new layer and add a tone with a soft brush to darken it up. Then I merged the layers and add another layer on top to refine again. I'm drawing this world of her hair again. Try out different approaches to representing the features. Feel free to experiment. In this drawing, I'm trying to establish the major tilt. Tilt are something that you need to make a conscious effort to hold onto. Because our natural tendency is to want to straighten things out. Using simple lines as markers can help you plan the tilt of the features. Periodically going back to check up on your tilt will help you maintain it. I decided to give this character loose hairs and a soft hair. I make her expression a little tired, looking off to the side. I'm just going back in to clean up this simple sketch. Now, on this drawing, I start by tracing the shapes to get an idea of how to draw it. Then I go and freehand and sketch the ball with the job. Then I had the nose and mouth. I add on the ear, eye socket shaped and the neck. Then I go in and look at those bumps of the nose, mouth and chin. Try not to think of them as a nose, mouth and chin, but think of them as C curves. I erase some guidelines and add the round at the back. I'm lowering the opacity and I decide to stretch out the proportions a little. I don't know why, but I felt all over it got too narrow. One of the joys of digital art is you can make quick and easy adjustments to proportions. This is not as easy with traditional tools, but with each drawing, you'll get better and better at proportions naturally. Just stick it out and actually go through the motions of redrawing whenever you can. It'll train your brain in hand to draw proportions more accurately. Getting in a lot of that traditional practice without shortcuts, I think you'll find will be beneficial to you in the long run. I'm just experimenting with a few different hairstyles and who I find when I like. Eventually I settle in on a long straight hair style. I don't know why, but I like drawing long straight styles in the side view. I think because it's simple and I like the way the hair bunches up easily and flows over the shoulders to show the front. I like to zoom in and zoom out. Zoom in and helps you get in details. Zooming out helps you see when things look off. I like to mix in some really thin lines with thicker lines we have drawing here. Now I'm adding freckles first, sweeter look. I had just the top of the hair. This one's done for now. On this drawing, I start with the ball with a jaw and cross hair. Then I go on with the features. I'm using a slightly thicker brush for this one. Using a thicker brush can help you not be so precious, and not take the drawing so seriously. If you find you're being a little too delicate with your sketch, try starting off with a slightly larger brush. It can help you think more in terms of shape instead of line, which can be a more helpful mentality for some artists. The post isn't exactly the same as the reference, as you can see just by looking at the skin between the tip of her nose and the background. But I'm okay with the change that happened. If you want to get these poses accurately though, that's a great place to look. See how much cheek is seen between the background and the tip of the nose. Is it just a sliver or is it larger? That'll help you be more accurate. I'm using the liquefy tool under adjustments liquefy. I use the push function. I tried not to use liquefy and selection tools too much in this class because you just don't need them. You can always redraw, and it's good to redraw sometimes like I said, in order to train yourself to draw better. But sometimes you can't resist a quick fix like that to alter proportions, and that's okay too. I'm just experimenting with some details. I lower the opacity and redraw. As you can see, this process is about sketching and refining, sketching and refining and repeating until you're happy. I also like a bit of each stage showing through. I'll personally keep a bit of the under sketches showing through since I like to look. 21. Demos (Part 2): Now, I have seven more screencast demos to share with you. Feel free to jump ahead and watch the ones you are interested in. For this one, I start with a ball and go right down with a combined shape of the jaw, nose, and mouth. It's helping me to think about shapes of the darker features as I set this up. You do not always have to sketch with lines. Like here, I'm sketching with shapes. Sometimes lines can lead us to be in to detail too soon. So keep it sketchy and thinking shapes, if you have this tendency to get too tight with details. Once I have the general shapes down, I feel better about going in with lines. Also do not work too slowly and delicately on these drawings, when you are first planning. Stay free and loose as much as you can. Now, I'm experimenting with a long curly hair style, and I add some flowers too. I want to make her feminine and pretty. Now, I learned the opacity, so I can refine this sketch on the layer. As a known, If you ever need to add more canvas to your drawing, you can do so by going to the actions which is the wrench icon Canvas, and then crop and resize, is that if you are out of space, I need to add more. You will see I opened the Layers palette a lot, and that is just when I'm switching layers to erase something from my under sketch that I don't find essential to the drying. Then I'm switching back to the top layer to continue with our refinements. At this point, I decided that design is getting boring. So I add some water into her hair. Things get messy quickly though. I like this idea, but I need to revisit this sketch with a good hair reference. Then I decided to try and make her a mermaid instead, by adding seashells and see me to her hair. maybe her hair's underwater. I like this idea too, but I may have to revisit it, when I'm feeling more patient or if I decide to color the sketch one day. Instead, I scrap the idea for now, erasing up the sketchy here. For now, I settle on a simple loose bond. Maybe I will revisit this one in the future. For this drawing, I set up with the ball and a job. Then I go in with the triangle. Sometimes, it is helpful to find triangles interface. So I tried to see the brown line down the cheekbone as a sort of triangular shape. This can help you get that tilt still. Now I'm just planning out the features, and I decided to make a look at the viewer instead of a way. Now, I add some lines to make sure that the features are tracking together and all tilting. Now, I start to add a high ponytail. I merge the layers and lift her up so, I can add a little length to the ponytail. Now, I'm just working on the pieces falling out. Oftentimes, if a person's hair is layered and you'll get these tiny or pieces of hair that shoot out, and up from where the ponytail holder is. So you can add a couple of those until. Now I'm adding a couple Boulder accent lines around the edges of the head here, sometimes the edges of objects can do well with a bolder line quality. Now, I'm happy with this design. So I lower the opacity, add a new layer and the fine. With the goal being into enhance what I liked from the sketch below, and leave behind what I did not like. I add little heart earrings Just to add a little something more to her character. Now with this reference, it's quite a bit more extreme than the other posters we've seen so far and that's because it's a face at an angle, but the cameras also tilted lower so we're getting a more dramatic view. This type of pose is fun to explore it out. Sometimes our brains will fight against poses like this as we draw. I always want to straighten things out. Already we can see I'm not drawing the pose quite as extreme as it really is but I find I still like what she's becoming. Sometimes with the mouth, it's easier just to mark it out with a couple lines of tone and adopt for the corner of the lips. This can help you place them without committing to a precise line just yet. Here I'm using the liquefy adjustment as a quick way to edit proportions. You can go to adjustments, liquefy, push to work things into place. Now I'm working on the design of the hair and how it falls over her shoulder and I decide to give her a head wrap with loose feathers and beads dangling off of it. Now I am just redrawing and refining. I like this character, it may develop for further one day. This is another extreme view as now the camera view is over top of the character. In this case, we'll see a lot of the top of the head and the face shape will take up less space on the Canvas. For this drawing, I decide to have her looking down into the side. I think it adds a dreaming as to her expression and the pause. I also keep it simple with loose wavy hair. Here I'm just selecting this part of the hair so that I can shrink it down and make it more balanced and weigh with the other side of the hair. When it's drawing, I start with the typical guidelines and then go in with quick shapes for the features. I let this one be really messy as I planned. I lower the opacity and begin to refine as I develop more of an idea of where I want to go. I love drawing glasses on characters, set the large classes on her. Again, just refining. Here on this one, I start by drawing the structure of the head. Now I'm placing the features with basic lines and shapes. Now I'm drawing a loose braided load. This hairstyle makes me think of fantasy themed characters like princesses. I add a beaded hair piece to her hair as well. Now I lower the opacity and refine a new layer. In a pose like this, if you want to capture the exact pose, again, look at how far the nose overhangs the cheek or if it doesn't overhang the cheek, how much of the cheek shows? I decided to give her darker lips, so it looks like she has dark lipstick on. Now I refine the hair but more, keeping some strokes thick and others thin. I'm going to leave her like this for now. On this character we have another challenging view, a three-quarter view looking upwards both the camera angle below eye level, but what structural shapes and lines we're able to set it up. I decide I want to make this character more moody and I want to give her more determined level so I make sure the brows and lips reflect that decision. I also try out a short haired look with some of the pieces sort of blowing in the wind. I want her story to be as if she's looking out in the distance at the next thing she needs to tackle with wind blowing against her back. Interesting. Thanks. Now I'm refining her features and her hair as well. On the door reference, the neck is quite stiff. A neck in real life though would have a bit more bend to it, so keep that in mind when you're drawing from door references. I like this idea of her looking off, but I decided to try the irises pointed towards us, the viewer instead. I think I might like the look of that more. I color them in a bit and leave it at that for now. 22. Traditional Demo: In this demo, I want to walk through how the process might look, if you wanted to take a messy sketch to a clean pencil sketch. Here I'm planning my character and procreate still. But you can absolutely sketch in the same way traditionally with pencils. Give yourself some freedom to get messy and plan with your pencils. Some of these views are really challenging, so give yourself a break and get loose with it. Now that I have a rough idea of where I want to go, I go in on a new layer and refine as usual. Once you're happy with your sketch, print it out if you're working digitally. I send my procreate file to my computer and use Photoshop to crop it and I print it from there. Now grab your traditional sketch or print out and let's tape it to a nice clean piece of paper. I'm using painter's tape for this. You can put the tape on your pants or on your fingers to get rid of some of the stickiness to ensure that it doesn't rip the paper when you take it off. Now I'm using a light tracer for this. You can buy a light tracer if you think it'd be useful for your work in the long run, or I've also seen DIY light tables, if you'd like to look into that. I like to put a piece of paper under my drawing hand to prevent merging. Now with my 0.9 millimeter draft line pencil, with 2B penta lead, I just begin sketching around. I'm not trying to go slow or carefully trace. Because if I go to slow, the drawing will become stiff and we'll lose some of its life. I work at a comfortable pace. You can turn the light box off occasionally to check in on how you're doing. I like using this pencil for this. The 0.9 is a larger pencil, so more lead was able to touch the paper, which help me not be too precious with my line work. I also like the 2B because it's not too light and it's not too dark in value either. Balance somewhere in the middle. When you're tracing your sketch, don't take your mind out of it. Instead, think of it as redrawing. Still consider line quality. Keep some lines dark and others thin, some sketchy and others confident, et cetera. Now I'll speed it up from here for the rest of the tracing. Now I'm working on the flowers being conscious of the line quality. Some of the petal borders are thicker and some I keep thin to get some variety. Now I'm just working on the hair using sketchy strokes. You can use your finger to blend or tissues or cotton swabs. Sometimes I turn my sketch upside down. Sometimes it's just easier for me to draw curves in that direction than the other way. I really love using a kneaded eraser. It's a must-have in my pencil toolbox. Just bouncing around the piece now, working on the flowers, the hair and the features. Now I want to add some of the original sketch back into the drawing, and I find that that's best done off the light table. Now I'm just darkening up around the eyes and I'm refining areas of the features. Looking back at my original sketch for guidance if I need to, but also letting the new sketch develop on its own. Now I'm using my blending stump to add a tone to the lips. This is a great tool and it's one I often use in my pencil sketches. It's great for quickly adding smooth values. Now I am darkening and smoothing out some of the S curves in the hair, and now I'm just darkening up the corner of the lips here. Now I'm using my 0.3 3H draft-line pencil. This pencil is great for tiny details. Now here I've got my 0.5 4B mechanical pencil. I love this pencil for dark accents, especially on the eyeliner. Now I'm working more on line variation in the hair, making some hairs really thin and others darker and thicker. Now I'm just adding a couple accents to the flowers to give a little variation. Sometimes it works well to darken and thicken lines around the outside of the hair, or the outer edge of the character. This can help to frame them in. With my 3H, I darken the value of that top lip a little. Then I add some thin flyaway hairs. A kneaded eraser works great to get in these tiny areas since you can mold it into any shape. For now, this pencil sketches finished. 23. Sharing Your Work: To share your work online, duplicate your drawing by swiping left and pressing duplicate, and then go in and crop the duplicate.Click the wrench icon, Canvas, crop and resize. Then drag on the sides how you want. When you're finished, press 'Done.'' To save your work, go to the wrench icon, then share. Then I usually like to save mine as a JPEG. Then from there, you can choose to AirDrop it if you have a Mac computer or an iPhone, or save the image to your camera roll, Dropbox wherever you want. Usually I'll AirDrop to myself, or save the image. Now, you'll find that saved to your camera roll and photos. If you ever need to resize an image, here's how to do that and procreate. First, make sure you're resizing on a duplicate image. Because once you size down, you won't be able to size backup, so don't do this on your original. Opening the duplicate, press the wrench icon, Canvas, crop and resize. Then from there we can change this number with re sample on. When I'm resizing for the Internet, I might bring the size for something like this, anywhere around 800-900 pixels on either side. Now you can save the resize version again by going to the wrench, share, JPEG. You can share your creation on skill-share by going on a computer and upload into the projects and resources section. I can't wait to see what you make. 24. Closing Thoughts: Thank you so much for watching this class. I'm so glad you're here and that you joined in. If you want to improve in your character sketches, one of the best things to do is to commit yourself to practice. Try to practice drawing characters every day if you can. Join daily sketch challenges to help keep yourself active or take part in things like the drawthisinyourstyle hashtag that's happening on Instagram. Whatever it takes to stay actively drawing and practicing. Make lots of art, whether it's good or bad. Practicing is half of the formula to improving I think. The other half being, always continue to learn new things. Try to take other character art classes when they're available. Read books, and continue to study all you can about faces. Learn and practice, learn and practice, repeat. I found is the key to improving. Store up inspiration and references when you find them. These will help you on your artistic journey too. If you're wondering how you can use your character drawing skills, here are some ideas. Design characters for a book or story you hope to write or make character commissions for other people. Re-design your favorite characters in your own style. Or you can simply create character illustrations for fun and just relax. The possibilities are endless. You can leave them as sketches or develop your favorites further by experimenting more with expression, hair designing, and accessories. You can even add digital color to your sketches or print them out and color them traditionally. Be sure to share whatever you create because I'd love to see. Also if you're interested in learning more with me, I have lots of art classes. I have more medium specific classes for character design like my pencil class and my copic marker class. I also have subject based classes where we draw portraits, and I have foundational courses for big topics like color, lighting, and drawing. Be sure to check those out. I'd love to see you in those classes too. If you enjoyed this class, please leave a review. This helps me out a lot and also helps more people find the class. Be sure to follow along for more classes to come. Thank you so much again for watching. I hope you have a bunch of fun creating your characters. I can't wait to see your drawings. Until next time. Happy sketching.