Step 1 – Drawing the Female Head
image credit: yaams_artwork
To help you make sure that both sides of the head will be of equal width and that the facial features in later steps will be evenly spaced start your drawing by first making a vertical line through the middle of your drawing area. Next draw a circle for the top part of the head and from that project two lines that first go to the jaw area and then curve inwards and go down again at a sharper angle to finally form the curve of the chin.
As this is a female face for the sake of this tutorial we will make the chin fairly small and narrow.
Step 2 – Proportioning the Face
image credit: yaams_artwork
To create guidelines for the first set of facial features divide the face into four parts using horizontal lines. You will want to draw the lines from the hairline area of the head (located slightly below the top of the head) down towards the chin in a way where you will have three evenly spaced section of the face plus the smaller hairline portion for a total of four.
Step 3 – Placing the Eyebrows
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Sketch the eyebrows directly below the second line from the top of the head (the one after the hairline line).
Step 4 – Placing the Nose
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Draw the nose starting near the inner tips of the eyebrows. For the initial sketch simplify the nose into flat planes for the front, sides and bottom.
The nose will narrow towards the bridge and widen from there towards the bottom of the face.
Please note that the nose is one facial feature that can differ greatly from person to person. An average nose like the one in this tutorial will generally go slightly past the middle portions of the three even divisions. Longer noses can go farther down.
Step 5 – Placing the Ears
image credit: yaams_artwork
Draw the outline of the ears inside the middle portion of the three evenly spaced divisions touching the second and third line from the top.
Step 6 – Placing the Eyes
image credit: yaams_artwork
Draw another horizontal line directly through the middle of the head (you can remove the other horizontal lines at this point) and on it draw the shape of the eyes (just the outline). Place the eyes far enough apart that you can fit another eye in between them. The space on the sides of the eyes should be slightly less than the width of one eye
Step 7 – Placing the Mouth
image credit: yaams_artwork
Position the mouth by first drawing a horizontal line between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin. This line will represent the bottom of the bottom lip. Going up from there draw a horizontal line for the mouth and another one above that for the top of the top lip. The bottom lip tends to be bigger than the top so proportion your drawing accordingly.
Step 8 – Drawing the Facial Features
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Inside the shape of the eyes sketched out in previous steps draw the circles of the irises with the top part slightly covered by the eyelids and the bottom just touching the bottom eyelid.
Step 9 – Drawing the Outline of the Hair
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How you draw the hair will differ based on the hairstyle. For this particular example the hair will basically be split into two major shapes going from the parting line. As there is more hair flipped to the left side of the drawing that shape will be bigger than the shape on the right.
Step 10 – Drawing the Hair Details and drawing the Eyelashes.
image credit: yaams_artwork
To add detail to hair draw in some lines flowing from the parting line down along the shape of the hair. Add in some other lines that still follow the general direction of the hair in various places along the overall shape of the hair. Try and vary these in their length and distance from one another.
After you finish the hair the tutorial is pretty much but if you want to add some eyelashes you can follow the step below.
Draw the individual hairs of the eyelashes with slightly different distance between each of them but at the same time try and make the overall distribution fairly even. Eyelashes tend to grow more towards the outer half of the eyes (away from the middle of the way). The hairs of the eyelashes sort of fan out as the follow the curved shape of the eyelids. The eyelashes themselves are also curved but this will be less obvious for the eyelashes that are pointing directly at the viewer.
Conclusion
It takes a lot of work to properly draw a face. Because of their less pronounced facial features female faces can be particularly difficult as there are fewer well defined lines to be able to show the shape of the face with. If you find yourself struggling don’t get discouraged. If you practice on a regular basis and drawing in the correct way you can significantly improve your skill as an artist.