How to shade an eyeball

Every now and then, I get questions about how to shade eyeballs and how to make them look round. It’s a little difficult to explain without pictures, so here’s a short and sweet step by step tutorial to answer that question :) Enjoy!

Tools:

While you’re drawing the eye, keep the white part of the eyeball as clean as possible. We’re going to shade the entire eyeball later. This will bring your highlights out more because your highlights will be the lightest value in your drawing.

Step 1: Light Shading

Grab a blunt HB pencil and use the side of your lead to create large, blunt strokes on a scrap piece of paper. Use the exact same edge to shade an even layer of graphite across the eyeball without drawing over the iris. Contouring would be a suitable shading technique to use.

Step 2: Blend Carefully

Wrap a small piece of tissue paper around your finger and blend the eyeball in 2 separate sections. Do not touch any areas with dark shading or else you will smudge extra graphite onto the eyeball. Use very little pressure and use a new piece of tissue after every stroke.

Step 3: Shade Around the Iris

Once your shading is smooth, use your HB pencil to shade around the iris. The goal is to eliminate the harsh edge around the iris. Blend the graphite out if you need to.

Step 4: Shade the Eyelid Rims

Soften out your graphite where the skin touches the eyeball. This step is very subtle, but helps pull the skin and eyeball closer together. Compared to the previous image, this one looks like the top and bottom lids are actually touching the eyeball – snug fit.

Step 5: Add Subtle Shadows

Depending on where your light source is coming from (mine’s coming from the top), add subtle shadows using a blunt HB pencil. To make the eyeball look round, shade the far ends of the eyeball. Make sure your value transitions are very gradual.

Scroll up and compare the images from step 4 and 5. Notice how even the most subtle shadows can give the eyeball such a round shape. Just something to keep in mind when you shade.

Also, there’s an area of the eyeball near the tear duct that is slightly bumpy. So make sure to pay extra attention to that. However, you don’t want to bring too much attention to it, so try to keep it subtle.

Thanks to MargaritaM for reminding me to add a slideshow to this tutorial! Use the slideshow below to see all the steps and their subtle differences:

I hope this tutorial was helpful! Which steps helped you the most? I’d love to know :)

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Darlene Nguyen

Darlene created RFA In 2013 with the goal of sharing simple yet detailed drawing tutorials with other artists on the world wide web. She is a self taught pencil portrait artist and Youtuber.

Bill Harvill

May 22, 2024 at 9:46 pm

At 77 One of my life’s pleasure is learning how to draw portraits using your Beginner tutorials. I hope to move on to the exclusive tutorials in the next 30 days.
Thank you, Bill Harvill,

Sila

September 26, 2019 at 9:23 am

I’m sorry but there’s still one pic in every step.

Karla
August 6, 2023 at 8:58 am

No she actually is shading it throughout all the steps maybe you just don’t notice it. I didn’t at first

Regina

June 25, 2019 at 4:39 am

I was the one who said “I have no artistic ability, whatsoever!” While paroozing the internet i saw a picture of yours. I thought it was a photograph actually. the caption said. “Learn to draw realistic eyes.” It amazed me how you could make the eye appear wet. I thought about the talent you have and I could never draw anything close to the beautiful art i was looking at. So, I just want to say thank you for teaching me how to draw, and how to draw well. It’s so cool. The best part about it is that when I finish a lesson on shading or whatever and put it away…thinking that looks like crap! It’s when I see it a couple of weeks later and say wow I actually drew that. Awesome

April 30, 2018 at 11:51 am

erm, it’s just showing the same pic :)

i
April 30, 2018 at 11:53 am

sorry – mistake :)

kerry_taylor_15

January 27, 2018 at 11:36 am

Do you have a tutorial on how to draw the iris of the eye? i think the hardest part about drawing eyes is making the iris look realistic without overdoing it.

Marie

August 8, 2017 at 11:39 am

I just started pencil drawing several months ago. I bought some beginner books of animals first, that helped immensely with shading and placement. I then started experimenting with drawing people and I just stumbled on to your site a few days ago. I am more than excited to see how you give directions on a number of things. Thank you very much.