How to draw 6 different eye shapes
You’ll get a chance to look at different types of eyes being drawn at the same time. I don’t encourage you to draw them all at once, so pick only one and follow it throughout the tutorial.
Feel free to mix and match as you get comfortable on your next run-through.
Since I couldn’t fit all 6 eyes in every step, the last 2 have been pushed into a bonus section at the end of the article.
Tools:
- HB pencil
- Japanese Tombow Eraser (What I use for erasing large areas of work)
Step 1: Draw a Circle
Step 2: Pick an Angle
Note: the left side of each circle is the inner side of the eye
This method is awesome if you’re drawing a set of eyes on the same face.
Step 3: Draw the Inner Corner of the Eye
Step 4: Draw the Top Lid
Draw the upper eyelid while staying within the boundary of the circle. Imagine that the eyelid is wrapping around a sphere. The last example shows the right side of the lid wrapping around the eyeball with a big steep curve.
For almond shaped eyes, you’ll want to stick to a slim football shaped curve and the deepest part of the arc should be located at the middle of the lid.
Step 5: Draw the Bottom Lid
For almond shaped eyes, the arc of the top and bottom lids are very closely aligned vertically.
Step 6: Add a Crease
This crease should not go past the line you created in step 2 unless you’re drawing wrinkles.
For the hooded eye, you’ll want to bring the crease as close to the top lid as possible. You can even overlap them or cut through a portion of the top lid.
When drawing the crease, keep your lines fairly light. A dark crease will look really deep.
Step 7: Erase Outlines
Carefully erase your outlines. I used a hard tombow eraser to save time.
Step 8: Add Some Details
At the inner corner of the eye, draw a curve or two to separate the eyeball from the soft pink caruncula.
For Iris sizing, a good rule of thumb is for the iris to take up about 2/4’s of the eyeball (horizontally). Examples below:
Step 9: Shade Your Eye
To shade and add more details, you can refer to the tutorials below:
- How to draw an eye
- How to shade an eyeball
- How to draw eyelashes
- How to draw eyebrows
- How to shade a face
BONUS
Monolid: You can draw a monolid eye by excluding the crease or giving a small hint of it at the end of the eye.
Downturned: Try not to angle your line too much when drawing downturned eyes. In fact, the one I drew is pretty extreme already. Actually, you know what? Just do what you feel like. Experiment and have fun!
Click here to learn how to draw a pair of eyes!
I hope you got a lot of value out of this tutorial! If you didn’t, let me know why in the comments below and I’ll do my best to make it right for you.
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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.
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