How to Draw Faces for Beginners – SIMPLE
Here’s a quick and easy method for beginners to draw male and female faces. In this tutorial, I’ll draw 2 basic faces and then I’ll demonstrate how some easy modifications can affect the overall look of the face.
This tutorial was requested by Wendy Nelson. Thanks Wendy!
Tools:
- HB pencil
- Kneaded Eraser (for lifting graphite in layers)
- Plastic Eraser (for erasing things completely)
- Canson Sketch Paper
Try to sketch very lightly so you can easily erase mistakes as you go along. This will also be helpful for the last part of the tutorial where we’ll swap out facial features to play with the way our characters appear. I used a 2B for this tutorial so you can clearly see what I’m doing, however, I recommend using an HB or harder pencil grade.
How to Draw a Male Face Easy
Step 1: Draw a Circle
Step 2: Draw a Line for the Chin
Step 3: Draw the Cheeks and Jawline
Important: Before we move onto the next step, erase the horizontal line inside of the circle.
Step 4: Draw Facial Construction Lines
Step 5: Draw the Eyes and Eyebrows
Note: Thanks to Pranab Mahajan for reminding me to add this little detail – If you find it difficult to split the face into 5 equal sections, measure the width of the head using a ruler and divide your number by 5.
Example: If the widest part of the head is 6cm, divide it by 5 to get 1.2cm. Then split the head into sections of 1.2cm each.
Step 6: Draw the Nose
Learn how to draw a nose: blog version, video version
Step 7: Draw the Lips
Step 8: Draw the Hair
I like to draw the top hairline between these 2 lines.
Once that’s complete, draw the rest of the hair. To give his hair more volume, draw your outlines further away from the head, but make sure the distance is somewhat consistent or else the head shape may look unrealistic.
Step 9: Draw the Ears
Step 10: Complete His Face
I erased the construction lines to show you his face without obtructions. You can keep these construction lines to aid you at the end of this tutorial when we swap out facial features to transform our characters!
How to Draw a Female Face Easy
Step 1: Draw a Circle
Step 2: Find Out Where to Draw the Chin

Step 3: Draw the Cheeks, Jaw and Chin
For females, I like to draw a narrow face with a narrow jaw. For the chin, taper your lines inward so the chin is more narrow than compared to the male.
Step 4: Draw Facial Construction Lines
Step 5: Draw the Eyes
How to draw a pair of realistic eyes
Step 6: Draw the Nose
Step 7: Draw the Mouth
Draw your triangle directly below the nose and resting on the line labelled “lips”.
For a medium length mouth, draw it well within the boundary lines. Rest the bottom lip on the line labelled “lips”.
Step 8: Draw the Ears
Step 9: Draw the Hair
Step 10: Complete Her Face
Draw the cheeks, jawline and chin using smooth lines. A square chin can make your drawing look a lot more masculine (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).
Easily Make Changes to Your Character
This is the most fun part of creating this tutorial! Once you’ve created a face, you can easily change the features to test out different looks: hairstyles, lips, nose lengths, eye shapes, etc… The possibilities are endless and it’s also a great way to learn how each facial feature impacts a character’s emotions.
You can keep your construction lines to aid in the process or erase them and use the faint lines from your erased features to draw a slightly different one.
Move your features around, make them bigger, smaller, longer, shorter or place them further apart. The possibilities are endless!
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Don’t be afraid to experiment with drawing dis-proportioned faces. Stretch your imagination and just have fun with it!
Draw Various Male Faces
I noticed that when drawing males with thick outlines around the mouth, they turn out looking more feminine. You can lighten the outlines to make a pair of lips look more masculine.
- Drawing narrow eyes can make a face look more chill and relaxed. The more visible the iris is, the more alert, intense, surprised, innocent or even angry the face will look.
- Sharper, broader angles can make him look stronger, more masculine
- Try different eye shapes too. I tried to make him look southeast asian by turning his eyes up at the ends, making the tip of the nose less pointy and giving him a pair of well defined lips.
- Try to turn your character from a man into a boy by simply making his jawline narrower and smoother so his bones look less developed.
- See if you can age him by adding different types of facial hair too!
Draw Various Female Faces
- The original face looked sad. When I made her eyes wider, her sadness disappeared instantly! I didn’t even need to change the eyebrows.
- And then I changed her lips and lowered her nose.
Here are Some More Examples!
I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial as much as I enjoyed making it :)
Happy drawing!!
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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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