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How to Draw Realistic Thin Lips in 10 Steps

Hey, I’m Darlene and in this tutorial, I’m going to walk you step-by-step through my process of drawing a pair of thin lips, from the initial construction lines to shading, highlights, and final details.

For this drawing, I’m using the following tools:

HB pencil for construction and lighter shading
5B pencil for darker shadows
Kneaded eraser (you can make one using this DIY tutorial)
Soft facial tissue for blending
Smooth drawing paper

Before starting this tutorial, it helps to already understand basic lighting and how it wraps around forms. If you’re not familiar with that yet, I’d recommend reading my shading tutorial first, since it will make the shading process much easier to understand.

Step 1: Draw a Line

Begin by lightly drawing a curved line using an HB pencil. This line doesn’t need to be perfect since it’s only there to guide the direction of the lips.
The curve can tilt upward, downward, or sit flat depending on the expression you want. Just keep it very light because this will eventually be erased.

Step 2: Draw the Center and Corners of the Lips

Along the line you just drew, draw a shallow “U” shape for the center point of the mouth. From there, draw small ticks on each side for the corners of the mouth. Make sure they are evenly spaced.
The further apart the ticks are, the wider the mouth will appear. You can adjust this based on your preference.
If you’re going to add this onto an entire face, I like to vertically align the corners of the lips with the middle of the eyes. To learn how and where to draw lips on a face, please refer to my face drawing tutorials based on the Loomis method.

Step 3: Complete the Opening of the Mouth

Now we’re going to play connect-the-dots! Using a wavy line, connect the corners of the mouth to the center. I’ve drawn a very stretched out “W” shape.
Try to keep both sides symmetrical. You can use your construction line from step 1 as a reference for symmetry. Once you’re happy with the shape, erase that first construction line since we won’t need it anymore.

Step 4: Draw a Thin Top Lip

Start building the upper lip from the center and work outward toward the corners.
We’ll start by drawing a big “V” shape above the mouth’s opening. You can draw different shapes depending on the look you want, such as a smooth, shallow curve or almost a straight line. Adjust the height of this “V” based on how thick or thin you want the top lip to be.

As you connect the cupid’s bow to the corners, make sure both sides feel level and symmetrical.

Step 5: Draw the Bottom Lip

Again, start from the center and work outward.

The distance between the mouth’s opening and the bottom lip edge will determine how thin the lips appear, so keep that spacing small.
As you approach the corners, allow your strokes to fade out. We are going to avoid connecting the bottom lip outline to the corners of the mouth, unless you want to draw a mouth with dark lipstick or full lips that curve out to a great extent.

If you are interested in drawing very plump lips, check out this tutorial.

Step 6: Shade a Light Base Layer Across Both Lips

Before adding any detail, start by applying a light and even layer of graphite across both lips. This helps separate the lips from the white of the paper and gives you a mid-tone to build on.
I used a hatching technique here, keeping all my strokes going in one direction so the texture stays consistent. Using an overhand grip on your pencil can help you produce smoother and thicker strokes, which makes blending easier later on. Try to reduce any gaps between your strokes so the shading looks as smooth as possible.

Once the graphite is down, use a soft facial tissue wrapped around your finger to gently blend everything. We are going to be layering on a lot more graphite later, so don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfectly smooth.
If the tissue becomes too dark or starts creating blotches, switch to a cleaner section and continue.

Step 7: Decide on Your Lighting and Mark Highlights

Before adding any darker shading, decide where your imaginary light source is coming from. In this case, the light is coming from the top right, so the upper planes of the lips will be lighter while the lower areas will naturally fall into shadow.

Think of the lips as a curved surface rather than a flat shape. Areas facing the light will always appear brighter, while areas turning away will gradually darken.

Once you’ve decided on your lighting, lightly mark out the highlight zones so you don’t accidentally shade over them later. These areas will be the lightest areas of the entire drawing and will help with conveying the curvature of the lips. You can see that my highlights are positioned more toward the right side where the light is coming from. I’m outlining the highlights using short strokes that follow the contour of the lip’s surface so when the drawing is completely shaded in, these outlines will naturally blend right in instead of having to be erased.

Step 8: Shade the Bottom Lip

Now begin shading the bottom lip (still using an HB pencil). Instead of hatching, I’m switching to contour shading – This is where my strokes follow the curvature of the lips. These lines should wrap around the form rather than sit flat, because that helps the lips feel more three-dimensional. They also double as lip wrinkles!

I used the pointy part of my pencil to draw these lines, but you can use a dull tip if you want the wrinkles to appear more subtle so the skin is less textured.
As you build up your contour lines, aim for a uniform value. Once you’re happy with the lip shape, make the bottom of the lip darker since it curves away from the light source. You can flick your pencil upward for each stroke to make the value transition between dark and light more gradual.

Add a cast shadow along the very top of the bottom lip using a softer pencil like a 5B. Using a softer pencil helps avoid hand strain and makes it easier to achieve darker values with less effort. If you don’t want your drawing to be too dark, using an HB pencil will help prevent that.
This cast shadow is caused by the top lip blocking light from reaching the bottom lip. The darker you shade this, the deeper the separation between the lips will appear and the more curved the bottom lip may come across.

Use your pencil to blend those new values into the lip area below, creating a gradual value transition. Avoid shading into the highlight outlines we created earlier.
Blend all your shading along the bottom lip, going from light to dark to avoid smudging your work.

Use your kneaded eraser to remove graphite from the areas we marked out for the highlights. I used a downward swiping motion to get the bottom section of the highlight to fade out. You can add thin highlights following the contour of the lips in random areas.

Step 9: Shade the Top Lip

We’re going to follow a similar process for the top lip, except this time I want the lip to appear flatter, so I’ll use contour lines with less curvature (the contour lines above are just an example – I won’t actually draw them this dark). Since the top lip tends to have a more bunched-up skin texture, I’m also going to make the contour lines more noticeable than the ones on the bottom lip.

After drawing your contour lines using an HB pencil, identify the most prominent ones and then go along the bottom edge of the lip to bunch up the skin using your 5B pencil. Do this mostly near the center and less near the corners of the lip.

Below is an example of how I did this:

If there aren’t many prominent contour lines, you can bunch the skin first and then extend a dark contour line from each concave section.
Lighten your strokes as you work your way up, so the top of the lip looks smoother.

With your HB pencil, darken contour lines that are most prominent so they come across more like wrinkles.

If they just look like lines instead of wrinkles, shade along each one slightly while lightening your pressure as you reach the mid-point between the next wrinkle. Now the skin should look bumpy.

Shade the bottom of the lip darkest, while using contour shading, but keep the very bottom a bit lighter to account for reflections that hit the bottom lip and bounce back up. This is a small detail that may not feel like it makes a difference, but it absolutely does 🙂

Continue shading upward to make the top of the lip gradually lighter. Use your eraser to lighten the highlight zone that we sectioned off in step 7 along the top of the lip.
After shading the top lip, you may notice that your lip outline has blended in. If it hasn’t, lighten or erase it so there isn’t an unnatural outline around your drawing. My cupid’s bow outline is still very apparent…

We need to make the outline disappear to improve the realism of our drawing. You can do that in a few ways:

Lighten the outline with an eraser and then blend to soften it out.
Or shade the skin above the lips to make the outline blend in/disappear

Then blend your work. Make sure to blend the corners of the mouth too.

Step 10: Add a Cast Shadow Below the Bottom Lip and Apply Final Touches

Let’s draw a cast shadow under the bottom lip to help lift the lips off the page a little more. Switch back to the 5B pencil or stick to an HB if you want a more subtle cast shadow.
Start by drawing a clean line along the bottom left edge of the lip (opposite the light source). This line acts as a boundary so the edge of the lip stays crisp instead of looking muddy or roughly shaded.

Shade as dark as you want directly underneath this new line, fading out as you work your way down.

Blend this cast shadow very well, making sure the bottom edges are soft. Avoid blending too close to the bottom lip so the boundary stays clean and defined.
Now take a step back and look over your drawing. This is a good time to polish up any areas that feel inconsistent or flat. I like to check my shading for uneven values and see where I can increase contrast to make the drawing stand out more.

I used my kneaded eraser to brighten a few highlights and my 5B pencil to deepen the cast shadow beneath the top lip.

I also added a subtle value above the cupid’s bow and blended it out very softly. I like how this makes the highlight stand out more without looking too harsh.

Once you get comfortable with the construction and lighting process, you can use the same method to draw many different types of lips.

What’s Next?

How to Draw Realistic Lips with HB Pencil

Learn how to draw PLUMP lips

How does your shading affect how plump or flat a pair of lips will look?

Shading Fundamentals Guide

Learn how light works, how to shade smoothly, and practice pencil control with simple exercises.

How to Draw Realistic Faces Step by Step Guide

Learn where to place lips on the face

Use the Loomis method to construct the head from any angle so your features sit on a solid foundation.

Having trouble achieving symmetry?

Learn how to make your eyes match using simple alignment techniques.

How to draw a smile showing teeth

Practice drawing a pair of eyes from the front view to build accuracy and confidence.

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.

How to Draw Realistic Thin Lips in 10 Steps Read More »

How to Draw a Hooded Male Eye in 9 Steps

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Hey, I’m Darlene and in this tutorial, I’ll show you a simple way to draw a realistic hooded male eye using basic, budget-friendly tools. I’m using a 2B pencil from the dollarstore, but an HB school pencil works fine too. You can blend with a tissue, and any eraser will do the job, though a kneaded eraser gives you more control.

Learn how to make a DIY kneaded eraser!

Alright, let’s get into it.

Step 1: Draw a Trapezoid

Begin by lightly drawing a simple trapezoid shape. This acts as a rough guideline you can use to draw the actual eyeshape on top of. My trapezoid is more narrow on the right side (tail end of the eye). You can tweak and morph the shape however you want to get a unique eye shape that appeals to you.

If you want a more masculine look, try making the trapezoid narrower since narrow eye shapes tend to read as more masculine, correlated with high levels of testosterone.

In case you want to closely replicate his eye, my trapezoid is roughly 10 by 3 centimeters.

Step 2: Draw the Eye Shape

Now using the trapezoid as a rough guideline, draw the inner corner of the eye, shaping it like a rotated “U” or “V” shape.

From there, draw the lower eyelid as a gentle curve that dips slightly in the middle before rising back up to meet the opposite corner of your trapezoid. Then move on to the upper eyelid, rounding out the trapezoid edges so the eye starts to feel more natural.

Once you’re happy with your eye shape, erase the trapezoid.

Step 3: Draw the Eyelid Crease

Above the eye, lightly sketch the eyelid crease by following the general curve of the top eyelid. To make the eyelid appear hooded, dip your pencil stroke lower, minimzing the space between the crease and eyelid outline.

Step 4: Draw the Iris

To draw the iris, first measure the width of the eyeball and divide that number by 2 to get the iris size. For a realistic-looking iris, avoid drawing 2 bracket shapes and instead draw a full circle.

Positioning of the iris is important. The bottom of the iris is usually more visible than the top. Also having the iris be slightly covered by the upper eyelid helps create a natural, relaxed expression. Draw it lightly so you can adjust before committing to the final placement.

Over by the tearduct, draw a curve or two to divide the pink fleshy area from the eyeball.

Don’t erase the top part of your iris yet.

Step 5: Add the Pupil and Decide On Your Light Source

Once the iris is placed, draw the pupil right in the center.

Need help finding the center of the iris? Draw a cross through the iris, using the intersection of the two lines to determine the center.

The size of the pupil depends on how much light is entering the eye. It gets wider in the dark and smaller when it’s bright out, so the size is up to you and how much light you want in the scene.

Now decide where your light is coming from because this will control all your shading. My imaginary light source is shining down from the top left, but you can choose any direction. Based on that light source, add a highlight inside the eye. I like using a simple window reflection shape because it wraps nicely around the round form of the eyeball and helps push the realism.

Shade the pupil as dark as you can get it.

At this point, we can erase part of the iris circle that falls on the skin.

Step 6: Shade the Iris and Add Detail

Now let’s shade the iris. Since my light source comes from the top left and the iris is actually like a concave bowl shape i’m gonna shade the top left side darker because it faces away from the light and then I’ll gradually shade lighter on the bottom right side where the iris curves back out, facing the light more directly.

To account for the cast shadow from the top eyelid, shade darker along the very top of your iris and fade out as you work your way down.

I recommend blending every layer or every few layers of graphite instead of leaving it until the very end. I did the latter to save some time with the lesson.

You can add some texture to the iris by drawing lines radiating from the center, fading them out near the edge of the iris. You can make them look natural by varying the thickness, spacing, length, and value of each stroke.

The key here is to avoid making everything too uniform. Real irises are slightly irregular.

This is also where you can add subtle detailing around the rim of the iris if you want more realism and depth. Start your pencil strokes along the edge of the iris and flick inward to fade your strokes out.

Step 7: Shade the Eyeball and Inner Corner of the Eye

Shade lightly inside the inner corner of the eye. Then darken the edges to make it look convex. Use your eraser to create some highlights, making the surface look moist. You can use a kneaded eraser with a light dabbing or dragging motion.

Learn how to make a kneaded eraser out of a regular solid eraser!

Shade the rest of the eyeball. We don’t want to leave it white so let’s start by shading a very light layer of graphite across the entire area and blend it.

Add some darker shading along the far left and right of the eyeball to communicate the eyeball’s round shape. Add a cast shadow along the top to account for the light being blocked by the top eyelid.

Shade slightly darker along the bottom of the eyeball to show that the surface curves away from the light.

Also shade around the iris to soften the hard edge.

If any of this shading looks too dark for you, I have a trick to easily lighten it – just blend it with a facial tissue, which will lift some of the graphite away in the process.

An optional detail you can include is some subtle blood vessels, which look similar to wiry tree branches. Try not to overdo these because they can easily make the eye look bloodshot.

Step 8: Shade the Skin

With your light direction in mind, shade the skin surrounding the eye.

I’m going to start with the bottom lid. There’s a small ledge that will be visible along the bottom eyelid from this angle and i’m going to use a circular shading technique to outline this ledge. Try to avoid drawing a hard straight line because it might look unnatural. Keep it nice and subtle.

Below this ledge, you can add an eye bag/pouch if you want. The darker you shade the underside, the puffier it will appear. Also, shading the lower eyelid skin too dark can result in a tired look.

Let’s move to the top eyelid now. If you want your drawing to have a very strong bone structure you may want to really bring out the nose bridge and/or brow bone. You can do that by shading the area beside the nose and below the brow especially dark to show just how much the bones protrude out of the face.

Click here to learn more about drawing masculine and feminine features.

Shade very dark along the eyelid crease and lighten your strokes gradually as you work your way up toward the brow and down toward the eye so the skin looks as though it dips inward.

Shade along the very bottom of the top eyelid to show that the form curves away from the light.

Add a layer of darker graphite along the right side of the eye to make it look like it’s facing away from the light.

You don’t have to blend your drawing, but if you decide to, I would recommend doing so before the next step. We want to avoid blending after the eyelash details are drawn to avoid smudging those fine details.

I like to use a regular facial tissue wrapped around the pad of my finger to blend large areas, making sure to work from a light zone into a dark one to avoid smearing. I also use a new spot on the tissue each time. For tight spaces, I will either use the tip of my finger or a folded tissue using a special folding technique. Watch the video below to see my blending examples in action.

Step 9: Draw Eyelashes and Finish the Eye

I like to start by drawing 3 lashes on each eyelid to map out the major lash directions. On the left side, the lashes will mostly point toward the left, in the center they’ll mostly point forward, and on the right side they’ll mostly point toward the right. I say mostly because some hairs naturally curve or point in completely different directions. If you have trouble drawing the lash shapes, think of them as the letter “J”. Narrow J’s for lashes facing toward us and gradually wider J’s as the lashes start turning toward the sides.

Once you have your first 3 lashes drawn, fill the spaces in between. There are several ways to make your lashes look natural, such as:

Crossing them over each other
Tapering lashes
Varying thickness
Staggering the roots

…and more! To learn more about drawing lashes in detail and to grab a free eyelash drawing wordsheet, visit this dedicated eyelash tutorial.

Let’s draw the upper lashes now. For a more masculine look, I usually angle them slightly downward instead of up so they don’t look as though they were crimped using an eyelash curling tool.

Once you’re done, let’s add a slight cast shadow directly below the lashes and we’re going to go along the root of each eyelash with subtle circular shading just to add some additional texture to the skin. Don’t forget to add some eyelash reflections in the highlight.

Once the lashes are drawn, go back in and adjust your shading, deepen the shadows, and brighten highlights if needed.

I wanted to increase the contrast to make the eye look less dull, so I:

Darkened areas like the eyelid crease and iris to strengthen the form and push the depth.
Brightened the light side of the iris using my kneaded eraser and a swiping motion, following the existing radial pattern.
Added/brightened highlights such as in the inner corner of the eye and some thin lines where the eyeball meets the bottom eyelid to convey wetness.

I found the highlight too bold for my preference, so I added a slight gradient to the bottom by smudging the surrounding graphite into it to reduce that harsh white area. Another option would’ve been to break up the highlight by adding a reflection or silhouette of any object inside it, which helps it feel less like a flat white shape.

There’s a part two of this tutorial where I go into drawing the eyebrow. If you want to continue this eye into that stage, you can extend your shading upward above the brow to make space for it. Keep in mind that the area above the brow (forehead) is facing the light more directly, so will need to be shaded lighter.

Once you’re comfortable with this process, try changing the lighting or eye shape for more variety. To learn where the eye sits on the head and how it fits into facial construction, visit my Loomis face drawing tutorials.

What’s Next?

Common Drawing Mistakes and How to Fix Them

5 Common mistakes when drawing eyes

Fix the most common issues that make eyes look flat, uneven, or unrealistic.

Shading Fundamentals Guide

Learn how light works, how to shade smoothly, and practice pencil control with simple exercises.

Learn where to place eyes on the face

Use the Loomis method to construct the head from any angle so your features sit on a solid foundation.

Having trouble achieving symmetry?

Learn how to make your eyes match using simple alignment techniques.

Go back to front view basics

Practice drawing a pair of eyes from the front view to build accuracy and confidence.

How to Draw Eyebrows

Learn how to draw the eyebrow for this exact eye.

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.

How to Draw a Hooded Male Eye in 9 Steps Read More »

How to Draw a Face from the ¾ View – Looking Up (Loomis Method)

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how to draw a face from the 3 quarter view looking up using loomis method for drawing heads

Hey, I’m Darlene and in this tutorial, I’ll walk you through Andrew Loomis’ method for drawing a face from the ¾ view with the head tilted upward.
It took me quite a while to fully understand and apply the Loomis method myself. If you’ve read his book, you’ll notice I’ve adapted certain parts and added my own explanations in areas where I struggled at first, aiming to make each step as clear as possible while you draw along.

This is the final part of a four-part series on drawing heads using the Loomis method:

Part 1: front view
Part 2: side view
Part 3: 3/4 view

You can follow this tutorial on its own, but it will make much more sense if you’ve gone through the series in order. Each part builds on the last, and seeing the head constructed from different angles makes more complex perspectives easier to understand and helps you draw heads more confidently from imagination over time.

Important Note: Any text marked with an asterisk “*” is intended for viewers following this series in order. If you’re viewing this tutorial on its own, some of these notes may not fully make sense without context from the previous tutorials.

*In this tutorial, the head is tilted upward in addition to being rotated into the ¾ view. Because of this, some construction steps and proportions will be slightly different compared to the previous tutorials. I’ll point these changes out as we go so you can understand how the Loomis method adapts to more complex angles.

At this angle, the upward tilt changes how the forms read in perspective. The feature lines appear more curved, while the underside of the nose, jaw, and chin becomes more visible. These shifts are what create the sense of the head tilting upward rather than simply facing sideways.

Drawing Tools

I’ll use a colored pencil for the construction lines so they’re easier to see, and a 4B graphite pencil for the final drawing for a cleaner contrast.

You can absolutely follow along with just a standard HB pencil if that’s what you have!

Building the Basic Head Structure (3/4 View Tilted Up)

draw circle and cross for loomis head construction

Begin by drawing a circle for the cranium. Then draw a cross to indicate the direction the head is facing, establishing the front of the face. Since we want the head to be facing the upper right, the cross should sit in the upper-right area of the sphere. The lines of the cross should be perpendicular to each other.

*You may be wondering why we’re not starting with the axis like the previous 3 tutorials in this series. For angles like this where both the middle line and brow line are rotated off-center, it will be easier to draw the cross before the axis. But please experiment with both ways to see which order works better for you.

Now draw a long, straight line through your sphere called the Axis. Make sure it’s parallel to the vertical line from the cross.
The axis is tilted because the head angle is also tilted. You can think of this line as the axis on which our planet Earth rotates. Where the axis juts out the top and bottom of the sphere, we’ll call those the north and south poles.

Now draw an ellipse that runs through the cross longditudinally. This is where the eyebrows will sit, so we’ll call it the Brow Line. Make sure it’s perpendicular to the Axis (if you draw a line through the longest part of the ellipse, that line should form a 90-degree angle with the Axis).

Tip: If you’re having trouble balancing the ellipse properly, first locate the center point of the sphere. The center of your ellipse should pass directly through that point. It also helps to draw the full ellipse, not just the visible side.

*It might feel weird to draw an angled ellipse after going through the last 3 tutorials because they were either perfectly vertical or horizontal. If this step is a struggle, rotate your sketchbook, so the axis is vertical instead of slanted. Then try drawing the ellipse again.

Now draw an a second ellipse that passes through the vertical line of the cross while also passing through the north and south poles (the top and bottom of the Axis). Make sure the ellipse tilts so it reveals the very bottom of the ball – Since the head is tilted upward so much, we can actually see the very bottom of the sphere where the Axis and Middle Line intersect. This southernmost point becomes important later when we start placing the facial features.

It’s very helpful to have a physical model you can rotate and study in your own hands, especially when drawing difficult head angles like this one. It gives you a better sense of how the feature lines curve around the form and how the head changes as it tilts in space.

If you want to make a simple drawing reference tool like the one I used for this tutorial, draw a vertical and horizontal line across any ball and pierce a stick through the north and south poles. A transparent ball works even better if you can find one, since it lets you see the full ellipses and better understand how they wrap around the form.

Notice how, as I rotate the model upward, the south pole shifts into view. This is exactly what happens when the head tilts up. We begin to see more of the underside of the sphere, which changes the placement and curvature of the facial features.

To make your own model, you’ll need:
– Toothpick
– Small ball (I used a styrofoam one, but you can also make one out of playdoh)
– Permanent marker
The ball acts as the cranium, and the toothpick represents the Axis the head rotates around. As the head rotates upward, this Axis becomes a key reference for keeping all facial features aligned in perspective. It helps you maintain consistent angles so the face doesn’t start to feel skewed as the construction process becomes more complex.

Alright, let’s continue with our head construction!

Draw the Side Plane for the 3/4 View

So far, we’ve drawn a sphere, but the human head isn’t perfectly round. The sides are much flatter, so we’ll need to slice 🔪 a section off the sphere to create the Side Plane (side of the head).

Since the head is rotated into the ¾ view, we only need to draw the visible Side Plane. To size it correctly, split the sphere into 6 equal spaces from top to bottom using small tick marks placed along the Axis.

Locate the topmost and bottommost ticks, then extend them toward the edge of the sphere, making sure your lines are perpendicular to the Axis.

Using those two boundary lines as a guide, draw an ellipse that spans almost half the sphere’s width.

The ear will be drawn on the side plane. If we divide the area into 4 equal spaces, it will be easy to place the ear correctly. So let’s add a vertical line through the middle of the side plane and call it the Ear Line, making sure it stays parallel to the Axis.

You can apply some foreshortening by slightly tapering the Ear Line and Axis for this angle of the head.

Note: If you’re struggling to visualize the Side Plane at this angle, I recommend checking out the front and side view construction first, making this step easier to grasp.

Locate Facial Feature Placement

Now let’s map out where all the facial features will sit on the head! Before we can do this, we’ll need to extend the Middle Line so it falls off the face of the sphere. This is where we’ll be placing lines that mark where each facial feature sits. Keep the Middle Line parallel to the Axis or taper it very slightly to account for foreshortening.

Since we already have the Brow Line established, we just need to determine the remaining key guidelines: the Hair, Nose, Chin, Eye, and Lip Lines. These will help us divide the face into accurate proportions before we start drawing the features themselves.

*There are several ways to locate the remaining major feature lines.

In the previous tutorials, we used the top and bottom of the Side Plane to estimate the Hair and Nose Lines. The Chin Line can then be placed at a similar distance.
In a level head position, we can also find the Hair Line by taking the halfway point between the Brow Line and the north pole of the sphere. However, in this tutorial, the head is tilted upward so much that the north pole shifts to the far side of the sphere, making the Hairline more difficult to estimate accurately.
So for this angle, I’m going to show you a different approach by starting with the Nose Line instead. For a quick, rough estimate, simply find the halfway point between the Brow Line and the south pole of the sphere to locate the Nose Line. Then use similar spacing to place the Hairline and Chin Line.

Since the head is tilted upward so much, we can use the space between the Brow Line and the southernmost point of the sphere to estimate the Nose Line. The midpoint between these two landmarks gives us the approximate location of the nose.

Now measure the distance between the brow and nose. Use that measurement to mark the position of the Hair Line and Chin Line. Make sure to keep the facial feature lines parallel to the Brow Line. Otherwise, the face can look wonky. You can apply some foreshortening, which is much more obvious in extreme angles.

Common Mistake: One of the most common mistakes at this angle is flattening the tilt by keeping the feature lines too straight. This removes the sense of perspective and makes the head feel like it’s facing forward instead of looking upward.

Now let’s add some outlines to make this look more like a human head! Draw a curved line all the way from the Brow Line to the Chin Line, creating the far edge of the face. Then from the bottom of the Ear Line to Chin Line, create the jaw. You can adjust the chin width based on your preference.

To simplify placement of the facial features, let’s divide the head into clearer sections. Draw a curved line from the chin toward the middle of the Side Plane, then lightly shade this new section. This helps separate the side of the head from the front, making it easier to focus on the facial features and how they wrap around the form.

Let’s add 2 more facial feature lines: the eyes and lips! The Eye Line sits about ⅓ of the way down from the Brow Line to the Nose Line. For the lips, locate the space between the Nose and Chin Lines and place a tick slightly above the halfway point. This will give us the general placement for the lips. You’ll notice that my Lip Line is very curved. That’s because the mouth wraps around the curved surface of the teeth and jaw, and this curvature becomes much more noticeable when the head tilts upward.

How to Draw Facial Features from the 3/4 View (Looking Up)

Now that the structure is in place, we can start actually drawing the facial features. In the 3/4 view, nothing sits perfectly centered like it does in the front view – Each feature appears to shift slightly around the form and follows the curvature of the head. We’ll use our construction lines as a guide to make sure everything stays consistent in perspective as we start placing and drawing the features.

How to Place and Construct the Ear

I’m switching to a graphite pencil now so the final drawing stands out more clearly from the blue construction lines.
Let’s start with the ear. Draw it in the lower-left quadrant of the Side Plane between the Brow and Nose Lines. Angle it slightly backward using a slanted line. You can follow my numbered steps above or check out my more detailed ear drawing tutorial if you need additional guidance.

To make placing and drawing facial features easier, it helps to understand a couple of key references that work across all angles, not just a single view.

The planar head simplifies the face into flat planes, making it easier to read and construct the features quickly and accurately.
The human skull reveals the structure beneath the skin, fat, and muscle, helping you understand not just where features sit, but why certain bumps or ridges appear where they do and how to place them more accurately.

Over time, studying these forms helps you mentally overlay them onto your drawings, so you can better visualize the head’s structure in your mind’s eye instead of relying only on guidelines. With the planar head and skull examples above, you can probably already start to visualize where the features will sit, so let’s begin with one of the easiest ones – placing the eyebrows along the Brow Line.

How to Draw the Eyebrows and Nose

With the planar head and skull in your mind’s eye, draw the eyebrows along the brow line while leaving some space in between for the nose. End the left eyebrow where the Side Plane starts.

Use your construction lines as a loose guide while shaping the forehead and cheek area. Try to keep the underlying skull structure in mind as you draw. I’ve given him a more prominent brow ridge, and cheekbone.

The nose can be difficult to visualize from this angle, so it helps to first draw a simple planar/blocky version (shown in red). Even though the nose appears shifted in perspective, try to keep it balanced along the Middle Line so it feels properly anchored to the center of the face as it wraps around the form.
Once the planar nose is in place, use it as a guide to build the actual nose. Start at the point where the Middle Line and Nose Line meet and draw toward the tip. Because the head is tilted upward, the underside of the nose becomes more visible and the tip sits slightly higher than in the previous tutorials.
From here, draw the bridge of the nose up toward the brow, creating a subtle bump rather than making it perfectly straight.
Then wrap your strokes around the sides of the planar nose to form the nose wings.
Finally, add the visible nostril between the wing and tip of the nose. At this angle, the far nostril may barely be visible or even disappear completely from view.

If you want more help drawing noses from different angles, it really helps to study a physical model. You can make a simple one using playdoh by forming a wedge shape and attaching two spheres on the sides. Even a rough model makes it much easier to understand how the nose rotates in perspective.
Or visit this ¾ nose tutorial to see more examples.

How to Place and Draw Eyes in the 3/4 View

Draw the eyes along the Eye Line to help keep them aligned properly on the face.
The far eye should fit into the narrow space between the nose and the edge of the face, and may be partially hidden depending on nose bridge height and eye spacing.

If you’re having trouble visualizing the eyes from different perspectives, it really helps to make a crude DIY eye model like the one pictured above. As the eye rotates around the form of the head, its shape changes quite a bit. At this angle, the far eye ends up looking more narrow and triangular.

To place the near eye, draw a line (parallel to the Axis) from the outer edge of the nose wing up to the Eye Line. The point where these two lines intersect will give you a good starting point for the inner corner of the eye. This helps keep the eye from drifting too far toward the side of the face or sitting too close to the nose.

Draw his lips along the Lip Line we created earlier. You can use the numbered steps above for guidance.

Let’s start by drawing the parting line between the lips. Where the Middle Line and Lip Line intersect, draw a shallow “U” shape. Avoid centering it on the Middle Line otherwise the mouth will look flat or even sunken in.
On either side, place a tick mark for the corners of the mouth. Not sure how wide to make the lips? I like to imagine vertical lines running down from the middle of each eye and use those as rough boundary lines to draw within.
Now connect the corners of the mouth to the “U” shape using a soft wavy line. Mine looks like a very stretched out “W”.
Above the “U”, draw a wide “V” shape for the cupid’s bow. Position it slightly farther forward than the “U” so the upper lip feels more rounded. You can adjust the thickness of the lip by moving the cupid’s bow higher or lower.
Now connect the cupid’s bow to the corners of the mouth to complete the top lip.
Draw the bottom lip using a curve that is positioned farther forward so the mouth feels more rounded instead of flat.

Draw the Head, Face, Jawline, and Neck

Now Let’s refine the rest of his head and create the neck.

Along the far side of his face, draw a convex curve next to the mouth. If this shape feels confusing, refer back to the skull image from earlier so you can better understand how the bones project outward from the face. I’m still roughly following my construction lines.

Outline his chin and jawline while softening the harsh edges that we used for the construction lines. I gave him a dimpled chin, but feel free to shape the chin however you like. If you decide to shade the head later, keep in mind that from this angle, the jawline may appear much more subtle

For the top and back of the head, avoid tracing the exact shape of the sphere since the skull isn’t perfectly round. You can flatten the lower back area of the head slightly while giving the upper portion of the head more of a dome shape. Again, the skull reference from earlier will help a lot with this step.

You might be wondering why we’re drawing the full head shape if we’re going to cover most of it with hair anyway. This is so we can understand the underlying shape of the skull and build the hair around it properly. Having the head structure in place makes it much easier to give the hair believable volume, direction, and flow so it looks more natural and realistic.

To draw the neck, continue the line down from the back of the head. For the front of the neck, start just beneath the chin and draw downward from there.

How to Draw Hair From the 3/4 Angle

Now let’s draw the hair!

Before you start, decide how large or small you want the forehead to appear. You can use the Hair Line we mapped out earlier as a rough guide. Draw below it for a smaller forehead, on it for a more balanced one, or above it for a taller forehead or even a receding hairline, depending on how high you go.

I like to start near the Middle Line and work outward across the head. As the hair moves toward the Side Plane, curve your strokes downward toward the eyebrow area, then angle them toward the ear, forming the sideburn. Wrap your stroke around the top of the ear and continue it down along the nape of the neck if you want.

As you continue shaping the rest of the hair, try not to press it tightly against the skull unless you want a very flat hairstyle. Leaving more space between the hair and the head will create more volume. In my drawing, I added extra space near the top/front of the head to make his hair look fuller and longer in that area.

Final Adjustments

It’s always a good idea to keep checking your measurements and angles as you draw, but even then, small mistakes can slip through. Take a moment to go over your drawing and see if everything feels consistent and aligned.

In my case, I noticed my eyes looked slightly off. They weren’t quite sitting level with the rest of the feature lines. It’s a small adjustment, but fixing it made a noticeable difference.

When I was first learning the Loomis method, I went through a lot of these heads, many versions, many mistakes, and I’m still learning. So don’t get discouraged if your first attempt doesn’t look how you expected. Give yourself some room to experiment and try again. Every pass usually reveals something new, whether it’s a mistake you didn’t notice, a small breakthrough, or a pattern you keep repeating without realizing it. Think of your first attempt more like a warm-up than a final result.

I hope you enjoyed following along with this tutorial, and the rest of the series if you’ve been going through it in order. If you want to keep building on this, I recommend moving on to the facial feature tutorials next, where I break down how to draw and shade eyes, nose, mouth, and other parts of the face in more detail.

Add Facial Features in Detail

Now that you know where everything goes, take your drawings further by learning how to draw each feature step by step: Draw eyes, nose, lips, and ears in detail.

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.

How to Draw a Face from the ¾ View – Looking Up (Loomis Method) Read More »

How to Draw a Pair of Eyes from the ¾ View

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how to draw realistic eyes 3/4 view final drawing

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw eyes from the ¾ view with simple step-by-step instructions and how to avoid common mistakes to avoid, like uneven eye/eyebrow placement, incorrect perspective, and weak value contrast, so your eyes will look more realistic.

Materials Used for Drawing Realistic Eyes

For this tutorial, I’m using just two pencil grades. The HB is for construction, and the 2B is for shading and details. If you’re unsure what these pencil grades mean, you can learn more here.

HB and 2B Pencil
Blending Tissue
Prismacolor Kneaded Eraser: Or learn how to make one using my DIY tutorial!
SmudgeGuard Glove: To prevent smudging my work
Printer Paper

Step-by-Step Eye Drawing Tutorial

A few notes before we start!

1. When I mention the “right eye,” I’m referring to the eye on the right side of the drawing, not the subject’s right eye.

2. This is a condensed version of my full video tutorial. Instead of watching a 1-hour lesson, you can follow along in 8 clear, scannable steps.

3. If you need more detail at any point, watch the short clips included or shoot me a question in the comment section. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create Guidelines for Eye Placement

draw eyes 3/4 view eyeball construction circles

Using an HB pencil and light pressure:

Draw a circle for each eyeball
Space them slightly less than one circle apart
Mine are ~4.5 cm in diameter if you want to match scale

Draw a faint curved line through the center of both circles. Curve it slightly downward – this helps keep both eyes aligned so they don’t look uneven.

Tip: If your eyes often look “off,” it’s usually because this guideline wasn’t used or wasn’t followed closely.

Step 2: Draw Eyes at the ¾ Angle

Eyeshape

Lightly draw each eye, making sure they sit evenly along the guideline highlighted in blue. Notice how the blue line runs through the corners of the eyes?

In the ¾ view, the closer eye (right) appears almost full width against the eyeball circle, while the far eye (left) appears narrower because it wraps around the other side of eyeball

To show this, draw the left eye about ¾ the width of the eyeball.

Common Mistake #1: When drawing eyes in perspective (especially in a 3/4 view), avoid making both eyes the same width. This flattens the drawing and removes the sense of depth.

how to draw eyes 3/4 view eyelid creases

Next, draw the eyelid ledges. Starting with the right eye, draw an outline around the top and bottom lid, tapering your strokes as you get closer to the inner corner of the eye.

how to draw eyes 3/4 view eyelid wrapping around sphere

Do the same for the left eye, except extend your strokes beyond the boundary of the eyeball so it looks like the eyelid skin is wrapping around a spherical eyeball. The image above shows an exaggerated example.

Then draw an eyelid crease above each eye. At the outer edge of the left eye, angle your stroke down to form the edge of the eyelid.

To draw the edge of the face, give yourself a little distance from the eye and draw a slight “S” shape that runs perpendicular to the guideline that runs through both eyes. Curve the top part of your “S” out as much as you’d like, shaping the brow bone to your desire.

Draw the Irises, Pupils, and Nose

how to draw eyes 3/4 view eyelid ledges nose bridge

Iris
To draw a realistic-looking iris, draw a full circle about half the eyeball’s size. Position it to the far right so it appears as though the eye is looking at us directly. Make sure the bottom half of the iris is more visible than the top.

Common mistake #2: Avoid drawing 2 bracket-shaped irises because they’re harder to size and look less realistic.

eye drawing tutorial pupil placement center guide

Pupil
Locate the center of each iris by drawing a vertical and horizontal line through the middle. Where the two lines meet, draw your pupil. Draw your pupil size based on how brightly you want the subject to be lit (Small pupil = brightly lit, Big pupil = dimly lit). You can now erase parts of the iris that fall outside the eye opening.

Highlight
Draw another circle in your eye for the highlight. This is a reflection from a light source. Overlap it with the pupil so we can create some high contrast in the eyes, which makes the drawing look more interesting. I’ve placed the highlight in the top right side of the iris to indicate that the light in this scene is coming from the top right.

Nose (Bridge Only)
Start near the inner corner of the left eye and sketch a wide “V” shape to form the nose bridge.

Once you’re happy with how your eyes look, erase the guidelines from step 1. Make sure your remaining lines are faint, so they will blend in naturally as we shade.

Common Mistake #3: Dark outlines can flatten your drawing and make it look cartoony.

Step 3: Shade Inside the Iris

I’m switching to a 2B pencil to shade. It’s slightly softer than the HB, which allows me to blend my drawing more easily and shade slightly darker without having to use much pressure. Using an HB pencil with a lot of pressure to shade can flatten the texture of your paper, making it shiny instead of dark.

draw realistic eyes iris pupil circle placement

Shade the Pupils

Shade each pupil as dark as possible with a sharp pencil tip to keep edges crisp.

how to draw reflection obstruction in eye highlight drawing example

I‘ve added an optional obstruction to the highlight in the bottom left to make the drawing look a little more complex. I chose a circular obstruction, but you can choose any shape you want, such as a leafy houseplant.

Shade the Iris

Lay down a medium value across the entire iris without crossing into the highlight. Then darken the edges, fading toward the pupil.
Since the main light source for my subject comes from above, the top eyelid will cast a shadow upon the top of the iris. Shade this cast shadow darkest at the top and fade downward.

To see the iris shaded in more broken-down steps, watch the video clip below:

Step 4: Shade the Eyeball (Make It Round)

Shade the rest of the eyeball using extremely light pressure to lay down a solid base layer. Don’t leave anything white. The lightest areas in the eye should be the highlights.
To give the eyeball a three-dimensional appearance, we need to darken areas turning away from the imaginary light. This means gradually shading the left side of each eyeball to create a smooth transition from light to shadow.

For the left eye, leave a very thin sliver of lighter value along the far left edge to account for ambient light

Add a cast shadow along the top, and right side of each eyeball where it touches the eyelid.

Soften the edge of each iris using light shading or blur it using a blending tool (I used a folded tissue. Video example at the end of step 5).

Tip: If your shading is heavy-handed, consider switching back to the HB for subtle shading.

how to shade inner corner of realistic eye

For the inner corner of the right eye, separate this space into sections using 2-3 lines. Shade them all in, leaving a highlight on the right side of each section. Blend to make these look like bumpy flesh.

Optional: Blend your shading, working from light to dark to avoid smudges. Make sure your shading is as smooth as you can get it. If you have any major gaps between your pencil strokes, they may still be visible after blending.

Tip: To blend more precisely using a flimsy tool such as a tissue, fold it in half twice, then create a point by folding it tightly along the edge.

Watch this clip to see how I blend both eyes using a tissue and how to fold it for precision blending.

Step 5: Shade the Surrounding Skin

shading realistic eyes skin tone base layer

After you’re done, shade a light base layer across all the skin. Don’t worry about shadows yet.

Blend the skin lightly using a tissue wrapped around the padded part of your finger. Be careful not to smudge the iris details.

Now let’s give the skin some form by darkening areas that turn away from the light.

Shade the top and bottom section of each eyelid, leaving a strip of light along the middle. Make the transition from dark to light gradual. This creates a rounded form.

After you shade along the eyelid crease, it should not look like a line anymore.
If you don’t want the undereyes to look too puffy, lighten the shadow of each eye bag.

Shade the highlighted areas above to make each eyelid feel like it’s wrapping around the eyeball. Create gradual value transitions.

Keep the shadow on the left eyelid slightly darker than the right.
On the far left edge of the left eye, leave a thin strip of ambient light just like we did for the eyeball.

how to shade realistic eyelid and undereye form

If you want to learn more about light and how to shade, visit my in-depth shading tutorial.

The rest of the face looks flat. Let’s darken some areas to give it more form.

eye drawing brow bone shading form depth

how to shade skin surrounding eyes 3 quarter view

Nose to Brow (Left Side)
Shade the left side of the nose. To give it more height, shade darker. If your shading here is too light, the nose may appear flat. Lighten your strokes gradually as you shade further away from the nose. Extend your shading from the nose bridge up above the eye in a big arch to give form to the brow bone.

Left Edge of the Face
Along the left edge of the face, darken your shading and lighten up gradually as you work your way to the right, where the form starts curving toward the light.

Right Brow
Lightly shade the area above the right eye to give the brow bone some form. Shade slightly lighter toward the right side.

Eyelid Creases and Undereyes
For both eyes, shade directly above the eyelid crease to curve the skin inward, shading darkest near the crease and lighter as you move away.

Shade lightly under each eye bag, leading into the cheekbones.

💡 Practice Tip:
If you’d like a printable version for offline use with all reference images in one place, you can grab the full PDF here (paid). It includes all* tutorials from my website. If you’ve already purchased the bundle, go to the download link in your email to find the newest added PDF :)

Shade the Rest of the Nose

Shade a little darker along the right side of the nose bridge, making sure to feather your strokes out as you work your way to the brow and undereye.

how to shade nose bridge 3 quarter view part 2

Along the highest point of the bridge, shade darker, feathering your strokes out along the brow/forehead. Leave a strip of light along the transition zone between the front plane of the nose and the side planes. This accounts for direct light coming from the right side and ambient light from the left side.

To make the bridge look more rounded instead of blocky, shade a dark strip along the left side to show that the form gradually curves away from the light.

If you want to see nose shading in action, watch the short clip below:

Blend

Before blending, check your drawing to make sure there are no major gaps between your pencil strokes. If you prefer not to blend, that’s totally fine.
To avoid smudges, blend from a light area into a darker one, and use a clean spot on your blending tool often (I’m using a fresh area of my tissue with each swipe).

After blending, your drawing may look a bit lighter. You can go back in and darken certain areas, or leave it as is if you like the softer look. Just go with what you think looks best.
I’m using a budget-friendly blending tool here, so this method isn’t the most optimal. If you want to blend without lightening your values as much, try using a very soft-bristled paintbrush instead.

Now that the skin is smooth, you can add subtle details like fine wrinkles under the eyes. Lightly draw a few fanned-out lines beneath the eye bags. Keep your pencil sharp and your strokes very subtle.

Step 6: How to Draw Eyebrows from the ¾ View

how to draw eyebrows 3/4 view placement guide

Eyebrow Positioning

Now let’s draw the eyebrows!

We first need to map out where they will go. Height-wise, place your eyebrows along the brow bone, a short distance above the eyes. If you want a better understanding of overall placement, check out my Loomis head tutorial where I break down how the features are positioned on the face.

Use light ticks to mark where the eyebrows begin, arch and end. I’m using the eye as a reference point for each tick:

Beginning of eyebrow: at a slight angle to the inner corner of the eye (for the left eye, the beginning will be almost directly above the inner corner of the eye)
Eyebrow arch: positioned close to the outer corner of the eye
Eyebrow tail: at a slight angle to the outer corner of the eye (for the left eyebrow, the tail won’t be fully visible since it wraps around the far side of the face)

You can adjust these points depending on the eyebrow shape you want. For example, if you prefer a shorter tail, reduce the length.

where to draw eyebrows on realistic face drawing

Now we have some guidelines to start planning the eyebrow shape. We can draw the entire eyebrow outline using little tick marks instead of a solid continuous line. This allows us to plan out the eyebrow shape without having an unnatural outline showing through in the end. The faint ticks will blend in as you draw the actual eyebrow. This is borrowed from my shadow-lining technique.

Keep your outline faint, so you can easily make adjustments if needed.

Tip: To draw matching eyebrows, once you’ve finished one eyebrow and are ready to place the second, hold your pencil up to your drawing and match the angle of the eyes. Lock your hand in place, then slide your pencil upward to align it with the base of the first eyebrow. The point where your pencil hovers above the other eye is where the base of the second eyebrow should sit. You can repeat this to figure out the arch height and even match thickness as well, helping both eyebrows stay aligned.

Watch the clip below for a clear visual example of how to draw symmetrical eyebrows:

Practice Drawing Eyebrow Hair
Are you happy with your eyebrow outline and its position above the eye? If so, let’s sharpen our pencils and practice drawing the actual hair. Use a confident swift motion with a lift at the end to create hairlike strokes, making sure the end of each hair is tapered instead of blunt.

Eyebrow Hair Direction Overview

how to draw realistic eyebrow hair direction diagram

Let’s start filling the right eyebrow. Just so I don’t lose you, here’s a clear illustration of how the eyebrow will be filled in.

I start at the bottom portion of the eyebrow, drawing a row of hair starting from the beginning and then ending at the tail. My stroke angle transitions from vertical to horizontal as I work my way across the eyebrow. At the tail end of the eyebrow, they start pointing downward.

Strokes near the beginning of the eyebrow will be longer and thicker than ones at the tail end.

Then I move up a little, adding more rows of hair until I fill in most of the eyebrow outline. As I approach the upper boundary of the eyebrow, I curve/angle my strokes more toward the tail.

For the top section, my strokes are very light and are all angled downward.

how to draw eyebrows from the 3/4 view part 1

how to draw eyebrows from the 3/4 view part 2

Finally, add some random, faint stray hairs around the main body of the eyebrow if you want the unplucked look.

To make the eyebrow look more integrated with the face, shade it very lightly and give it a slight cast shadow along the bottom. Look between the two images above to see just how light this cast shadow is.

Tip: To make the hair look natural, stagger the roots so they don’t form a perfectly straight line and vary the angle of some hair.

how to draw eyebrows from the 3/4 view part 3

how to draw eyebrows from the 3/4 view part 4

Left Eyebrow Hair

Do the same thing for the left eyebrow, except when you get to the edge of the face, point your strokes out beyond the edge of the face and angle them down. Add a few thin, light hairs further down so it looks like they’re peeking through from the other side.

Step 7: How to Draw Eyelashes from the ¾ View

how to draw and not draw eyelashes j shape guide

Let’s draw the eyelashes now. Here’s a quick and simple visual explanation on how to do it:

Start by drawing “J” shapes along the top eyelid. I started at the middle of the eyelid, drawing a very narrow “J”. As I worked my way to the right, my J’s became wider, making them appear as though they are side-facing. For the left side of the eyelid, I just mirrored the shapes.

Fill in more lashes between your initial set, but instead of drawing them like perfect little rays of sunshine, taper some lashes together or cross them over each other.

Once you finish the top lashes, flip your “J” shapes to draw them on the bottom eyelid.

For the left eye, draw your most narrow J’s near the inner corner of the eye since that part of the eyelid is most forward-facing.

For more detailed steps and tips on drawing eyelashes, please read my dedicated eyelash tutorial which includes FREE printable worksheets.

how to draw natural eyelashes on a 3 quarter view face

Once you’re satisfied with how your eyelashes look, shade around the base of each lash using the circulism shading technique to add subtle texture to the skin around the roots. You can also add very light cast shadows under the top lashes, as well as subtle reflections inside the highlight of your iris.

Step 8: Polish and Tweeak Your Realistic Eye Drawing

realistic eye drawing step by step final result

If you’re happy with how your eye looks now, you can stop here, or you can continue tweaking for a more polished result or increase the contrast for a more striking appearance.

For grainy shading, go over it with another layer of graphite and blend those areas specifically. If you’re hesitant to darken the drawing further, switch to a harder pencil like an HB. This helps reduce visible white dots without significantly changing your values.

With a bit of patience, you can also use a sharpened pencil tip to fill in larger white specks (these are just the texture “valleys” of the paper).

Also soften out any harsh value transitions such as the nose, if it appears blocky.

Increase Contrast

Take a few steps back from your drawing to see if your lighting is consistent across the entire face. In my case, the left edge of the face was too light, so I darkened it, which helped the form feel more angled and accurate. After that, the left eyebrow looked too light in comparison, so I darkened both eyebrows to balance them.

I then darkened select areas to make them more shapely or to draw more attention:

For form (shapeliness):

Shadow on the left side of the nose bridge (to increase height)
Eyelid creases (to deepen structure)
Inner corner of the right eye (to add depth)
Left side of the eyeballs (to enhance roundness)

You don’t need to blend every layer of newly added graphite as long as it looks smooth emough for you :)

To draw attention:

Eyelids (increase contrast and help define the eye shape more clearly)
Irises (increase contrast and pull focus to the eyes, making them feel more vivid)

Tip: When the entire drawing is light, it can appear unfinished or washed out. Increasing contrast not only improves form, but also helps guide the viewer’s eye due to stronger visual hierarchy and depth.

At this stage, I’m not adding anything new. Just reinforcing dark areas and refining the balance between light and shadow to further push and pull elements of the face.

To bring back lost highlights, I used a kneaded eraser to lift graphite from the lightest areas. This is especially useful on the nose bridge and eyelids.

Add Highlights

You can make the eye appear wet by placing highlights in strategic spots. Erase inside the inner corner of the right eye to make the area look reflective. Adding a small highlight along the bottom of the eye where the eyeball touches the eyelid can make it look watery. Clean up the highlight in your iris from step 2 if it has become darker.

If you completed this eye drawing tutorial, attach it as a comment on this Facebook post with the text “challenge completed” and I will feature it below with your name and a link to your social media page. By posting your drawing with this text, you give me permission to feature it on my website with credit to you.

Fix Your ¾ Eye Drawing

If your drawing looks off, check these:

One eye too high: Make sure your eyes are balanced on the guideline from step 1.
Spacing too wide: Draw your eyeball circles closer than 1 circle distance apart. From the ¾ view, the eyeballs will appear closer together than from the front view because they are sitting on the same plane and the angle compresses the spacing.
Values too flat: Toggle between the images in step 7 and 8 to see how the introduction of darks and lights affect the form. If you want a deeper understanding of how to show different surface curvatures, check out my in-depth shading tutorial with simple diagrams and practice exercises. Focus on expanding your value range.

What’s Next?

5 Common mistakes when drawing eyes

Fix the most common issues that make eyes look flat, uneven, or unrealistic.

Shading Fundamentals Guide

Learn how light works, how to shade smoothly, and practice pencil control with simple exercises.

Learn where to place eyes on the face

Use the Loomis method to construct the head from any angle so your features sit on a solid foundation.

Having trouble achieving symmetry?

Learn how to make your eyes match using simple alignment techniques.

Go back to front view basics

Practice drawing a pair of eyes from the front view to build accuracy and confidence.

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.

How to Draw a Pair of Eyes from the ¾ View Read More »

How to Draw Lips – 8 Steps | HB Pencil

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How to Draw Realistic Lips Using HB Pencil

In this tutorial, I’ll be using a cheap HB pencil from the dollar store and a regular facial tissue to draw a pair of plump, realistic lips. This tutorial is adapted from my video instruction on Youtube and further simplified.

Tools:

Cheap Dixon dollar store HB pencil with eraser on the end
Ordinary facial tissue
Printer paper

Step 1: Lip Construction

Start by drawing a long horizontal line across your page. In the middle, draw a shallow “U” shape. On each side, draw the corners of the mouth using little tick marks. Make sure they are spaced evenly apart.

Note: My line is approximately 18cm wide, in case you want to match it.

Now connect the shallow “U” and tick marks together using a wavy line. Once done, erase the horizontal line.

Draw the top and bottom lip. If you want to draw your lips narrower, you can reduce the vertical space.

Step 2: Shade Lip Base Layer

Sharpen your pencil to expose as much graphite as possible. Then use the side of your graphite to shade thick strokes across both lips. Just focus on shading a solid, medium tone. Keep your pencil strokes close together to reduce gaps and achieve a smooth shade.

Tip: Holding your pencil with an overhand grip versus a writing grip will help you achieve thicker strokes. Visit my shading tutorial to learn more.

Then blend using any tool of your choice. I’m using a regular facial tissue wrapped around the padded part of my index finger.

Step 3: Add Shadows

My imaginary light source is shining down from the top left. So I will shade the areas highlighted in blue a little bit darker to give the lips some shape. We will be shading them even more later.

Blend again. Make sure to blend from light to dark to avoid smudging your work.

Step 4: Draw Lip Wrinkles

Let’s draw some lip wrinkles along the bottom of each lip to add some realistic texture to our drawing.

The image above is a reference to help you see the contour of the lips. If you draw wrinkles using curved strokes like this, it will help support the illusion of plump lips. For this drawing, let’s mostly draw wrinkles along the bottom of each lip. Leave a tiny bit of space along the very bottom of each lip to account for reflected light.

To draw wrinkles, use the tip of your pencil to get thin, clean lines. Vary the height and pressure of each line so the wrinkles can stand out and look natural. You can see an example of my strokes right below the drawing. Even though these marks look scribbly, layering several of them together creates surprisingly realistic wrinkles!

These new pencil strokes should double as shading to further shape the lips. So aim to draw these darker than the shadows you did in step 3. Try your best to fade out as you flick your strokes upward so the transition between light and dark is gradual.

If you want to soften up all these wrinkle textures so they are more subtle, blend your work slightly.

Step 5: Add More Shadows

Add a cast shadow below the bottom lip and blend it very well. Since our light source comes from the top left, the cast shadow will be seen mostly along the bottom right.

Check to see if the outline of your top lip is still visible. If it’s very apparent, lighten it as much as you can and then shade the lip a little darker until it disappears.

Since our light source comes from the top left, the right half of the top lip will be in shadow, so shade it a little darker.

Step 6: Add Lip Wrinkles Using an Eraser

How to Draw Lips HB Pencil_Top Lip Wrinkle Contour Lines

Let’s go along the top lip using our eraser to give it some more shape and texture. I’m going to erase along the areas highlighted in yellow. Curve each stroke to follow the contour of the lip like we did in step 4.

How to Draw Lips HB Pencil_Top Lip Wrinkles

Group your strokes close together and vary the length of each one, trying not to create a noticeable pattern.

Tip: Use your eraser like how you would normally draw, using light pressure to erase subtly and more pressure to erase brighter strokes.

Once done, blend to make the wrinkle lines appear softer and more natural.

Step 7: Add Highlights

Highlights are the brightest areas of our subject, where the light source hits directly. Since our imaginary light source comes from the top left, we’ll avoid placing highlights along the bottom or right side of the lips.

I’m using an eraser to create these details. Vary your strokes so you have a variety of long, short, wide, and narrow ones. If you want your lips to look glossy, make the highlights more connected.

When making vertical highlights, curve your strokes to follow the contour of the lip (refer to the contour lines from step 4).

Step 8: Additional Details

Optionally, you can make the skin of your top lip appear bunched up.

This can be done by first drawing triangle shapes along the bottom edge, avoiding the sides of the lip. Then, from the top of each triangle, flick your pencil up to create deep wrinkle lines that fade out at the top.

If you already have some prominent wrinkles along your top lip, pick a few and draw your triangles at the base of each.

Between each of these new wrinkles, lighten the skin slightly to make the surface look raised.

A few more tweaks…

If you want to make your drawing pop more, you can increase the contrast by making sure the highlights are as light as you can get them and darken your shadows even more to improve depth.

Around the corners of the lips, shade slightly and then blend well to achieve a very slight dip in the skin. You can blend around the outer edge of both lips to soften them.

I hope this tutorial on how to draw realistic lips using an HB pencil was clear and easy to follow. If you got stuck or need clarification on any steps, please check out the original video tutorial where I walk you through each step and explain things in more detail with additional examples.

Happy drawing!!

Darlene

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.

How to Draw Lips – 8 Steps | HB Pencil Read More »

How to Draw a Teary Eye in 12 Steps

4 Comments / Learn How to Draw

Hey guys! It’s been a while but I’m back with a new tutorial! Learn how to draw this realistic crying eye from scratch in just 12 steps. This condensed tutorial was made using screenshots taken from my hour-long video tutorial on Youtube. Please refer to the teary eye video if you need any extra explanations for any of the steps below 🙂

Tools I used:

Kneaded Eraser: For erasing fine details or blemishes. (Learn how to make one from scratch!)

Mono Solid Eraser: For erasing quickly and cleanly.

Staedtler Graphite Pencils: 2H,HB,2B,4B,6B

Blending Stump: Great for blending details and dark zones. (Learn how to make one)

Tissue Paper: Great for blending evenly. Helpful for lightening areas shaded too dark because the tissue lightens the drawing slightly as you blend.

Canson Drawing Paper: This paper allows for a lot of layering.

White Gel Pen: Optional. To make your brightest zones pop!

SmudgeGuard Glove: Drawing glove to prevent smudging and the transfer of oils from your hand.

Note: If you only have a school pencil (HB) and solid eraser, you can still achieve similar results, except your drawing may appear a bit lighter in value.

Step 1: Construct the Eye Shape

Lightly draw the shape of an eye using your HB pencil. Draw an eyelid crease above it. If you need help with this step, the video tutorial breaks it down further.

Since we’re going to add a lot of detail to this eye, I would recommend you draw it a similar size as mine, which is about 12-13cm across.

Step 2: Outline the Iris and Pupil

Draw a circle for the iris, making it roughly half the width of the eye. In the center of your iris, add smaller circle for the pupil, but don’t shade it in yet!

If you need help centering your pupil, draw a vertical and horizontal line through your iris. The point where the lines intersect marks where the pupil should go 🙂.

Step 3: Outline the Highlights in Your Eye

The magical part that makes an eye drawing look teary without overdoing the teardrops is the highlights. These are shiny areas that will make the watery parts of our eye glisten.

Let’s draw 3 groups of them…

Main Highlights: Outlined in blue for your reference, these rectangle shapes are a reflection of a pair of windows situated to the left side of our imaginary room. It is curved to support the illusion of a curved eyeball. I broke the shapes down from 2 to 3, but you can simplify it more if you want.
Waterline Highlights: Outlined in green, these two shapes are a squished version of the Main Highlights. I’m calling them Waterline Highlights because they are going to sit at the edge of some accumulated tears at the bottom of the eye, and we want these tears to glisten!
Inner Corner of the Eye Highlights: Outlined in purple. When our eyes well up with tears, they always collect at the inner corner of the eye because that’s where the tear duct is located. Let’s outline a big “U” shape to make this area really wet-looking.

Step 4: Shade the Pupil and Iris

Shade your pupil as dark as you can get it. I used a 6B pencil for this. If you are using a harder pencil like an HB, avoid pressing too hard because it can warp the paper and/or make it overly reflective.

Then shade your iris. Start with an even layer of graphite (4B) and then blend it with a tissue.

Then, using a 6B, shade a dark ring around your iris. Since my imaginary light source is shining down from above, the eyelid will cast a shadow along the very top of the eyeball. So let’s shade along the very top of the iris to account for this cast shadow.

I prefer to blend these dark parts with a blending stump because the tissue tends to lift graphite away, making the area lighter. The advantage with blending using a tissue is that it’s easier to work with if you are a beginner and the result looks smoother.

Step 5: Draw Iris Details Part 1

Still using a 6B pencil, shade a dark band along the very bottom of your iris for the accumulated tears. Only shade as high as your Waterline Highlights.

Next, draw a wavy ribbon around your pupil using a 4B pencil.

Step 6: Draw Iris Details Part 2

Within the ribbon that surrounds your pupil, draw a bunch of radiating lines. Then draw another identical ribbon around the first one. Where the ribbon juts out, draw lines that reach outward toward the edge of the iris.

Continue drawing a variety of wavy/squiggly lines radiating towards the edge of the iris. Lighten the spaces in between your pencil marks using your kneaded eraser if you want to make some of the spokes pop out (this increase in contrast can help make your eye look more captivating).

You can increase contrast further by darkening the edge of your iris and the cast shadow along the top using a 6B pencil.

Now let’s draw a reflection in our Main Highlights. In the bottom half of my Main Highlights, I’ve shaded an ambiguous wavy shape and purposefully blended that unevenly to make it look like there are some details reflected back. You’ll notice that I’ve added two extra highlights on the iris. I’ve also used my blending stump to blur the edges of some. I much prefer the softer, more subtle look. Please feel free to blend them however you’d like and add or remove parts based on your personal preference.

Step 7: Shade the Rest of the Eyeball (Eyewhites)

Make sure the rest of your eyeball is shaded in. We want the lightest areas of this entire drawing to be our highlights.

Shade the far left and far right of your eyeball gradually darker using an HB pencil. Then blend with a tissue.

Shade along the very top of the eyeball to make it look like the eyelid is casting a shadow. Shade lightly along the bottom of your eyeball as well to make it look curved.

Shade the inner corner of the eye pretty dark to convey depth, especially around the edges. Draw some lines/curves in this space and blend them well so they look like bumps and folds.

Step 8: Shade the Skin Around the Eyes

Note: This shading instruction is different from the video tutorial to keep things simple.

Using your 4B pencil, shade a light and even layer of graphite across all areas of skin around the eyes. Blend it well using a tissue wrapped around the padded part of your finger. Switch to a clean spot on your tissue often to prevent blotches. Be careful not to smudge the details inside the eye.

Then, for all the areas highlighted in blue below, shade darker to make the skin appear curved. Lighten your strokes gradually as you approach areas where the skin should be lighter. Shade the eyelid crease the darkest.

My imaginary light source comes from the top left, making the right side of the eye a little darker than the left side.

Step 9: Tweaks and Optional Details to Make Your Eye Drawing More Realistic

Before we draw the eyelashes, it’s a good idea to look over your entire drawing to see if you’d like to fix anything as well as try to make your shading smoother. Keep in mind that after you’ve drawn the eyelashes, it will be more difficult to blend the skin because you will need to blend around each lash, or risk smudging them.

If you look closely, you can see I’ve added some subtle squiggly blood vessels along the eyeball using my 2H pencil. This is a totally optional detail to help make the eye more realistic! If you darken the blood vessels, it can help make the eye look more sad, since our eyes do become more red when we cry.

Inside the iris, I used my eraser to lighten more spokes at random. I also added large bright patches using my kneaded eraser rounded to a blunt tip and dragged lightly in the same direction the spokes are pointing.

I also added 3 new subtle highlights surrounding the one at the inner corner of the eye. If you like how yours looks currently, feel free to keep it that way!

Step 10: How to Draw Eyelashes

How to Draw a Teary Crying Eye Step 10_1

For my eyelashes, I’m using a 2B pencil. Test your pencils to see which one you prefer. I chose the 2B because it stays sharp for a long time, giving me clean strokes, and the value is dark enough for my preference.

Draw your eyelashes along the eyelid’s ledge. If you struggle with drawing eyelashes, just think of them as “J” shapes. Vary your “J” shapes from narrow to wide and from deep to shallow.

To make your lashes look realistic and natural, try to avoid any repetitive patterns. You can do that by varying the length, the angle, making them cross over each other, or taper them together at the ends for example.

How to Draw a Teary Crying Eye Step 10_2

Make sure your lashes are shorter, thinner and lighter the closer they are to the inner corner of the eye.

How to Draw a Teary Crying Eye Step 10_3

Layer on more and more eyelashes until you are satisfied.

How to Draw a Teary Crying Eye Step 10_4

Do the same for your lower lashes. You might find that spreading your lashes out and jumping back and forth randomly will help you to draw more natural-looking lashes as opposed to drawing them all in order from one side to the other.

How to Draw a Teary Crying Eye Step 10_5

I like to keep my lower lashes more sparse. If you are planning to draw lots of teardrops, you can taper many lashes together because hair likes to stick together when wet.

Give your eyelashes some shadows and add texture to the skin around the base of each hair. This subtle detail can be acheived by lightly drawing circular/loopy patterns along the top and bottom eyelid ledges where the eyelash roots are. Make your circles lighter and more subtle where the lashes are few and far between.

Step 11: Tweak Your Eye Drawing

Take a few steps away from your drawing, or better yet, take a long break to reset your brain. Now look at your entire drawing to see if you want to darken, lighten, add, or fix anything.

I decided to add some more lashes to the top eyelid and make some of them longer. I also darkened the eyelid crease to increase the contrast, as well as darken the eyelid cast shadow along the entire eyeball. Do whatever you feel like to make the eye most appealing to you.

Step 12: How to Draw A Realistic Teardrop on Your Sad Eye

How to Draw a Teary Crying Eye Step 12_1

First pick where you’d like the teardrop to fall. Ideally an area in between lashes. Make sure the skin in your chosen area is shaded and blended well. This is to make sure the teardrop shows up well. Keep in mind that the lighter the skin, the less prominent the teardrop will appear because a lack of contrast.

Now erase a teardrop shape. Make the bottom of your teardrop as round as you can.
Consider where the main light source in your drawing is coming from. In this example, it’s coming from the top left, so we’ll draw a shadow on the bottom right, below our teardrop.
When you blend, make your shadow fade out gradually the further it is from the teardrop. I used a tissue to achieve a soft fade. As you shade and blend, try to keep the edges of your teardrop clean and crisp!
Identify the area that will be illuminated inside your teardrop. This area will be right against the cast shadow you just drew. Shade inside your teardrop while avoiding the illuminated zone. You’ll want to shade darkest at the very top of the teardrop and lighter gradually as you move downward. Only shade as dark as the surrounding skin. Blend while making sure the top of our teardrop is blended extra well. Our goal is to make the top of the teardrop blend in with the skin tone to make it look as though the tear is dripping down.
Next, use your eraser to create mini highlights that loosely match your Main Highlights. Since the teardrop is small, you can simplify the shape as much as you need. If the shapes are ambiguous, they may look like blobs.
Optional: You can use a white gel pen to boost the lightest parts of your teardrop. You can also erase a little wedge shape in the cast shadow under the tear to convey light exiting the teardrop.

An optional detail to make the bottom eyelid look more watery is to erase blob-shaped highlights around/above your teardrop.

Now take a step back from your drawing to see it as a whole. Do you want to tweak anything? If you want your eye to pop more, try making the dark areas darker and the light ones even lighter. You can only erase so much, so try using some correction fluid or a white gel pen to really make those highlights really pop!

A Few Last Notes

This tutorial has been more than a year in the making, partly because editing a 10-hour raw recording into something watchable takes a surprising amount of time and energy haha. I wanted this written version to simplify the process even further, giving you enough steps without overwhelm.

But I’m still learning how to balance depth and simplicity, so your feedback would be amazing. If you watched the Teary Eye Youtube video, did this written version support you? Does it make things easier to understand? Your insight will help me improve future tutorials here on my blog so I can support you in the best way possible.

Thank you!

If you want more guided practice, I’ve made a companion workbook (ebook) which includes: printable pages of this exact eye that you can practice on, shading exercises, eyelash exercises, and more to help you build confidence and improve your technique. Click here to learn more!

Happy drawing!

Darlene

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.

How to Draw a Teary Eye in 12 Steps Read More »

How to Draw a Hyper-Realistic Eye

11 Comments / Featured, Learn How to Draw, Uncategorized

Hey, I’m Darlene, and in this tutorial, I’ll show you my unique method for drawing a hyper-realistic eye from scratch. Follow along with me as I take you through the step-by-step drawing process!

Tools I Used

You don’t need any special tools to draw an eye. A regular school pencil (HB pencil) and a regular solid eraser will work fine. Below are the tools I used:

Mechanical pencil with HB lead for construction lines and 4B lead for shading (Wonder what all these letter and numbers mean? Learn about drawing pencils)
Eraser (kneaded eraser for detail work and electric eraser for speed)
Blending stump and tissue paper to blend
Ruler
White gel pen

How to Draw a Hyper-Realistic Eye Step-by-Step

Step 1: Draw a Circle

Start by drawing a faint circle using your HB pencil. It doesn’t need to be perfect. For steps 1-2, keep your pencil marks very light so they’ll be easy to erase later on. In case you’re wondering, my circle has a 7cm diameter.

Step 2: Determine the Eye Angle

Decide on the slope or angle of the eye. Use a ruler to draw a line through your circle, keeping it fairly close to the center.

Want to explore other slope degrees? Check out this eye tutorial to see 3 different examples.

Step 3: Form the Shape of Your Eye

Try to keep your pencil strokes light for this step in case you want to make changes to your eye shape.

Inner Corner: Draw a unique shape for the inner corner of your eye. Position it along the straight line, just outside of the circle.

Experiment with a “V” or “U” shape. See above for examples. You can also experiment with the angle, depth, or width to get wildly different-looking eyes.

Top and Bottom Eyelid: Now let’s draw the eyelids. Start with the top eyelid, extending the line you drew for the inner corner of the eye, arching it across the circle, and ending where the circle and the straight line intersect.

For the bottom lid draw a much shallower curve. You can use the straight line as a reference – the closer your eyelid is to the line, the shallower it is.

Upper Eyelid Crease: Draw a skin crease above your top eyelid while roughly mimicking its curvature. You can adjust its distance from the top eyelid based on your preference. Draw from left to right, starting at the circle’s edge and ending above the straight line.

Step 4: Erase Your Construction Lines

Once you’re happy with the eye shape, erase the circle and the straight line. I’m using an electric eraser to save time.

Divide the inner corner of the eye from the eyeball using a slightly curved line.

Step 5: Draw the Iris

To make an iris, draw a circle about half the eye’s width. When drawing irises, it’s better to draw a FULL circle and then erase parts that extend beyond the visible part of the eyeball rather than simply drawing two bracket shapes. This method helps make sure your iris is as circular as possible.

Here’s an example of drawing an iris using a full circle versus brackets. It’s very difficult to draw a realistic iris using brackets! This is an exaggerated example to get my point across 😛.

Step 6: Outline the Main Highlight

In the eye, draw a reflection of your imaginary light source. This will be one of the lightest areas in our entire drawing, called a highlight. The reflection can be from a window (eg: rectangle or square), a lightbulb (eg: circle), or any other shape you choose.

Make sure the shape is skewed to wrap around the curvature of the eyeball. For example, use curved lines instead of straight lines when drawing a square to help make the eyeball appear round.

You’ll notice that the bottom left corner of my reflection is missing – that’s because I’ve included an obstruction to the light source (explained below). This is optional, but I think it makes the eye look more realistic.

Examples of obstruction in the highlight of an eye

Imagine that the light source is from a rectangular window but with someone standing in front of it. Their body would block the light, altering the reflection in the eye we’re drawing. In the example above, a photographer’s head is obstructing the bottom left corner.

Draw your outline lightly so we won’t see an obvious outline after the iris is fully shaded in. Mine is dark so you can easily see it.

Step 7: Draw the Pupil

Pupil Placement: The pupil is the black circle in the very center of your eye. To draw it in the correct place, find the center of your iris, mark it with a tiny dot, and then draw your pupil around it.

If you have trouble finding the center of your iris, draw a cross through it – the intersection between the vertical and horizontal lines of your cross indicates the center of the iris. Adjust the pupil size based on your preference.

Extra Reflection: An optional detail is adding a reflection inside the pupil like the wavy shape I’ve outlined above.

Shade Pupil: Using a 4B pencil, shade the pupil as dark as you can. Shade the wavy reflection about 80-90% of the way so it’s only somewhat noticeable. Erase the part of your iris outline that extends beyond the visible part of the eyeball.

Step 8: Shade the Iris

Step 8 part 1 Shade and blend the iris border

Iris Border: Thicken and blend the border of your iris for a softer edge. You can blend using a tool such as a blending stump, tissue, or a cotton swab.

Step 8 part 2 Shade the rest of the iris

Body of the Iris: Add a solid, light layer of graphite in the rest of the iris while avoiding the highlight. To shade smoothly, keep your pencil strokes close together, minimizing gaps in your shading.

Cast Shadow: Remember when we gave our drawing an imaginary light source? Mine is shining down from the top right, causing the top eyelid to cast a shadow down onto the iris. Let’s shade along the very top of the iris to account for this shadow.

Darken: You can leave your iris as it is or darken it further like I did above. I’ve shaded mostly around the edge and gradually lightened my strokes near the pupil.

Step 9: Draw Iris Details

If you want to keep your iris simple, you can skip this step, but do have a look through it before you decide 😊.

Step 9 part 1 Draw a wavy ribbon around the pupil

Ribbon: Draw a wavy ribbon around the pupil. Try to make it look random.

Step 9 part 2 Draw spokes radiating from the pupil

Spokes: Within the ribboned area, draw some thin lines radiating outward from the center of the pupil, like bicycle spokes.

Step 9 part 3 Darken some spokes to create interest

Darken Areas within the Ribbon: Thicken random spokes to help the iris look more complex. In areas where the ribbon juts out, shade darker to make these particular spots look deeper.

Step 9 part 4 Draw spokes around the outside of the ribbon

Outer Spokes: Add spokes along the outside of the ribbon. Keep some distance from the ribbon to give it a bit of thickness. I think these spokes look better if they’re squiggly instead of straight. Also, you can vary the line thickness and/or length to make the eye look more captivating. Try to keep your squiggles subtle and make them fade out as they approach the edge of the iris.

Step 9 part 5 Darken areas of the iris to increase depth and interest

Darken: Once all your iris details are drawn, step back from your drawing to see if you’d like to darken the iris even further (I like to build my shading up in layers as I go along because it’s easier to add graphite to your work rather than erase areas that have been overshaded). I decided to darken the iris’s edge and the shadow cast by the top eyelid. I think the iris looks more striking with the increased contrast.

To blend all these tiny details, try using a pointy blending stump. Find out how to make your own blending stump!

Want to see another example of adding details to an iris? See step 5 from my Teary Eye tutorial.

Step 10: Shade Everything Else Inside the Eye

Step 10 part 1 Shade the inner corner of the eye

Inner Corner: Shade the inner corner of your eye, creating little bumps of different sizes. You can draw a bump by shading darker around the base of the bump and lighter at the highest point to make the surface look raised.

Eye whites: To make the eyeball look round, shade the far left and far right. The left side should be darkest because it faces the opposite direction from our imaginary light source. You’ll notice that my eye whites are fully shaded because even though it’s called “eye whites”, it’s not truly white. Keep your pencil strokes thick and close together for smooth shading. For more info on shading eyeballs, click here.

Step 10 part 3 Shade a cast shadow along the top of the eyeball

Top Eyelid Cast Shadow: Remember how the top eyelid casts a shadow onto the eyeball? Shade along the top of your eyeball to keep the lighting consistent.

Step 11: Shade the Skin

Step 11 part 2 Draw a ledge outline around the top and bottom eyelid

Before shading the skin around your eye, let’s add a few small details such as some extra creases above the inner corner of the eye and an outline around both the top and bottom eyelids to mark the eyelid ledge.

Top Eyelid: Shade the top eyelid, using pencil strokes that follow the shape of your eyelid. It’s okay if some of your strokes are darker or your shading isn’t very consistent here since these can come across as subtle wrinkles later on. If you want your shading to appear very smooth, eliminate gaps between your pencil strokes.

Step 11 part 4 darken the skin close to the eyelid crease

As you shade closer to the eyelid crease, darken your strokes gradually so that the crease comes across as folded skin instead of just a line drawn on the skin. To see an example of how to shade versus how not to shade a crease, as well as a cross-section view of the skin, visit this tutorial and navigate to tip #4.

Step 11 part 5 Shade above the eyelid crease

Extend your shading above the crease and to either side of the eye. Just like before, darken your pencil strokes the closer you get to the crease so that the skin looks like it curves inward, away from the light source.

Bottom Eyelid: Shade the bottom eyelid leaving the eyelid ledge the lightest.

How to draw wrinkles under the eye disconnected strokes versus solid stroke

You can add a few subtle wrinkles under the eye using a sharpened pencil or the sharpest part of your mechanical pencil, drawing disconnected strokes while roughly following the eye’s contours. Around these wrinkles, you can shade using the cross-hatching technique to give the skin more texture, heightening the wrinkle effect.

Step 12: Blend Your Eye Drawing

Step 12 Blend your realistic eye drawing

Once done, use a blending tool of your choice to make your shading look more polished, reducing the amount of white gaps between strokes. I’m using a soft tissue wrapped around my finger, gently blending from light to dark areas to avoid streaks. With each swipe, check how dirty your tissue is and switch to a clean spot often to avoid blemishes.

Avoid smudging detailed areas of your work such as the iris because we want to keep those details looking nice and sharp!

If your drawing isn’t smooth enough after all that blending. use your pencil to lightly fill gaps and a kneaded eraser to remove blemishes by dabbing and lifting them away. Learn how to make a kneaded eraser. Then, blend again until you’re satisfied. It’s important to blend well now because, after the next step, it will be difficult to blend without smudging your eyelashes.

Step 13: Draw Eyelashes

First Three Top and Bottom Lashes: Using a sharpened pencil, draw three initial lashes spaced out across the top and bottom eyelid to act as guidelines for the rest of your lashes. Once you draw these, the rest will be easier to fill in.

Want more guidance on drawing eyelashes? Visit my in-depth eyelash tutorial where I explain how to draw eyelashes down to the individual lash and how/where to place them on the eye. You can also grab some FREE eyelash drawing worksheets while you’re there 😊.

Step 13 part 2 Fill in the spaces for eyelashes on the top lid

Step 13 part 3 Continue to fill in the spaces for eyelashes on the top lid

Vary your stroke length and curvature to make the lashes look natural.

Step 13 part 4 Fill in the spaces for the eyelashes on the bottom eyelid

Fill in Bottom Lashes: Draw fewer eyelashes along the bottom eyelid and make them shorter and thinner, especially near the inner corner of the eye.

Step 13 part 5 Draw eyelash reflections in the highlight

Eyelash Reflections: Within your highlight, draw some eyelash reflections. It’s easy to overcrowd them, so be careful here. Less is more!

Step 13 part 6 Add details to the base of each eyelash

Eyelash Base Details: Now we’re going to texturize the skin at the base of our eyelashes. Shade along the base of each eyelash using a squiggly, circular motion (circulism shading) to make the skin look bumpy. You’ll notice the change in skin texture most along the bottom eyelid, where the lashes are less dense.

Along the top of the eyeball, draw subtle shadows that are cast down by the eyelashes.

Step 14: Make Your Eye Drawing POP!

Step 14 Darken shadows and brighten highlights to make the eye pop

Let’s add some final touches! Take a few steps back from your drawing to see if you’d like to make any improvements. I’ve darkened some areas such as the pupil and iris for higher contrast and depth.

Next, add some highlights along areas of the eye you want to appear wet, such as the inner corner of the eye, and the bottommost visible part of your eyeball where tears would collect. You can make these highlights using a white gel pen or correction fluid. If you don’t have those items, you can make those highlights by removing graphite using a sharpened solid eraser or a pinched kneaded eraser with a dabbing or swiping motion. If your highlights aren’t standing out much, make sure they are the lightest values across your entire drawing.

Your eye should be coming together now, but small mistakes can still make a big difference in how realistic it looks.

Fix Common Eye Drawing Mistakes

Not sure what’s off? Learn how to spot and fix the most common eye drawing mistakes so your drawings look more realistic and polished: 5 common eye drawing mistakes and what to do instead.

Want to Improve Faster?

If you want to practice without starting over each time, I made a printable workbook based on this exact tutorial.

Practice with my Hyper Realistic Eye Companion Workbook

This 28-page workbook lets you print and practice on the exact same eye, so you can focus on the parts that challenge you most, like shading, iris details, and eyelashes. It includes guided exercises and worksheets based on common challenges from your feedback.

It’s designed to help you build confidence and improve faster with guided repetition.

👉 Get my workbook and start practicing.

Fix & Improve Your Eye Drawings

5 Common Eye Drawing Mistakes

Not sure what’s off? Learn how to spot and fix the most common eye drawing mistakes so your drawings look more realistic and polished.

Improve Your Shading & Contrast

Learn how to make your eye drawings (or any drawing) look deeper and more realistic.

Draw More Realistic Eyelashes

Avoid stiff unnatural eyelashes and learn to draw them with flow and variation. Plus practice using my FREE printable worksheets!

What’s Next?

Place Eyes Correctly on the Face

Learn exactly where the eyes go on a face so they look balanced and realistic, using the Loomis method.

Learn How to Draw a Pair of Eyes

Turn your single eye into a pair by using the same steps to draw the matching left eye.

Add Some Emotion!

Learn how to add tears, blood vessels and extra shine to the eyes, for a more emotional feel.

Want a more guided learning path? Check out this page!

Happy Drawing!

❤️ Darlene

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.

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How to Draw and Shade a Nose from the 3/4 view

2 Comments / Learn How to Draw

Drawing a nose from the 3/4 angle is a little trickier than from the front or side, but I’ll show you an easy way to do it, plus how to achieve different nose shapes using the same method so you can customize your nose just the way you want it!

Tools I am using in this tutorial:

Step 1: Use a Wedge to Draw a Nose From the 3/4 View

To draw a nose from the 3/4 view, it will help to first sketch a 3-dimensional wedge to form the basic structure of the nose. We will use this as a guide to draw a more detailed nose, so make sure it’s not too dark, otherwise it will be difficult to erase later. The wedge should have a trapezoid at its base.

Make sure the horizontal lines are all parallel to each other so the nose won’t look wonky.

Step 2: Add Circles for the Nose Tip and Wings

Let’s add three circles to our wedge to make it look more nose-like. Draw one circle where the nose tip will be and one on each side of the wedge for the nose wings.

These circles can be adjusted in size and position to achieve very different-looking noses. Notice how the larger nose also has larger nostrils? Try playing around with nostril sizing too!

Step 3: Start Shaping Your 3/4 Nose

Starting with the middle circle, draw a line that wraps around the left side and continues down toward the bottom of the wedge to create the nose tip and columella. Then draw the wings of your nose by outlining just the outer part of each remaining circle. Use your circles as a rough guideline – you don’t need to stick to them exactly.

Step 4: Draw the Nostrils

Now draw the nostrils. The one closest to us will be more visible than the nostril furthest from us. You can adjust the size and shape based on your preference.

Step 5: Draw the Nose Bridge and Brow

Create the bridge of your nose by loosely following the left edge of your wedge. Avoid drawing a perfectly straight line because the nose bridge is naturally bumpy. At the top, angle your stroke outward to create the brow bone.

You can experiment with many different slope degrees and curves: convex, more concave, wavy, etc!

Step 6: Lighten Your Construction Lines

Lighten your construction lines so they won’t be visible when your drawing is complete. If your construction lines are faint enough, they should blend in once you start shading, making them unnoticeable. I could erase mine even more, but I’ll leave them quite visible for your reference 😊.

Step 7: Shade Your 3/4 Nose

Before shading, we need to decide where we want the light to come from. You can choose how you want to light the scene – I’m choosing to have my main light source shine down from the top right, so my brightest areas will be along the right side of the nose and the darkest areas are along the left side because it’s facing away from the light.

If you’re drawing a bulbous nose or one with flared nostrils, consider the shadow it creates, even on the side of your nose that faces the light most directly. In this example, my right nose wing is somewhat bulbous. Where the skin curves inward and connects to the face, a crevice forms where the light can’t easily reach. So, I’ve given it a dark shadow. The darker you shade around this wing, the more bulbous your nose will appear. If you’d like to draw a narrow nose or one that looks pinched, lighten this shadow significantly.

Let’s shade the darkest areas of the nose first. When shading, keep your pencil strokes close together to minimize gaps. Gaps will make your drawing look less realistic. To learn different ways to shade, visit my Intro to Shading Techniques.

Step 8: Add Mid-Tones

Mid-tones are the shades of gray between the darkest and lightest areas of your drawing hence the word “mid” for middle. They help your shading look more realistic by giving the illusion of depth through the gradual transition from dark to light. Learn more about shading and light.

Currently, there is a very harsh transition from our shadow zones to light zones, so the first thing we want to do is add mid-tones between them. The goal is to get a nice gradual transition.

Next, shade a medium layer of graphite along the entire bottom of the nose, except for the area below the right nostril (highlighted in yellow) – In this area, leave a thin strip of light to make the skin appear raised.

Add mid-tones along the right side of your nose. Avoid the middle part highlighted in yellow to account for the bump partway down the nose. Make your shading lighter gradually as you work towards the lightest areas.

Shade along the very top of the nose to finish off that section.

At this point, the nose doesn’t look very shapely yet. It’s kind of uninteresting to look at. I’m going to shade a few more areas to make the nose stand out more and add some extra details to make the form look more complex. You can pick and choose what you’d like to do to your nose. If you like how it looks right now and prefer to skip to the next step, that’s fine.

I think my nose will stand out more if I darken and develop these areas further:

The very top of the nose. Darkening this area will hint at a stronger brow bone.
The underside of the nose. To avoid a blocky-looking nose, shade the top edge so it’s concave, giving the nose tip a more rounded appearance.
The area above the right circle (the circle isn’t visible anymore, but you can probably visualize where it used to be by following the shape of the wing). This shadow creates what’s called an alar crease.

Step 9: Blend and Highlight

Since this is a quick tutorial, I’m not too concerned about achieving super smooth shading. So if you’d like your drawing to look more polished, make sure you fill in any major gaps between your pencil strokes before blending. Small gaps will likely disappear after being blended.

To blend, use a tissue or blending tool of your choice to smooth out your shading. For this drawing, I’m using a regular facial tissue wrapped around my finger. Working in sections, blend from a light area into a dark area instead of the other way around to avoid dark streaks across your hard work. It’s okay if your light zones become slightly gray (they likely will) – It’s actually a good thing because your highlights will show up better!

Pick areas you want to highlight on the nose to increase your drawing’s contrast, making it pop!

To create highlights, it is best to use a kneaded eraser and a gentle dabbing motion to lift graphite from your drawing. A regular solid eraser can work too, but it will likely result in highlights with harsh edges.

Erase a few sections on the light side of your nose (facing the light source), such as the nose tip, bridge, or ala. These highlights are reflections of your light source. If that’s not enough, you can add some highlights on the underside of the nose, conveying ambient light or light reflected off another surface.

Keep your highlights to a minimum to draw more attention to your drawing. When it comes to highlights, a little goes a long way!

Step 10: Put Finishing Touches on Your 3/4 Nose Drawing

Step back from your drawing to view it at a distance or take a 30 minute break from it, at the least. When you return, you might see it with new eyes, spotting areas you want to fix/tweak. I went back in and darkened the wing outlines. I’m quite happy with how mine turned out and I hope you are happy with yours too!

Bonus Content!

Using Play-Doh or a kneaded eraser, you can make a wedge to use as a crude nose model. With this model, you can see how a nose would look from any angle simply by rotating it in your hands. To learn how to draw a nose from ANY angle, subscribe to my mailing list at the very bottom of this page and I’ll email you when that tutorial is posted!

I hope you enjoyed following along with this step-by-step 3/4 nose drawing tutorial! Happy Drawing!

❤️ Darlene

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.

How to Draw and Shade a Nose from the 3/4 view Read More »

How to Draw a Face from the 3/4 VIEW (Loomis Method)

9 Comments / Featured, Learn How to Draw, Popular

I’m Darlene and in this drawing tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to draw a face from the 3/4 view using Andrew Loomis’ method for drawing heads.

It took me quite a long time to understand and learn how to draw the Loomis heads properly. If you’ve read his book, you’ll notice that I’ve incorporated some of my own methods into this tutorial to enhance clarity in areas where I faced challenges, striving to make each step as easy to understand as possible.

This tutorial is the third installment in a four-part series walking you through the Loomis method for drawing heads.

Part 1 covers the front view

Part 2 covers the side view

While it isn’t necessary to go through this series in order, I strongly recommend it. Seeing how the head is drawn from various angles will greatly enhance your understanding of challenging perspectives. This will enable you to draw faces from any angle with confidence over time.

First, I’ll show you how to build the basic structure of the head from the 3/4 angle, then, I’ll explain how and where to draw the facial features, followed by how to draw the final details such as hair.

Drawing Tools

These are the tools I’m going to use. But feel free to use a regular school pencil (HB) for the entire tutorial.

4B graphite pencil for the finalized drawing

Colored pencil for drawing construction lines

How to Draw a Face from the 3/4 View

Let’s start by drawing a circle for the cranium.

Next, draw a straight vertical line through the center of your circle and call it the Axis. This line determines how straight or how tilted your head will be. We will be using it as a reference for many steps throughout the rest of this tutorial.

Now draw a horizontal line through the center of your circle – This is where the eyebrows will be placed, so we’ll refer to it as the Brow Line. Make sure it’s perpendicular to the Axis.

Now we need to draw a straight line down the middle of the face. When the face is turned, this line curves. Imagine how a ball looks when you turn it slightly (observe how in the example above, the straight vertical line curves when I turn the ball left and right). To draw that curve correctly, we will draw an ellipse.

Make sure your ellipse is balanced evenly along the Axis so the facial features don’t end up looking wonky and lopsided. We’ll call this the Middle Line. The dotted half represents the side of the head facing away from our view. This dotted line helps make our 2D drawing look more 3D and helps us remember which side our head will be facing.

Above is an example of what to do and what not to do when drawing your ellipse. See how tilted the ellipse on the left is? It is not balanced well along the Axis.

It helps tremendously to have a physical model to rotate in your own hands, especially when drawing more difficult angles of the head! If you want to make a drawing reference tool like I’ve made for this tutorial, you can simply draw a vertical and horizontal line across any ball and pierce a stick through the north and south poles.

If you want to create your own drawing model, you’ll need the following materials:

Toothpick

Small ball (I used a styrofoam one, but you can also make one out of playdoh)
Permanent Marker

The styrofoam ball represents the cranium and the toothpick is the axis upon which the head rotates. The orientation of the Axis determines whether the head will be straight or tilted and the degree of tilt. You’ll find the axis extremely important when you move on to drawing heads in tilted positions (such as the one in the 4th part of this series) because it will serve as your main reference point for properly aligning important parts of the face and head to prevent your drawing from looking skewed.

Okay, let’s get back to drawing!

So far, we’ve drawn a sphere, but the human head is not that round. The sides of the head should be quite flat, so we’ll need to slice 🔪 the side of our sphere off to reflect that.

Since we’re drawing a head from the 3/4 angle, we’ll only need to cut off one side (the visible side) of the sphere. To make sure we’re cutting off the right amount, split the sphere into 6 even spaces from top to bottom, using small tick marks.

Once you’re done, locate the topmost and bottommost tick, then extend the lines to the edge of your sphere. Make sure the lines are parallel to the Brow Line. With these two new lines, we now have boundaries to help us with the cut 🔪!

Using the boundary lines we just made, draw an ellipse that spans about half the sphere’s width. This ellipse represents the area of the sphere that we’re slicing off. We’ll call this area the Side Plane (side of the head).

Note: If you want to see what the side plane looks like from the front and side view of the head, please visit part 1 and part 2 of this drawing series.

Within the Side Plane, draw a vertical Ear Line. Make sure it’s parallel to the Axis.

Now let’s extend the Middle Line so it falls off the face of the sphere. Imagine a waterfall! Make it parallel to the axis or very slightly tapered.

Locate The Facial Features

Now let’s mark where his facial features will go! We can do this by making tick marks along the Middle Line. We have our Brow Line already, so we just need to find the Hair Line, Nose Line, and Chin Line.

The Hair Line and Nose Line are easy to find because they correspond to the top and bottom of the Side Plane.

You’ll notice that the space between each feature is equal. That means you can find where the Chin Line goes by simply measuring the distance from brow to nose to get the distance from nose to chin.

It’s important that these facial feature lines are parallel to the Brow Line.

Now let’s make this look more like a human head! Draw a curved line all the way from the forehead to the chin, creating the left edge of the face.

The jawline can be drawn by extending the ear line down and then angling your stroke towards the chin. I made my chin quite wide, but you can make it more narrow if you want, by adjusting the length of the Chin Line.

To make drawing the actual facial features less intimidating, section off the side of the face even further. I’ve drawn a curved line that stretches from the chin to the center of the side plane. You can lightly shade this entire right section of the head to clearly differentiate the side of his head from the front of his head.

There are two more facial feature lines to mark down…..the eyes and lips!

The eyes are about 1/3 of the way down from brow to nose.

For his lips, locate the halfway point between the nose and chin and draw a line that is slightly closer to the nose.

Construct the Neck and Base of The Skull

The front of his neck can be drawn right under the chin. Then draw the back of his neck. You’ll notice that I changed the shape of the cranium slightly so that the head looks less spherical.

Okay, we’re done with construction lines for now! Now we can have some fun drawing his actual facial features!

How to Draw Facial Features from the 3/4 View

Now that the structure is in place, it’s time to bring the face to life. In the 3/4 view, each feature sits slightly off-center and follows the curve of the head, so we’ll use our guidelines to position and draw them accurately.

How to Place and Draw the Ear

Now I’m switching to a graphite pencil. Let’s draw his ear in the bottom right quadrant of the side plane, between the brow and nose. The ear should slant back slightly.

You can follow the numbered steps above and use this detailed tutorial if you need more guidance.

Now for the rest of his features…

To make the placement and drawing of facial features easier, you can familiarize yourself with the two things below. They will help you understand the human head and its features, not just from a fixed view like the 3/4 angle, but from any angle.

Human Skull: Understand the bone structure beneath all the skin, muscle, and fat so you know why and where to place bumps, ridges, etc.
Planar Head: A simplified version of the human head represented using flat sides or planes. Simplifying the head and face makes the placement and drawing of facial features easier and faster.

I’ve drawn some planes of the face (above), so you can see how helpful the planar head is. You can probably already visualize more clearly where each facial feature will go. Can you visualize where his eyebrows go? Let’s go ahead and draw those along the browline:

Notice how the tail of the right eyebrow ends roughly where the Side Plane starts.

Shape his forehead however you’d like while loosely following your construction lines. I’ve made his brow bone quite prominent.

How to Place and Draw the Nose and Cheekbone

It’s pretty difficult to draw a nose at this angle without any guidelines, so drawing a simple, planar nose first really helps (like the one I drew a few steps back in red). Try your best to balance your planar nose on the middle line so it sits on the face properly.

To draw the base of his nose, start in the center where the Middle Line and Nose Line intersect and draw towards the tip of the nose.
You can use your planar nose as a rough guide to draw the nose bridge. Extend your stroke to the brow.
Wrap your pencil strokes around the side of your planar guideline to create the nose wing
Then draw the nostril, which sits between the tip and wing of the nose.

Check out this tutorial for more detailed steps on drawing noses from the 3/4 view.

When viewing the nose from this angle, the nostril on the far side may not be seen at all.

Tip: If you want to study the nose from different angles, you don’t need any fancy tools, just grab some playdoh or a kneaded eraser. Create a wedge shape and add two round pieces on the side for each nostril. It’s a crude model, but it will give you a better sense of how a nose should look from different angles. Click here to watch my DIY tutorial on making a nose model.

Draw the far side of his face while visualizing the shape of his skull. The area near his eye is concave because of the way the eyesocket looks from this angle.

How prominent/high do you want to draw his cheekbone? You can adjust your stroke based on how you want his cheek to look. I’m not going any further down because I like to draw the lower portion after the mouth has been drawn.

How to Place and Draw the Eyes

To draw the right eye, create a vertical line that runs from the side of his nose wing, up to the Eye Line. The intersection marks where we should draw the inner corner of the right eye.

Tip: If you want to learn how to draw the eye from different angles, it helps to have a physical model to reference. make a simple model using a ball and some playdoh or a kneaded eraser. Flatten the playdoh, cut it in half, and wrap each half around the ball for the eyelids. Watch my DIY video for more details.

To draw the other eye, fit it in the space between the nose and the edge of the face. The inner corner of this eye will be hidden from our point of view behind the bridge of the nose.

How to Place and Draw the Lips

Draw his lips along the Lip Line we created earlier. You can use the numbered steps above for guidance.

Start by drawing the corners of his mouth using ticks. The distance between these ticks will determine the width of his mouth. The size is up to you. I like to draw an imaginary vertical line down from the center of each eye and use that as a boundary line so the mouth doesn’t appear too wide.
To the left of the Middle line, draw a shallow curve.
Connect that curve to the corners of the mouth using wavy lines.
Draw the cupid’s bow (middle part of his top lip), making sure it’s positioned to the left of the Middle Line.
Connect the cupid’s bow to the corners of the mouth to complete the top lip.
Then draw the bottom lip. Position your stroke more to the left of the Middle Line.

How to Draw the Chin, Jaw and Neck

Along the far side of his face, draw a convex curve next to the mouth. I’m still roughly following my construction lines. Outline his chin and jawline. I’ve given him a dimpled chin, but you can do whatever you prefer. For his neck, I’m staying pretty close to my construction lines.

How to Draw Hair From the 3/4 Angle

Let’s draw his hair!

How big do you want his forehead to be? You can use the blue Hair Line we drew during the construction phase as a reference to size his forehead – Draw your stroke below the line for a small forehead, above the line for a large forehead, or even higher for a receding hairline.

Work from the Middle Line and extend your strokes to either side of his head. As you work your way to the right, stop near the Side Plane, then bring your stroke down towards the end of his eyebrow. Before reaching the eyebrow, angle your stroke down to create his sideburn near the ear. Wrap the stroke around the top of his ear and continue down to the nape of his neck.

For the rest of his hair, try not to follow the sphere too closely, otherwise, the head will look too round and unnatural. At the very back of the head, angle your stroke inward so his head doesn’t look like a ball. If you want his hair to have lots of volume, put more space between the hair outline and the skull. You’ll notice that I’ve given him longer hair at the top/front of his head by adding more space between the hair outline and the skull.

How to Draw a Face from 3 quarter view Loomis Method

Clean Up and Final Touches

Once you’re satisfied with how your 3/4 face drawing looks, feel free to erase your construction lines and shade the face!

You’ve now drawn a face using the Loomis method in the 3/4 view – one of the most important angles to learn. Now let’s build on that!

If your drawing didn’t turn out exactly how you wanted, don’t worry, this is where repetition makes a huge difference. Each new angle that you draw will help everything click into place.

Practice Other Angles

Whether you’re starting here or continuing the series, practicing multiple angles will strengthen your understanding and help you draw faces more confidently from any perspective.

Try another angle below to reinforce what you’ve learned:

how to draw a face from the front using the loomis method

Part 1: Front View

Build the foundation before tackling other angles.

how to draw a face from the side using the loomis method

Part 2: Side View (Profile)

Same method, just from a new angle.

how to draw a face from the three quarter view using the loomis method

Part 3: Three Quarter View

✅ Completed! The most common angle in portraits

Part 4: Three Quarter View Looking Up

New! The most challenging angle that takes you one step closer to drawing faces from angles beyond this series.

Add Facial Features in Detail

Now that you know where everything goes, take your drawings further by learning how to draw each feature step by step: Draw eyes, nose, lips, and ears in detail.

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.

How to Draw a Face from the 3/4 VIEW (Loomis Method) Read More »

How to Draw Curls in 7 Easy Steps

4 Comments / Learn How to Draw

In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll show you how to draw curls in 7 easy steps! Grab a pencil, paper, and eraser, and follow along with me :)

Here are the tools I’m using, but you can use a regular school pencil (HB pencil) and any eraser of your choice.

Tools I Used:

3B Pencil
Blending Stump
Kneaded Eraser
Soft Tissue Paper
Canson Drawing Paper (If you want smooth drawings, look for paper labeled as “fine tooth” or smooth, but make sure it’s thick so you can work it)

Step 1: Draw Boundary Lines For Your Curls

Start by drawing a pair of vertical lines that taper at the bottom. These will serve as boundary lines for the hair. The tightness of each curl ring depends on how far apart these two lines are. You can experiment with that.

Step 2: Draw the Front Sections of Your Curl

Let’s shape the curl while keeping our strokes within the boundary lines. Draw thick sections of hair that are spaced well apart. Slant them all in one direction. At the bottom, draw the end of your lock of hair by tapering the hair to a point.

Step 3: Draw the Back Sections of Your Curl

To draw the back part of your curl, draw similar-looking sections of hair that are connected to the ends of the ones you just drew. The dotted lines in my example above show you the part where the hair is hidden from view (erase these before you shade).

Before we move on to the shading portion, make sure your curl has rounded corners instead of sharp corners like the example below:

Drawing your curl like this will make it look flat instead of spirally

Also, make sure to lighten your construction lines before shading so they don’t show through in the end.

Step 4: Add a Light Layer of Shading

You can erase the two vertical boundary lines before shading.

Grab your pencil and lightly shade one section of hair at a time, working from the outside in. Use the flat side of your pencil to avoid scratchy shading. We want to make the area going down the center of the curl appear lighter in value so it will look 3D. When you approach this lighter area of hair, flick your pencil up quickly to create a gradual change in value.

Once you’re done, you can blend your shading so it’s smooth, using any blending tool of your choice, such as a soft tissue or blending stump. Blend in the same direction you shaded.

Step 5: Add Strands of Hair to the Front Sections of Your Curl

Now we’re going to draw individual strands of hair over the top of our shading. Sharpen your pencil, using the tip to draw this time, and use more pressure to create darker lines. In each section of hair, start your stroke along the outside and flick your pencil in toward the middle.

Now that my drawing is darker, you can more clearly see the pattern of light and shadow – each section of hair is lightest down the center. The transition between light and dark values should be gradual unless you’re drawing wet or extremely shiny hair.

Step 6: Add Strands of Hair to the Back Sections of Your Curl

Let’s work on the back sections of our curl in the same way we did in step 5, using the tip of our pencil to create many individual strands of hair. To make our drawing look 3D, try to darken this section more than the front section.

Step 7: Add Final Details to Your Curl!

Once you’re done, check to see if you’d like to make any tweaks to your drawing. I added some stray hairs so my drawing looks more natural instead of rigid and predictable.

If you’d like to learn more about how to draw long curls, such as how to draw loose curls, changing the curl direction, or how to layer many curls on a head of hair for your character drawings, plus many more tips, please refer to my video tutorial below!

Video Tutorial: How to Draw Curls

Thanks for drawing with me! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on drawing realistic curly hair and hope you share it with your friends :)

Leave a comment down below if you have any questions!

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.

How to Draw Curls in 7 Easy Steps Read More »

Step 1: Draw a Line

Step 2: Draw the Center and Corners of the Lips

Step 3: Complete the Opening of the Mouth

Step 4: Draw a Thin Top Lip

Step 5: Draw the Bottom Lip

Step 6: Shade a Light Base Layer Across Both Lips

Step 7: Decide on Your Lighting and Mark Highlights

Step 8: Shade the Bottom Lip

Step 9: Shade the Top Lip

Step 10: Add a Cast Shadow Below the Bottom Lip and Apply Final Touches

What’s Next?

Step 1: Draw a Trapezoid

Step 2: Draw the Eye Shape

Step 3: Draw the Eyelid Crease

Step 4: Draw the Iris

Step 5: Add the Pupil and Decide On Your Light Source

Step 6: Shade the Iris and Add Detail

Step 7: Shade the Eyeball and Inner Corner of the Eye

Step 8: Shade the Skin

Step 9: Draw Eyelashes and Finish the Eye

What’s Next?

Drawing Tools

Building the Basic Head Structure (3/4 View Tilted Up)

Draw the Side Plane for the 3/4 View

Locate Facial Feature Placement

How to Draw Facial Features from the 3/4 View (Looking Up)

How to Place and Construct the Ear

How to Draw the Eyebrows and Nose

How to Place and Draw Eyes in the 3/4 View

Draw the Head, Face, Jawline, and Neck

How to Draw Hair From the 3/4 Angle

Final Adjustments

Other Tutorials in this Series

Add Facial Features in Detail

Step-by-Step Eye Drawing Tutorial

Step 1: Create Guidelines for Eye Placement

Step 2: Draw Eyes at the ¾ Angle

Eyeshape

Draw the Irises, Pupils, and Nose

Step 3: Shade Inside the Iris

Shade the Pupils

Shade the Iris

Step 4: Shade the Eyeball (Make It Round)

Step 5: Shade the Surrounding Skin

Shade the Rest of the Nose

Blend

Step 6: How to Draw Eyebrows from the ¾ View

Eyebrow Positioning

Eyebrow Hair Direction Overview

Step 7: How to Draw Eyelashes from the ¾ View

Step 8: Polish and Tweeak Your Realistic Eye Drawing

Increase Contrast

Fix Your ¾ Eye Drawing

What’s Next?

Tools I Used

How to Draw a Hyper-Realistic Eye Step-by-Step

Step 1: Draw a Circle

Step 2: Determine the Eye Angle

Step 3: Form the Shape of Your Eye

Step 4: Erase Your Construction Lines

Step 5: Draw the Iris

Step 6: Outline the Main Highlight

Step 7: Draw the Pupil

Step 8: Shade the Iris

Step 9: Draw Iris Details

Step 10: Shade Everything Else Inside the Eye

Step 11: Shade the Skin

Step 12: Blend Your Eye Drawing

Step 13: Draw Eyelashes

Step 14: Make Your Eye Drawing POP!

Fix Common Eye Drawing Mistakes

Want to Improve Faster?

Fix & Improve Your Eye Drawings

What’s Next?

Step 1: Use a Wedge to Draw a Nose From the 3/4 View

Step 2: Add Circles for the Nose Tip and Wings

Step 3: Start Shaping Your 3/4 Nose

Step 4: Draw the Nostrils

Step 5: Draw the Nose Bridge and Brow