Welcome to the first ever tutorial for Paradiseworld! You’re probably thinking, why does this guy think he can draw?? I don’t know! Actually, you’re probably thinking, "Shut up already and get on with the tutorial!" Well said!

This tutorial is a simple one that shows step by step how to draw a face from a dead ahead view! You can get this in pretty much any "How to Draw" book, but I figured I would do my own. Why? I have FREE time! This is free to you! This is the free promotion of using your brain and having some fun with it!

Of course, these are my own methods. It’s what’s worked for me when I draw faces, but they’re learned from some wonderful drawing books. This isn’t a methodology for you to strictly adhere by, but this is how I do things. The tutorial itself serves as only a means to give you ideas to play with on your own. So on with it!

By the way, some things to keep in mind. Keep your pencil rigid but your drawing hand flexible. Don’t worry about making dark, perfect lines and curves. Keep it loose and flowing, maybe even fast to put some energy into your picture!

Here’s what I use.

Pencil and Paper sketching:

• 11in. x14in. sketchbook, try and find thick paper so you can erase a lot
• mechanical pencil (2 pencils) – I prefer mechnical since you can reloat with lead and sharpening was a pain in the butt.
• Different mechnical pencil lead – You want a hard lead so it’s lighter such as an ‘H’ and a soft lead cause it’s darker such as an ‘HB’
• Kneaded puddy eraser – You can find these at art supply stores. They’re erases you can mold and they help you get into those narrow spaces to erase unwanted lines. They’re also loads of fun just to sit around and mold with.
• Hard eraser – A plastic eraser or a regular eraser works good for the larger things to erase.
• (OPTIONAL) Ruler, Compass, Triangles, T-Squares – You don’t really need them, less you want. I’ll show you how to draw without till we get to something like perspective or final drafts.
• (OPTIONAL) Color Pencils – Nice medium to color with.

Digital Sketching:

• A computer – You’ll need a descent one. A Pentium I, II, or III with a load of RAM or a Mac with a load of RAM. (64 MB to 128 MB RAM sounds good).
• A Wacom Tablet – Well any tablet, but Wacom makes the best wireless tablets. The pens are really responsive and the tablets are awesome. I use a 4in. x 5in. PenPartner Wacom tablet. It’s not big. I was rather disappointed with the actual space in which the stylus (the pen) was operational, but I’ve sketched this entire tutorial with it and I’ve painted with it. 6in. x 8in. or 9in. x 12in. are nicer. Cost more, but nicer. Graphire2 is the best bet for those who want entry level and still eat on some kind of regular diet of ramen and beef.
• Metacreations Painter 5.0 or higher – Wacom’s tablets usually will have Painter Classic. It’s good for the job, but I don’t like it. I have Painter 5.0. You won’t find it anywhere these days except Ebay (cheap if you can buy). That’s how I got mine. Now that Painter 7.0 is out Painter 6.0 is gonna be cheaper (my guess). Try looking for it. This is why you need a descent computer. Painter’s huge. Course, I don’t suggest pirating software. That would be wrong... (wink) I’m really not. (wink)
• Flatbed Scanner – I would say this is optional, but this works well for regular sketching. I put it here cause it’s a digital device, and really, there’s no reason you shouldn’t have one. If you had money for a computer then you could spare a little for a scanner. (After a few months.) There are good digital scanners for less than 100 bucks. Try Best Buy. CompUSA, Pricewatch.com. A good brand is Canon.
• (OPTIONAL) Adobe Photoshop 5.0 or higher – I don’t know if you honestly need this. Depends what you want to do. I’ll let you touch up sketches, composite, etc. Just wanna paint and have fun, that stuff above will do it for ya. Photoshop costs an arm and two legs and some vital organs. When you’re serious go for it. There are cheaper substitutes. Think Linux. Think GIMP. Think Different. Think cheap.

Step 1: The Circle, The Makings of a Head

First thing’s first! Draw a cricle. Traditionally books will begin with an egg shape or an oval. That’s good too, but that’s not the Glenn way. ("But isn’t the Glenn way the wrong way?" "Yes, but faster!")

Even more traditionally, when drawing, a basic idea to keep in mind is that everything can be decomposed into basic geometric shapes. ("Did someone say geometry?") Yes I did! Did I forget to mention you need to have some vague idea of proportions and shapes? Well you do! It’s not hard. So don’t fret. Not like I’m asking you to prove Pythagoran’s Thereom or that a line parallel to the base of a triangle will create two similar triangles. ("Huh?")

Step 2: Subdividing the Circle

Now, approximate the center of the circle. Just eyeball it. May not be perfect the first time, but the 10^th time, 100^th time, millionth time it will be. You’ll get there. That is the center of your cross. Now draw one, mind you, lightly, loosely, and quite sketchily. You’ll see why in a moment.

But before that... Let’s get stupid for a second! Take the palm of your hands and put them flush against the sides of your head. Notice something? The sides of your head aren’t particularly round. They’re flat. We want to represent that in our drawing of a head. So what we want to do is to cut that excess off our circle to make a dead ahead view. So on the left and right side of the circle mark vertical lines to show that you are removing the excess. Even better you can erase those parts of the circle. ("How do I figure out how much to erase?") Easy. Remember that cross you made on the center of the circle? That line running up and down is the center-line and from there you can approximate how much to cut off each side of the circle. Since everything on a face is mirrored from right to left, it’s the same distance.

Step 3: Proportions of the Face

Before we get to drawing the face we need to lay it out. This is like doing anything you would want to create. If you write a paper you write notes and a rough draft. If you build a boat you need some plans and a rough idea of how you’ll go about doing it. No different! We’ll layout the proportions of the face. Here it is...

What you didn’t lay it out right? Fear not! You’ll get the hang of it too! So, what the heck does all these lines mean?? Let’s do the blow by blow...

[From most easiest to hardest to layout]

1. The eyes – This one is cake. The cross you made earlier. The horizontal line that cuts the circle in half becomes your brow line. Your eyebrows rest on that, and right below are your eyes. So that’s easy. Space it a little and put a line there to remember to draw your face some eyes. Problem, how do you know how far apart they should be? One method is this. The face is generally considered five eyes wide. So take the length of your eye by five and you’ll get the length of your face (generally speaking). So using the center line you can draw or visualize five boxes along that line you just made under the browline. (Yes, the middle box would be cut by the center-line.)
2. The Mouth – This one is simple. Draw a line that rests at the bottom of your circle. How long should it be? Generally, what you do is from the center of the circle to the sides of the nose, you draw or visualize a triangle, and extend the slanted sides downwards until you reach the line of your mouth. The endpoints where they meet will determine the length of the mouth. But to help you do that...
3. The Nose – Also quite simple! Remember when you drew your eyes. Well if you notice, the sides of your nostrils are kinda lined up with the innermost parts of your eyes. Since we have a segment to represent your eyes. Just visualize lines running from those innermost points down toward the mouth. Where to put the nose? It’s usually above the mouth. So put some space and draw a line segment for the nose. Yes, you guessed it, the nose is one eye wide.
4. The Chin – Ah! A bit more tricky. This is why some "How to Draw" books will tell you to draw an egg. So you get your chin for free. It’s the narrow end of the egg or oval. Not here! Yet, you have enough means to identify where you want your chin. So look over your layout and place a quick line where the chin is to go. You can at this point draw some curved lines from those flattened sides of the face down to give you a better idea of what the face will look like.
5. The Hairline – I would say, up to you. Yet, we all need a forehead even our 2D friends. So give the head a forehead. The hairline is near the top of the head and it wraps around like a crown or a wreath would... kinda. But put a line there for now to denote it.

There you have it! This is the basis for the rest of your work. Not hard was it? Just keep within those proportions and you’ll have a pretty good head. This part I’ll show you some examples of eyes, noses, mouths, hair, eyebrows and explain basic principles used to draw them. Let’s go...

Step 4: Eyes

"Eyes are the window into our souls" Cliche. Trite. Nevertheless, eyes to give away a lot of ourselves. Why do you think they tell you to make eye contact? Or the first thing you notice about a girl is her eyes? Or a guy? Or a puppy? Eyes are pretty expressive and how the eye lid comes down on them shows even more expression. I won’t give a complete overview of how an eye works.

From a more anatomical view, eyes are spherical. They’re sunk into your skull and your skin and muscle wrap around it. The sphere of your eye bludges out creating a bit of roundness where your eyes is, and you control how much of your eyes your eyelids cover with muscles. So think of this... Say you got a piece of sheet rubber and laid it on a metal sphere. Take a knife and make a slice in the rubber’s surface over the sphere and pull the sheet of rubber down to open up that slice to show the sphere peeking through. That’s what an eye looks like. Now don’t be silly and poke your eye out or anything. You still need them for the rest of this rant... er, lesson.

How do you draw the eye itself? I don’t know all the atomical stuff for it. How do you want to do it? There’s the Disney style, which was adapted by the japanese animators – big eyes. Big eyes allow animators and illustrators to show emotion easier. Depending on how big you want your eyes, you may have to reproportion your face. I don’t know what kind of style mine falls into. It’s a hybrid between traditional figure drawing and anime/western comics.

So it’s a matter of drawing two curves to create this "ellipical figure" within proportion to the rest of the face. The eyelid in this case is simpified to a curve that goes over the top part of the eye. Also below it there is a "crease" that shows the roundness of the eye. The eye itself. Think of concentric circles, circles in circles. The outer circle is the color of the eye, the inner one is the same color but darker, and the innermost is black for the pupil. Remember there’s a sparkle, a glint, a gleem in your eye. It’s glassy cause it’s wet.

Don’t forget your eyelashes either. Oh, I guess this is a good time to discuss this... what gender are you drawing? There are proportional differences, but generally they all start the same. Just that the features are different. Men don’t have loads of eyelashes. I prefer my male characters to have smaller eyes, less round. A woman would probably have more rounded eyes, more lashes too. These are basic conceits. Do what you want, what you like and nuts to the rest of ‘em.

Step 5: The Nose

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Let’s talk gender again. Men tend to have noses that are more defined in my humble opinion. I like to draw they bumpy or with more of a masculine quality. Women on the other hand, the nose tends to be more danty. Fewer lines should suggest the woman’s nose. Like I said though, do what you want. Obviously if you’re aim is to draw an evil hag with a hook nose you’ll need to portray it right.

Noses I admit are hard to draw. There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet that you should keep in mind. Look in the mirror. Shine a light on your face. These lines, curves, sqiggles we’re using here are used to suggest the presence of facial features. Light and shadow define the rest. This is where things like the nose gets hard, cause light and shadow come into play to define the shape of the nose and you need just some simple lines to denote it’s presence.

You might want to try this for the dead ahead view of the face... I drew the sides of the nose and the nostrils (upside-down ‘U’ shapes), and another U in the center of the nose to show a little more of the shape of the nose. You can draw some of the bridge too up by the eye. Don’t rely to heavily on lines. Light and shadow make up the rest of the nose. The nostrils, sides and bridge are enough to denote the shape of the nose at this point. Let’s move on...

By the way, notice to your left. There’s a nice diagram that’ll help you if you didn’t quite get that stuff in Step 2.

Step 6: The Lips

Gender again... Men tend to be drawn with lines for a mouth. Not much definition. Thin lips. Usually hints of the shape of the mouth like the nose. Women on the the other hand. lots of definition. Why? They tend to be drawn with lipstick and the conceit is that their lips are fuller. Blah blah. Do what you want. Those are basic ideas to follow.

What’s important here? The lines that show the shape of the mouth. That line in the center where the lower and upper part of your lips meets. That’s the part that forms into smiles, frowns, smirks, surprises, and gritted teeth. Other ideas to keep in mind. For a woman... you guys, what kinda lips do you want to kiss on a woman’s face? Try and draw those lips. Lips aren’t flat or matted on the face. They’re fat, the’re round, they’re soft and cushy. Don’t make the lower lip to much larger than the upper lip. I didn’t draw such a pleasing shape on my girl, but we can fix that with an eraser later on. So keep going... For the girls... same thing. Guys lips aren’t matted down either, but they’re not as nice as women’s lips. The general idea is that they’re thin on the upper half. Think: deflated...

Step 7: Eyebrows and Closing the Face

If you haven’t done so already consider closing the egg shape of your face. these lines you’ll have to approximate on your own. General guides. Boys and girls have pudgier faces, so it’s kinda rounder going toward the chin. Women tend to be drawn with high cheekbones so it gets narrow toward the chin. Men tend to be drawn with squarish chins. Up to you... It’s your sketch.

Eyebrows. Men tend to have bushy eyebrows. Women tend to have not so bushy eyebrows. (grin) Eyebrows usually arch and follow the curvature of the face. They help show a lot of emotion along with the other features of the face. One eyebrow arched high shows contemplation. Furrowed shows anger. It’s not enough though, the rest of your face has to follow. So you could have arched eyebrows and a wide grin or arched eyes brows and tight lips and flared nostrils. Get a mirror and stare at yourself for a bit and make faces or buy a book that has some ideas.

Step 8: Hair!

Ah, hair. Since our figure is decidedly a girl she would probably be quite unhappy without a nice head of beautiful hair. Let’s sketch some in. There are different styles. Up to you. I’ve shown you a few examples here. The basic idea is to start where the hairline is. That’s where your bangs start or where the hair is pulled back or up or however you want it.

So how do you want the hair for your character? I tend to like girls with shoulder length hair, but I’ve got nothing against girls with long hair or curly hair or bubblegum pink hair. Up to you. Hair is something that defines a person’s character. Are they wild? nerdy? crazy? punkish? Up to you...

Step 9: Clean Up/Darken in the Lines You Want

Well now that we have a sketch of a face! Congratulations! {"Mine looks like crap!") Sorry to hear that. Tell you something though. My first one looked like crap too. So did the second. I have tons of sketchbooks filled with drawings. I’m sure looking back my 1000^th one looks like utter crap too, but compare the 1000^th to the very first. There’s a difference in style, in passion, in proportion, and technique. You won’t get this overnight. Took me 11 years. Maybe cause I’m slow or didn’t dedicate enough time. NEITHER of those are the point though. You draw cause you think it’s fun. It’s something to experiment with and what better use of paper? So if this one looks like crap, the next one will too, but one day, it won’t. Don’t wait for that one day. Keep drawing and it’ll happen. You’ll get better. You’ll know more and have a lot of fun.

Well, before you go bounding off with all this knowledge and filling up the rest of your sketchpad... You might want to clean up some of those extra lines. You sketched lightly didn’t you? Ahh... no? Next time you should try it. Makes erasing those extra lines a lot easier so you can see the final sketch. You can darken up those lines you want with a darker pencil – I happen to use a mechanical pencil. You can color or scan it in and color it on the computer. I also happened to fix her lips cause I didn't like how I did them initially.

If you’ve noticed the pictures of this tutorial are made on a computer using a wacom tablet (4x5 penpartner) in Metacreations Painter 5.0, a software that mimics natural media such as pencils, watercolors, charcoal, pens, markers, etc. The technique is the same. Whether you do it on parchment with a quill (might be hard to clean up), paper with pencil or on a computer with a tablet, stylus, and natural media software.

Some Other Ideas

"I, uh, can’t even draw a straight line!" Then scribble. Paper’s white for a reason. So you can mark it with graphite. You don’t wanna try cause you think you’ll waste a tree in the process? Then when you’re done filling sheet after sheet of paper with crooked lines use it to line the parrot cage or litter box, fire kindling, or recycle it so it will save a tree, but try again! Most importantly enjoy yourself! I’ll give you a hint, it’s in the wrist.

"My drawing is so messy!" That’s why it’s called a sketch. No one makes a clean, pristine, finalized, fully colorized or tonal drawing on their first try. You write a paper and you start with notes and a rough draft. A house needs architectural plans and layouts. Drawings need basic shapes and guides before you get something. Yeah, you get a lot of extra lines. Erase ‘em. So draw lightly! From there you can finalize it. Trace it. Scan it. Color it. Frame it.

"This sucks. I’m frustrated! Nuts to this crap!" It happens. Some days were meant for doing something else. Come back later and try again. If you’re obsessive like I tend to be, you’ll continue anyway, but that only shows that you’ll come back tomorrow and do it again. If you’re not as obsessive, go read a book or play some games or do your homework. I find that doing actual work for other people is a very good inspiration for doing drawing.

"What should I draw?" I dunno. Chances are if you wanted to draw you already know what you want to do. Comics? Manga? Animation? Painting? Cartoons? Still Life? The door is open. You should draw what you like. I like drawing girls and women. (grin) That’s my favorite subject. Do I need models. Nah. Pictures from magazines can substitute unless you have a good friend who will bear the hours you’ll make them sit and pose.

"I don’t have time to draw!" Your passion for drawing will decide whether or not you will make time for it, or the time you spent doing something else will be shared with the time you draw... like sitting in a lecture hall jotting down notes on some boring lecture. Drawing might keep you awake. Just don’t get caught and don’t mention my name. Keep a sketchbook with you. They have pocket sized ones. Draw on the road. You know... it doesn’t work that way. I hardly ever draw on the road. You know all that time you spend in front of the tv? You can draw then. You can sit on the can and draw. You can ignore your homework and draw, that’s how I do it. (grin)

"Where’s my inspiration?" I’ll give you some links to my favorite sites. Find a subject you like. Anime. Manga. Comics. Disney Cartoons. Don Bluth films. Kung fu films. Video game characters. Norman Rockwell. Find someone’s style you like but don’t plagarize their work. You have to think visually. Though it maybe hard for those visions to be put onto paper, one day...just keep drawing and enjoying it. You discover a lot. Your brain will never get tired and dullwitted.

By the way if you're thinking about scanning your sketches in. The best way is to scan it in at a higher dot-per-inch resolution (dpi). This means that the scanner when scanning your image will scan for more dots per an inch of the paper and represent that digitally. In other words, your picture will have more detail. From this picture it's best to have a photo editing program so you can use it and reduce the size of the picture by half or a third to get something you can post to the web. More about digital stuff later... You can find loads of tutorials on this off the Internet...

Keep practicing these ideas. It’s not hard. It’ll come really quick to you after a few sketches. That much I can say is true. How well they look, maybe after a few thousand sketches. (grin). So enjoy!