Hi, my name is Charles Hu,
welcome to my head drawing series. In this lesson
we are gonna talk about focusing on head constructions and proportion.
I'm going to talk about some important landmark that and gesture and rhythm on the
head and the way of my approach for construction lay in on the head by looking at
some photo references. I will also show you how to use the construction on head
that apply to a real scenarios, and at the end I will also give you
guys some exercises that allow you to practice this method at home and help you to
improve your head drawing skill.
So let's get to it.

So in this chapter, we’re gonna talk about head construction of proportions.
we're going to explore in a different view of the head.
And also I will show you the some of the key landmarks and rhythm and gesture within
the construction of the head and also the planar break down
so we can see a different planes of the head will
help you to visualize a head in different,
you know, if you want to draw imaginary heads will help you to do that.
So let's get started.
So I normally I start not for quick sketches I start a head
with an oval shape like this.
The next thing I want to do I want to make sure to put a centerline so
that helps you to kind of gauge the head so we
will know is it facing vertically or is it tilting and we need
that center line also to give to give symmetry you know to the head. Another thing
I want to do is on the upper part of the - the upper half of the head you
do a little more abstract. In terms of what that means
you have a hair you know shape goes over and the hair sometime can give very, you
know, the hairdo can sometimes get all over the place.
So most of the structure is going to be the bottom half of the head
head, which is the jaw bones the, you know the chin. So the next thing I will do is start carving some
straight lines to, you know, to give some ground to the head.
So in this case you can see it doesn't feel.
so - it doesn't have that roundness, the anime, the cartoon, you know
of the head. You still give some structures now to the
head. And this is the cheek line,
which is from the face me to the south of the cheek and you
can take that line all the way down to the pit of a neck.
That's where the collarbone is.
So but the hair is not a just an egg shape, okay it actually is - the cranium is wider on the top and it’s
more narrow in the bottom.
So we can - you can add a little bit of the width of the
cranium. You can almost throw a sphere in here.
And then the next thing I would do is I'll put some guide
line to indicate where my feature is going to be placed.
And the first thing I would do is somewhere halfway up this head,
okay, about right here. And the other thing you can do too, the ear
you can assess roughly about in the middle of the head.
So when you start drawing, explaining different view of the ahead you can actually
start by placing that ear somewhere in the middle to help you to
again help you to know where that jaw bone is. For example if I'm going to do
a, let's say a looking from above you if I know where that
ear is somewhere in the
middle of the head,
it kind of helps you to set that whole
structure of the head down
pretty nicely.
And also if you would do that like I - like just maybe, let's see if we are
looking from - let's see if we’re looking from below the head
I can also kind of roughly indicate where the ears are.
And then I can also
klnd of block in the rest of the features.
Okay but so we can - for a front view
we can actually put the ear somewhere in the middle.
Like this. So here, halfway of this head it's going to be our eye line okay
so we can put a line
through horizontally to indicate that eye line and then slightly above it is going to be your
eyebrow line. And then halfway between the eyebrows to the chin
so right here, will be our nose and when I draw I tend to like to draw my guide
line a little bit longer than too short. So you can notice all these I'm going to
bring it out pretty far instead of drawing little tiny lines to indicate a nose. I wanted to
draw it longer. So the reason why is if, you know, if I need to trim I
still allow me to trim. A lot of time will happen
if you draw a shorter guide line, they tend to squeeze everything within that distance
sometime I make the proportion too short. So visually allow more room for you
cut back if you need to. Okay so again that’s eyebrow, that's an eyeline,
that’s a nose, that’s a chin.A nd I already put this, this is the - earlier I said this is
where the cheek line goes into your - somewhere in the center of the ear.
That also - what that also indicates is
the zygomatic arch which the cheek bones. Which is this guy right here,
you can see your ear is going to sit right behind the cheekbones.
So that’s where and that's what that this line. You can see
and when there's some muscle, there’s a muscle that zygomatic arch attached
to the corner of the mouth and that pretty much also kind of
of shows that edge.
This line right here where the front meets the side.
So that's also a good like a good rhythm and gesture to the head because everything
feels like you're all connected.
You feel like this is a water splash, kinda
splash out this way. Like,
you know like this. Okay and next thing I would do is here I would put a - if you draw a line
down like this, that kind of helps indicate what the the tempo lines, which is to
help divide the front of forehead to the side of the forehead.
So within this eye lines and eyebrow line we can put a curve, an
arch through that actually is gonna be two arches. One is gonna be - go all the way you know to the side of the head
like this. And we’ll get to the second large
when we are getting a little more to the feature of the head.
And we’ll get to the second large when we’re getting a more to the feature of the head.
So I’ll make sure I’m blocking all the major plane. Again
here's the front of forehead, here’s the side.
Now you can kind of see the way the front of face and where
the side of the cheek. For male
the neck is about somewhere, that’s the face, and this is the trapezius, and again
that's the gesture line, the rhythm comes from the ear all the way down
to the pit of the neck.
So let me show you guys how to define the placement of the eye.
Okay. So right where the eyebrow line intersect the center lines,
which this action would call the keystones. A matter of fact
this section, the T section is this most complex, where the eye, how the
eye fits into the eye socket and nose bridge sticks out and all this construction going on you know within this area.
It’s a little bit complex. So but first of all let’s think of graphically, let’s think how can we
drop those eyeballs in the right positions or right placement.
So here again, this is our eyebrow line.
So here is that that keystone right between the right between the eyebrow looks like you
can see it looks like a a V shape
or some type of a razor blade shape right between the eyebrow. So what happened to this shape, if we
look at this shape three-dimensionally.
So this is what I just drew, so there is a thickness to it.
So let’s build that in there. And I'm going to swing out like this. When I swing out
you can kind of get we can kind of get a sense of the eye socket
Even the side plane of the nose.
The side plane of the nose is going to come down from here
where the tear duct is going to sit.
So earlier I said
this is the - we’re going to have a second arch.
So the first arch, if we kind of take it and combine connect to what we
drew on this eyebrow line,
we can kind of get a box like this.
Right here. Matter of fact that box is going to help indicate our temple point,
this plane right here. You can actually see there is a temple line coming right at this edge right here. So this is where the side of the
forehead. So one thing I forgot to mention, the hairline. So if you take the
third distance and the chin to the nose, the nose to the
eyebrow and take that same distance up up somewhere in here is going to be our hair
hair line. So again, these are going to be equal third proportions. The hair to the eyebrow, the eyebrow to
the nose, nose to the chin, they should be equal thirds.
And a lot of time you would see the hair, you can kinda see it on mine,
you can see the hair, the side of the hair is going to sit right at that
that side plane of the forehead.
It kinda tucks back and goes right in front
of the ear. So sometimes the hair will come right here and go down -
the sideburn will come down to the ear.
Okay so let's go back to this area
again. This is again, this is the keystone. This is the depth of the keystone.
And right here, like I said, I'm going to apply a second arch
down like this. Okay so graphically think about taking a piece of strip of
paper and you twist it. So you take a strip of paper and you twist it.
This kind of the idea.
Okay, so you got this part which would sit in the back and this portion
is coming forward, that portion is the skin that wraps around your - within your
socket right here. That's why a lot of time you look at those boxers, the fighters,
and then to get this surface corner and you get punch in this part that is,
you know, easier to get cut. And this is what this portion this.
So yeah, it actually tucks in like this, it kinda tucks in. And that’s what
that you're going to continue to
that first visor, that arch shape I drew that’s going to continue to go around
like this and like I said this top visor, the arch, goes all the way to the
side of the head. And this arch come down shorter,
so you can leave about some distance to go to from this arch to the, you
know, to the contour of the head. So I’m gonna do this again.
So here I’m gonna twist.
Or I can bring this line swing over too.
Okay, you notice I keep this, that little bell section quite straight.
Okay matter of fact again, this is our eyebrow line. The trick is with an
eyebrow, you probably have seen sometimes everybody a different type of eyebrow, some type can go all the
way it looks like a large hook that hooks up and comes down.
So sometimes that can get a little bit confused. Should I
aim for the top corners or you know, special way to start doing expressions and
how am I going to make sure they the eyebrow aligns. See this is the thing. So here this is our base. That’s still our eyebrow line, okay. I
Imagine that’s where your eyebrow is going start from. Doesn’t matter how your eyebrows shape looks like.
Some people might just sit right over on this eyebrow line.
That looks like this.
Like I said you might go
up and come back down.
But keep in mind, keep that base there.
So, you know, so that would kind of
help you to not getting the eyebrow over placed on the face.
It's kind of a safe guideline.
So again here is that keystone and this something you can
extend the jaw a little bit. So you can also already see a relationship.
If you take the width of the nose, which the width of the
nose is often roughly the width of the eyes.
Now you can see it’s going to drop into this hole right here.
So, how do I know -
we already know where the
where the outside of our eyeball is gonna stop.
It’s going to stop somewhere here.
That's why I create this whole right here, the eye socket.
So if we - so how do I know where the tear. duct
begins? Where's the beginning of the eyes? So sometimes what I will do is if you imagine
again this intersection where the eyebrow meets the center line
if you draw a 45-degree line down like this, down to the eye line, that will give
you where the beginning of tear duct.
So what that means is my
eyeball is going to sit right somewhere between this point and this point.
And then I know this 45°, this tear duct works great for other views too, it
can work for three quarter view. Even three quarter view I can start with an egg
ou will need a little modification to get the back of the cranium
but if we look at a three quarter view, I can start with an
egg. See earlier I said that ear kind of helps,
you know, knowing where the ear is going to be somewhere in the middle
of the head. So in this case,
like I said if we draw three quarter using the egg-shape the ear is gonna be right at the
back of this egg. And earlier I said the ear is probably going to be
somewhere in the middle so I can start putting that down somewhere right here.
And I don't like I said earlier that looks to have no structures.
It’s just a round egg. It feels like it’s going to roll off my page.
I need some straights, you know to hold that position. And now I need the jaw bones.
Right so see how very quickly we get sense of some structures and you get a sense of head
But obviously very skewed because I haven't add that sphere and for three quarter
view egg this is a little too narrow and like I said we can put them again put
that sphere in there and bring the cranium back a little bit behind the ear.
That probably works a little better. And definitely I still need to have my center line.
You see when I draw center line through it's always better to draw through and not
to stop at edges. Drawing through.
In this case that’s gonna leave you to where you find your neck again that
pit of the neck.
And you draw three quarter view the back of the neck sits little bit further, a little
bit behind than the ear. And keep in mind neck we know in profile - in three quarter too -the back
of the neck sits a lot higher than the front.
Sits a lot higher. Again that’s the trapezius
comes out. Sometimes I also like to indicate our neck muscle called the sternocleidomastoid muscle coming in origin
from behind the ear and connects down to your collar bone. And there is some benefit to it and when we explore a different view
we can always show you. They help you to connect the
head to the neck and neck to your body.
Remember that third idea which is this one off on the top of head is from
somewhere at the hairline.
Right, you have that that one, two, third.
Maybe it could be a little bit higher.
So right here. So that what you see from the bump,
you know, you can see from three quarter view you can paprobably see that bump from
the eyebrow.
That's our eyebrow line.
Draw it too long, draw it way too long.
We can come back and trim that's alright. Where this plane ends that’s
our eyeline. It’s gonna be somewhere just
right here. Okay, so when it’s our three quarter view again
I was finding my placement of my eyes I start from the further side first because this is shorter distance for me to measure from. So I
can come back from here
just my eyebrow, you probably see the eyebrow will come in and it's going to kick
into that keystone.
Look at this distance.
Okay so this whole - you can almost relate this whole as a one gesture,
the outside eye socket, the keystone
to the nose.
So here's the thing. Like I said, one thing you have to be aware
of when you’re drawing three quarter view is how much from the face versus how much side
of your cheek or your side plane of your head.
So this what I would do is earlier what I said is we can take this
eyebrow line intersect at the center line through somewhere right here.
And we should draw a 45-degree line down to our eye line,
remember, that's where our tear duct is
going to be. And in this case for I know we have to find the outside
of our sockets stop.
Like I said you can
draw that visor shape or you can come here and swing over or you know
get a sense of, remember
we can keep this a little bit straight and then come back or I can kind of get a sense of
where the box is, kind of parallel.
All these lines are going to be roughly kind of parallel to each other.
Get these kind of parallel boxes
sitting here. Okay so here this is becomes the corner, like the corner
of front of head meets the side of the head.
And earlier also from this point while I - the last page
I showed a line through the ear down to our chin so we
can still use this. So get a sense of where that cheek structure is.
So here's the tear duct
and here’s remember that the arch
So that the last time - because I noticed on the further eye you’re actually gonna get
sometimes
like I said you will see eyebrow that will rise up and actually gonna
wrap around, you’re going to get a almost like if you see additional plane comes
in here and it kind of wrapps down towards the lower part of the eyeball.
So it's not just Amanda you know, two plane. It’s actually there's additional plane.
It comes over and then it’s going to kick out of your cheekbones.
Come back in and I'll get to the lower part.
Where the mouth is placement is.
Okay so see here it tucks in, we’re gonna
make this a little bit darker.
So this should be darker
because it’s in shadows. So here’s the nose, here’s the tear duct, here’s
the corner of the eyes and what lines up
to the wing of the nose.
And always retake the center of the eyes.
And then redraw a line through, like this above
and below. What it does, it does a couple things for us. First of all when it goes above
yes, you create additional plane which what you have here
It’s a front plane on her forehead to the corner plane on the forehead then to the
side plane on the forehead. So instead you had this kind of broad forehead. Which, you know, wide front forehead and it jumps right to the side.
Now we got some additional plane which turns quicker and then
goes to the side. So now we got a corner plane and now we have a front plane.
That's actually how the head is. Otherwise it’;s going to look like you have a very wide forehead
like that. SO actually the forehead turns quicker than you think.
See how quickly it turns. Versus you go all the way out here.
So again it gives us an additional plane,
now we got corner plane. So what happens is if you take that that actually
is going to start doing this. So the widest point of the head which is going to
be right here, it’s going to set up five eyes wide. So one eye on each side
for your cheek bone and then you had the eye itself and they have another eye in
between the eyes. So you have a total of about five. One,
two, three, four, five, five eyes wide. Here
again is the cheekbone that goes towards - it swings down towards the nose.
That's actually what the initial sphere that I drew.
And if we take that line towards the bottom, that will also
to give us the width of our mouth.
Okay. So one thing I want you to know,
the mouth sites over a barrel, you know there’s an arch so you can get a sense of where teeth underneath.
And and the 1/one third between the nose to the chin -
one, two, about one-third - sometimes you can use this channel right
underneath the nose, called the philtrum you can see where the top of the lips are.
Or just use this one third.
The trick if you want to draw a more ideal person, more better looking person, you want to have a little more space for the
chin instead of having this very short chin. So if you’re going to screw up it’s still better to have a longer chin.
So here's the - here’s going to be the corner of my lips.
And you want to for the crease between the lips usually you can indicate with a line
but you don't want to draw it flat, straight like this.
Otherwise, it's going to flatten the barrel.
So usually what I like to do, I like to arch this way a little
bit. And most of the time the light source is above us.
So the upper lips will be a little bit darker and the lower lips
usually a little bit lighter. And often you get this dimple right below the lower lips,
and that usually are lost in shadows.
That helps when you put that shadow in here,
it kind of helped to push out that lower lip.
Let me step back and look at my drawing.
Okay the chin protrudes out, right you can see it from the side view, you know, the chin protrudes out, and that's why you get this hard edge right here.
You know the chin box you know protrudes out.
So actually sits in front of the jaw bone so you might -
sometime what I'll do is give an overlap using this line here to skyline here.
That's where I want to kinda indicate that chin, it’s in front of that jaw
bone. Earlier I said that the neck muscles, the sternocleidomastoid muscle, in front view gives
you an impression of the letter M like this.
And sometimes you will see you got the thyroid cartilage kind of comes
in here and kind of protrudes, kind of protrudes out.
Gets onto that collarbone. So
let's see. Let me clean up the drawing a little bit here.
Let me straighten some of the edges because I just don't like if my drawing gets
too round. This area can keep it more gestural, more rounded
but then still you want to make sure you have some
aAngles and straighter lines
like I said to, you know, to solidify the drawings show some structure underneath it.
So one other thing on the contour, one of the important you know is the cheekbone that
protrudes out. Okay that’s to give you give a sense of character
to the person. Also give a good sense of structures. The cheekbones - the widest
point of that cheekbones is going to be somewhere again.
Like I said towards the ear canal, the center of the
ear. So what happens a lot of time you’ll see is you will have this temple line
comes down. Swing the temple line
down like this. And this kinda kicks out like this. Right there,
temple line kinda kicks out about right there. And the side of the hair kinda
sits over here and that's going to go,
like I said that’s going to swing - actually a couple places
you can swing too. It can swing down to our chin, corner of our chin.
Like this. It can swing to the corner of our lips.
If you have more protruded muzzle you can also come down to that corner,
the corner of the lips.
And also you can swing towards the bottom of the nose.
The muzzle, you get a sense of that roundness. The bottom part of the
muzzle looks like a horseshoe shape, you actually
doing this type of thing, goes in and swings out.
So you got actually an egg shape on the side like this.
Again this is that philtrum
I mentioned earlier, looks a little channel, goes in. A lot of times
you see this line coming off on the wing of the nose.
I haven't gotten to much of the nose.
So basically the nose it's a bridge, obviously it’s a triangle.
You saw it earlier, I didn't talk about it, but I
kind of draw a triangle shape also from that point down.
Note to indicate that the shape of the nose.
So the nose is basically it’s a continuous gesture towards that keystone.
Okay again, you see how that's why it this section is
kind of complicated but here is my keystone right here.
That's where the keystone ends.
Okay so hopefully this shows a little better.
So remember what the thickness is, right here,
see how that is going to come down to the base of your eyes right here
come down to the base of our eyes and this portion right here at
the top, that's why you saw it kind of curves down which it’s going to swing
down like this. And ften again
here's going to be quite dark.
Nose is going to be a continues
you know gesture coming
out front. This top edge right here it going to connect to the top
edge of our nose. The nose begins narrow and come down wider.
Right? So again, you see that your nose continue, goes up to the top of the
keystone and going to swing down to the eye socket.
The bottom of nose again for now
I'm just thinking of a box like this.
And we’ll modify that later. See that point was the base of keystone is
going to be - is also going to be a continue line for the base of
the nose. See if you take this edge, brings it down.
It gives you that base of the nose
that attaches onto the face.
Okay front forehead corner, side - let me use the black charcoal to show front.
So only lasts about this much.
And this is actually going to go over to the top
of the cranium. Corner, side. The other thing you notice the eyebrow lines lines up
to the top of here right, the bottom of the nose lines up to
roughly the bottom of the ear.
When you draw that ear at an angle it doesn’t matter which view, it
can be a profile
don’t draw it straight. Make sure to draw it at an angle that kind of
echoes to this, you know, this idea. Because that triangle, I'm always shooting for a triangle, a diagonal
relation, diagonal relationship.
Here’s the ear canal, again, the
zygomatic arch bone goes in. One thing I usually like to do is where that ear lobe, I want to make sure that ear lobe is it’s own identity and what that means is an important design in drawing is making sure, you know, in certain areas you want to have it’s own identity. It’s an area you might want to lose
it, you know, for example like if I feel like if I kind of
blend, kind of blends the earlobe
into my face without kind of, you know, without giving it's own
kind of identity I’m kind of losing the character.
I make the whole silhouette less interesting.
Okay, our eyes see silhouettes first. So all the little negative space or positive space it make a big difference.
Imagine if I feel this negative space you’re going to lose the top part
of that ear and just get everything going to be a blob.
And that probably would not look good.
So you want to make sure - you want to clarify that. But not everywhere,
some areas you want to make lost, keep a soft edge, keep it back in the picture, some area
you want to come forward either for prospective purpose or for design. In this case just
for the design or silhouette, in this case
You also you wanted to show hat identity.
So here at about a third of the nose - one, two, three - third of the nose,
guess where you are. Basically the tip of the nose, you got the ball of the nose and you have the wing.
The ball of the nose is going to sit highest and the wing gonna drop down beside it.
So the ball of the nose, besides it sits in the front, it also sits in the bottom, also partially on the
side, see how you could come down to
the bottom. Kinda run right into that philtrum?
Kinda run oppositely. This is a V and this kind of comes out reverse,
that philtrum. And then the wing of the nose, it just looks like a shingle on the roof right beside the ball of
the nose. So you have the top, you have the side,
and then you have the top of the wing and then the side of the wing.
And then right above the ball of the nose you got this
kind of like - I call it a coffin shape, that kind of looks like
this. That sits where the bridge of the nose is right here. So you’re gonna - you can see that especially at three quarter, you can see that on the three quarter view on the shadow from the three quarter view.
That insert into the ball of the nose. The keystone is actually is a down plane.
Okay, that's right here,
this is a down plane right here. And making sure the other thing you want to remember is the
end of the keystone has to be higher than your eye lines. Okay.
You don't bring that down to the eye line, that has to sit higher
than the eye line. So this - what happened, you can kind of see,
obviously the base of nose is not going to be that straight, it looks too geometric.
It's going to flare out.
This part is going to kind of flare out
like this and could give a good sense of that wrapping around this eyeball.
Everything around the eyeball is basically for protection purposes. Eyelashes, eyebrows, all that.
You know the bones around it, it comes around like this and you know.
That's where -
that's your cheekbones. Lines up to your cheekbones. So this kind of flares out and now it’s going to come back and meet the side
of the nose. And the lines are gonna come right - it’s
kind of following this curves right here, following that stair-step of
the ball and nose and was coming up on the wing of the nose, just
kind of comes - comes out from that. That kinda helps to protrude out the whole muzzle too, obviously
when you put that so deep like this, it kind of ages the person.
So you want to make sure you - often when I draw
when I draw female models,
you might not want to indicate that. Even if I see it, I still kind of keep that down.
So I just feel like the skin is sagging and doesn't quite look attractive.
Okay so we can start seeing this head start to develop. You’re probably
kind of waiting for me to do something with you those eyeballs.
But now at least what I can show you is now I know where
my eyeball is. All I need to do is basically draw my eyelid over.
Again, here's my wing of nose.
That’s going on to my tear duct.
So what I'm just doing, I’m actually just indicate - I’m not fully rendering
I’m just going to indicate dark and light patterns to kind of brings out the eye and
somewhat more tonally so I can have some dark, a little bit of dark shadow here and goes
right into my dark pupil which is darkest.
I'm gonna give a little bit of gradations.
The bottom of the iris is going to reflect some of the light from below.
Some dark shadow on the lateral side of the eye.
And see this portion, that's the arch from the eye socket, a lot of times it creates
a nice deep crease and help to push out the eyeball.
Top plane of the lower eyelid.
And then the bottom of the lower eyelid.
Grab my white charcoal. So one thing, like I said
I don't want to get in too much with the rendering - one thing you guys have to keep in mind is that the lower eyelid sits on the
face. The lower eyelid sits on the face, the upper eyelid wraps over the eyeball. And you can see - well here again, here’s the upper eyelid kind of
wrap around the eyeball and the lower eyelid it sits on that cheek
plane. You saw this shape right here the cheek plane kind of like
the socket
from the skull, you noticed the outside you also can
see this corner right here, see how the outer lower corner drops
down almost looks like a 45° angle also from that center point from the keystone.
So you had this almost looks like the top gun, the Ray Ban sunglasses
Kinda looks like this.
So that means this is where the apex -
this is where the furthers point of that cheek plane.
So that means the lower eyelid
has to show somewhat - you see how this there's a plane here.
Hopefully you can see this.
I'm going to make one and make two right here.
So going to be - one is going to be a little longer and two is going to be like
shorter and there's an apex right here.
So it helps to show it sits on that plane on the cheek.
Okay, so this is a kind of a brief, you know,
introduction of a planar breakdown of the head and later on we can go
more in-depth with this and later
I'll show you how to take this into a different perspective and different angle viewing
but its importance to be able to remember, hopefully you can practice,
memorize this, and that would really allow you to imagine in your
head and draw from your imagination and turn it into a likeness and
we’re also going to talk about that down to later chapters. You know the likeness
it's just basically to be aware to observe the shapes of what you see from the model
and then apply on to this mannequin head.
And you can get a likeness,
you know, just by still, you know, still.has to depend on this,
you know, this plane and structural head.

Okay, let's explore what we just talked about the head construction on to some real models.
And we’re going to explore - try from different, you know, from different angles and see
how this whole plane of the head and all these important structures and some
relationship with head, how that applies to a real face.
So let's start with this front view of this model.
So first thing usually when I draw from life, first thing you had to ask
yourself because everybody going to be a little different,
so you need to ask you to ask yourself, what made this model different than, you know
to somebody else and start kind of break it down
so what type of what shape does this person’s face have,
is it round, is it a square, is it more triangular, and what if you’re
going to do, imagine doing a caricature,
how would you exaggerate the features, you know. For example if we do you know a
Big chin, think of that as an exam[le.
So if I’m looking at this model,
he's very structural which is good for what we are going to do and he has
a very narrow face, has very deep eye socket.
So let’s see so first thing I’ll draw is we can - if I’m gonna draw small
I might put a few squick small heads on this page,. So if I do it small and I’m not going to take this drawing to a very extensive hours
I can just more or less treat it as more like a quick sketch.
Like I know I can start with the head, start with the head, an
egg. The reason why okay,
it helps me me to get something on the paper, a volume.
So if it's too large I can still shrink down smaler,
probably going back to a larger sizes,
that freedom versus if I go into very slowly and kind of scope out
carefully laying down my drawing then I’m kind of stuck there.
Okay, but for quick sketch that’s all I want to do. Next thing I said I need a center line.
And then I need some straight lines in there.
So I need to go back in and I need to
carve some of that jaw bones.
I look at the hair shape.
See, that's the thing,
if we look at a silhouette of his head, it’s going to be round, right, you can
see the side cranium is going to be round and that's going to be a little
tricky to draw because how do you know how far, how round it’s going to be. But if you’re looking for the
temple line, where the hair grows on temple line,
this section is very straight and then like I said,
I’m always aiming for straights because it’s easier to read as a more, you know easier to
enough find the symmetry and the placement.
So if I come over here instead of coming out, I’m going to come over here and
put this straight here, straight line here, and then complete that shape.
And then you can look at this distance,
looks like the ear probably roughly about right here. Earlier I talk about I wanted to indent, I
wanted to show that earlobe.
So to me the hair and the face are the two major shapes on the
head. I want to block those in first,
but that helps me to get
likeness too. You can start with all the, you know, detail on the features.
It's not going to help you to get much of likeness.
So I want to always aim for the larger mass. Okay,
so I know, you know,
I talk about the eye is in the middle of the head.
Well for this view it can work because you're just looking straight on but for deeper perspective probably not
going to work that well.
So what I'll do is I will still base on my observations.
So look very carefully enough to see how the hairline to see how much forehead I have.
 
I see this part of hair that I’ve already drawn in, I can look at this distance to see where
that top corner of his eyebrow is and it's going to be roughly right here and that's
going to indicate where the top corner of the eyebrow - not the eyebrow line actually because you’ll notice if you draw it’s
going to swing down like this and that's where you actually the eyebrow line.
Okay, but at least that’s the closer distance when I drew a front view or
you know, you've seen a lot of on the frontal view you need to
know where the corner of eyebrow because that’s going to indicate where the front of
face meets the side. If it ends up making that eyebrow too short that ends up
making eyes too close and they have this, you know,
a big wide cheek on the side and that’s going to screw up the proportions. So in this case
you can look at him,
he's going to have very wide cheek
so I want to make sure
I blocked that correctly, I need to look for where that corner is.
See now that’s my eyebrow line right here. And you can find the nose - either you want
it - and here's my eyes. And the other difference is his eyes are really close to the bottom of his eyebrow and that will
be different than a lot of people have been drawn.
Usually you see a thicker eyelid.
You know a thicker eyelid below the eyebrow but
he’s a little different.
I like to keep that in mind.
Okay. You know that can indicate that eye bag that he has,
just see a kind of a shape that I see that can help me
give me a sense of a complete eye socket, so I want to put that in because again later.
I will find his place his eyes
carefully in there later.
So I need to still need to check my proportions.
Okay you can - for the nose
you can mark somewhere in between the eyebrow, halfway between the eyebrows to the chin if you
want to do that, or I might use the shadow,
which has a touch of grey shadows, contrast, I can actually use shadow to help me,
show me where is roughly where his nose going to be.
Just that line right here, the
philtrum. Remember I said I like to curve the lips and he does have that too.
I want to check - see the thing if I'm drawing the mouth,
almost guessing where the mouth is, and it might be a little risky.
So I'm going to do what I did with eyebrow.
I'm going to look down for how far nose down to the tip of the lips. Okay.
So that's a shorter distance.
And as you saw what type of lip does he has his, everybody is a little different.
Somebody have thicker lips, some have it more
thinner lips. He has kind of thinner lips.
And also be aware of the difference between upper and lower lips.
Looks like his lower lip is a little bit
slightly thinner than the upper lip.
And this is that shadow
I talked about earlier.
I want to get a sense of that cheek structure.
That’s the shadows coming from the side, just that cheek coming toward the chin.
Like I said, again that rhythm coming through into the ear.
So we can see how kinda the hard core construction that’s going on. Let’s work on the -
find the eyes. Trying to find the eyes.
I talked about like the eyebrow line, the eye line.
Draw that 45-degree line. In this case the eyebrow and the eyes are really close. Like different
than the lecture I did, but I still same concept. You can draw that
triangle shape. Help to indicate where the eye is going to sit or like I said roughly going
to be the width of the nose.
Normally, I would draw eyeball first and then indicate the eyes in it but again it seems
his eyes not so much - not so
hard to see the eyeball and so rigid you know his eyes.
So I'm just going to draw the eyes themselves.
Drawing through, make sure to get those eyes aligned.
Both sides. Again still checking proportions to see do I have the right space.
Step back and check. Okay,
I don't want to take this to a full rendering but as you can
see this is going to be my construction drawings,
I'm going to put some tones in there
so it doesn't look, you know, just like a line drawing but I'm not going
to take it to a, like I said, a full rendering.
So you can get a feel of values on him.
So this is going to be a quicker way to to do again like I said a quick sketch
kinda technique. So I'm going to just go right to
the gesture of his hair. My brush strokes, my charcoal strokes what ever you use, I'm going
to indicate that, get that sense of energy in the gesture right away.
Earlier, I said I still want to have the base of the you know,
the eye area. Okay,
so first thing you notice like I said,
you know that keystone dropping the shadows
on both sides, this side got some cash shadow you know probably from the eyes so you got that
big old hook shape,
but overall squint your eyes.
When things get complicated, get a little bit confused, squint your eyes.
So I'm going to put that shadow right in here.
And here's my eyebrow.
You see how this cast shadow comes in like this.
That kinda helps to indicate the side plane of the nose. Again,
I'm actually just copying the light and dark patterns.
Step back. So again I want to get that socket.
So I'm just going to put down some
key shadows and that means just the dark area.
Looks like here it's a little more,
slightly a more square chin.
Bridge of nose, the ball.
Here’s the ball in the nose, front of the forehead, side of the forehead, you see how -
right here, you see how the shadow bumps over, you see a little highlight, little Light
right in there. Remember earlier in the lectures remember that visor that goes over on
a top, there’s two there’s one right here and one goes in, see how that’s what that
visor does. That just blows right here.
It's going to kick out the shadows open like that.
So for quick sketches, I’m just not going to match my - copy my shadow
shapes. Again the whole flow, the
whole rhythms of the eyes into the ear or or into the cheekbone.
So I want to - let me get this.
So how does everything relate. This hairline right here earlier
I can see on the own reference
it's a pretty firm line,
right? That's my advantage to show some separations.
And then we got some softer.
Some here is kind of quite a bit firm too. And
what will happen is this going to continue to run to this firm edges here and taking
right into our ear. I'm just copying the shadow shape again.
Be aware how everything relates.
I do the same thing, firm those edges, push out that cheekbone.
That highlight is about right here.
And this here is where the front meets the side so the side has to
be a little bit darker.
I can't just leave white the paper - the white of the paper I have to kind of tone
it down a little bit.
All this is side plane, side plane goes into that cheek, get top side, front side.
You can see from reference this comes out, flares out,
and it goes right into the highlight right here in the corner that indicates also where
the corner out that nose, the highlight sits
at the corner tpo, highlight sits on the corner, highlight sits on the corner.
You can see there's a highlight right here,
highlight also going to be right here.
We're going to have talk about more in depth on the light, how the render on the
head but that's where just going to show you guys
area are going to be where the highlight kind of sits.
Remember cheekbone right up in the middle of the ear. Chisel, chisel. Okay,
so let's explore the different -
another view. So we have a three quarter view. So,
let me see where I’m
gonna put this. I guess I can put it right here.
So ‘Im going to block in first.
You know again if I draw an egg
and it helps me to
To see how where I want to place the head and if I wanted the
whole page looks like a,
you know, a sketchbook page
it’s going to help me to do that. Next thing I need, I need to start sculpting.
Step back, look at - always be aware of the overalll relationships.
The major shape, the heads and then the hair.
Center line. Still needs more information.
I need to find that corner of the eyebrow.
It swings back in like this, goes to my - and it goes to my eyebrow
line and that's when this plane kind of steps back.
I need to find where that - somewhere where that corner
of the eyebrow is. And here’s the cheek, it goes to the chin.
I Earlier I said I always like to start from the further side first.
Goes the keystone, to my nose, be aware distance, be aware how far it goes away
from the side of the face.
Okay, so come off on the further side and just check out this distance.
See how that parallel box right here,
here’s the eyebrow line. This eyebrow sits right above, his looks like a wedge, big kind of large
wedge shape. The eyebrow on this this one you kind of definitely like hooks up
but these two points kind of line up.
And then you come down to this.
To the side plane here is all the - here’s the side plane
of that forehead. So if you look very carefully then there's actually a corner plane
stuff on really quick right here and you
can notice the eyebrow
kind of angling down down this way right here.
And then actually more it kind of comes down like this, right, so this
is front, corner, and then the side. Here’s the tear duct.
And let me get to the eyes later and I wanna get the major
structure in there first. Okay,
so the mouth is a barrel so
I want to make sure it protrudes out and then can measure to
see where this side of the mouth is and it compare it to this side. You can
use the - even sometimes use this, even the mustache here to help me to see how
far it needs to come in and extends out.
Getting the shadow from the lower - below the lower lip.
The forehead bumps out, go back into the socket, the check bumps out,
goes right behind the nose and then the muzzle protrudes out.
And we see back into the chin, the chin protrudes out.
So the corner of the chin lines - also lines out with to the eyes .sS I
know this part I think the corner of the chin is going to be roughly right here.
Line out to the corner of my lips. And you can see some bone structure
happening. And see the zygomatic arch,
here is I'm going to use the hair right here and swing back to
the ear. Measure the eyebrow to the ear.
Sometimes like I said, in the diagram I said the eyebrow line, top of the eyebrow lines up
to top of a ear and the nose lines
up to the bottom of the ear but sometimes the model might look different.
In this case looks like his ear is even a little bit higher than the eyebrow.the higher than the eyebrow.
So at this point
I'll just indicate the shadows on the ear.
See how the cheekbone follow with that, the eye bag, the cheekbone swings back
right here. Kick back and comes forward and swing towards the chin and all this
looks like it dropped into the shadows.
Up down to his neck.
We still have to find some of the structured in here. All the bottom of the jaw
looks like it’s receiving some reflected light that is definitely his check
So here is the - if I'm going to construct this here’s actually the physical
jaw bones. Kinda sits right
here. So everything down here,
this is the bottom plane of the jaw. That’s where the reflection that hits.
So instead kind of taking my eraser to make that lighter, we still want to group them into
my shadow group,
I’d now probably be better to make the surrounding area darker.
To make that feel a bit lighter. Ball of the nose, the wing of the nose.
Get that deep socket. Find the keystone.
Make sure to be really aware of the shadow shape right here.
That can make the whole design look
you know looks good if you really careful to
craft out this shadow shape right here. Remember that front plan,
little bit of front plane again helps to get that
symmetry, helps to set the beginning of the eye brow.
Coming through. You see the beautiful hook-shape of the eyebrow that swings into - and look
at this negative space right at this eye of this space right here.
Drop down into some - dropping down into shadows.
Looks like there's this - because his eye socket is so deep, it’s going to create a lot of shadows
on him. And then again always be aware of how to organize
your shapes. This right here what I have there is not good because just kind
of a mess from the charcoal blending and so you want to
make sure everything has to be refined
to a clear relationship, shape relationships.
So if you look very carefully,
you know, if it ends right here,
that's the side plane, the forehead, and it looks like they have - it also has this
kind of a wedge shape to finish out this whole structure in here.
This is probably looks a little harsh because I'm just doing it just for demo.
Sure it’s a demo but it's going to be a little bit soft.
It’s going to be a little bit softer.
So again, you have that light, that picking right into that visor.
This arch right here.
So what happened, the shadow will come down, will come down and kick back
and actually then just going to kick foreward like that.
Can probably give some character - let’s put some of that little mustache. That mustache in there. That kinda helps connect the nose to the mouth too. It comes in and kinda
out like this. And feel like this swing around. Remember that egg shape underneath
the muzzle in the corner, the corner of the muzzle, the lower muscle.
So that's a three quarter view.
Okay last I explore a low-angle view.
So we got this kind of profile looking from way below.
And so the first thing I want to do
to block in and I have about that much space is
I need to work with so I don't - I’m going to keep this one a
little bit small and so I want to be able to plan that. To be able to
plan that, I need to have the overall idea,
the overall shape of the drawing. So I got the back of the head.
See you can see I work with a lot of angles and diagonal relationships, I
kind of really draw a round shape, like the hair right here is I guess
less crucial I can keep a it back, you know, I can express it but most of the time I’m going to be sculpting my lay in.
Check this distance. Eyebrow to the ear.
Again earlier I said draw the ear and the angle.
I need a little more top of the head.
So I can add more mass.
The top crane - the top back cranium is higher than the front. So you can see
that on the skull too.
So I need to raise the back up a little higher.
So we’re looking at a volume going like this.
So everything you can see happens diagonal. My eye socket and my bottom of nose and
also my lip has to turn
down this way. Okay the thing also we have to know about is head structure is that
everything - you can see it from the skull -
you can notice if you’re looking at the profile, everything
below the nose are protruding fuller, right? so we can see the eye, the forehead, the eye is
flat. But when he gets below the eyes, somewhere below the eyes - not below the nose -
everything is protruding forward. The nose is protruding forward, the mouth is protruding forward. That’s why
actually looking at a profile, you got actually three planes. The forehead, the nose, and then the chin.
You know, so we’re looking at - let’s just say we’re looking at a straight line.
Here is the the face that I think.
And I think, you know, use a hockey mask as an idea,
which what we have is you got this plane which is the forehead and you got the
middle sections and then you got the bottom part of the mouth.
Okay. And so this can help kinda indicate this plane, this plane, and this plane. So
everything protruding forward. So like a hockey mask, we can go over this or like this,
we got this volume here.
So you got this plane, this plane, this plane. See how the face works three dimensionally like this.
So when you’re drawing in profile, make sure here's my, you know, my bump on my
brow ridge but you have to be careful in this case because you don't
want to just do - like I said,
when you draw a round shape sometimes it gets so crude and you will lose some important detail and that detail will make a huge difference to your drawings.
Right now if you look at the pictures,
actually you also get front of his forehead, just a little bit.
And then turn to the side.
See all this indicates the front plane. And then tucks it into - you got to - I don’t
know how well can see this almost looks like a, you know, overlapped shape. You got this
guy right here and it got a little bit behind which broad ridge to help to indicate
that perspective and that nose kicks out
below that. The eye sits back because the eye has to sit inside the socket to
protect the eyeball, like I said earlier.
Kinda back in here, okay.
And you have to be aware of how much nose you see in front of the eyes,
you know
we have this bridge.
So this might be shorter, and you know
somebody has a higher bridge than the nose can stand out high away
from the eye. So if I’m just copying the shadow shape,
that's something that you will see.
And see the cheek line swings back. We can still get the sense of
that rhythm swing back to his ear.
The mustache kicks back, something pushing forward, something that's pushed back, nose pushed forward.
The lips push back, upper lip is darker. So you got, again you have all this
perspective with dealing with front to the side, that little bit of bottom nose is in front.
The wing right here and the nostril right here can indicate a side, the front
of lips into the side of lips.
Even that little shadow right here at the bottom where the chin protrudes out,
that can also indicate that front plane, front plane.
So here again just that side of the forehead and then this bump over the cheek bones.
Right in here Okay, so you know, we have explored
at least three views right here.
We have almost like a down shot but profile.
And we have here, we have the front of the frontal view and also three quarters
view.
Again it’s a , kinda like I said earlier is that it’s a kind of a quick
indication of kind of applying, you know, what I was showing you in the first lecture and
using the ideas now applying to a few circumstances. You know
but you can see how important is a new table to remember that that structure and
hopefully like I said, hopefully you can do job that that mannequin of head and then
you get a view of your head and that can
really apply to when you’re drawing from a real life, you know, situations.
Later on we’re gonna talk more in depth on the light and shadow and
how does, you know, the light and shadow value kind of
how to reinforce the likeness and help you reinforce even more of the
structures and value and volume on the head.

Okay, so that was a lesson.
Now I have some exercises for you guys to do. It doesn’t have to be
on newsprint, it can be using a sketchbook and just, you know, a long as you
can make sure to keep consistent and every day you can do maybe a five,
you know, these little practice that would really help to advance your head
drawings. So the exercise
I want you guys to do,
you know, I'm going to use a fountain pen,
just pretending I’m actually drawing in you sketchbook.
Like I said, you can do it at your convenient places, and just basically
like what I went over on the structure of the head, just draw
Basically that’s all you need to do, just find the planes of the head. You can also do it on - actually one great exercise
I used to do is you can actually this on tracing paper.
You can actually do an actual drawing of the face on the drawing paper and
then, you know, put tracing paper over and then draw the plane of the head on
top of that. That's actually a very good exercise you can do.
Okay so they don’t have to be big because
like I said pretending to draw in your sketchbook and use any medium, it can be a
ballpoint pen, it can be a pencil.
Just basically kind of figuring out
still figure out these major planes. I don't need the eyeball all I need is the
socket. All I need to do is knowing where my front forehead meets the side forehead.
All I need to know is how my cheek wraps around the forehead.
Swing down to my nose, all I need to be able to understand nose
is that box and the keystone. This is my eyebrow line.
The muzzle. See how this relates back to the side of that forehead.
The ear. I think some shading is going to help to kind of make to help to read
the plane a little better.
You can add the neck if you want to which I will probably will
because it also help you
to get a sense of where the structure on the neck too, you got the side, you got
the front, you got the side.
Okay, that's all you need to do your sketchbook.
Like I said, this can be done on top of a tracing paper over the
drawing that you did. Like I said it can be on top of tracing paper, it can be on your
iPad. I think if you wanted to - there’s actually out there there's a gray sketchbook
I have my my students to purchase by a company called Cottonwood.
Cottonwood, they make this great sketchbook
which has two size, one
Is eight and a half by eleven,
the other one I think is 11 by 14,
but which every page it has a vellum paper
over every drawing paper.
So I have the student to basically to draw their drawings on the drawing paper
and do this construction drawings over on vellums. And in class actually that’s
what how I kind of for my other classes
I have them to use that too.
They will be drawing their drawing on the paper,
I will correct over on that vellum, that tracing paper or that vellum paper which works
really well again it’s a company called Cottonwood. You can look it up.
Again for that for that three quarter view, when you start drawing these construction drawings
I want you to draw through,
I want you to think drawing a mannequin head.
So no not so much as kind of what I did.
There's a way that I want to observe drawing for observation, it’s a little different than
when I drawn - it’s different than when I draw these,
you know, the structure of the head. Because when I draw from life
I draw from what I see,
you know, I’m looking for angles and relationships.
But if I'm drawing just a plane of a head I want to make sure I
can able to see the whole structures. So I would draw through,
really know how to see through that head. You know able to draw this
even maybe just this in any given perspective. If
you have a problem getting the proportion of the cranium to the face,
you know, that will have problem for
later on if you're going to refine it.
Again, eyebrow to the ear.
So now the ear is going too high but the cheekbone too high, let me drop this.
And like I said, that's all you need.
Push this out. If you can be consistent, draw five of these in a day,
you know, for a week, you got thirty sketches right there.
And like I, you know it's going to help you tremendously,
you know, when I say five sketches means do the actual drawing from the photo
reference and then put the planar head over
tracing paper.
So total you have ten drawings basically.
So it's like, you know,
it would help again help you tremendously.
I do that, I still do that every day before I go to bed, you know,
just keep myself in shape. If I have to do it you
definitely need to do so too. So like I said,
it can be done in your sketchbook, can be done on newsprint, it can be done on iPad.
However that's convenient for you,
but make sure you are able to draw these planes of the head out of your imagination in any given perspective.
Okay, so good luck on your assignments and your exercise, whether you’re drawing from life or from photo reference, you
know either way will benefit you but long as you make sure you keep those
artistic muscles working and I will see you next time.