by Kessie Carroll

Created on: March 15, 2009

Anime faces are fairly easy to draw, once you've worked through the steps a few times.

First, start with a fairly large circle.

Second, draw two lines from the sides of the circle that intersect underneath it to make a V. Then add two slight outward bends to the V for the jawbones.

Third, very lightly, draw a line through the head horizontally. About a third of the way down the circle, draw a horizontal line. These will help you line up the eyes, nose and mouth.

Fourth, start on the eyes. Anime eyes sometimes only have a top eyelid, drawn very heavily and possibly with some spikes on it to imply eyelashes. Sometimes anime eyes are drawn with the top and bottom lid, but with a gap left where the tear duct would be. Sometimes anime eyes are drawn with the top eyelid and the outer corner of the bottom one, especially if you're drawing a guy. Assume for this tutorial that you are drawing a girl.

Draw a very large curved line slightly above the horizontal guideline. Underneath your eyelid draw a ludicrously large iris. Anime girls don't always have pupils, so adding one is optional. However, anime girls always have three or four highlights, sometimes drawn as stars. Make sure you add those in random spots on the iris.

For the nose, find a spot on the verticle guideline halfway between the chin and the horizontal guideline. Put a dot there. That's your nose. If you want to be really artistic, make it a tiny sideways V. Remember: tiny.

For the mouth, find the halfway point between the nose and the chin. Add a very small dash there. If she's smiling, make it a curved dash. If you want to be really artistic, add a smaller dash underneath your mouth dash. This makes the shadow under the bottom lip. However, it's optional. If you want to make her laughing instead, draw her mouth as a triangle that takes up the entire bottom half of her face, including her chin. Sometimes anime mouths even hang off the sides of the face. This is considered normal.

Add a few short vertical lines on the cheeks, right beneath the eyes. This makes her look like she's blushing. Sometimes guys have this, too. Unless you're drawing Naruto, in which case the lines on his cheeks are horizontal, like cat whiskers.

Now add the hair. You might want to look up your favorite anime characters and check out their hair. Yugi from Yu-gi-oh has huge spiky hair with yellow and purple stripes, whereas Ash from Pokemon wears a hat with spikes of hair hanging from under it. Girls wear anything from long hair to pigtails to braids to any other improbable shape you can imagine.

Make sure that the hair starts halfway down the forehead, and not from the top of your circle. The hair should also stick out from the circle a lot, and not cling flat to the head like a helmet. You're drawing anime. Gravity does not apply to hair in anime.

Some online tutorials to help you out:
http://nekog.deviantart.com/art/Neko-s-Anime-Fac e-Tutorial-9145549
http://xandria-tchebbi.deviantart. com/art/Tutorial-3quarter-view-14225222
http://kaasen .deviantart.com/art/Drawing-Eyes-in-Anime-Style-4436 5961
http://crysa.deviantart.com/art/Drawing-Anime-Ha ir-Bangs-34535785

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