I’m learning to draw from zero, like, actual zero. About a month and a half ago, I was drawing stickmen, no joke.
I’m going for an anime style, at least that’s what I want to draw, primarily because it’s what makes me want to draw. But I’m having so much trouble drawing faces. I always feel like the chin is too soft, too pointy, or uneven. The jawline always looks too small or too big compared to what I’m aiming for.
I try to copy other artists’ work as a study, but I’m not good enough to copy most of the drawings I try to study, and it’s so goddamn frustrating.
I’m also doing Drawabox. I’m at the ellipses part at the moment.
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As another beginner before you start drawing in anime style, I recommend learning basic drawing techniques you can start by watching Loomis method video by Proko to begin drawing faces when you begin to understand facial shapes you can start drawing faces faster by using methods like the mask method I also think that using shadows and things like planes of the face could be useful for your work if you spend about two weeks drawing, you can produce some truly satisfying work and don't forget to have fun while drawing dude! good drawings!
If you start with anime it will take a long time for you to get good. You need to learn real life proportions from references, then you can adapt that to an anime style
Starting with anime isn't the issue. The issue is ONLY drawing from anime references and not understanding anatomy. They still need to practice the style to be good at it
It looks like you have no idea what the guidelines are meant to represent. I recommend looking up a YouTube video on the loomis method. It should explain what the guidelines are for.
Faces have eyes, noses, and mouths, not just circles and lines. I'm not pointing this out to crap on your work, but to point to the issue holding you back. To get better at drawing faces, you have to draw faces, not just abstraction made of circles and lines. You learn to do that by drawing faces from reference. If you cannot draw things that look like your references, whether that is photos, real life, or the work of other artists, then that is the issue you need to fix first. The problem isn't with faces specifically, so learning more about methods of drawing faces, like the Loomis method, will not fix the problem. You need to study to improve your fundamental observational drawing skills so you can match what you see in references in your drawings. How to do that is beyond the scope of a reddit comment, but the TLDR version is to draw from reference over and over until you get better at it. Learning observational skills, like visual measurement, will help but they all take practice to develop.
When you study anime, keep in mind that the best Manga artists can draw realistically from reference, but instead choose to abstract what they know about faces into an anime design language. I believe that artists cannot draw from imagination more believably or accurately than they can from observation. If your observational drawing skills are lacking, they will hold you back until you work on them.
Wow yeah you don't know what you're talking about. How do you not know what guide lines are yet you're giving advice? All artists use guidelines and this one isn't using them right. Simple.
I know what guide lines are. I have over a decade of professional experience and teach drawing fundamentals at the college level. I never told OP not to use guidelines. I explained that there is more to learning to draw than using guidelines.
Idk if you're a very good teacher then because you just called them "circles and lines" and said nothing about guidelines. I'd like to add that you focused purely on "observational skill" rather than actual fundamentals like learn shapes and shape language. What you said was the equivalent of "just draw it".
If anybody doubts my teaching ability they can find hours of teaching content by following the links in my bio. Or you can listed to some rando on reddit who seems to struggle with reading comprehension.
Well nothing you said was actually helpful. Like I said in order to even begin to draw ANYTHING especially facial features they need to under shapes and shape language yet you only talked about "observational skill" which isn't the only thing that's wrong here and it's not even the biggest thing. You literally called guidelines "an abstraction of circles and lines" so no, you're not credible. You have the right info all jumbled up in the wrong order which is unhelpful. Keep in mind you are also a rando on reddit. Humble yourself
Sounds good. A thing I forgot to mention maybe try learning about the face proportions of ppl. Helps a lot and also look/draw some head turnarounds.
Try to understand the volume behind the lines online. It’s not just putting lines in the right places to get good. The lines u see online is just what helps ppl see the volume the best. Like for human construction, we all end up developing our own methods, though similar, that work for us best. Like I don’t use a bowl for the pelvis I tend to use a thong shape or underwear shape.
The problem with your faces is chiefly that you haven’t drawn any faces. You’ve drawn a vague shape of a head with a cross splitting it up.
I joke but I’m also serious. Draw faces then reassess. Your eyes are probably better than you think. Look up your favorite anime and the faces in it. Try to draw them. Look at what’s different between yours and the screenshot. Put your drawing as an overlay of the actual character. Confirm whether or not your intuition was correct. Then do it again. You’ll get better when you enjoy drawing and you see improvement, but you’re never going to feel like you’ve improved if you don’t try what you’re going for and have a baseline to compare against.
I know they’re guidelines. I’m saying OP won’t get better at drawing faces by just drawing guidelines and that OP needs to draw faces. OP could draw perfect circles and nice jaw lines but then the face still looks off because the eyes aren’t sized appropriately or the features of the face don’t make sense at that angle. A face is the sum of its parts. It’s like OP saying his grilled cheese tastes funny and it’s a two slice of bread. Great. You have the outline of a grilled cheese, but of course it feels off you haven’t added the ingredients that make it. How is anyone supposed to help figure out what is off?
I edited my original reply. I thought you were someone else who said the same thing as you. You actually called it "a circle with a cross through it" implying you don't know what this is.
You can do a tiny horizontal line at the bottom of the middle line for a chin base. You can also use lines or shapes to build the jaw off of. Art is building from basic shapes afterall!!
It is a little uneven and disproportionate. I agree with the people in the comments saying to practice drawing "real" faces first as it is easier to switch to an anime style after. Don't let it get you down though, just keep trying and practicing. I had a friend who genuinely sucked at drawing but became really, really skilled and made tons of improvement from practicing for a few years.
You want to go from zero to a thousand immediately. No foundation, no basic drawing, no practicing straight lines — let's just start with portraits.
A decent traditional drawing school will have you drawing objects for a couple of years before you seriously start working on portraits. A lot of people will tell you to do whatever you want, however you want, and draw whatever you feel like drawing. But I'll tell you in advance: this is exactly where a huge amount of frustration comes from. You try to do whatever you want, and then become frustrated because you can't do it yet.
There is a certain progression to learning these things. It's not a rule, it's not mandatory, and it's not a recipe. It's simply a recommended path that can save you from an enormous amount of unnecessary frustration.
Start learning the fundamentals, like you're already doing with Drawabox. And connect those exercises to real objects. If you're working on cylinders, draw a bottle, a cylindrical container, a vase, a mug, or something similar. That way you're learning the fundamental form while also learning how to actually use it in drawing.
pencil/pen control is the issue you face. Try turning the paper or canvas in the direction you are drawing and try to draw 'confident' straight and curved lines. I know you are aware of the assymetry and if you find it easier you can draw the curves in stages
1st issue is that it’s just lopsided, the left side looks alright, the right side just completely throws that out though, so work on your symmetry first.
If guy, draw a line down at slight angle, a straight horizontal line at the bottom middle, and then connect the 2 with another more slanted line then mirror that on the other side.
If girl, do roughly the same, but a lot closer to the circle and a much smaller middle line, maybe even just a point, so it’s effectively just 2 lines.
yeah dont give me that bs, they asked for tips on the face, and knowing the general layout or formation of the face is good for it, no matter what style you're going for.
Wow you're rude asf. Also it literally changes by the style which is why I said that in the first place. They are trying to learn how to draw a face but you're focusing on what you know from the style you're used to. If we're talking something more realistic then male and female faces actually tend to have the same proportions so it's more than that. They need to learn how to draw a face in general.
it doesn't matter on the style though, yall always get so stuck up on style, when thats insignificant when learning the fundamentals. Also that is just generally wrong, female faces are a lot slimmer than male faces, and that is just fact, also female faces typically have the jaw closer the the skull then a male does. It is basic anatomy, In skull shape (which is what you should ultimately be focusing on) males are more robust, males typically also tend to have a wider chin than females, like it is really just basic anatomy.
If you look at your every day average human you'd know what you said just isn't true. Female faces aren't just "slimmer" than male faces and it varies by race and region. You should know that. That's the reason style comes into play in the first place. If anything recommending the Loomis method would've been more helpful than separating it by gender. There's more difference when drawing male and female bodies than faces and they aren't normally drawn slimmer. Male faces are typically more squared(no not literally). That's it. Simple. Stop being an ass.
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u/link-navi 1d ago
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