How to draw anime faces

How to Draw an Anime Female Face 3/4 View

This tutorial explains how to draw an anime or manga style female face in 3/4 view with step by step illustrated examples.

Anime female face 3/4 view drawing step by step

This tutorial uses a slightly more realistic style with a better defined nose and lips. Though this is less common in anime it will allow you to better see the placement of the facial features.

If you are going to be following along using pencil and paper be sure to make very light lines for the initial steps of the drawing as you will have to do some erasing later.

Step 1 – Draw the Top Part of the Head

Start by making a circle for the top part of the head. Now think of the circle as a sphere and through this sphere draw a line that will determine the middle of the head. This line will curve around the sphere sort of like if you were to tie a string around a ball and look at it from the same angle at which you want to draw the face. If you were to look directly at the string from the front it would be a straight line but as you turn the ball the string would become a curve.

It can be helpful to first draw the line all the way around (making an oval) like the sphere is transparent and erase the hidden part afterwards. This way you will be less likely to make a mistake in drawing the curve.

Step 2 – Draw the Center Line For the Face

From the center line of the sphere project a straight line that is slightly angled inwards (towards center of the sphere). This line will be the middle of the lower part of the face.

Step 3 – Draw Bottom of the Face

Draw the sides of the bottom part of the face by adding lines going from the sphere to the bottom of the center line.

Step 4 – Draw the Facial Features

In the above example the facial features are placed as follows:

It’s important to note that the proportions given above are based on the center line for all of the facial features (ears excluded). The reason to be aware of this is that the parts of the face that are closer to the viewer should be drawn slightly larger than the parts that are away. This is due to perspective.

For a detailed explanation of perspective drawing see:

Anime female head 3/4 view

Also keep in mind that the “far” eye, eyebrow, and side of the lips should be drawn vertically shorter than their closer counterparts. This is both due to them being smaller because of perspective and because of the curve of the head. The far eye, eyebrow and side of the lips will curve away from the viewer and should be drawn vertically “compressed”. The more the face is turned from the viewer the more compressed you should draw the “far side” facial features.

Draw the ear about as tall as a quarter of the face positioned between the top of the eyes and the bottom of the nose.

For drawing eyes from different angles see:

For drawing noses see:

For drawing lips check:

For more on drawing ears see:

Step 5 – Drawing the Hair

Normally you can think of the hair as being split into the front, sides, and top/back.

For this particular stile there is really not much to the “front” side to the hair as it is combed to each side and overlapped by the sideburns hair.

To draw this particular hairstyle you can pretty much trace the top part of the hair along the shape of the the top of the head but a slight distance away. As it curves downwards it hang downwards until the ends. Draw the ends of the hair splitting into little clumps towards the back and curving away form the head.

For the sideburns hair make them curve slightly inwards towards the face.

For more hairstyles that you can use with this face see:

Step 6 – Cleaned Up Line Drawing

At this point you can remove any of the construction lines from your drawing and erase any parts hidden by the hair. You should have a clean line drawing after you are done.

Step 7 – Apply Color

For this step simply fill in each area with the appropriate color. If you are coloring on paper then leave the highlight areas of the hair and the reflections in the eyes white. If coloring digitally add them in at the very end.

For more on coloring anime charters you can see:

Step 8 – Apply Shading

As in many other tutorials here on AnimeOutline for this particular drawing we will simply shade the areas that tend to have shadow in common lighting conditions with the light coming from above.

Add shadow/darken the following places:

Conclusion

As already mentioned this particular example shows some slightly more realistic facial features but the same steps can be applied to drawing a more traditional looking anime character.

Also keep in mind that the proportions used in this tutorial are just recommendations and can change based on variations in the style.

It should also be noted that a 3/4 view of the face is generally harder to draw than the front or side view as you have to account for perspective and the curve of the head. If you would like to try some slightly easier female face drawing tutorials you can see:

How to draw guide – learn how to draw

Learn how to draw manga, how to draw cars and how to draw anime from our guides

Learn how to draw anime faces and face expressions

After you learned how to draw manga faces a couple of days ago, it’s now time for more tips about how to draw anime faces. In the next paragraphs you will learn how the various parts of the face work together to convey different emotions. Once you learn what features to change to achieve the look you want, you should be able to draw any anime face expression you want.

Every anime/manga face sketch starts with a circle. It could be round or more or less oval. In this circle, you draw a cross, a guideline that will help you place face elements. You will then position the eyes, nose, mouth, etc and they will determine the face expression.

The most important factor for the expression of a character is the eye, with the eyelid and the eyebrow. Its shape can help you convey different emotions, from happiness to anger, while the size of the iris is important too. The mouth also helps determine the mood of the character. In the next examples you’ll see exactly how.

Anime face expression: sadness

Very big eyes, eyelids angled upwards towards the center of the face, very large irises, a couple of tears in the cornet of the eyes and a small mouth slightly opened and curved downwards are the elements that indicate a sad face. As you can see in the picture below.

Anime face expression: angriness

There are a couple of ways for drawing an angry anime face. You could use a big shouting mouth, big eyes with big irises and eyebrows curved down sharply. This character is mad and is screaming at someone.

The second approach is different, showing a character very angry and ticked off. The eyebrows are very close to the eyes, still curved down sharply. The mouth is closed, the eyes and irises are a lot smaller. And you can even see the folds in the skin caused by the eyebrows being so knitted.

Anime face expression: happiness

Happiness is suggested by very big eyes, highly arched eyebrows pointing downwards and a very big smiling mouth, usually opened. You can see some examples in the pictures.

Anime face expression: surprised

To show a surprised or astonished face you need to make the eyes incredibly big, but very very small irises. The mouth is usually small and round and the eyes are kind of highly arched.

There are lots of other types off faces, but the examples above should help you get started. If you’re looking for tips on how to draw other emotions too, please study the pictures below or read some of the tips from here.

The pictures are from Deviantart.

That’s about it for this lesson of drawing face expressions for anime faces. In the next episode, we’ll show you a couple of tips for drawing anime children faces.

How to Draw an Anime Face

Let’s work with the basic technique of sketching anime. The main feature of the anime are the faces of the persons. They are always very expressive despite the visual lack of difficult details. We created an art lesson in which we show you how to draw an anime face to learn how to depict any anime persons. The principles we will talk about can be used in any artwork in anime style.

Step 1

To perfectly create an anime face, first we depict the outline of the face. It looks like an inverted egg, which narrows down to a blunt angle. At the bottom of this round figure you can see the angles of the lower jaw. Do not forget about these specifications when you depict the outline of the head.

Step 2

At this stage should be started with the contours of the neck. Have you often seen the thick necks of anime persons? This happens very rarely. In the anime, only very thick persons have thick necks. Here we have the usual thin neck.

Also in this stage, we will depict a several lines on the face. First, let’s draw a vertical line of facial symmetry. After that, measure 2/3 of the face and draw a transversal line. A little higher draw another transversal line. Between these two lines will be located eyes.

Step 3

Let’s work with facial features. In the anime style, the nose and mouth are usually presented with a pair of simple lines. This lesson is no exception as you see. The main thing is to depict the nose and mouth in the correct location.

After that we can depict the contours of the eyes. It looks like two large upturned arcs which are limited from above by smooth horizontal lines.

Step 4

Add some facial features. Depict round pupils and contours of thin eyebrows. In this step we will also draw the ears. Pay attention to the location of the ears. The top border of the ears is slightly lower than the top edge of the eyes. The bottom border of the ears coincides with the nose. At this point, your anime face drawing should look something like this.

Step 5

Let’s draw the hair. As a rule, anime persons do not have a carefully traced hairstyle. Hair on the head is schematically indicated by paths that look like a few sharp corners. Anime is always famous for a wide variety of hairstyles. They are fluffy, curly, with unusual details woven into the hair, so experiment with creating unusual hairstyles and visit our instruction on how to draw anime hair.

Step 6

In this step of the instruction on how to draw an anime face, we practically will not create any new elements. Now we just clean up the face of our young man and erase the extra lines that we drew in the first stages. Do not forget about the contour of the inner part of the ear. In addition, you should trace the necessary lines to make them clearer, more beautiful and completed.

Step 7

To give your anime face drawing a complete look, you need to sketch some shadows. You can see the shades that are localized above the eyebrows and on the neck area. In these places, the light is covered with hair and chin, respectively. Paint over the pupils of our anime person. It is critical not to paint over white highlights as in our sample.

Draw Anime Faces & Heads : Drawing Manga Faces Step by Step Tutorials

Draw Anime Faces & Heads : Drawing Manga Faces Step by Step Tutorials

Here is a fantastic Anime & Manga Face Drawing Method that is very easy to draw with very impressive results.

Adjust the construction guidelines to achieve different kinds of Anime faces. Observe and compare how the different spaces of guidelines affect the resulting manga face. Consider the construction guidelines as the underlying bone struction of the Anime head that you are drawing.

Now matter how the lines are spaced in relation to each other, always place each part of the face (such as the eyes, nose, mouth) to its respective guidelines.

Step 1

You can start the anime / manga face with a simple circle. A circle shape is ideal for drawing the anime head.

Step 2

Now divide the circle that we just drew into 2 parts by making a vertical line in the center.

Step 3

Now you should divide this circle into 3 equal parts horizontally. Your circle should look like the one above now.

Step 4

Now that you have separated the face / head into 3 equal portions, you should know why. The three parts of the head are reserved for the hair, forehead, and the eyes.

Step 5

Now that you have done all that is outlined above, it is time for the next part of drawing an anime / manga face. Draw another imaginary space, as shown above. This space that you draw should be the same size as the 2/3 of the circle (from the top of the circle to the 2nd horizontal line is 2/3 of the circle).

Step 6

Now divide the newly constructed space horizontally (as shown above). This space that we just drew is for the anime character’s nose and mouth.

Step 7

The next thing to do is to create guidelines for the face by drawing a ‘V’ shape line (as shown above). This process is very helpful for fleshing out the face. These new ‘V’ shaped lines must be connected properly to the circle (as shown in the picture).

Step 8

Before placing the eyes on your Anime / Manga character’s face, make sure that they are spaced evenly.

A set of eyes is one eye apart. To achieve this, place an imaginary eye between the set of eyes (Try to think of a cyclops manga head).

Step 9

Now place the eyes to its guidelines (in a future tutorial, we are going to help you draw many different types of anime / manga eyes … learn how to draw female / girl anime eyes).

Step 10

Now place the nose within its guidelines as well.

Step 11

Now place the mouth just below the nose within its guidelines and within the ‘V’ shape. (We will be teaching you how to draw anime / manga mouths and lips in a future tutorial).

Step 12

Now draw the shape of the cheek (this will vary depending on the character’s facial shape). Since there are many different types of facial shapes, you can basically do any shape that you want…just notice that cheeks basically come down in a capital ‘L’ like shape on the left and a backwards capital letter ‘L’ like shape on the right. If the character is chubby or fat, the cheeks will be much more rounded.

Step 13

The anime character’s ears and eyes are aligned since they both belong within the same guidelines.

Step 14

Now just start the hair from the hair guideline that we drew (the top horizontal line). The hair line starts at the point that the top horizontal line and middle vertical line meet. (An anime /manga hair drawing tutorial is coming up soon).

Step 15

Now draw the iris, pupil and the eye’s glare. Erase the guidelines to finalize the anime / manga face.

Step 16

Colorize or shade in the Anime / Manga head and face the way that you want to.

Step 17

The great thing about the Anime Face Drawing Method that we just taught you is that you can move around guidelines to draw different faces. There isn’t much thinking involved…in fact it is pretty easy compared to other types of drawing and you get very impressive results.

Adjust the construction guidelines to achieve different kinds of Anime faces. Observe and compare how the different spaces of guidelines affect the resulting manga face. Consider the construction guidelines as the underlying bone structure of the Anime head that you are drawing.

Now matter how the lines are spaced in relation to each other, always place each part of the face (such as the eyes, nose, mouth) to its respective guidelines.

Step 18 – More Manga / Anime Heads & Faces for Examples

Here are a few more anime manga heads & faces to take a look at with their respective guidelines. See what sorts of anime / manga faces you can create.

10 Step Anime Man’s Face Drawing Tutorial

This tutorial explains how to draw the face of a man in the anime or manga style. It includes step by step drawing examples along with a set of proportions to achieve an anime look for an adult male character.

Anime man face step by step drawing

Older anime characters (especially males) usually have better defined facial features and their faces tend to have proportions that are closer to those of real people.

In this case we will be drawing a man that can be in his 30s or 40s. We will also be using a set of proportions that is common when drawing realistic faces.

It will be a fairly muscular character so he will have a thick neck and big trapezius muscles.

For a breakdown of drawing necks you can see:

Please note to make light lines if you are drawing using pencil and paper as you will need to do some erasing in between the different steps.

Step 1 – Draw the Shape of the Head

Start your drawing by first drawing the overall shape of the head. The top of the head will be close to a circle in the front view and close to an oval in the side view. Please note that older anime male characters tend to have fairly long faces as opposed to younger characters that tend to have fairly round faces.

For the bottom half of the front view of the face draw two lines going down from the top circle that then angle more towards one another and join to form the chin.

Younger anime characters often tend to have very “sharp” chins but in this case draw a wider chin to make the character look older.

For the side view draw the lower portion of the face without the smaller details of the nose and mouth. You can simply draw a single line from the tip of the nose to the chin.

For this initial drawing you can simply estimate the position of the nose (it will be covered in later steps).

Step 2 – Position & Draw the Eyes

To position the eyes draw a horizontal line through the middle of the face and draw the eyes directly on that line.

Anime characters often tend to have their eyes drawn below the horizontal halfway point in the face but for drawing an older man like the one in this tutorial you can place the eyes almost like you would if drawing real people.

For the front view keep a distance of the width of one eye between the eyes.

For a detailed breakdown of drawing the eyes themselves you can check:

Step 4 – Position & Draw the Eyebrows

This part can get a little tricky. Before drawing the eyebrows what you first need to do is estimate where the characters hairline should be (slightly down from the top of the head) and going down from the hairline divide the face into three evenly proportioned parts.

Anime man eyebrows drawing

Draw the eyebrows on the line that is the next one down from the hairline.

Step 4 – Position & Draw the Ears

Draw the ears in the middle section of the three divisions from the previous steps.

For more on drawing the ears see:

Step 5 – Position & Draw the Nose

Draw the nose with the tip close to the bottom line of the middle division.

Anime noses are often draw with just a line or even a dot but in this case we will draw a hint of the nostrils and one side of the nose.

For different styles of anime noses see:

Step 6 – Position & Draw the Mouth

Draw the mouth with the bottom lip between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin and the top lip slightly above that.

Step 7 – Draw the Hair

For “combed back” hair like in this example it will reveal the hairline so you can use the “hairline” point created earlier as a reference.

Draw some little “teeth” into the hairline area of the hair for a more natural look.

For more on drawing anime hair see:

Step 8 – Line Drawing

At this point you can clean up your drawing and remove any guide lines you created in earlier steps and in the smaller details like the wrinkles around the eyebrows and under the eyes.

You can also go over your drawing with darker lines if you need to.

Step 9 – Apply Color

Fill in each area of the drawing with the appropriate color starting with the larger areas.

Leave the eyes white if you are coloring on paper or add them in last if coloring digitally.

For a tutorial on picking colors for an anime character see:

For a step by step coloring tutorial see:

Step 10 – Add Shading

For this tutorial we will apply some basic shading in the commonly shaded areas.

In this case the major shaded areas will be:

Conclusion

Anime characters can have very different proportions based on age and style. The tips in this tutorial should help you achieve an anime/manga style look for an adult male character drawn in a slightly more serious style.

For drawing a muscular body that can be appropriate for this type of character see:

For drawing younger male anime characters see: