How to draw anime mouth

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How to draw anime mouth

The Complete Guide on How to Draw Anime Mouths

Facial expressions help bring out our moods and feelings. The same goes for anime characters, and that’s why you need to learn how to draw anime mouths to help express your character’s mood or emotions.

The good news is anime mouths are easier to draw compared to real structured mouths. You also won’t need to put much emphasis on drawing the lips since you can use a few lines to sketch your character’s mouth.

How to Draw an Anime Girl Mouth

You can use basic shapes when sketching the outline of the mouth. Make it look like the lower half of an inverted egg to bring out the desired shape. The horizontal line that forms the top half of the mouth will act as the upper lip.

Use Painter as Your Anime Drawing Software

For the teeth, you’ll need to draw a line that curves downward at the top of the mouth. Unlike the tongue, this line shouldn’t have any contact with the sides of the mouth.

Create a small gap between one side of the mouth and the line when you start drawing. Make sure it’s uniform to the gap between the end of the line and the other side of the mouth.

The inside of the mouth should have the darkest shade while the tongue should be slightly lighter.

How to Draw an Anime Male Mouth

You can apply the same techniques we have used to draw a mouth for your male character. The significant difference between the two comes in when you want to sketch characters with lips that are more defined. In such a scenario, you’ll need to ensure that the male lips are less curvy.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve learned the basics of drawing anime mouths, we encourage you to try creating different mouth expressions for your characters. With time, you’ll find it easy to tell any story you want since your characters will clearly bring out what you are trying to portray to others.

How to Draw Anime & Manga Mouths Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to draw an anime mouth from the front, 3/4 and side views. A total of three variations with multiple examples for each.

Anime mouth drawing different views

The focus of this tutorial is on the basics of drawing an anime or manga style mouth. It explains how to achieve the anime look and how to place the mouth on the head.

Overall this is a simple but fairly extensive guide that can help you gain a better understanding of the style.

Drawing an Anime Mouth From the Front View

In this view anime/manga mouths are commonly drawn without showing the lips (though there are exceptions to this as well).

Anime mouth gap front view drawing

The entire mouth can pretty much be drawn as a light curve, often with a bit of a gap in the middle (as shown in the example above).

The reason for adding the gap may be to give a hint of the tip of the upper lip (the tubercle) which sort of “cuts” into the opening of the mouth making it look like there is a break there.

You can also make the mouth lines narrower towards the gap and wider on the edge but this may be more difficult and/or not necessary when drawing the drawing is very small or when the outlines are very thin.

While having this gap is fairly common it’s not necessary. Some anime characters and styles have it while others don’t. It’s really up to you weather or not you want to draw the mouth with it or without.

Anime mouth front view drawing

One way to place the mouth is to vertically divide the head up into eight evenly spaced sections. The bottom lip are will start one section up (1/8) from the bottom of the chin with the mouth just a tiny bit above that.

As mentioned earlier when it comes to anime and manga the bottom lip itself is often not shown at all. However knowing where it should be located can help you place the mouth.

Anime mouth front view drawing with lips

Above you can see what the mouth can look like if the lips are drawn.

Keep in mind that this placement method is just a suggestion to help achieve an anime looking character. Different styles and characters can effect how the mouth is position on the head.

Another thing to be aware of is that the mouth can somewhat shift based on the facial expressions. For drawing these see:

You can also use a slightly different placement method for the mouth if you are going to be drawing the entire face. You can see that option towards the end of this tutorial.

Drawing an Anime Mouth From 3/4 View

In 3/4 view anime mouths are again often drawn as pretty much just a curve with no lips. But in this case the curve will not be symmetrical as in the front view example.

Anime mouth gap 3/4 view drawing

The middle of the mouth will be shifted in the direction of the turn of the head and the gap (described int the previous example) can also be moved along with it. When drawing the mouth in this view make the side closer to the viewer longer and the far side narrower.

Anime mouth 3/4 view drawing

Placing the mouth on the head in 3/4 view is pretty much the same as for the front view. You can again divide the head up into eight parts (vertically) and place the mouth slightly above the first division from the bottom.

Anime mouth 3/4 view drawing with lips

Above you can again see what the mouth looks like when the lips are drawn.

Drawing an Anime Mouth From the Side View

Drawing from the side view is more complex then from the front and 3/4 views. Though the mouth itself will pretty much look like half of the mouth from the front view (slightly narrower) you will also generally need to show the lips and nose.

Anime mouth side view lips drawing

When drawing the lips you can show them as pretty much an outline/silhouette. A good way to draw them is to first have the area between the nose and the chin as pretty much a straight line and then use this line to help you position the lips.

For a fairly generic looking you can position both lips just touching the line.

Anime mouth side view drawing with alternative lip shape

However as you can see in this next example you can also change the shape of the lips as you like depending on the character look you are going for.

For more examples of drawing anime lips see:

Anime mouth gap side view drawing

The little gap in the mouth in this case will be between the outline of the lips and the opening of the mouth. You can make the mouth line narrower towards the gap and thicker towards the edge of the mouth. Again keep in mind that both adding the gap and the varying thickness of the line is optional (as was already explained in the first example).

Anime mouth side view drawing

In the above example you can see the positioning of the mouth. Again the bottom lip area will start 1/8 of the way up from the bottom of the face with the mouth opening slightly above that.

Anime mouth side view drawing with lips

When drawing in this view it’s important to note that the “bottom lip area” refers to the actual red part of the lip and not the area where the chin starts to curve into the lip. You can see this in the example above.

Anime nose and mouth placement side view

Finally it can also be helpful to know the placement of the nose when drawing the side view of the lips. Unlike in the front and 3/4 view you can’t really avoid drawing it when outlining the head.

Generally the placement of the nose will be with it’s tip just above another 1/8 of the way up from the bottom of the lip (about 1/4 distance up from the bottom of the head). Again remember that this can change depending on the character and style.

For more examples on drawing anime mouths from the side view see see:

The tutorial has some overlapping information at the start but provides many more examples.

Drawing Anime Mouths With the Entire Face

You can see the overall placement of the facial features for the head used for this tutorial in the example above.

When drawing the entire face there is no need to divine the head into eight portions. You can instead start by placing the eyes below the vertical halfway point of the face, position the nose halfway between the top of the eyes and the bottom of the face and position the bottom lip halfway between the nose and again the bottom of the face.

This method works for all of the head views shown in this tutorial. It or similar methods are also used for most of the face drawing tutorials here on AnimeOutline.

Some examples of these are:

Conclusion

Anime mouths are generally highly simplified compared to real mouths (drawn with the bare minimum of details). This tutorial provides a good template for drawing them and for achieving an anime look. There are however many variations in the anime style based on the character type and the artist’s preference. You can always try and experiment for yourself and see what looks right.

For detailed explanations of drawing other facial features in the anime and manga style also see:

How to Draw Anime Lips Tutorial

This tutorial explains how to drawing anime and manga style lips in different variations from different views (front, three quarter and side). It focuses on female lips but some examples can also be used for drawing male lips.

It is very common for mouths in anime and manga to be drawn without lips but some styles (usually the more realistic ones) do show lips. Lips are also often drawn in close up scenes of anime and manga even in the styles where they are otherwise not shown.

Anime lips drawing examples

Lip Structure

Before you draw lips in the anime style it’s important to understand the shape of real lips. To do this we can draw a slightly open mouth in a fairly relaxed state. This way the shape of both the top and bottom lip is visible but not overly stretched or distorted.

In a relaxed state the top lip resembles a flatted “M” shape. The bottom lip is often drawn with one smooth upside down curve but if you study the lips carefully (this can vary from person to person) the bottom lip tends to actually be two very light curves at the lower half that join to form one bigger curve.The upper part of the bottom lip are two curves that go from the outer part of the lips down towards the middle as shown in the above example.

Draw anime or manga style lips in the following order:

Again lips vary from person to person and style to style but the above example is a good basis to go on.

Drawing Anime & Manga Style Lips

Just like real lips anime and manga style lips come in different shapes and sizes. There are also various degrees of complexity and realism depending on the style and the artists preference.

In the above illustration you can see the progression from more realistic examples to more stylized ones. Generally the more simplistic the style the more of the various parts of the lips are only hinted at or left out all together.

You can experiment with different degrees of complexity and see what works for the style you are going for.

You can see that in some examples the color is what defines the shape of the lips instead of the outline. You can also see that in the last few example the “M” shape of the upper lip is not shown at all. This is particularly common in the more simplified anime styles where a character is wearing lipstick.

One interesting trick with using color to define the lips is that not having an outline can also makes the lips appear softer.

When you know you are going to color the lips but are drawing in a more simplistic style draw some light guidelines for the overall shape of the mouth. You can erase/remove them later if needed.

Drawing Anime & Manga Style Lips in 3/4 View

In a 3/4 view draw the side of the lips that is closer to the viewer longer then the side that is farther away. There are two reason as to why you want to do this. One is that the farther side of the lips curves away from the viewer making it seem “shorter”. The second reason is perspective.

For a better understanding of perspective drawing you may want to see:

For an example of drawing lips on a face in 3/4 view see:

Drawing inner part of anime lips in 3/4 view example

The inner part of the lips is inset and therefore should be drawn farther back than the outer part when drawing lips in 3/4 view.

Coloring anime lips 3/4 view example

Coloring lips in 3/4 view is the same as the front view so you can just refer to that part of the tutorial.

Drawing Anime & Manga Lips From the Side

Drawing anime lips is side view is fairly simple. You can think of drawing lips in side view as only drawing half the lips in front view that are horizontally slightly squeezed.

Anime lips side view drawing example

You can see in the above example how with some tweaks you can use the front view of the lips to get the side view.

You don’t need to draw out all of the steps shown in the above example. They are there so that you can get a better understanding of how to get the side view of the lips based on the front view and what needs to be tweaked. You can simply draw the final example of the side view right away while using the front view as a reference.

One other thing to be aware of when drawing is that the top lip will usually stick out slightly more than the bottom lip.

Drawing Anime & Manga Lips With an Open Mouth

Drawing lips on an open mouth gets a little more complicated. A good general rule is that the wider the mouth opens the thinner the lips will appear as they are stretched out more and more. As the lips are stretched out their overall shape will become less defined.

For drawing teeth see:

Front View Open Mouth

For the front view of an open mouth start by drawing the inside shape of the mouth with two curves (one for the top lip and one for the bottom). After add a s flatted “V” shape to the top lip and just a hint of two downward curves near the center of the bottom lip.

Keep in mind that details may be omitted depending on how wide the mouth is open and the style.

When coloring or shading an open mouth be aware that the inside of the mouth will almost always be darker than the lips.

3/4 View Open Mouth

For the 3/4 view remember that the lips curve around the mouth. You can think of each lip as a sort of half-circle shape.

Just like in the closed mouth 3/4 example the side of the mouth that is closer to the viewer will appear wider than the farther away side.

When drawing the outer part of the lips remember that just like in the closed mouth example the inner part of the mouth is indented and so the outer part will stick out more.

Side View Open Mouth

For the side view you can again use the same trick as for the closed mouth side view example (drawing a narrower half a mouth from the front view with some tweaks).

Please again note that you don’t need to draw out all the steps every time you draw the side view of a mouth. It’s meant more for practice and to help you get the correct proportions.

Drawing Anime Lips on the Head

As you can see in the above example you can still maintain the anime look even when drawing lips on your character. Draw the lips fairly small compared to the rest of the facial features.

For more on drawing an anime characters with lips similar to those in this tutorial see:

Conclusion

Lips can take many irregular shapes depending on what the character you are drawing is doing. It’s hard to cover too many examples in one tutorial but these should give you a good idea of how to draw anime lips in some common views.

For more examples of drawing anime mouths you can also see:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Teeth Tutorial

This tutorial shows how do draw anime and manga teeth with side and front view drawing examples. It also provides tips on positioning them in the mouth and goes over their different styles.

Anime teeth drawing on faces

Though the simplified anime and manga teeth may seem fairly easy to draw there is actually quite a bit to it. This tutorial covers a few different aspects of drawing them and consists of three main parts:

Generally anime teeth are drawn without the full details of each tooth. Usually they are either shown as one combined shape or with just hints of the individual teeth.

There are rare occasions where each tooth is shown but in that case they are usually draw almost the same as real teeth. We will not cover that in this tutorial as you can simply look at a photo of real teeth if you need such reference.

Drawing Anime Teeth From Different Views/Angles

Position of Teeth in a Closed Mouth – Side View

Before you draw teeth it’s a good idea to have a rough estimate of how they are positioned in the mouth. You can see a rough estimate of this in the “see through” drawing above.

The importance of having an understanding of where the teeth are positioned in the head should become more apparent as you go through the tutorial.

Position of Teeth in an Open Mouth – Side View

When the mouth opens like the yelling face drawing above the top row of teeth stays in the same position (in relation to the head). The bottom row shifts along with the jaw but their position in relation to the jaws itself also does not change.

While you don’t need to make a see through drawing like the above examples every time you draw it’s good to keep these things in mind to avoid mistakes.

Teeth in an Open Mouth – Front View

The above example is the front view of the face from the previous examples. In this view the teeth become a lot more difficult to draw. This is especially so for the bottom row as it’s hard to estimate how high up the teeth should go along the bottom jaw at this angle.

Positioning/Drawing Teeth at Difficult Angles

A good trick (as suggested in other tutorials here on AnimeOutline) is to use an easier to draw from view to estimate the position of the same body part in a more complex view.

In this case you can use a side view drawing of the teeth to then project a set of line that will give you the placement of the teeth in the front view.

While this may seem like a lot of work you don’t need to make a side view drawing that is as detailed as the example. Just do a quick outline sketch.

For some common mistakes when drawing anime see:

Drawing Anime Teeth to Show Various Emotions

Shown teeth can also help emphasize different emotions as shown in the examples below.

Smiling Anime Face Teeth

Anime smiling face drawing

Probably the most obvious emotion that shows teeth is a simple smile.

Anime teeth smiling mouth drawing

For an anime/manga style you can generally just give a slight hint of the top and bottom row of teeth by drawing a couple of curved lines on each side.

Scared Anime Face Teeth

Another expression commonly showing teeth is a scared face.

Same as for the smile you can once again give just a hint of the line separating the top and bottom rows of teeth.

Grinning Anime Face Teeth

A side view grin is another common anime facial expression where teeth are shown.

Anime teeth grinning mouth side view drawing

This expression is often drawn with a hint of the “fang” to emphasize the aggressive nature of the expression.

Angry Anime Face Teeth

The angry side view expression is very similar to the previous example.

Anime grinding teeth mouth side view drawing

Just like the grin teeth in the angry mouth are also often drawn with a “fang like” sharp tooth.

Anime Teeth Alignment Drawing Different Views

Once again you can see that though the facial expressions and mouth shape changes the teeth still remain in pretty much the same position. While you don’t need to perfectly align them when drawing the same character in different views it’s generally a good idea to try and keep the teeth in roughly the same place in relation to the rest of the head.

Drawing Anime Teeth to Show Character

Sometimes anime characters are drawn with unusual teeth. This can help emphasize a certain personality and gives them a more unique look. A couple examples of this are listed below.

One Tooth Sticking Out – Yaeba Anime Teeth

The “one tooth sticking out” is usually drawn to show an energetic and mischievous character. This is also sometimes known as “Yaeba”.

Anime one tooth sticking out mouth drawing

To show this trait draw draw the mouth open but only draw the one sharp tooth (like a fang) to one side of the mouth.

Please note that sometimes characters are shown with the one tooth always ticking out even with a closed mouth but this is fairly rare and can look odd.

Also please note as this is a highly styled way to draw teeth the actual correct placement of the one tooth becomes less important but you should still try and be at least somewhat accurate.

Multiple Sharp Teeth – Shark Tooth Anime Character

Sharp shark like teeth on anime or manga character can often indicate a competitive personality. Some characters may have these as a permanent feature while others may only get them in a certain expression.

Anime sharp teeth open mouth drawing

For these type of teeth you can pretty much draw them like a saw or actual shark teeth.

Anime sharp teeth drawing

The example above is another variant of the shark teeth that may appear when a character is grinning.

Anime sharp teeth smiling mouth drawing

For these types of teeth once again draw them similar to a saw but this time instead of drawing them all in a straight line draw them curving along the mouth.

Conclusion

Highly stylized and simplified anime and manga teeth may seem like a fairly simple a fairly simple thing to draw but this is not always the case. Different views/angles, facial expressions and character styles can all make drawing teeth quite complicated. Hopefully this tutorial has helped you gain a little more insight into how to draw them.

How to Draw Anime Mouths and Lips With Expressions, an in-Depth Guide

In this tutorial, we will cover how to draw anime mouths and lips with varying expressions. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to draw anime mouths that are sad, happy, open, closed, screaming, and so on!

This tutorial is part of an ongoing series of Anime tutorials on gvaat.com, for more tutorials focused on anime and manga, follow this link. For those of you looking for a quick summary of how to draw anime and manga mouths, here’s it is:

To draw anime and manga mouths and lips, first identify the emotion you are trying to convey, as it will decide the shape you are going to draw. Then, start with identifying the centerline of the face, and placement and angle of the mouth. Finally, draw the mouth or lips by looking at examples (there are a few in this tutorial) and reference.

Finally, before we get started, this tutorial assumes two prerequisites. First, you should be fairly well aware of how to draw a realistic mouth or lips (something that I cover in detail in a tutorial found here), and second, you should have a basic understanding of perspective. I covered perspective in-depth in the tutorial on drawing vehicles. You can find it at this link. Can you follow along with the examples in this tutorial and draw anime mouths and lips without the prerequisites? Sure, but you will get better drawings by completing the prerequisites first.

Without further ado, let’s get to drawing anime and manga mouths, lips and expressions!

Drawing anime mouths – how to draw the mouth open

Drawing anime mouths is a lot about being able to summarize something complex into something incredibly and efficiently simple. At its core, anime and manga art is grounded in realism, simplifying it to its most basic elements, and providing flare through artistic license and stylization, visual design, and visual narrative.

Drawing anything anime requires careful and patient observation of reality, and then the careful transition of such observation to something that is representative of the spirit of anime and manga art.

Drawing anime mouths and lips is extra difficult, because the subject matter changes shape as it opens and closes, and exists in a variety of examples, all of which serve to buttress the impact of the overall character design.

So how do we learn to draw anime and manga mouths and lips? How do we learn to draw something that changes based on the angle, based on the character, based on the expression? There are, after all, so many variables!

If you really want to learn how to draw anime mouths and lips in a way that is reflective of the best of anime and manga art out there, my current best recommendation is to learn to draw through sheer brute force.

Anime mouth studies – open mouth, by Gvaat

That is to say, create hundreds of drawings referenced from anime and manga, as well as real life. Then invent your own drawings from memory and imagination. Compare the two stacks to see what you could invent better, and then reflect back on studying each design element in all the interactions that you have drawn.

After drawing hundreds of mouths you will begin to pick up on certain similarities that keep coming up over and over again. In this tutorial, I will share what I’ve learned after drawing many anime mouths and lips. Further, we will together take the exact approach I outlined above: we will look at many, many drawings and evaluate the subtle details that are used to compose the essence of good anime drawing.

Anime mouth study – open mouth, by
Gvaat

Drawing anime mouths – teeth showing

Regardless if the character is very excited in laughter or is just speaking loudly, drawings of anime mouths wide open seem to always be presented with teeth showing. Whether it is the upper teeth or lower teeth really depends on the perspective and angle at which the character is presented to the viewer.

Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat

Usually, if we are looking at a character from above, (where the character is below us), their bottom teeth will be showing. When we are looking at the character from below (where the character is above us), their upper teeth will be showing. I also found out that in most anime that I reference for this tutorial, if we seem to be looking at the character straight on at about eye level, the upper teeth will be showing and not the lower teeth.

Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat

Drawing anime mouth – perspective and tilt/angle

The angle, of course, depends not only on our position relative to the character but also on the tilt of the head of the character. We could see the bottom teeth of the character even if we are located below their position when they tilt their head towards us.

Sorting this out requires basic understanding of perspective. If you’re lacking the understanding of perspective and angles it may be difficult to properly place the angle of the mouth. I published a tutorial on drawing vehicles in perspective that can help you acquire basic knowledge of perspective for any type of drawing, you can access it at the following link.

Anime mouth studies – open mouth, by Gvaat Anime mouth studies – open mouth, by Gvaat Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat

In the instance of the image right above, we are looking at the character from above.

Their head is below us, and as they open their mouth, the lower teeth come into view. Further, the shape of the teeth a simplified. In a sense that no weight or shape is provided to the row of lower teeth. Instead, they are simplified by a swift round curvy white mass.

Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat

In this example, we’re looking at the mouth from below, and so the upper teeth are presented to us since they are now positioned in our field of view.

Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat

A lot of this has to do with anatomy as well. For example, in the image right above, we’re looking at the subject at about eye level and only the upper teeth are presented.

Try opening your jaw really wide in front of a mirror, you are likely to see your upper teeth and much less so your lower teeth. Your lower teeth will be covered by your lower lip at least partially.

Anime drawings of mouths and lips take into account real-life anatomy to show us a stylized expression of our world. The fact that upper teeth are more visible with a jaw wide open is reflected in anime and manga drawings and art, just like many other small but important subtleties that help us understand the human form.

Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat Anime mouth study – open mouth, by Gvaat

The tongue is also always visible in a wide-open anime mouth drawing. It is usually represented as a section or a top portion of a ball moving out of view into the mouth – check out the example right above.

Drawing anime mouth, – profile view, anime mouth from the side

Now let’s take a look at drawing anime mouths from the profile view or the side view. This is why perspective is so important in drawing complex forms from different views, precisely because the mouth looks very different in profile than it does in the three-quarters view or front view.

Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat

Scroll through some of the examples below to get a feel for drawing the side view.

Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat

Notice again how the tongue is represented in the example above. Like a small part of a ball peaking out from under the cheek into our view.

Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat

In the example above, notice also how the upper teeth are more visible than the lower when the mouth is open. Note that divisions between the teeth are rarely drawn, if at all. A simple white stripe is in place to represent a row of teeth.

Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat

In the example right above, we see more of the lower lip than the upper lip. Specifically, we see the top plane of the lower lip, helping us place the viewpoint from which we are observing the scene. It is clear that the character’s head is below our viewpoint. This is so because if it was above us, we would see the bottom plane of a top lip instead.

Understanding which planes of the form will become visible depending on the viewpoint is key in drawing anime mouths. This is a skill you can gain over time, so don’t be too hard on yourself if your first or second set of drawings does not look exactly how you’d like. However, make sure you are constantly improving, even if the improvement is marginal. A marginal improvement over time equals to huge gains in skill.

Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat

Notice that almost in all instances, the upper lip hangs over the lower lip, and the lower lip is set back compared to the upper lip.

Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth from the side, study by Gvaat

Notice also, that the line that creates the outline of the mouth is mainly responsible for defining the expression. We see this in the above two examples where the lips are drawn in a very similar fashion, yet the expressions are very different. There is either tension or anger in the second expression that is absent from the one above it.

This means that paying careful attention to the design of the lines creating the opening of the mouth, is going to be important in your ability to define expressions when drawing anime mouths.

Drawing anime mouth and lips – lips closed

Drawing a closed mouth in anime and manga is all about suggestive lines. Instead of creating details for the outline of the mouth, or creating a sharp division between the lips, we’re going to create suggestive lines indicative of the anatomy of the lips, and let the viewer infer the shape from the suggestions we make.

This distinction is so important, that we should go over it again:

Instead of drawing all the details comprising the mouth and lips, we will communicate only the very basic information through suggestive lines, and let the viewer infer the rest of the expression.

Although it appears that perhaps this is easier to do than to draw a mouth in a very detailed way, actually it is not easy. It isn’t easy because you have to convince the viewer with a very limited ability to communicate – just a few marks on the page.

This in turn means that precision and subtlety in where these marks are placed are extremely important to drawing anime lips. In fact, it is clear that all mangaka are capable of drawing realistic lips with precise detail, as it appears to be a prerequisite for proper placement of suggestive lines in the stylized and simplified version.

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

So how do we learn exactly where to place marks to create a convincing drawing of anime lips? My answer remains the same as it was at the beginning of this tutorial – brute force.

We must draw hundreds (and perhaps many more) lips from reference to acquire the comfort in placing the marks in a precise way, in a way that will communicate the expression with control, subtlety, and eventually mastery.

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

Pay careful attention to the few brushstrokes that form the perception of lips on paper. Note that in some cases the upper edge of the upper lip is omitted entirely as you see in the examples above. However, you can still read the expression from the simple drawing, given that you as the viewer are left to fill in the missing information.

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

Some expressions will require asymmetry. This asymmetry will likely be presented in the lower lip. Like most stylization in anime, this is grounded in reality, it is easier to move your lower lip side to side than the upper lip thereby creating a more asymmetrical shape with the lower portion of your mouth.

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

Notice also that there are a range of styles with an anime and manga art, ranging from somewhat realistic to extremely stylized. At a very basic level, lips can be drawn with one line as an example above.

Notice in the above example, the break in the line, indicating the soft surface of the lips as the upper lip overlaps the lower.

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

Above is an example of how an older person’s mouth could be portrayed in anime drawing, with additional detail at the sides of the mouth or the bottom of the mouth.

In anime, the general rule is that the older the character the more lines it will take to define them.

By studying the examples in this tutorial, and making your own drawings of anime and manga lips and mouths you will overtime acquire the skills necessary to draw anime expressions well.

One of the reasons I only drew the lips and not the entire face of a character for this tutorial is that I wanted to isolate the subtleties that go into drawing anime mouths and lips on a canvas. Isolating specific features to learn to draw them is a big advantage, but don’t forget to integrate the subject matter back into a larger image in your practice.

Drawing anime mouth and lips half closed, study by Gvaat

Lips slightly parted like in the example above, can be a sign of attraction, or that a character is on the verge of saying something important. See if you can spot this in your favorite anime, pause the frame and try to learn from it!

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

Identifying the center vertical line of the mouth or lips is very important to a good drawing in anime and manga or really in any drawing. Knowing the location of the center will help with the placement of the foreshortened portion of the drawing. In the drawing right above, the line horizontal dividing the lips is shorter on the left than it is on the right because the subject matter is presented in a foreshortened angle. Foreshortening becomes evident and must be properly drawn in faces especially in three-quarters view. To learn about foreshortening, visit my perspective tutorial at this link.

Drawing anime mouth and lips closed, study by Gvaat

Drawing anime mouth, – mouth partially open

There are certain instances that show up very often in anime and manga, where the character is speaking, or smiling or showing distaste in a situation, and the character’s mouth is half-open. A similar drawing of a mouth is used in all of these varying situations.

In these instances, artists can show lots of emotion through the corners of the mouth, but no teeth are visible at all.

Drawing anime mouth half-open, study by Gvaat Drawing anime mouth half-open, study by Gvaat

In the above examples, the dip created by the area between the lower lip and the chin is indicated by a single mark. If you place your index finger on your lower lip, and slide it down slowly to your chin, halfway through you will notice that your finger moves inward before moving outward towards the end of the chin. This dip in anatomy is represented here with one mark.