How I Improved Drawing Faces

One of the things I struggle  with the most while drawing,  

is faces or facial expressions in particular.

I usually end up drawing faces like this.

A closed mouth, and not much  of an expression whatsoever.

My inabilty to draw faces and expressions  

even keeps me from finishing some of  the pieces I'm currently working on,

namely this one and that one.

So I decided to actually practice  drawing facial expressions for once.

Hopefully it helps me improve, and I  can finally finish those two pieces.

The plan was to, first just draw some facial  

expressions to see how it would  look like without any practice.

Secondly, use references and  practice drawing based on them.

And lastly, to draw without  the use of references again, 

to strengthen what I hopefully learnt previously.

Now then, let's begin.

First, I tried drawing some expressions very  briefly without any practice or references.

So little practice in fact, 

that it's been a week since I last  drew and it reflected in the sketches.

I quickly moved on from it, because it was very  apparent, that I couldn't draw any expressions.

I could've done better with the sketches, but I didn't want to waste too much time on it,

and go into the actual practice.

For the next part I started using references.

I went to sites like pinterest,  and looked for them there.

There was one caveat however.

Using sites like pinterest, will  show you more AI art than real art,

Now to the actual drawing.

I was mainly just copying the references I found.

But I also didn't try to make it look perfect,  

since I was just practicing  how to draw the expressions.

I was only trying to get the general shape  down without worrying too much about details.

What I quickly noticed was, if you draw the face with an open mouth,

but without teeth, it will look very goofy.

As soon as you put in teeth and the tongue though, even a mouth as widely open as this,

doesn't look (as) strange anymore.

Something to keep in mind for the future.

I drew five of those reference sketches in total, and took a break from drawing for the day.

The next day I started drawing without  references again to see what I remember.

The first sketch didn't go as well as I hoped,

the eyes had a weird shape and I couldn't  figure out what was wrong with it.

I then adjusted the size of the nose mouth  and chin, and moved on to the next sketch.

That one was drawn a bit rougher,  but it helped me figure out,

that I have a problem drawing the angle of the  face right, after drawing in the eyes first.

It's easier for me to draw the face  or head first and then the eyes,

than to draw the eyes first 

and then try to force the entire  face based on the eye positon alone.

Afterwards I continued with facial expressions,  as well as practiced noses for a bit.

I still didn't get used to the correct placements  of eyebrows, as you can especially see here.

But that's why I'm practicing it.

I liked the expression for the next sketch I did.

But then I noticed I had no  idea what to do for the mouth.

So it became just an ellipse and I  started practice drawing mouths as well.

That went on for a while 

until I felt a bit more confident  trying to draw an entire face again.

The eye sockets were weirdly wide on this  one, but it was good enough for an attempt.

So I practiced drawing the  eye sockets.

After doing that, I felt like the  

faces and expressions started to look better. I marked where the cheeks should be on the face 

and noticed that the lower eyelid should be  lifted up based on the position the cheeks.

Guess what I will practice drawing next.

I drew another face with a wide grin 

so that I can practice the  influence of the cheeks on the eyes.

So I kept going and tried to incorporate the  cheeks more to see how it would affect the eyes.

It looks a bit creepy, 

but at least it's more expressive than  anything I was able to draw before.

I did this for a long time and had  quite a lot of fun working on them.

Then it was time to draw some other expressions.

This time, an angry expression  with a wide open mouth.

I don't like how the eyes turned out, but  other than that I thought it looked okay.

I struggled with the mouth on the next one, until I settled for an expression.

After that I started drawing  more mouths from multiple angles.

I especially have trouble drawing the upper lip, and hopefully I can overcome that one day.

I liked how the mouth sketches turned  out and continued practicing expressions.

This time I drew a bunch of them, 

since it seemed like what I was  practicing was finally paying off!

Another day passed, and...

the first few sketches I did that day  weren't as good as I would like them to be.

But that was also to be expected  since I didn't warm up yet that day.

After drawing for a bit I got  back into it quite quickly, 

and drew a few more facial expressions.

[Oh my, you found the secret Xasha! Totally wasn't an editing mistake!]

After doing all of this practice, I felt ready.

Ready to use my new found knowledge  on the pieces I was struggling with.

So I went back to my Frieren piece, removed the previous face and started drawing!

In the end...

the expression didn't really  fit the her as much as I hoped, 

but overall it's still an improvement,

over not having an expression or face at all.

We'll see if I keep it or draw a different one.

A few days later, I drew some more sketches, and started to add more expressions.

Some of them worked out, and some didn't.

But in general I think the practice helped.

That was it for today from me.

I hope there was something you  can take away from this video.

Even if it's just the desire to want to  improve drawing facial expressions yourself!

I'll continue incorporating expressions  into more of my future sketches.

But for now, thank you very much for watching.

This is the last video for this year - 2023,  in case you're watching this in the future -

and I hope you have some  nice holidays and year ahead!

Have a nice day, bye!