Illustration Tutorial: How to Draw Facial Details
Learn these techniques to add detail and realism to your illustrated portraits with José Rosero
Realistic portraiture is returned to time and again throughout art history. It may be intimidating at first but you can learn how to do it, little by little, starting with some basic concepts that will allow your drawings to become progressively more complex.
José Rosero (@rosero), visual artist and teacher, is an expert in portraiture with techniques ranging from pencil to quill to Indian ink. He knows better than most how to draw all the accents of a face. In the following video tutorial, he reviews some of the most common facial features, so you can learn how to draw them from scratch:
Wrinkles
When starting to draw a face, it is important to start with simple guide lines: a cross shape that includes the nose and eyebrows. Then you can start drawing the wrinkles onto this basic shape.
The wrinkles are formed perpendicular to the muscles: that is why the wrinkles on the forehead and eyes are more horizontal. Once you start to think of them as basic lines, it is important that you understand the shading technique: it is a matter of gently darkening the lower part of the lines, and introducing an even softer grey above, to generate contrast.
It is also important that you understand that each face has its own particular wrinkles, so they are not exactly the same shapes for all the portraits you draw. You will have to examine the model well, either live or through a photo, to do justice to the specific wrinkles on their face.
Blemishes
If you want to draw the little spots on the skin, the most important thing is to start with a grey background to work on. On this base, you can start building your blemishes, trying to make them irregular so that they don't look artificial.
Freckles, warts, and moles
A wart is an irregular shape that grows on the skin, so we will have to take into account not only its shape but also how shadow and light impact on it: one part will be darker than the other. It is also important to integrate warts into the face, without setting too many defined boundaries.
As for freckles and moles, they will not generate shade, like warts, since they do not stick out as much on the skin. When drawing them, it is important to distribute them in an irregular way and work them like blemishes, not as completely defined points.
Scars
Drawing scars is similar to drawing wrinkles, although it must be done more gently. The most important thing is to leave a blank space at the top of the scar, so that the contrast between its top and bottom is understood.
Dark circles under the eyes
When drawing bags under the eyes, it’s important again to understand contrast: you must darken the lower eye area, leaving an area of light at the top of the socket and the lower edge of the eye. You must also take into account the lines of the circles on the lower eyelid, around which you can emphasize the shading.
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