Illustration Tutorial: How to Draw Manga Faces Step by Step

Learn the keys to drawing a face front on, facing slightly to the side, profile, and the back of the head with Andrea Jen

To draw a character is to give life to a new universe, with their physical and psychological characteristics , their way of reacting to situations, the traits which distinguish them from others. All of that begins with a formula. As illustrator and educator Andrea Jen (@andrea_jen) will show us, the head and face are where this process begins.

This step by step guide will allow us to design methodically and with precision, without forgetting the different aspects we should keep in mind for if the character is male or female.

Discover this method below:

7 key steps to drawing a manga face

1. Head and central axis

A chicle and vertical line in the the centre of it are the two elements that will help us orientate how we construct the rest of the face. Ears, eyes, nose, and lips: each element that makes up the face of your character will start from here.

2. Face outline

Here we begin to clearly delineate some key aspects: the volume of the face, the shape of the chin, etc. The outline will allow us to orientate where our next steps.

3. Ears, eyes neck: the following elements

Now, you can determine the central point of the circle and draw a horizontal line just beneath it. You can draw the lines where at the points where this line crosses the circle, as you can see in the image above.

Two circles for the eyes can go in the central points of the right and left quadrants. The neckline, in the sketch drawn by Andrea, starts more or less at the level of the centre of the eyes.

But this, Andrea hastens to add, is not a universal rule: as we are doing a female character here, the neck will be skinnier. For a male character, you might widen it a little.

4. Nose and mouth

Andrea recommends looking at our own faces in the mirror whenever you doubt where to put an element. The nostrils, she notes, are at the level of the earlobe. Therefore, as we can see in the picture above, she has separated them a little more from the eyes. The edge of the nostril should be in line with the edges of the eye circles.

5. The final touches are in the details

With a blank piece of paper leaning against our outline, against the light, we can start to draw what will be the final work. First, the eyes: eyebrows, eyelashes, a large and bright iris, a dilated pupil, there are lots of decisions to make and they depend on what characteristics you want to give to your character.

6. Hair

On the guide sheet, draw the space the hair will occupy in your sketch. It's important that the hair comes from within the circumference of the head to maintain the proportions. In the page of the final piece, again placed on the light, you can add a fringe or other details, let your imagination go.

7. Another angle

To draw the head from the back, facing slightly away, and profile, the steps are the same: it is enough to observe the changes in the location of each element, as you can see in the image above. A three-quarter angle, for example, will determine a small displacement of the axis of the head and eye contour. On the back, it is the hair that is the big protagonist. And so on.

If you liked this tutorial, discover how to construct manga characters, from concept to finish, on Andrea Jen's Domestika course Si te ha gustado este tutorial, descubre paso a paso cómo construir personajes manga, del concepto a la finalización, en el curso de Andrea Jen en Domestika Creation of Manga Characters.

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- Watercolor Illustration with Japanese Influence, a course by Flor Kaneshiro
- Illustration for Comics: Anatomy of a Superhero, a course by Ariel Olivetti
- Illustration of Characters with Style, a course by Alberto Montt