Drawing the head for cartoon

Head is a plastic object. It can be stretched, flattened, real represented or caricatured. But basically any comics head, caricatures and cartoons should remain unchanged. Absently leading a pen across the paper almost all can draw something interesting. But not many people are able to portray the same person in different positions and angles, so it remains recognizable.

Knowing the rules of the structure of the head - that's what differentiates this artist from the amateur. This is the basis of drawing!

A head creation is like building a house, at the beginning you don’t need construction materials or the purchase of land for a house.

From general to specific!

The head is divided into two parts - the eye area and jaw area. You will see that the axial lines passing through the eye area subsidiary will be placed in the facial features.

Nose

Nose - is a "boom" in the face. Regardless of which way to aim the eyes, the face always turns to the same place with nose. That’s why drawing a face I always begin with the nose.

Placement of facial features

Imagine the head as a globe. When we rotate the globe, the location of facial features doesn’t change.

In the classical turning on 3/4 from the left side you can see only one ear, and the second is hidden behind the head. In the version 3/4 on the right you can see both the ear and the face looks wider. Both versions are correct - you can decide which image is best.

Changing the position of facial features

Line of the eyes (a horizontal line on which the eyes are located) can be raised or lowered. But when you specify its location, it must remain there throughout the life of the character.

This lady's eyes held the line as low as possible - your eyes are in the bottom of the circle. Young characters’ eyes are always are lower, because it makes her forehead above and maximizes the size of an eye.

The middle of the face is always the middle of the face. But the horizontal line on which the facial features are located, can be lowered or raised, allowing us to create a new character.

The constancy of forms

So, you already know how to paint the top of the head in terms of a circle. Now try to use the oval. Try to compress and stretch the jaw.

Sometimes the jaw is expressed very clearly as this princess has. And it also happens that the jaw turn into to the neck, like this man. If immediately make necessary changes in the basic structure of the head, all the details will find the right place for themselves.

All these characters unite by one thing - a clear design which allows to locate all the parts easily.

Practice

Try to draw five different characters (rich girl, stylish lady, freckled boy, brother in law, dandy), using the knowledge from general to specific, different types of face shapes - circle, oval, the position of the eyes.

Source: "Everything you wanted to know about cartooning but were: afraid to draw" - Christopher Hard

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