All of the tutorials, references, artwork, etc. featured here were not created by me. This is just an area for people to find anything related to helping others improve their art skills.
Please do not hesitate to submit or notify me of resources and tutorials for anything relating to art you can imagine will help people in their improvement of art. Since art is such a subjective and vague term, this can mean anything from writing to cosplay to cooking to even home construction.
This was a request and at first I wasn’t sure if I had anything to provide with, but as it turn out it got a little longer than I expected because there were actually things I had to say!! Wow!!
Anyway, this is some guidelines I follow when I try to make the face expressfull, more specifically the mouth! It is often neglected, since it’s actually pretty hard, I’ll admit. But I’m here to help (hopefully…)! A mouth expression tutorial as per request. Enjoy and hopefully it will help some a little. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
Draw the teeth at the right angle.
This is super important. The upper jaw follows the angle of the head, and the lower jaw will depend on how open it is. Make sure you have a rough estimate of where the teeth are, and how much of them you’re going to see!
The lips will VERY roughly follow the same angle as the teeth. It really depends on the character, but it gives you a sense at least.
If you DON’T do this, you’re going to lose so much volume and the mouth is going to end up looking unrelatable. I showed this example in this tutorial:
It’s not just the lips!
The cheeks, chin, and tongue play a role too!
Try look at your own mouth or references! I have a very pliable and large mouth, so that’s one reason why my characters have it too lmao.
ASYMMETRYYYYY (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง
I cannot emphasize how important asymmetry is when drawing expressions. It applies not only to the eyebrows to achieve the Dreamwork Face™, but also the mouth. Seriously if you draw a symmetric mouth I will deliver myself to your mailbox and then shout at you until you fix it.
Look at the difference between these two for example: which one has more “life”?
I think you get the idea.
Push and squish - give it flow
Here’s an old drawing I have but it illustrates how I think when I squish the mouth, and use folding and wrinkles to my advantage.
Look at your own face and see where skin bundles up, where it creases the most and when bumps appear on your chin. Subtle details makes all the difference!
One VERY effective detail is illustrated in the first sketch, where I pull upwards on one side, and downwards on the other. That’s a good detail to use when the character is making a skewed expression, or is extremely frustrated. I encourage you to play around with that concept bc it’s ~super effective~!
EXAMPLES:
Happy: Your entire mouth is pushed upwards, not just the corners of your mouth!
I tend to draw a :3 mouth bc I’ve been drawing Lance too much….. You don’t have to but it’s basically imprinted in my motor memory by now.
Pouting/frowning: corners are pushed down, middle pushed slightly up. Sometimes, there’s a slight dip in the middle too. It can give a sense that the character is biting their lips.
Showing frustration/intimidating/is intimidated: basically showing a lot of teeth. The corners are as open as possible and the middle sorta more squished. An extremely important detail here is showing some of the gums, and open space between the cheeks and teeth. That way it looks like the mouth it open to it’s full potential. Here is also where you basically MUST add folds and bumps, or else it’s not going to look relatable.
(Here I am again with the pulling upwards on one side and downwards on the other, as illustrated on the last sketch)
And then again, here’s just another doodle showing how important it is to show the gums. It’s the same face twice, but the second one looks slightly more frustrated doesn’t it?
As you can see, this last one is very versatile and I draw it a lot. Play around with the basic shape and see how much subtle details makes a lot of difference!
That’s it!
I hope that cleared some things up and was somewhat helpful! Enjoy drawing ✨
Tuesday Tips - The Mask Helps to figure out the shape of eyes in perspective by thinking of its surrounding area instead of guessing it. -Norm #tuesdaytips #100tuesdaytips #grizandnorm #themask #drawingtutorial #drawingtips #arttutorial
I live in hope that by the time Black Panther comes out, fan artists finally realize that drawing a random black face that looks nothing like the black character they’re supposed to be drawing isn’t acceptable.
You can find references everywhere because we live in a Google-driven world and yet… 90% of fan artists after The Force Awakens made sure to get Rey right but Finn… Finn is still drawn with what I can only call “Generic Black Guy” features.
(But it’s “their style” so it’s apparently rude to complain about how everyone takes pains to make sure the white characters look like their white actors but then play fast and loose with Black characters’ appearances.)
Maybe in 2018 fandom will figure out that all black people don’t look the same and apply that to their fan art?
The trouble here is unfortunately with a lot of baby artists who, for the most part, view facial features as interchangeable addons. A nose is a nose, eyes are eyes, and when they draw these things on a face very little notice is paid to what makes these individual features unique to the person (I call this the “Mr. Potatohead problem”). And when you’re white, those generic features tend to resemble white features– though it’s noticeable enough when they’re doing it with white actors, it’s reeeally dramatic with black actors.
The advice I always give when people ask me about faces is to trace over a few shots of the face, but to ONLY trace the shapes in it. Try to figure out what makes that person visually who they are.
With Chadwick what sticks out is oval structure, wide set eyes with big bushy brows, strong apples of his cheeks and a bone structure that sets his mouth forward and causes some dimpling, triangular nose, a non-prominent brow, parallel eyelids that widen toward the center, and an upper lip that’s stronger than his bottom. I also noticed just looking up images of him that his smile naturally cocks to the right just slightly.
With bare basics like this you can simplify and stylize a person while still retaining their identity.
Firstly, I know this one’s slightly preachy, but I felt it needed to be said.
The examples I chose were just off the top of my head. There’s many, many more.
I know why animators do what they do. It saves time and money to create a cast of characters with the same body type. However, one must consider the cost of convenience. In the end, it comes down to a choice. We’re spending something in order to make our media: the question is, what would we rather sacrifice? Time and money, or diversity and realism? One could even argue that these sacrifices will have a greater impact on our culture than we realize.
*cough* pardon the typos. Wish Photoshop had a spellcheck. XD
OK this was super super quick I just had some thoughts rolling around in my head so I felt I’d get them out. This isn’t really a ‘tutorial”, just thoughts and comments. If I were to make a tutorial it’d have a lot more content (and more females/different angles), but I felt I’d just put this out here for what it’s worth.
I am no expert on these things and constructive criticism is always encouraged.
Clarification: It is ok and perfectly fine to give your female-identifying characters makeup (and, of course, others.) But you should draw them without makeup and develop their appearance that way before adding on makeup if that’s what the character generally wears. The idea is to make them recognizable as women even without makeup. (Unless the character herself isn’t easily recognizable/generally observed as a woman without makeup, as part of her intentional design. Just make it intentional, is all I’m saying.)
