A tutorial on how to draw Side Profiles by LissyArt101!

I’ve found drawing side profiles as one of my fortes, maybe because I really wanted to master it, so I’ve tried to compile everything I’ve learned, and have understood about drawing side profiles into something easy!

My younger sister, whose only fourteen said that it was really easy for her to understand, so I hope this helps you too!

I’ve made a YouTube video as well, that might make it a little bit easier to follow than my writing!

Guide Lines

Step 1.

Like any drawing of a human head, you’ll start with a circle, it doesn’t have to be perfect, I always sketch mine out and just follow whatever lines that make it the closest to an actual circle. After drawing your circle, you’ll add the line that typically would be the center of the head, but instead is now guiding you to show how long your face is going to be.

You’ll then draw two lines on a curvature to help show the roundness of the head, the first will be horizontal, it will almost bisect the head from the line that’s showing you the length of the head you’re drawing. The second line will bisect the circle, or also known as the total depth of the head. The height of the head is approximately equivalent to the depth of the head, so that’s a good thing to keep in mind so you don’t draw your chin too long!

I typically guide myself with the position of the ear by drawing a circle where it will approximately be located. The ear is located at about the center of the head! At least, it started there. I draw my circle where the two bisecting lines intersect with each other, closer to the back of the head, and with more of it below the horizontal line.

The jaw will guide itself to that center line that’s bisecting the head horizontally, and the neck will come down from about halfway that distance of the jaw. The back of the neck will come down a little from the circle at a slight curve. For women, and children, this curve will be more prominent, typically, than that of men, only because they have a more delicate body, than a man does. Of course, if you want it to be more masculine, go right ahead and show off the muscular neck! We love a strong woman!

Step 2.

My sister had trouble with the eyes, herself, so I decided to show a little bit of some things I learned! The eye from the side profile is a more triangular shape, instead of the almond shape we’re all used to seeing on someone’s face. I know it might sound a little strange, but the eye also comes down a bit at an angle, and the lashes will brush themselves forward toward the front of the face, instead of out to the viewer of the art piece!

When drawing the eyes on the face, we’ve already got some guidelines for us! Remember that horizontal line? Yep! That one! When drawing the eyes on the face, they’ll either be smack dab centered on the line, or a tad bit below the line. Typically I draw women with their eyes a tad lower than the line, because it makes them more docile, or delicate. Men I typically draw on the line.

A Quick Review

That was a lot of stuff! So here’s a quick little review, and sketch! So you can see a bit more. I also included a few extra helpful facts!

The face itself is divided into three parts, each part is approximately the size of the nose. This makes the whole head divided into four parts, approximately. They aren’t equal fourths of course, but it’s easy to see it as such. If the first fourth is from the chin to the nose, than the third fourth is from the brow bone to the hairline.

When drawing the hair on the head, it isn’t flat, so make sure to give it a little lift, it doesn’t have to be as much as I draw, but if it isn’t it’s like they drew their own hair on their head! After all, even wet hair lifts a little off the head, it’s got its own depth still!

Drawing Children

Like it or not, children are drawn ever so slightly differently than adults are, and you can use similar rules to drawing chibi characters, too!

For a child, for one, like most women, they don’t have an Adams apple on their neck, they aren’t fully developed, so it wouldn’t be there!

Just like I had mentioned before that I’d draw eyes on women a little below the line that’s bisecting the head horizontally, I draw that horizontal line lower on children, this gives them a bit bigger of a forehead, it makes them appear more innocent, and, well, childlike. Of course, they still have the basic shape of the head that we had already sketched out before, so they aren’t going to be turning into Megamind.

By giving them a slightly larger forehead, we bring their facial features down more, giving them a smaller nose. Since the nose and the ear are approximately the same size, on adults and children, their ear will also be a bit smaller as well. Children aren’t fully developed, that’s a fact, so their noses won’t be either. While you may draw a highly detailed Grecian nose for their adult selves, or their fathers or mothers, they won’t have all of that detail.

Real Life Comparison

This would all mean nothing if I was pulling this from my head, which, in part, I guess I am, since I studied this kind of thing in trying to improve my art, after all, but to help further my point, here’s a reference to someone in real life that I go a bit more detail in in my YouTube video.

I also placed a front facing view to show a few more proportions that may help further understand drawing the face, whether that be side profile or otherwise!

My reference here is the Korean actor and singer, Cha Eunwoo, since from what I gather, he’s got the best face for showing the proportions of the human head. Of course, once you know and understand the rules you can break them, since nobody is perfect after all… At least not this perfect. (It’s honestly a little nerve-wrecking)

Five Styles

To further understand this, it doesn’t matter if it’s a chibi style, a realistic style, or semi-realistic, or even your own style, the same rules apply! In my YouTube video I go a little more in detail with all five of these drawings!

My Style:

Chibi:

Semi-Realistic/Realistic: