Introduction

The eyes are the most important component of any character.

The first two things the viewer notices when looking at a painting it is the eyes (the emotion), and the hands (the gesture). They tell a story on their own, who the character is and what kind of emotion they carry.

Just imagine a character with his eyes covered, we wouldn’t know who he is, we will doubt their intent.

 

Anatomy/Structure

Let’s start with the core knowledge. As anything else the eyes have their structure, their anatomy. Being familiar with the anatomy makes it easy to play with it the way want, making it different in your way while being aware of the components.

The little black dot is the pupil, it gets bigger in small light (or when we look at something we love) and smaller in bright light. Iris is the colorful circle, upper lid is very expressive and involved in a lot of the expressions we make. Lower lid – not as active and involved in expressions as the upper lid. The white part of our eyes the very noticeable eyeball and the tear ducts the small pink dots at the inner corner of the eyes.

The inner side, closer to the nose, is deeper!

 

Eye form the Sides

Drawing a face from the side, we see little of the eyeball because our eyes are not at the sides of the skull, we look the the front not the sides. We don’t draw the pupil on the edge of the eye but a little bit more inward. The lines around the eye always point inwards towards the eyeball.

Emotions

The eyes give a lot of information on what sort of a mood your character carries, and about his/her personalities. Just mastering that gives so many opportunities already. You don’t have to add a lot of details. Are they suspisios, curious, confused?

You can make a lot of fun eye expresions with just a few lines. To distinguish the upper lid form the lower we make a thicker line on the upper one, because usually there are more lashes on the upper lid.

Here is a curious pair of eyes. As you see the eyebrows play a huge role into the expression.

Here a more exaggerated expression. All the lines point downwards making this one look very desparate.

Now let’s bring the lines of the lower eyelid upwards for a more cheerful expression. Even tho we don’t see the mouth we can say this is a smiling face.

Now I’ll play a little with shapes. Making the eyes rownder, makes the character more likable.

Then let’s make eyes wish a very sharp almond shape. Eyes that cannot be deceived. Let’s make him look angry with the eyebrows and bringing the lower lids a little bit upwards. Now he is looking with anger or hatred.

Design

This is the one of the most interesting parts. Who is your character a demon, a vampire, a villain (sharp edges) a child (where they are more rounded, making it more apealing). There are a lot of opportunities while deciding the design, the shape of the pupil, the color of the iris or the general shape of the eye.

Most main charcters in cartoons have rownd eyes for this reason. It gives a more innocent look, maybe also a little bit curious. The more reflections we give them the cuter they will look.

Western eyes.. with age especially tend to be more sunken into the eye socket. Resulting in more loose skin around the eye. The shape of the eye also becomes more rounded.

Eastern eye don’t sink in as much and are far more forward and thus results in less lines with aging, giving a more youthful look. The shape is more angular.

 

 

To change the color of the lines I used "lock transparent pixels" feature in Clip Studio Paint. It's an easy way to make quick changes.

Designing with Animal Features

But let’s say you want to draw an animal or a creature with a mix of animal and human features a fun way you can do that is with the eyes.

There are some differences you notice when drawing an animal’s eye. Most mammals have eyelids similar to ours – but other types of animals don't need eyelids like fish and snakes. Some animals like the most popular pets have a third eyelid, but it’s usually just a membrane we are refering to and it is not noticeable. There’s no need into diving into that much detail.

 

The reason I love drawing animal eyes is because there are so many incredebally unique eyes in the animal kingdom. Incredible pupil shapes, most of which are a signature look… you cannot mistake an eye of a snake or a gecko, who have a vertically elongated pupil, or a goats eye which is horizontally elongated although the corners are not sharp as the snake’s.

Let’s say you want to design a character who has snakes features(he wants to decive and manipulate) , we would draw their eyes far apart from each other and we would automatically think… oh this one has something off about him.

A lion’s eye is also easily distinguishable, they have very reflective eye, that’s why it glows in the dark. Their pupil is not like the house cat’s though, it is circular, the iris has a golden shade and they also have a white patch of fur below their eyes, to reflect even more light. Thankfully lions have those dots above the eyes which I like to use as eyebrows and giving him an expression.

Owls have very unique pair of eyes they can’t move their eyeballs at all actually so they move their heads when they look around. Their pupils don't get as small as ours in bright light. And the color of the iris is so striking. Owls have a wise look so maybe if you want to incorporate this into a character make their eyes more owl like.

I hope this tutorial gives you ideas on how to create unique eyes and expresssions for your characters. Have fun experimenting!

Thank you for stayng with me until the very end!