Trying to convey your emotions in your eyes?

Well you are in luck because today we will be discussing just how to do that. Firstly, why is the shape of the eye important? It's important because your character's eye shape as well as the eye color itself provides insight into the personality of the character and might even reveal their intended personality to onlookers.

Practice in a mirror, familiarize yourself with the eyebrow placement and eye shapes.

what's the simplest way for you to make this character's characteristics visible with his or her eyes? Well, there is an easy way to do just that;

 

First think about your character's personality, and how that could be connected to an emotion, for example;

outgoing/bubbly = happy, fascinated

shy/reserved = concern, surprised

 

These emotions associated with your character's personality can help you determine the shapes their eyes will have, to get a better understanding of said shapes, here are some things you can do.

First, before getting influenced by reference material let's say your character is flirty, start off by trying to make a flirty face without looking in the mirror paying close attention to the muscles your using and the direction those muscles are going, you will use that to help you determine the direction of your eyelids and eyebrows later, then look at yourself in the mirror and make as many flirtatious faces at yourself as you possibly can, pay close attention to the shapes and angles your eyes and eyebrows adopt

 

What key features do you want your characters to have?

Another feature that will help you tell your character's story through their eyes

 

Is your character good, or evil?

This can help determine the line language and colors you will use

Should your character be evil you will most likely use thinner lines, darker more desaturated colors, and sharper edges

Should they be good, you will most likely use

Bolder lines, softer corners, and brighter colors

These rules don't always have to follow good or evil, this rule also works for personality, such as;

 

A cool guy, should he be kindhearted a warmer iris would fit him nicely, but should he be cold, a cool color would be nice, this eye would have a regular-sized highlight, and the shape of this eye is more based on an easygoing, sharp appearance

 

A flirt of a man has a more saturated but slightly dark eye and an elongated dreamy highlight, the shape of his eye is drooped down and out as if he is lightly squinting and flirting with someone across the room, his eyebrow slightly uptilted for a smoldering look

 

An outgoing man would have bright colors for a man with a bright future, with a bubbly round highlight and his pupil will be dilated for a more bubbly, excited look, his eyes are wider, and rounder with an uptilted eyebrow, this eye follows the emotions happy, and fascinated

 

With a shy man, a much more desaturated color for his iris, this one should have low contrast and a small highlight to indicate them trying to be small

and unnoticed, the shape of his eye being inspired by concerned and surprised looks, making his eyebrow have a furrowed shape, and eyes wide but narrow

 

For a lazy or tired man a low saturation, darker color iris fits well as if the man were drained of life, for this particular eye it could be better if the pupil were smaller, the shape of this eye was inspired by the feeling of my eyes burning and trying to slide off my face while tired

 

An angry, intense, or dare I say both, a darker more saturated color fits this type of man, this eye also has a sharp highlight, using a lot of contrast works well because it makes the eye stand out and seem more intense, this eyes inner corners are pinched in as they would be when making an angry face with a lot of sharp angles to add a wee bit of drama

 

Boredom will have smaller pupils because they are zoned out, with low saturation and no highlight to add to the lifelessness of boredom, this shape was inspired by neutral and annoyed faces

 

Crazy or maybe just unhinged, the eye color should be a dark saturated color with a brighter, more saturated color around the eerily small pupil, this adds to the oh man this guy has lost it feel, to make this effect even better try shading around the edges of the eyelids

Applying this with aged characters, both young and older.

The younger they are the bigger the eyes they will have, because bigger means cuter.

Baby = chibi giant eyes

Child to teen = large eyes

Young adult to adult = slightly smaller and drooped drown from teen

Middle-aged = much smaller than an adult with some wrinkles

And old = more drooped with more wrinkles

 

These rules and tips apply to both genders and all ages, the only difference is that girls' eyes are bigger

 

Thank you for reading my tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it :D

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