FOREWORD

Before I begin I must preface that this is not a how-to or tutorial but a resource to aid overall understanding of the profile.

Inbrevity of instruction I'll be forgoing much of the anatomy and be placing much more emphasis on lines, angles, and shapes, as involving something as potentially nuancing as anatomy can be confusing and may muddle up my messages. I'll also be omitting any drawing of the hair so you may instead better understand the shape of the head as seen in profile.

Though not necessary, but helpful, I’d suggest having some basic understanding of perspective just to ease the process of knowing why an example looks the way it does. Perspective can trip up most beginners but just remind yourself that we're drawing with the intention of constructing a dimension, lines don't just exist by themselves but as a part of something, they’re anchors in an imaginary space that when combined with other anchors—lines—communicate a shape or form in a said 3D space.

Any visual examples using photos of real people are of me, myself.

 

 

AN IMPORTANT POINT TO CONSIDER BEFORE DRAWING THE PROFILE

It’s often easy to forget that you're still working with dimensions, with form, especially when the subject--the profile--is often illustrated or depicted in 1pt perspective which is mostly void of obvious form and structure. Examples below illustrate that even though apparently still a view of a head's profile, the perspective has been shifted just a bit so that when simplified, a face of a cuboid which otherwise would not be present in 1pt perspective is now able to be seen, turning what is commonly a flat, 1 point perspective profile of the face into a more interesting 2point or 3pt perspective variation of the profile.

 

 

AVERAGE PROPORTIONS, RATIOS, AND ANGLE RELATIONSHIPS

When wanting to replicate the likeness of something or communicate a thing, in this case, the profile of the human head, proportions become the most essential in achieving just that, and with proportions; ratios, and angle relationships closely follow. I allude mostly to the Loomis method when describing the relationships from one facial landmark to the next, from one form to the next, so if you'd like a more in-depth instruction of how exactly to draw the profile or the face I highly suggest to please refer to the "Drawing the Head and Hands" book by Andrew Loomis or more abstrusely “Constructive Anatomy” by George B. Bridgman.

 

 

A pattern to be observed is that most of the face when drawn in its most average form, facial ratios become broken down into halves and thirds. Observe the patterns as seen in the leftmost image.

Observe the positioning of facial landmarks relative to the gridline (blue) and linear lines (red) to guide appropriate placement of the features.

 

 

THE INDIVIDUAL FEATURES AND FLOW/ANGLE RELATIONSHIPS

Like the face as a whole, the individual features that make up the face, when observed by themselves also have their own average proportions, ratios, and angle relationships; all of which are equally as important to observe when constructing the profile of the face.

 

 

Using linear lines is a great technique in observing various visual patterns, and when combined with observing how one line "flows" into the next, or how one angle is related to the next can greatly improve your comprehension of the profile--or even of anything when applied to any observational drawing.

 

 

STYLIZATION OF THE PROFILE: MALE & FEMALE PROFILES, FACIAL MATURITY, ETHNIC VARIATIONS, AND ANIME

Stylization, or designing a head is owed entirely to proportions, ratios, and more abstractly the quality of the line, and male, and female heads, the youth, the elderly, and ethnic variations are no exception; they all have their own common, or average proportions that allow them to be visually communicated as what they are. By creating your own mix n' mash of proportions, ratios, and line quality you can also produce your own "style" of the profile.

Key differences to observe between the male and female profile/masculine and feminine profile:

-The lips protrude out more so on the female head

-The absence of an adam's apple on the female head

-The jawline is softer, and less apparent on the female head

-The eyebrow ridge protrudes out more on the male head

-A lower ratio of upper eyelid exposure on a male head

-Thinner lips on a male head

-On average, the lower half of the female head is proportionately shorter when compared to the ratios of the rest of the head, and inversely so on the male head.

 

 

Masculinity and femininity of a line. A masculine line is characterized by its sharp, angular, and abrupt change in flow, whereas a feminine line has more ease in its flow, is softer, and overall more organic. This concept of feminine and masculine lines can be applied to all aspects of design as it exists on a spectrum; both lines can exist on the same subject and even exist in the form of a combination of qualities: abrupt, yet eases to the next, sharp and angular but not entirely, and etcetera.

On another note, the concept of spectrums and sliders is useful when wanting to develop your own style or design of anything. For example, instead of masculine and feminine lines, you can use a simple to complex slider which is great when wanting to define the desired complexity of an image.

 

 

An immature profile is characterized by larger eyes, a smaller nose, a bigger forehead, and softer, and sometimes more simplified lines. And when maturing, the ratios ease into an average of 1/3-1/3-1/3 from eyebrow, nose, to chin, as described in the early sections. When maturing into elderhood skin begins to sag and much of the weight of a ratio falls down towards the lower half of the face (longer nose->chin ratio) and every other aspect of the profile where you would imagine gravity would affect.

 

Ethnic variations are more subtle and require careful attention to detail but when observing the skeletons of varying ethnicities most of it can be summed up to how forward-growing the facial bone is underneath, below all the flesh, and depending on what variety a character has will determine how pushed forward or how pulled back features like the nose, lips, or forehead are.

An anime-styled profile or head denotes "neonatal" qualities, qualities that you'd find on newborn animals or people; proportionately larger eyes, bigger foreheads, smaller mouths, weaker chin, and jaw, all of which also characteristic of an anime head or profile, and this is to imply a more youthful or "cutesier" look. Its influence on the profile is a larger forehead, larger eye area, and much smaller nose-to-chin ratio. Other qualities typical of anime and anime-styled profiles is the use of simplified lines to communicate the shapes and silhouette graphically, and by virtue of being simple and graphic, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for form or structural breaks to happen, like at the mouth, for the sake of exaggeration and overall more compelling expression.

 

 

THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE WHEN DRAWING THE PROFILE AND HOW TO CORRECT IT

As I'd mentioned before it's easy to neglect structure, and that's simply by virtue of the profile not exactly being the most communicating form-wise and so we can sometimes rely unintentionally, or intentionally on a concept described as "iconography" or symbols; drawing the representation of something instead of how it actually is. When drawing the features we must adhere to the form of the head; If I were to draw this in that way would it work in another way? More specifically I like to ask myself, “If I were to shift the perspective would the features drawn hold true?” a simple way of imagining this is wrapping a form around a cylinder and I’d observe, would the drawn form sit afloat and disconnected, maybe even structurally warped, or would it wrap around as intended and unbroken?

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• When drawing open mouths it's important to consider that movement only occurs at the temporomandibular joint. The only form deviating and shifting from a closed mouth to an open one is the lower half of the face, the jaw—or anatomically, the mandible. The rest of the forms above it, like the maxilla, are fixed in place.

• When drawing the hair of a profile observe where the scalp ends and begins. The scalp is an important guide when defining the forehead, ear area, and back of the head.

 

DRAWING THE PROFILE (EXERCISES)

**When doing drawing exercises and of course especially when drawing by observation use references!!! of yourself, of other people, of your favorite artists, so that you have a clear standard to compare and adjust accordingly to! If you DON’T use references you may just end up spinning your wheels, training in a vacuum not making improvements because you’ve not been fed or been feeding yourself the resources to make improvement possible.

(Exercise 1, Beginner) Drawing cuboids in space with ratio lines. The purpose here is to train your intuition of space and know what kind of influence your line has on the imaginary dimension of a blank canvas. More than a profile drawing exercise, this is a perspective exercise to expand your repertoire of profiles by acknowledging subtle or even extreme perspective shifts and how it may influence a profile looks.

(Exercise 2, Intermediate) Copying profiles in 1pt perspective, and in a more advanced exercise copying profiles in 2pt and 3pt perspective. Constantly compare and contrast with your reference, be especially conscious of things like observing proportions, lines, angles, shapes, patterns, and ratios but also coming up with your own observations. Analyzing, and doing anything to commit the visual patterns to memory.

(Exercise 3, Advanced) Stylizing, designing your own profiles, and coming up with your own proportions, ratios, and shape variations. Always work with the intention of dissecting whatever you’re designing, meaning know what it is you’re drawing, why, and how you’re doing it; for example, take care to observe what ratios you’re coming up with so that if you end up creating a design that you like that you can replicate it in the future if you wanted to. Your goal is to be consistent, not lucky.

 

 

AFTERWORD

I had not intended this post to be a how-to, or a sort of "art truism" but instead offer universally applicable insights and new, different ways of thinking, methods, and techniques for your own application and use, to help you elevate your drawing skills, and that's whether that's for drawing the profile of the face, the face entirely, or just drawing in general.

To extrapolate on my point further, more important than following guides, or a step-by-step tutorial, It'd be good practice to instead just copy, copy, copy, observe, observe, observe. Whether you copy from life or your favorite artists, it's important to develop a strong intuition, a strong sense of knowing what something should look like and also what feels and looks appealing to you. Understand what you're doing, and what you're seeing, know the whats and the whys and from that develop your own hows, unlocking your ability to create freely, and create freely at your most creative and technical best! I hope this post may have been a help to many! And thank you so very much for reading!