The tendency is to draw the eyeball either too big or too small, and too low in the socket, which can create problems for us down the road. Being mostly covered by the brow ridge and eyelids, the precise size and position of the eyeball in the socket can be ambiguous at best. I don’t suggest we draw the eyeball directly, however, because we see so little of it. After all, the eyeball fills much of the eye socket we just finished establishing, and is responsible for much of what we perceive as the shape of the eye, so its influence is important. Some tutorials advocate this, and it makes a certain amount of sense. You may be wondering why I don’t suggest drawing the eyeball at this stage. ![]() The lateral corner of the eye is coincident with the supraorbital margin laterally as it turns down toward the zygomatic bone.Īt this point it may be noticeable that the eyeball sits surprisingly high within the eye socket, being tucked up and under the top of the supraorbital margin.We only need to determine how high or low it sits. The inside corner of the eye sits directly on the inside edge of the eye socket.The bottom of the lower lid sits just above the infraorbital furrow at the bottom of the eye socket, and also echoes its downward-lateral trajectory.The top of the upper lid is defined by the top of the eye socket – the “supraorbital margin” – and follows its downward-lateral trajectory.Its trajectory echoes that of the brow ridge above it. The infraorbital furrow marks the bottom boundary of the socket, and is often seen on the surface as a soft ridge running downward and laterally from the inside corner of the eye. ![]() The inner canthus, or “tear duct” at the inside corner of the eye, marks the medial (or inside) edge of the eye socket.(Due to the eye cover fold, this crease isn’t visible on individuals of asian descent.) This sharp definition is sometimes seen down the lateral side as well, along the upper part of the zygomatic bone. The supraorbital margin: this is the actual top border of the socket itself, and is often marked by a deep crease at the top of the upper lid, where it folds on itself as it rolls up and under the brow ridge, like a retractable awning.The eyebrow: While it doesn’t mark the top of the socket (that sits lower), the eyebrow is useful because it’s often easy to see and it marks a plane change where the brow ridge begins to turn down and in toward the eye socket.The way forward is to absorb what you can from teachers you trust, but be prepared to adapt and improvise as you encounter unique problems… because you will. As similar as human beings are to one another, there’s still no one-size-fits-all instruction set for drawing eyes – or anything else. But that’s what learning to draw portraits is like. There will be plenty of times while drawing a model when you’ll encounter problems not mentioned here. I’ll try to take some variables into account, but remember these instructions are not universal. In this post, I’ll lay out the things I think about most when drawing eyes on a portrait. Mess up the eyes, and you’re suddenly stuck with a “bad drawing”, while the same degree of error in describing the neck or chin may go unnoticed by most viewers. ![]() It’s also where we look first in a portrait. We tend to approach the eyes in our drawings with lots of anxiety because they’re psychologically important to human beings. Nevertheless, drawing convincing eyes is something a lot of students struggle with, often unnecessarily. Articles like this make me queasy because they seem to reinforce this way of thinking. ![]() Instead, we focus on “eyes”, “nose” and “mouth” too much, and forget about everything else. In truth, there’s as much structure to be observed on the model’s cheek or forehead as in the eyes, but we tend to be unaware of that (there aren’t many “How to Draw Foreheads” tutorials out there). Second, thinking in terms of “how to draw eyes” – as if the eyes are somehow privileged and separate from the rest of the face, head and body – breaks up the figure into artificial categories. Drawing well is usually more complicated than just following a list of formulaic steps that don’t take variables into account. First, when you draw a portrait, things like the model’s individual morphology, our perspective as the viewer, and the lighting environment are different in every case, and can profoundly impact your decisions. In my experience, the type of instructional content found in countless books, blogs and YouTube videos with titles like How To Draw ‘X’ is usually oversimplified and misleading. I’ve resisted writing this kind of post for a long time.
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