How to Draw Female Faces

How to Draw Female Faces

This tutorial is a walkthrough of my own process for how to draw a face, and is by no means intended as strict instructions. As an artist the best thing you can do is develop a technique and approach that feels right to you, which is how I developed this process. The most important things to keep in mind throughout the drawing process are:

• Expression: What kind of emotion do you want the face to portray? Try to choose an expression that says something about the state of the character (peaceful, angry, vulnerable, etc). For the sake of this tutorial, I will be drawing a face with a fairly neutral expression and straightforward angle, but it is worthwhile to explore more expressions than simply neutral or blank ones.
• Life: I try not to focus too much on getting things ‘right’ (symmetry, perfect details, smoothness, etc) but instead concentrate on giving the face a sense of life and personality. I try to keep the personality of the original sketch preserved in the end result, and leave the smaller details until the way end.

Setup in SketchBook

The process I describe here can be applied to basically any digital drawing program that has basic layer and brush functions. When starting out, the most important things for me are:

1. A large canvas: I usually work on A3 format, 300 DPI, so that the quality is suitable for printing.
2. Clutter-free workspace: I keep only the essential panels open, which for me are mainly my tools, layers, and color editor.
3. Useful shortcuts: If I have access to my eyedropper and navigation shortcuts, I’m good to go!

Basic Shapes

I try to keep my rough sketches as expressive as possible, trying to capture a sense of gesture and movement first and foremost. The details come later.

Angles and Direction: This basic circles and lines technique works great for drawing a variety of angles. By keeping the features simple and using dots for eyes, you can achieve a lot of movement with just these simple shapes, and get a good sense of the angle and positioning of the face.

Head shape: For variety, you can experiment with different head shapes and jawlines. Different shapes create different character types.

Rough Sketch

New layer: Turn visibility on/off to quickly compare your sketch with the basic shapes from the previous step. When laying down the first rough sketch, I continue to think in shapes and curved lines rather than details. This is not only easier, but also helps give the face volume and depth.

Eyes: I keep the eyes as simple as I can during the rough sketching phase, so I can focus on the expression before adding detail. I don’t draw the iris or reflections until later on. For variety, you can experiment with different shapes and styles, and also look at how the eye interacts with the eyebrows and creases around it.

Nose: I always start with a circle for the base, then a simple arched shape for the bridge. For variety, you can try different nose shapes (larger bridge, wider base, etc) as well as different positioning of the nose on the face (higher, lower, etc).

Mouth: I always start with the mouth shape and then add the lips around it. The mouth is a very important feature for communicating emotion, especially the corners of the mouth – are they downturned, pinched, smiling?

Line work

I personally like to keep the linework sketchy, since I like the texture and life it gives to the drawing. I mainly focus on drawing defined and strong lines in this phase, as opposed to the light, scribbly lines from previous phases. I used to make the linework as clean as possible in this phase, getting rid of all of my sketch lines. If you prefer a more clean drawing style, you can make neater linework than I do here, and turn off your sketch layers afterwards. Finer details (eyelids, eyelashes, nostrils, etc) can now be drawn in, with the sketch lines from previous steps as a guide.

Base colors

At this point, I merge the sketch layers together, using the method below to keep the separated layers as a backup. If the guide lines or rough sketch are showing through too strongly, I lower the opacity on those layers before merging, but you can also just turn them off completely.

In a layer below, I lay down the base colors, and then set the merged linework layer to ‘multiply’. I then modify the colors of this layer using  hue/saturation, so that they blend nicely with the base colors below. I like to experiment with this, sometimes choosing very bright colors for the lines, sometimes more neutral colors. It depends entirely on how the lines interact with the base layer, and what ´feels right´ to me.

Skin tones

In order to give life to the skin, it’s important to add some variations in the skin tone. I added color variations on the cheeks, nose, lips and ears. I choose colors manually from the color editor panel. I like to pick colors that aren’t just lighter/darker versions of the base color, which can result in flat or lifeless skin. I try to choose rich colors that give depth and texture to the base color.

Different skin tones: There is a huge variety of skin colors and tone variations that exist, and it’s interesting and fun to explore them. Different skin tones have different highlight and shadow colors. I learned the most from doing quick color studies based on photo reference.

Shading

Now I add shading to the face. I try to envision how the three dimensional shape of the head would interact with a light source, so the first step is to figure out where the light is coming from. In this case, I chose a soft light coming from above. I also modify the colors a bit because I felt the colors were becoming a bit dull. A common mistake for people starting out with digital art is to paint very soft, gradual shading in hues that are simply lighter/darker versions of the base color. The end result tends to be a bit flat and lifeless. I personally recommend making your shadows and highlights a slightly different hue than the base color, and to also add some sharp, crisp shadows alongside the softer shading.

Dimensions: When shading the face, you’re dealing with the shadows being cast onto the face by its own features (nose, lips etc), as well as softer shadows of the 3D form. Envisioning the volume of the head and face, and picturing it as a 3 dimensional shape,  is a great help when shading.

Lighting: When deciding the strength, direction, color, and type of the lighting, there are many options. Besides envisioning the head as a 3D object, you can also learn a lot from making studies of different lighting situations.

Details and Finishing Touches

At this point, I merge the color and line layer. Many artists prefer to keep linework separated from the color layer, but I prefer having everything in one place. This way, I can paint over the lines, and erase parts of the drawing without having to switch layers. Be sure to make a backup of the layers before merging (described in step 5) so that you can always go back to your old version if needed. Depending on how realistic and detailed I want the end result to be, I can spend a lot of time on this final phase, sometimes painting over the lines completely. In this case, I’m leaving it rough with some of the sketch lines still showing through.

Eyes are tricky but important. You can give it multiple attempts by using your layers.

To smooth out the skin, I use alt+click to pick colors off of the drawing, and then paint with a large, soft brush set to a low opacity. I focus mainly on the cheeks, forehead and neck, keeping the facial features sharp.

With highlights, less is often more, so I keep the sharp white highlights to a minimum. Lighter paintwork now has more impact, because it is being painted over the linework instead of under it.

Adding freckles, wrinkles, moles, and other marks to the skin helps add more detail to a piece, as well as give the face personality.

Finished Result

As you can see, I don’t mind a rough or sketchy end result, and I’m also not very concerned with symmetry. I personally think imperfections add a lot to the character and personality of a face, and I also really like the effect of sketch lines. If you are seeking a cleaner and smoother end result, an option is to turn off your sketch layers early on and spend more time on the final phase, smoothing out the colors more and refining the details. I hope you guys found this how to draw faces tutorial useful!

how to draw a

how to draw a 

shoe

The basics of shoe design never looked quite as beautiful as when drawn by Hudson Rio. He’s a master of shoe design, and we’re fortunate to have him demonstrate how he does it in SketchBook. Like his process?  You can download a copy of the PDF tutorial of how to draw shoes at the end of this post.

My workspace

Sketchbook has a very simple and easy to use interface. Here’s how I organize my workspace in a way that is effective for my workflow.

My Brushes

For this tutorial (and most of my work) I only use a few different brushes. The first four brushes are standard brushes — Airbrush, Paintbrush, Hard Eraser, Soft Eraser — with minor adjustments to opacity/flow. I use a custom Do-It-Yourself Pencil Brush for sketching, and a custom Sharp Eraser with a very sharp edge. They are all great for different details:

• Airbrush: Highlights and shadows
• Paintbrush: Blocking in colors
• Hard Eraser: Erasing overspray
• Soft Eraser: Erasing highlights/shadows

The other two are more detailed brushes:

• DIY Pencil: All-purpose sketching brush that works great for my style of drawing.
• Sharp Eraser: Used with the Airbrush, this helps me create crisp highlights and reflections.

How to Draw Shoes: A Rough Sketch in 4 Steps

Having correct proportions is extremely important in a shoe sketch. Starting with basic foot/shoe shape is the best way to achieve correct proportions.  Once you have that down, the rest follows naturally. 1) Sketch a basic foot/shoe shape; 2) sketch the silhouette of the shoe; 3) add details like the sole of the shoe; 4) add final details like the logo and laces.

Make a Thumbnail Page

The purpose of thumbnail sketches is to explore a wide range of ideas in small amount of time.  These sketches are messy and quick, and will be refined later. Creating a thumbnail page is a good way to present and evaluate the ideas you’ve come up with.

Use the Quick Transform tool to scale and move each sketch into position on the page. Use scale to create a hierarchy on the page that draws attention to the designs you are passionate about. Keeping each sketch on a different Layer allows you to arrange the page quickly and easily.

Refine Your Concepts

Once you have evaluated your concepts and chosen a few to refine (based on function, aesthetics, materials, etc.) you will create a tighter sketch that communicates the details of the concept better. You can do this by taking your favorite from your thumbnail page and scaling it up to become the base of a more refined sketch.

Use the Scale tool to increase the size of your thumbnail in order to use it as an underlay for a refined sketch.

Clean up the Sketch

Now that you already have the basic design figured out, you can use it as an underlay to trace over and create a quick, clean, and more detailed sketch of the concept.

The clean sketch is created on a Layer above the thumbnail sketch. Lower the opacity of the thumbnail layer so it is easier to see and sketch on the layer above.

Explain Your Concept

A simple sketch can’t convey everything you are thinking. This is why designers add notes to their sketches. It’s a quick way to explain features or materials to those who are reviewing the concepts.

Add a new Layer to write your notes, so they can be easily removed for the final render.

Concepts and Layer Groups

Designers come up with many concepts for each project, and as you’ve just learned, it takes a few steps to reach a refine drawing of each concept. Layer groups make it easy organize all of your concepts and the layers used to create them.

Turn on and off Layer and Layer Group visibility to see your concepts. Each concept has its own Layer Group. All of the Layers used to create that concept are held within the layer group.

Set Up the Final Render

Once a concept (or multiple concepts) is chosen from the refined sketches, it is time to do a final render. This is the part where the designs form, color, and materials will really shine!

STEP 1: On a layer below the line-work layer, add a solid color for the background using the Flood Fill tool, this will help colors and whites pop.

STEP 2: This is a personal preference, but I like to lower the opacity of the sketch, so that final render appears more realistic.

STEP 3: On a layer below the lines and above the background, use the Airbrush to create a soft circle.

STEP 4: Use the Scale and Transform tools to squish the circle and ground the shoe with a shadow.

Block in Colors

Use the Brush and Hard Eraser to block in and define areas of color.  I prefer to be messy with my Brush and clean up with the Eraser; it seems to be easier than trying to be precise with the brush. Keeping each color on a separate layer will help in the future.

Add Texture

Adding a texture to your render is a great way to convey what material is being used to the viewer. For this render, I Googled “cloth texture” and found a high-res image that resembled the knitted material I want the shoe to be made of.

STEP 1: Copy and paste the texture image into your document above the color layers. STEP 2: Lower the opacity of the texture layer and erase so that it only covers the sections that will be made with this material. STEP 3: Change the layer blending mode to Overlay and reduce the opacity until you achieve a more natural look.

Add Shadows

Start to define the form by adding shadows based on a defined light source. In this case, my light is above the shoe, so shadows will be cast on the lower parts.  This step is done by adding value in large sections with a black Airbrush, and erasing where needed.

STEP 1: Define the general form of the shoe by adding shadow where the fabric curves away from the light source.

STEP 2: Add large sections of shadow with the Airbrush to achieve a smooth appearance.

STEP 3: Use the Hard Eraser to erase and define the areas in shadow.

STEP 4: Lower the opacity of the shadow layer until it looks about right.

Continue to use the Airbrush and Hard Eraser technique to add shadows where needed. Here you can see the form of the shoe is starting to come together.

Add Highlights

Doing the same as you have done with the shadows, create highlights above the linework layer using a white Airbrush and Hard Eraser. Use the Hard Eraser within the form to create the appearance of glossy materials.

Edge Highlights and Material Breaks

Using a white Pencil, add crisp highlights to the edges of forms and areas where two materials meet. This creates a realistic appearance, and helps explain how the shoe is constructed.

Glowing Highlights

On a layer above the highlights, use a white Airbrush to create bright highlights on the edges. I like to set the layer blending mode to Soft Glow, as this has a more dramatic appearance.

Increase Contrast

The final step for me is to Duplicate the shadows layer and highlight layer, and then adjust the opacity of the duplicated layers to a desired effect. Find a balance between having enough contrast to give the image a dramatic look, without losing detail in the design.

Exploring Colors

Remember when I said to keep your color layers separate? Here’s where it is going to come in handy. By locking the transparency of the color layers, you can easily brush on new colors and explore different colorways.

Layer organization: 1) Highlights, 2) Lines, 3) Shadows, 4) Texture, 5) Colors, 6) Ground Shadow, 7) Background

A Quick Summary

Now that we’ve finished the final render, let’s review how we got here!

What Is Art?

What Is Art?

This is a difficult question, but I’ll simplify it for our purposes. After all, we talk here about “traditional art” as something visual, something that can be seen and appreciated. We don’t talk about music or theatre, so we can ignore the rest in our definition.

Art is representation of the real world created in some medium. It’s mean to be looked at, and this is its main purpose. If it has some other, more important purpose, it’s not art. So, a hand-drawn map is not art, unless it was meant to be beautiful. In the most basic sense, when you create something, you’re a creator. If you create something just for the sake of creation, you’re an artist.

There are two main types of creating, both requiring completely different approach….

Creating What You See

If we use drawing as an example, drawing what you see is about seeing the lines in the object you want to draw (being there right before your eyes), measuring them correctly to put them to paper, and turning the light and dark parts of this image into shades. This type of drawing requires the ability to see what the object looks like, not what we know it is, good measuring skills, and good control of the tool. The end result is a physical copy of what the artist saw at that moment.

In this type of creation you don’t really need to know the subject—you just copy what you see.

Creating From Imagination/Memory

Here the artist draws something they don’t see at the moment. They have to imagine the object, and all the visual elements of the image on their own. What would the lines look like if the pot was in this specific position towards me? What parts would appear dark and what light if the light source was in this specific position? What would happen if the light hit the texture on its surface?

An artist drawing from imagination has to spend a lot of time analyzing the seen reality before they attempt to draw it. Instead of simply memorizing what they see, they need to understand where that image comes from to be able to rotate it in their mind, change the setting, and add new elements to it. The end result is not what the artist saw at one moment, but what they could have seen.

You can learn everything about this method from my series How to Draw From Imagination.

What’s interesting is that because the artist doesn’t copy the visual side of reality there right before their eyes but instead re-creates it in their mind, nothing stops them from modifying it. It doesn’t need to be done on purpose—reality is simply so complex that it must be simplified in some way to make re-creation possible. Every artist has their own way of simplification, and it’s called style. Style is a consistent way of simplification, and it always have some rules, even if the artist isn’t aware of them. Styles with distinctively clear rules can be easily used by multiple artists, and can be easier to grasp for beginners.

The style of Loish is focused on expressiveness, not realism. Do you want to draw like her? Check out her tutorial on SketchBook Blog: How to Draw Female Faces.

As I’ve mentioned in the introduction, traditional artworks can be created with a variety of tools and materials. Let’s take a look at the most popular ones.

Drawing

Drawing is, in its most basic definition, line-based art. If you have a tool that can create lines, you can draw with it. There are not any lines in physical world, but our brains make us see them in the contrast. When we draw the lines we see, the brain is able to convert them back to something known from reality, and we can recognize what the drawing depicts, even though it lacks most of the visible elements of the real world.

Traditionally, drawings are created with charcoal, pencils, and ink. You can use all these tools to add shades to the drawing (for example, by drawing with a tilted pencil). Such way of shading is still considered drawing, because it’s achieved in a precise way, with thick “lines” of sorts. Shading can also be achieved with lines of various density.

Drawing can represent the world on various levels of accuracy, from few-lines-sketches to photorealism.

Painting

Painting is less precise than drawing, because it’s not based on fully controlled lines. Instead, it puts focus on “patches” and “blots” that simulate various visual elements of the physical world—not only contrast and shades, but also colors. Squint your eyes (or, if you’re nearsighted, take off your glasses) and try to see the world as not the objects, but the patches of various colors—this is what gets painted.

To paint, you need two tools: some kind of paint (liquid pigment; there are many types available with various properties), and a brush. Brushes give you control over the amount of paint, the direction of the strokes, and blending. If you use fingers instead, you actually draw with paint, because the artwork becomes more line-based. Paintings can be started from scratch, from general blobs that get detail with every new step, or with line art—a light drawing that gets filled and eventually replaced with colors.

Sculpting

While drawing and painting are based on the pure visual side of reality, sculpting puts focus on the real objects—ones that can be touched and seen from many different angles, in various light conditions. The visual side of a sculpture is a side effect of creating something real. Sculptures don’t pretend to be three-dimensional—they actually are. Because of this, sculptures can be created and enjoyed even by blind people.

Sculptures don’t only present reality—they are a part of it.

To sculpt means to change the form of some material with fingers or special tools. Clay can be manipulated with fingers, but it must be burned afterwards to keep the new shape. Hard materials, like wood and stone, are more difficult to work with, but they’re also more durable.

What is Digital Art?

In the digital environment we don’t have wood, charcoal, or paint. Everything is the same—just a combination of 0’s and 1’s translated to a visual form on the screen. These 0’s and 1’s can simulate any medium you can imagine. Just like a proper piece of software can turn your computer into a violin, a piano, or drums, another one can turn it into a canvas and a palette full of various paints. The instruments are not real, but the sounds are, and so is the image.

Although digital art is not bound by the rules of traditional art, it often simulates it to give the user something familiar and to make the whole process more intuitive for the artist. Early digital painting programs were based on coloring the pixels with a mouse, but today they offer much more: the digital paint blends naturally, can be mixed, and is applied with a special stylus on a graphics tablet.

Modern digital art programs have much more to offer than ancient MS Paint.

A graphics tablet simulates a sort of a drawing pad connected to a computer. You can “draw” or “paint” on it with a stylus very similar to a real drawing tool, and the pad translates your movement/pressure/tilt to digital strokes visible on the screen. The cheaper tablets use the external screen, the more expensive ones have it built-in. iPad Pro can be used as a graphics tablet too, especially with the Apple Pencil as the stylus.

Wacom Cintiq is the most popular screen graphics tablet, but there are also cheaper alternatives available.

What happens to your “pretend” strokes depend on the software you use. Photoshop, which is not really a painting program, treats every stroke as something separate, which is not possible in reality. In other, more specialized programs, like SketchBook Pro, the strokes interact with each other, just like they would in traditional medium. The newly put paint blends with the already painted layers, and you can’t use a bright Copic pen on a darker one.

Digital art offers all the equivalents of traditional art….

Digital Drawing

The stylus can only have one shape, and this shape is usually similar to a pencil or a marker. This makes it very precise to use, and it can be successfully used for drawing. A good digital hardware/software combination lets the artist utilize all the techniques known from traditional drawing: create light, thin lines with a light stroke, dark, thick lines with a heavy stroke, and even draw with a side of the stylus to shade.

The border between digital drawing and painting is very thin, because all it takes is to change the size of the stroke to make the style more painterly. The general rule is: if a similar effect could be achieved with pencils, ink, charcoal, or markers, but without a brush, then you can call it a drawing.

Digital Painting

Although the stylus doesn’t look like a brush, it can work like one if the software allows it. You can easily change the size and shape of the simulated brush tip to achieve various effects, and some programs even go as far as to simulate the thickness and consistency of the digital paint.

Some programs, especially the simpler ones, may offer you a purely “digital brush” as well—a tool that adds colors to the image without any blending or advanced mixing. This way of painting doesn’t have a traditional equivalent, and it makes painting more intuitive than it is traditionally. The end result may look painterly, even though the process is more similar to drawing with a big marker.

Digital Sculpting

Sculpting in the digital environment is based on creating a 3D image—one that can be rotated and viewed from many angles. However, it’s simulated 3D, which means it generates a series of 2D images that your brain recognizes as 3D, even though you can’t touch it. The software provides the “materials” you can sculpt in, as well as tools (traditional-like and purely digital) and the simulated physical environment. In advanced software you can make your sculpture look photo-realistic, although this requires a lot of skill from you as a sculptor.

Animation

Because the screen is displaying the image continuosusly, nothing stops it from displaying a slightly different image every fraction of a second to create the illusion of movement. Such a moving image can be created by drawing each frame by hand, or by copying and editing the previous frame. Both 2D and 3D art can get animated. You can create beautiful animation in an intuitive way in SketchBook FlipBook.

You can learn how to create an animation of a galloping horse in Drawing and Animating Horses: A FlipBook Tutorial with Monika Zagrobelna.

Why Choose Digital Art?

Digital art offers special possibilities that couldn’t be described in the pros list, so let’s take a look at them here. Keep in mind that not every program has those.

Layers and Blend Modes

In traditional painting layers of paint are placed one by one, and they can’t be reached separately. Because of this, the painting process is reduced to adding the colors on top of each other.

Digital art offers something completely new in this regard: specialized layers. You can have a layer for the sketch, a layer for the line art, a layer for the colors, for shadows, for special effects… And they don’t need to simply cover one another. Each layer has a Blend Mode which defines how it affects the visibility of the layers beneath. For example, Multiply makes the layers below darker without changing their color, so it’s perfect for adding shadows.

Blend Modes are based on math, and they literally change the physical properties of “paint” to ones that could not be achievable in reality. They’re not really designed for painting, but can be successfully used this way, creating a whole new process of creation. This way of painting is actually based on precision and planning, and therefore is very comfortable to artists who don’t like the unpredictability of traditional painting.

In this method, each aspect of the object is tackled separately, which allows the artist to create realistic paintings from imagination. You can learn more about this method here.

Clipping Masks

Staying within the lines is something that doesn’t come easy when you want to be expressive. You want to paint from side to side, and yet you need to restrain yourself not to go too far. You could take a sheet of paper and cut the shape in it, to cover the rest of the canvas and paint within the outline, but it takes time and is not so easy to do well.

In digital art you can create a Clipping Mask: draw a shape and make only the pixels painted over it visible. The rest just doesn’t get painted! This lets you get fully expressive with your strokes, while keeping the edges clean and sharp.

Paint Bucket Tool

This inconspicuous simple tool makes the life of an artist much simpler—it fills the outline, so you don’t have to. Drawing can be very strenuous, so limiting the number of strokes leading to finishing of the artwork is very welcome.

Resizing and Reshaping

Sometimes you don’t realize you were were drawing something wrong until you draw it. It happens even to skilled artist—a little too long stroke, a little too wide circle. You can Undo and try again, but you can also edit what’s been drawn: move it, rotate it, resize it, or even reshape it to an extent.

Adjustments

When you get lost in the creative process, you may not notice that your colors shifted towards the wrong hue, or that the whole scene turned out slightly too dark. Basic adjusting options will help you fix it without ruining the whole image. You can also use them to experiment with different color variations.

Magic Rulers

Traditional artists sometimes use special tools, like a ruler or a French curve to draw the lines precisely. It’s useful especially in design, where expressiveness may not always be welcome. In digital art you can use similar guides that will support your strokes. In SketchBook Pro, for example, you’ll find a classic ruler…

… various French curves…

… line smoothing…

… perspective tool…

… and even symmetry, with radial symmetry included!

Conclusion

Today artists have so many options available, and I believe we shouldn’t limit ourselves to the old, classic definition of art. I use traditional ink liners in my traditional sketchbook to sketch and study, because I like to draw while half-laying on my couch. I paint digitally in SketchBook Pro because I love the possibility to use all the colors and brushes without the pressure to get everything right the first time. And I love that I live in the times when my art can be shared with thousands of people in a digital form. So even if my paintings are not “real” I don’t care—they are pretty real to me!