Easy Head Drawing Tutorial for Beginners (That Actually Makes Sense), by gwendolyn on YouTube. 10 min 46 s.
- Video length
- 10 min 46 s
- Time to do it
- 30 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Steps
- 8
What you need
Steps
Draw a circle for the cranium. This is the top and back of the skull, so keep the lines light and easy to erase.
Add a rounded jaw shape below the circle. The jaw narrows toward the chin, and the chin sits roughly one circle-height below the top of the head.
Draw a vertical center line down the middle of the face. This line marks where the nose and mouth sit and keeps both sides balanced.
Split the face into three equal bands: hairline to brow, brow to bottom of nose, and nose to chin. Use light marks so you can adjust them.
Place the eyes on the brow line. Leave a gap of about one eye width between them, and put one eye width on each side of the face.
Mark the ears between the brow line and the bottom of the nose. Sketch the nose halfway down its band and the mouth about a third of the way up from the chin.
Check your proportions before adding detail. Compare the eye gap, the three bands and the jaw width, then fix anything that looks off.
Draw the features over your guidelines. Keep the lines loose at first, then darken the ones you want to keep and erase the rest.
Tips and common mistakes
Keep every guideline light so mistakes are easy to erase.
Draw the head from a few different angles to test whether the proportions still hold.
Don't rush into shading and detail before the basic shape and feature placement look right.
Questions
Do I need special art supplies to start?
No. A normal pencil, paper and eraser are enough. A ruler helps with the three equal bands but is optional.
How long should I practice each day?
Short daily sessions of 10 to 15 minutes beat one long session. Repeat the same head sketch until the proportions feel natural.
Why do my faces still look wrong?
Most beginner faces go wrong in the spacing, not the line quality. Recheck the eye gap and the three bands before adding detail.
This guide was drafted from the video's details and general task knowledge. It has not been checked against the full video. Check the video and relevant product instructions before following a procedure. Report a correction.
