How to draw cheekbones: front, three-quarter and profile

The cheekbone is a corner of the skull where the front of the face turns into the side. Below it the surface usually turns inward on its way to the jaw. Place the corner as a point first, then draw the plane under it, and the middle of the face keeps its depth as the head turns.

The figures come from two heads in the free head rotation reference. The gaunt-planes head is a lean, older face with deep hollows under the cheekbones. The high-cheekbones head is a younger face, named for cheekbones set high and wide, with fuller cheeks that soften every edge. Both heads are bald and lit from above.

What to place

• The cheekbone point, on the side of the face below and outside the outer corner of the eye. On these plates it sits between the eye line and the base of the nose. Anatomy books call the bone the zygomatic bone.
• The arch, the ridge of bone that bridges the cheekbone point and the ear.
• The hollow, the surface under the cheekbone that turns in toward the jaw.

The point and the arch are bone, so they stay where they are on every face. The hollow is mostly muscle and fat, which is why it's deep on one face and nearly gone on another. Place the cheekbone after the eye line and the nose, and before the jaw. On most adult heads the jaw corners sit inside the cheekbones, so the face narrows below them.

From the front

From the front, the cheekbones mark the edges of the front of the face. On the gaunt-planes head each one is a clear corner about halfway between the eye and the base of the nose, and a narrow band of shading runs down from it toward the jaw: the hollow, turned away from the light above. The outline of the face narrows below the cheekbones, so the face is wider there than at the jaw corners.

On the high-cheekbones head the same landmark has less edge. The face is about as wide at the cheekbones as anywhere below them, narrows a little to the jaw corners and then more to the chin. There's very little hollow; the side plane turns gradually and its shading runs from the cheek down to the jaw on the side away from the light.

At three-quarter

On the gaunt-planes head the cheekbone shows most at three-quarter. On the near side the arch is a ridge running from below the eye back toward the ear, and the hollow is a shaded band under it, running from in front of the ear down and forward toward the corner of the mouth. Draw the ridge as a line that follows the form, then lay the hollow as one shape under it.

On the far side, the cheekbone makes a small point in the outline below the far eye, before the nose cuts across. At this angle the far outline runs from the brow to that point, then along the nose, the lips and the chin; the far jaw is already hidden.

On the high-cheekbones head the near cheekbone is a lit, rounded form below the eye, and the shading under it is a soft band. On the far side the cheek reads as a smooth curve in the outline, with no clear point. Keep that curve small: the far side of the face is much narrower than the near side at 45 degrees.

In profile

In profile the cheekbone sits inside the silhouette, below the eye and in front of the ear, so it's drawn with an edge or a change of tone instead of the outline. On the gaunt-planes head the ridge runs back toward the ear, and the hollow under it slopes down toward the mouth. The arch is the ridge between the cheekbone point and the ear; draw it as one continuous form.

Measured at three-quarter

We measured the far side of the face on the 45-degree drawings of all ten study heads. The ruler is the drop from the center of the far eye to the base of the nose on the same drawing.

On eight of the ten heads the far outline does the same three things: it comes out at the brow, dips in beside the eye, and comes out again at the cheekbone before the nose. On the other two, the minimal head and the heavy-jaw head, there's no separate point, and the outline runs from the eye socket into the nose.

• Height: the cheekbone point sits a little under halfway to about two thirds of the way down from the eye to the base of the nose, about halfway on most heads.
• Depth: it stands out past the dip beside the eye most on the gaunt head, about a fifth of the ruler, and the hard-plane head, about a sixth; least on the heavy-brow and high-cheekbones heads, about a sixteenth.
• Against the brow: on five of the eight it stays inside the brow, by about a twentieth to an eighth of the ruler. On the hard-plane, deep-folds and full-lips heads it's about level with it.

So at three-quarter, put the far cheekbone about halfway between the eye and the base of the nose, level with the brow or a little inside it. The gaunt and hard-plane heads have the deepest dips. The high-cheekbones head, despite its name, has one of the smallest, so its far cheek comes out only slightly, in the smooth curve described above.

These are ten drawings from one set at one angle, and a stray pencil line can move a reading a little, so use the numbers to check a drawing, not to measure people.

Common mistakes

• Round patches of shading on the cheeks. The shading belongs to the plane under the cheekbone, with its edge along the bone.
• A far cheek drawn as wide as the near one at three-quarter. By 45 degrees the far cheek is a small point or a short curve on the outline.
• The hollow drawn as a dark hole. It's a surface turning away from the light. Under the light from above in these plates it is a middle tone, lighter than the shadow under the jaw.

A short exercise

Open the gaunt-planes head page and draw it at 0, 45 and 90 degrees. Place each cheekbone as a dot before any line (at 45 degrees, about halfway between the far eye and the base of the nose), then the ridge back toward the ear, then the hollow as one flat tone. Draw the high-cheekbones head at 0 and 45 degrees and compare how much of the hollow is left.

For the planes these shadows sit on, see the planes of the head and how light falls on them. The jaw corner is placed against the cheekbone in how to draw a jawline. How the hollow makes a whole face look thin, next to a smoother face with the same outline, is in how to draw a thin face. The gaunt-planes head is sold alone as Study Pack 02 and in Volume 1; the high-cheekbones head is Study Pack 09 and in Volume 2.

This guide is one step in how to draw the head at any angle, which puts all the head guides in order.