How to draw eyes at different angles

An almond shape works for an eye seen from the front and fails as soon as the head turns, because the eye is a ball sitting in a socket under the brow, with two lids wrapped over it. Draw the ball and the lids, and the turned views follow.

Start with the ball and the socket

The eyeball is close to a sphere, and most of it sits hidden inside the skull. What you see is the front of it, framed by the lids. The socket is a hollow under the brow ridge, so the eye sits back under the brow rather than level with it.

Place both eyes on the eye line, about halfway down the head. From the front the gap between them is a little more than one eye width, about one and a third on a typical head. The lids follow the curve of the ball: the upper lid arches higher, with its peak over the middle of the eye, and the lower lid is much flatter, dipping deepest at or near the iris.

How to draw eyes from the front

From the front both eyes are the same size and mirror each other across the center line. The iris is a circle partly covered by the upper lid, and usually touching or just covered by the lower lid. The two corners sit close to level: on our ten drawn heads the outer corner is a little higher than the inner, never by more than about a tenth of the eye's width, as eyes from the front measures.

A slight turn

At the slight three-quarter view the far eye is narrower than the near one, because its surface turns away from you, and its outer corner moves closer to the edge of the face. The near eye barely changes. Both irises begin to turn into ellipses, since you now see them a little from the side.

Three-quarter view

At the three-quarter view the far eye is much shorter and sits tight against the side of the nose. The part from the iris to the outer corner compresses most. The near eye's outer corner wraps back around the ball toward the side of the head. How to draw eyes in three-quarter view measures both eyes at 22.5 and 45 degrees on ten heads.

Near profile and profile

By near profile the far eye is down to a sliver on the outline, or gone on some heads, and the near eye is foreshortened, with the iris shifted toward the front of the face.

In profile the eye becomes a wedge that opens toward the front. The lids meet at the outer corner, toward the back of the head, and spread apart at the front, where the iris sits as a narrow ellipse. The upper lid's line runs on a little past the front of the eye. The eye is set in under the brow, a short step back from the bridge of the nose. How to draw an eye from the side measures it on ten heads.

Seen from above and below

All of this assumes a level head. When the head tips forward, or you look down on it, the brow overlaps more of the eye and the upper lid looks heavier. When the head tips back, the lower lid curves more and more of the white shows below the iris. The eye line still runs through both eyes; it just curves with the tilt.

The brow sets the depth

How far the eye sits under the brow changes the face. The heavy-brow head has a ridge that stands out past the bridge of the nose, and on its tonal plates the eyes sit in shadow beneath it. Draw the brow as a shelf first, then tuck the eye under it.

Common eye mistakes

• Drawing the iris as a full circle with no lid over it, which makes the eye look startled.
• Keeping both eyes the same width in a turned view.
• Drawing the profile eye as a front-view almond turned on its side.
• Setting the eye level with the brow instead of back under it.
• Giving both lids the same curve, with their peaks in the middle.

The eyes sit between the nose and the brow, so the nose guide is a good companion to this one. The ridge above them, and the shadow it casts over the lids, is drawn in how to draw a brow ridge. The hollow around each eye, and why it is darkest beside the nose, is in how to draw eye sockets. The heavy-brow head shown here is Study Pack 10.

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