How to draw a face step by step, with measured numbers
Archive of Fine Arts
Most step-by-step face tutorials give the order and leave the sizes to your eye. This one adds numbers to the first six: where each line goes, and how far it can move. The seventh, tone, describes what the shaded plates show. The numbers come from the front pencil plates of the ten bald heads in the free head rotation reference, and each step links to the guide that measured them.
The heads are drawings in one style, without hair.
The order:
- Draw the outline of the skull and the jaw.
- Draw the center line and the eye line.
- Space the eyes and draw them.
- Box in the nose.
- Place the mouth line and the lips.
- Hang the ears.
- Add tone where the face turns away.
1. Draw the outline
Start with the head's height, from the top of the skull to the bottom of the chin, then the skull's width. On the ten heads the skull at its widest, above the ears, is about two thirds to nearly three quarters as wide as the head is tall, about seven tenths on a typical head. Draw an oval that shape, narrower for a lean face.
The face below it is narrower than the skull on all ten. At the corners of the mouth it's about two thirds to seven eighths of the skull's width, about three quarters. So let the jaw come in under the skull, then round it off to the chin. Steps 1 and 2 summarize how to draw the head from the front, which measured them.
2. Draw the center line and the eye line
Drop a straight line from the top of the skull to the chin. Everything on the face mirrors across it.
The eyes go on a line about halfway from the top of the skull to the chin, a little above or below on these heads. Beginners tend to put them too high. Measure from the top of the skull, not from the hairline. Below the eyes, mark the base of the nose: the old rule splits the face into thirds at the brow and the base of the nose, and face proportions for drawing shows how far real thirds bend.
3. Space the eyes and draw them
The gap between the inner corners is about one and a sixth to one and a half eye widths on these heads, so set it at one eye width and add about a third of one. Then mark each outer corner one eye width out. The skull at its widest holds about six eye widths, as face width proportions shows.
Keep the two corners of each eye nearly level, with the outer one a touch higher, within about 6 degrees. Then draw the eye itself:
- Arch the upper lid high, its highest stretch about a fifth of the eye's width above the line between the corners, over the middle of the eye.
- Keep the lower lid shallow, about a tenth of the eye's width below that line, a little more on some eyes.
- Check the opening at the iris: close to a third of the eye's width, so the eye is about three times as wide as it is open.
- Draw the iris two fifths of the eye's width or a little more, its top tucked under the upper lid.
How to draw eyes from the front takes each of these in turn.
4. Box in the nose
Drop a light line from each inner eye corner. The outer edges of the nose's wings go on those lines or a little outside them: the nose is about as wide as the gap between the eyes to 22 percent wider.
Hang a box from the eye line, as wide as the nose and a sixth to a quarter taller, or about square for a broad nose. The base of the nose runs along its bottom. Inside the box, start each wing about four tenths of the way up from the base, and draw the bridge as two light lines about a third of the nose's width apart. How to draw a nose from the front has the numbers, and how to draw nostrils sizes the openings.
5. Place the mouth line and the lips
Measure the space from the base of the nose to the bottom of the chin. The mouth line falls a little above or below a third of the way down it, so a mark a third of the way down is a good start.
For the width, drop a line from the inner edge of each iris. The corners of the mouth go on those lines or a little outside them, or a little inside for a short mouth. They sit short of the iris centers on all ten heads.
The mouth line is the darkest line in the mouth. Give it a small notch at the middle. The upper lip rises into the two peaks of the cupid's bow; the lower lip is the taller one on every one of the ten heads. Draw the lower lip mostly with a short shadow under it, about a quarter of the mouth's width, and keep its outline light. Lips from the front has the details.
6. Hang the ears
Use the nose, from the eye line down to its base, as the ruler. The top of each ear sits about a quarter of that length above the eye line, and the lobe about a quarter below the base of the nose. The hard-plane and heavy-jaw heads carry the whole ear lower, the lobe about half a nose length below the nose. The ear stands out about a third of a nose length from the side of the skull, widest in its upper half. How to draw ears from the front measures all twenty.
7. Add tone where the face turns away
On the tonal plates of the same heads, light hatching runs down the sides of the skull and the cheeks where they turn away from you, and the underside of the nose, the shadow under the lower lip and the underside of the chin go darker. How to shade a head one light at a time and how to hatch a face take this further.
Common mistakes
- Eyes too high. Check the eye line against the top of the skull: it sits about halfway down.
- Eyes too close. The gap between the inner corners is more than one eye width on all ten heads, about one and a third on a typical one.
- A nose narrower than the gap between the eyes. None of the ten are clearly narrower; the wings sit on the lines from the inner corners or outside them.
- A mouth as wide as the space between the pupils. The corners stop short of the iris centers.
- Round, wide-open eyes. The eye is three to four times as wide as it is open; bring the upper lid down.
A short exercise
Draw one front plate from the reference in the seven steps above. Mark each line before you draw the feature on it. Then lay a strip of paper along the plate, mark the top of the skull, the eye line, the base of the nose, the mouth line and the chin, and hold it against your drawing. Move first the mark furthest from the values on this page.
What these numbers don't cover
The heads are bald, so the hairline is yours to place; how to draw a hairline shows how. We didn't measure the eyebrows: on these fronts the brow, the lid crease and the lid line crowd into one band. This page gives no numbers for the cheekbones, the neck or the chin's shape; the chin and the brow ridge have their own guides. The plates aren't labeled male or female, and nothing here compares the two. Faces in photos and in life can vary more than these ten, so treat each range as a check, not a rule. For a turned head, carry the same lines round with the head at any angle, which puts all the head guides in order.
Last updated: October 22, 2026