Face width proportions: the eyes, nose and mouth measured on ten heads

Face proportions for drawing checks the rules that run down the face: the eyes halfway, the thirds, the mouth under the nose. This guide checks the ones that run across it. Drawing books give four:

• the gap between the eyes is one eye wide,
• the head is five eyes wide,
• the nose is as wide as the gap between the eyes,
• the corners of the mouth sit under the irises or the pupils.

On these heads the gap and the skull run wider than the rules say, the nose matches the gap or runs wider, and the mouth stops short of the pupils.

All ten heads come from the free head rotation reference. On each front plate we read the corners of both eyes, the center of each iris, the outer edges of the nose's wings and the corners of the mouth, by eye on gridded crops enlarged three and four times, and later re-read the outer eye corners on the larger plates, where the white of the eye ends between the lids. The inner corner of an eye is the point of the opening next to the nose; the outer corner is where the two lids meet, not the flick of lashes past it. The mouth corners are a little harder to place precisely than the eye corners, irises and wings. The numbers describe these drawings, not people: distances are compared as shares of each face's own eye width, and the heads are within about 8 percent of each other in height.

The figures show the high-cheekbones head, with the widest nose and the widest mouth of the ten, and the minimal head, with the eyes furthest apart and the narrowest mouth against its irises.

The gap between the eyes: one eye and about a third

Measured from inner corner to inner corner, the gap runs from about one and a sixth eye widths to about one and a half, about one and a third on a typical head; eight of the ten sit between a quarter and two fifths over one eye. None is as tight as one eye. The heavy-jaw head comes closest to the rule, with the widest eyes of the ten; the minimal head is furthest, about one and a half eye widths, with the widest gap.

So on these heads one eye is the floor, not the usual gap: start at one eye, then add about a third. If your gap looks tight, widen it before you shrink the eyes.

Five eyes across: about six above the ears

The rule measures the head at eye level, but on these fronts the ears cover the sides at that height. At its widest, just above the ears, the skull spans about five and a half to six and two thirds eye widths, about six on a typical head, and seven of the ten are over six. The heavy-jaw head, with the widest eyes, is the narrowest at about five and a half.

Read it as five eyes plus about half an eye of room on each side. With the ears it's probably wider still; we didn't measure them.

The nose: as wide as the gap, or up to a fifth wider

The wings of the nose span about one and two fifths to one and two thirds eye widths, one and a half on a typical head. On all ten heads that's about as wide as the gap between the eyes or wider, and on seven it's clearly wider:

• About the same: the minimal and soft-planes heads, both only a little wider than the gap.
• A little wider: the full-lips head, under a tenth wider than the gap.
• An eighth to a fifth wider: the other seven, from about an eighth wider on the square-jaw head to a little over a fifth wider on the high-cheekbones head.

Measured straight down from the eye, the outer edge of each wing sits from about level with the inner corner to about a sixth of an eye outside it, about a tenth of an eye on a typical head. The two that match the rule do it in different ways: the minimal head by setting its eyes wide apart, the soft-planes head by having the narrowest nose.

Drop a line down from each inner corner of the eyes, then let the wings reach just past it.

The mouth: corners short of the iris centers

On all ten heads the mouth is narrower than the distance between the centers of the irises: about three quarters to a little under the full distance, about seven eighths on a typical head. Every corner stops from a twentieth to about a third of an eye width short of the iris center, where the pupil sits, so the pupil version of the rule holds on none of these drawings; the closest corners, on the heavy-jaw and gaunt-planes heads, only just miss.

The irises are about two fifths of an eye width across. On eight heads both corners sit under the iris, from its inner edge to about a sixth of an eye width in toward its center. The widest mouths, on the high-cheekbones, heavy-jaw, heavy-brow and gaunt-planes heads, still stop about a twentieth to a sixth of an eye width short of the iris centers.

On the other two, the minimal head and the full-lips head, the corners stop up to about a seventh of an eye width short of the irises altogether, between them. The full-lips mouth is the second narrowest of the ten, which fits how to draw full lips: full lips are taller, not wider.

Drawing it

1. Mark the eye line and the center line, with the head's height and skull set first.
2. Set the gap between the inner corners at one eye width, then add about a third of an eye, up to a half for wide-set eyes.
3. Place each eye one eye width out from its inner corner, about six eyes for the skull at its widest.
4. Drop a light line from each inner corner to the base of the nose, and put the outer edge of each wing on it or up to about a sixth of an eye outside it.
5. Drop a second pair of lines from the inner edges of the irises, each set a little toward the outer corner of its eye as the iris guide shows, to the mouth line. Put the corners on them or a little outside, under the iris; for a short mouth, a little inside.

Common mistakes

• A nose narrower than the gap. None of the ten heads has one clearly narrower.
• Mouth corners under the pupils or past them. On these heads every corner stops short of the iris center.
• Closing the gap to fit the eyes. When the eyes and the head don't fit, check the skull's width before shrinking the gap.

What else is going on

The ten heads are drawings in one style, all bald and all read from the front pencil plates. The hard-plane front is a slight view from below. Mouth corners taper, which is why they carry the larger reading error, and left and right eyes on one head differ by up to about a twentieth of an eye width, so we used the mean of both. The widths are not scaled to head height: the heads differ in height by about 8 percent, less than the spread on any of the four rules. Check the rules against other heads too.

A short exercise

Draw the minimal head at 0 degrees with only five marks on each side: both eye corners, the iris center, the wing of the nose and the corner of the mouth. Then draw the high-cheekbones head the same way. Draw both at the plates' own size. The high-cheekbones eyes sit about a third of an eye width lower, so slide one drawing until the eye lines meet and compare across, then do the same for the mouth lines: the eye corners almost match, the iris centers shift a little, the wings move out by about an eighth of an eye width a side and the mouth corners by nearly a quarter. Finish with the nose and the mouth guides, which follow both as the head turns.

The minimal head is Study Pack 04 in Volume 1, and the high-cheekbones head Study Pack 09 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.