How to draw the head at any angle, step by step

The guides in this journal use one construction at every angle: a ball for the cranium, a jaw hung below it, a center line and an eye line. What you set up for the front view still holds in profile, and the features sit on landmarks you've already placed. This page puts the guides in the order we'd work through them.

The method, in short:

1. Draw the cranium as a ball and hang the jaw below it.
2. Draw a center line down the face. It's straight from the front and curves around the form as the head turns.
3. Draw the eye line about halfway between the crown and the chin, wrapping around the head the same way.
4. Divide the face into thirds at the brow and the base of the nose.
5. Place the ear from a little above the eye line to a little below the nose line, behind the middle of the head in profile.

Each guide below takes these steps to one angle or one feature.

1. Start at the front

How to draw the head from the front comes first: it sets the measurements every view reuses: the eyes about halfway down, the face in thirds, the ears near the eye and nose lines. How to draw a face step by step places the features in order. Face proportions checks those rules on four heads, face width proportions checks the widths on ten, and how to draw a symmetrical face tells drift from a slight turn.

If the names of the landmarks are new to you, read parts of the head for drawing first.

If you learned the head from Andrew Loomis, the Loomis method sets his ball, cross and three equal spaces against the plates, including a head where the spaces don't come out equal. If you start heads as boxes, the box method gives the box's width and depth, measured on all ten heads. To choose between them, Loomis, box or planes fits all three to one head.

2. Turn the head toward profile

Each guide is a 22.5-degree step. Work through them in order; the same face from different angles shows what stays put.

1. Slight three-quarter view, 22.5 degrees. The center line curves, the far ear disappears and the far eye shortens, though the head has barely moved.
2. Three-quarter view, 45 degrees. The far side is clearly shorter and the near cheek carries most of the width. Three-quarter face proportions measures it.
3. Near profile, 67.5 degrees. The far eye shrinks to a sliver, the nose breaks the outline and the side of the head becomes the largest plane.
4. Profile, 90 degrees. The skull is deep from front to back, the ear sits behind the middle, and the face hangs off the front of the cranium. Side profile proportions measures them.

If the head stops looking like one object as it turns, read why construction lines drift when you turn the head first.

3. Keep turning, to the back

• Three-quarter back, 135 degrees. The cranium, ear and jaw are organized around the small wedge of the face that's still visible.
• The back of the head, 180 degrees, the front's outline flipped, with the ears standing out and a wide neck under them.

There's no guide yet for 112.5 or 157.5 degrees, but the reference has plates for both.

The head also tips up and down. How to draw the head from below compares level views with the same heads seen from 20 degrees below: the lines arch, the ears move and the jaw's underside becomes a shadow plane; three-quarter from below measures the turned view.

How to draw the head from above does the same from 20 degrees above, and a face looking down and looking up measure how far each feature moves.

How to draw the head from a steep angle follows one head from 40 degrees above to 40 degrees below and shows how far the lines curve and the ears move at each step.

The head also tilts toward a shoulder. How to draw a tilted head shows that a tilt is the upright construction leaning on the page, and that in profile the same lean is a head looking up or down.

4. Place the features

• The nose from different angles. The far nostril hides first. Nostrils sizes them, three-quarter view meets the cheek line, the front, the side and nose shapes measure it.
• Eyes at different angles. Balls in sockets, lids wrapped around them, so the far eye shortens as the head turns. The front, three-quarter, the side and eye shapes measure each view.
• How to draw eye sockets. The hollow is wider than the eye and darkest beside the nose. Eyelids places the lid line and crease, the iris the circle between them, eyebrows the band above.
• Ears at every angle. The ear keeps its height. The front, three-quarter and the side measure it.
• The mouth and lips at different angles. The mouth wraps around a curved row of teeth; the front, three-quarter, the side and lip shapes measure it. The philtrum and cupid's bow sit above it; an open mouth adds an opening without thinning the lips.
• How to draw a hairline. One face-third above the brow by rule, turned down at the temples to the top of the ear, with each head's own hair drawn over it.
• How to draw a bald head. With no hair the outline of the skull is the drawing: in profile the head fits in a square, and the neck starts in front of the back of the skull.

The nose, eye and mouth guides each end with views from above and below.

5. Change the face

Drawing different face shapes from one construction shows how a square jaw, high cheekbones or a heavy brow come from moving a few landmarks on the same head. How to draw cheekbones places the cheekbone point, the arch and the hollow under it on a lean face and a fuller one. How to draw a thin face keeps the outline and puts the thinness inside it: a band of tone down the outer cheek with a light patch below. How to draw an angular face stops the side-plane tone at a firm edge, draws the jaw in straight runs and steps the forehead out into the brow. How to draw a round face bends the outline from ear to chin with no corners; an oval face puts that curve in a taller box. How to draw a long face raises the eyes and the nose, so the stretch to the chin grows while the jaw stays full width. How to draw a heart-shaped face narrows the face from the ear down under a full skull. How to draw a square face holds the sides upright down to one corner below the mouth. How to draw full lips makes the mouth taller, not wider, and checks it against a line from the nose tip to the chin. How to draw a brow ridge shows that a heavy brow comes from the shadow under the ridge more than from its outline. How to draw a forehead measures its lean, the brow step and where it turns. A jawline and its side view place the back edge, corner and chin. How to draw a chin checks the chin against the lower lip and the nose. How to draw an older face lays the folds, the jowl and the neck lines on that construction; nasolabial folds and eye bags measure two of them. How to draw facial expressions moves the brow line, the eye line and the jaw by measured amounts for a smile, surprise, sorrow and anger. How to draw the neck sets the head on a cylinder that leans forward out of the shoulders.

6. Shade the planes

The planes of the head and how light falls on them breaks the head into front, side, top and underside planes and follows one head under eight lights. How to shade a head, one light at a time turns that into four passes: the light, the shadow edge, one flat shadow tone, then the cast shadows. How to hatch a face sets which way the strokes run.

7. Practice the turn

A 20-minute rotation drill with sixteen angles puts sixteen small heads on one sheet and keeps one cranium, one jaw and one set of landmarks through every view.

Drawing from the plates

Most of these guides point to the head rotation reference, which shows ten heads turned through sixteen angles, in pencil and in tone. A few angles on two heads have no pencil plate yet.

The four views above are the hard-plane head from Study Pack 01; other packs carry other heads. The free sampler has four tonal angles of one head, at 0, 45, 90 and 315 degrees.