How to draw the same face from different angles, measured on ten heads

You draw a face from the front, turn it, and the turned drawing looks like someone else. A height that moved is the first thing to rule out: the eyes crept up, the nose got longer, the chin rose. This guide shows what holds still and what changes when a head turns, measured on the ten bald heads in the free head rotation reference. Each head is drawn from the front, at 45 degrees and in profile on plates of one size, so the same landmark can be compared from view to view. The heads turn about an upright line at eye level, and a level turn moves nothing up or down; the measurements show how closely the drawn plates keep to that, and where they drift.

The measurements come from the guides to three-quarter face proportions and side profile proportions, plus the eye, lip and ear guides linked below.

What stays: the heights

Turned 45 degrees, every landmark stays close to its front-view row on all ten heads:

• top of the skull: very slightly higher or lower
• iris row: the same row or slightly lower
• base of the nose: hardly higher or lower
• mouth: the same row or very slightly lower
• bottom of the chin: slightly higher or very slightly lower

The largest on any head is under 2 percent of its height.

In profile the rows hold nearly as well. The top of the skull and the mouth hardly move from the front view on all ten, and the eye line and the chin shift by less than 2 percent of the head's height. The base of the nose reads a little lower in profile. Part of that may be where it's read: in profile at the point where the nose meets the upper lip, from the front at the lowest edge of the nose, though we didn't measure the cause.

So a front view is a ruler for the heights in every other view, with the base of the nose the loosest line. Rule its rows across the page and draw the turned head between them.

Each face keeps its own heights

The rows hold on each head separately, so each face keeps its own eye height. Three of the ten heads, the hard-plane, gaunt-planes and heavy-jaw heads, set their eyes higher than the rest. Their eye line sits a little above halfway from the top of the skull to the chin from the front, and the other seven sit around halfway or a little below.

Turned 45 degrees, the same three still sit a little above halfway, the minimal head just below them, and the other six around halfway or a little below. In profile the same three sit just above halfway and the other seven a little below. A high-eyed face stays high-eyed at every angle. The front and profile shares are read at the middle of the eye opening and the 45-degree ones at the iris row, so compare each head with itself across the views. The hard-plane, heavy-jaw and minimal heads are drawn tipped 5 to 6 degrees chin-up in every view, so their shares are as drawn.

If you move a face's eye line when you turn it, you change one of the things that tells these ten heads apart, even when each view looks fine alone.

What changes: the widths

The span across the head grows as it turns, because you stop seeing its width and start seeing its depth:

• From the front, the skull at its widest, ears not counted, is about two thirds to three quarters of the head's height, about seven tenths on a typical head.
• At 45 degrees, from the back of the skull to the far side of the face along the iris row, it's about four fifths of the height.
• In profile, from the back of the skull to the brow, nose not counted, it's about nine tenths of the height, give or take a twentieth.

The three are read on different rows, the skull's widest from the front, the iris row at 45 degrees and the brow in profile, so treat the steps between them as approximate. A profile drawn as narrow as the front view shrinks the turned head.

Where the features go at 45 degrees

Use the width of one eye from the front, from the inner corner to where the lids meet, as the unit. Measure it on a front view of the same head, since on the turned one it narrows. Along the iris row at 45 degrees, from the back of the skull:

• to the front of the ear, about two eye widths, never less than one and two thirds
• then to the near eye's corner where its lids meet, about two and three quarters, from two and a third to about three
• then to the center line at the bridge, about one and three quarters, from about one and a half to almost two
• then to the far side of the face, about two thirds of an eye width, from a little over two fifths to nearly nine tenths

The widest side planes, about three, belong to the gaunt-planes head, whose ear point is least certain, and the hard-plane head.

On the far side, the visible part of the far eye is about a third to four fifths of a front eye width, a little under three fifths on a typical head. The far half of the mouth is about an eighth to a little over a quarter as wide as the near half, about a fifth on a typical head. The ear stays on its front rows: its top hardly moves from its front-view height at 45 degrees on all ten. Eyes in three-quarter view, lips in three-quarter view and ears in three-quarter view take each feature further.

In profile

The same rows carry the profile. With the three tipped heads levelled, the top of the ear sits a little above the eye line. The nose tip stands about a twelfth of the head's height ahead of a vertical line through the brow, and the front of the chin is no farther than a twentieth of the head's height from that line, behind it on eight of the ten. How to draw the head in profile builds the side view from these.

A method for keeping one face

1. Draw the face from the front first, or measure a front view of your reference.
2. Rule five lines across the page from it: the top of the skull, the eye line, the base of the nose, the mouth and the chin.
3. Draw each turned view between the same lines, at the same size.
4. Set the span for the angle, measured as above: about seven tenths of the height from the front, four fifths at 45 degrees and nine tenths in profile.
5. Place the features with the front eye width as the unit.
6. When a turned view looks like a stranger, check the rows before you change any feature.

If your reference is a 45-degree view or a profile, rule the five lines from it instead and carry them to the other views. What you redraw for each angle is the span, the far eye and the far half of the mouth; the heights stay.

The twenty-minute rotation drill practices this around the full turn.

Common mistakes

• Eyes that drift as the head turns. At 45 degrees the iris row stayed level or sat slightly lower than from the front, never higher, and in profile the eye line sat slightly higher on most heads, less than 2 percent of the head's height either way.
• A profile as narrow as the front. The profile is about a fifth of the head's height wider.
• A full-size far eye. At 45 degrees it shows a little under three fifths of a front eye width.
• A far half of the mouth as wide as the near half. It's about a fifth as wide.
• A nose base that wanders. In profile it read a little lower than from the front, the one row that moved, perhaps because of where it's read; at 45 degrees it hardly moved.

What these numbers don't cover

The heads turn on a vertical axis with the head level. When a head tips up or down the rows move and curve, so they no longer hold: see a face looking down and a face looking up. A head tilted toward one shoulder keeps its rows but leans them, as how to draw a tilted head shows. The plates are bald drawings in one style, with neutral faces; a smile or a squint moves the mouth and the lids. Faces in life vary more than these ten. For every head guide in order, start at the head at any angle.