How to draw a surprised face: where the brows, eyes and jaw go

The quick way to draw surprise is to open the eyes into rings of white, push the brows up and draw an O for the mouth. On the drawings measured here, the change sits somewhere else. Next to the resting drawing, the surprised one has the brows higher and more arched, a mouth open into a wide oval and a chin that sits lower, while the eyes open about as wide as at rest. This guide compares one study head drawn at rest and surprised, so you can see how far each part moves and check your own drawing against it. It covers a realistic surprised face with the mouth open, from the front and a slight turn; a startled, fearful face, cartoon surprise and the profile aren't covered.

The unit is the width of one iris, measured straight across from its left edge to its right edge. The surprised face is drawn a little larger than the resting one, about 6 percent, so each drawing is measured with its own iris. Measure your own iris the same way first.

The brow rises and arches

Measure straight up from the center of the iris. At rest, the lower edge of the brow sits about one and a half iris widths above that point. In surprise it sits a little under two iris widths above it, so the brow has gone up a little under half an iris width.

Both ends rise too, but by less: about a third of an iris width at the inner end and at the outer end. The middle of the brow climbs more than its ends, so the brow bends into a higher arch. Nothing pinches it toward the nose, which is what separates it from anger, where the inner ends drop.

The gap between the lower edge of the brow and the upper lid, measured straight up from the center of the iris, grows from a little over one iris width to a little under one and a half, about a third longer. How to draw facial expressions measures a different gap on the 3D head these drawings were made from, from the brow line down to the deepest point of the eye hollow, and finds that it also grows by about a third.

Neither front drawing has creases across the forehead. The raised brow carries the expression on its own.

The eyes stay as they were

This is where the drawing differs most from the usual shorthand. Measured at the center of the iris, the resting eye opens nearly one iris width from lid to lid, and the surprised eye opens the same, nearly one iris width. The upper lid sits only a little higher and still crosses the top of the iris, so no white shows above it. The lower lid stays just under the iris.

What changes around the eye is the space above it. The lid barely moves while the brow lifts away, so the stretch of skin between them gets taller. To copy this drawing, raise the brow and keep the eye opening about as wide as at rest.

The mouth drops open

The mouth opens into an oval about two and a quarter iris widths tall at the middle, measured between the inner edges of the lips. It also gets narrower: at rest it's about four and a half iris widths wide, in surprise about three and a half, so it loses about a fifth of its width. Drop a line down from the center of each iris. At rest the corners land about half an iris width inside that line; in surprise they land about one iris width inside it. The corners sit a little above the middle of the opening. The opening is wider than it is tall.

The nose wings stay about the same width. The gap from the base of the nose to the top of the upper lip gets about a sixth shorter.

The jaw comes down

The chin drops by one and a half to two iris widths. That holds whether you measure from the eyes or from the base of the nose, even though the two drawings place the nose differently. The bottom of the lower lip comes down with it. The whole lower face gets longer, so redraw the jaw line down to the new chin.

On a turned head

We didn't measure the turned drawings, so this part is a description of what the surprised one shows. The brows are high and arched on both sides, and the forehead above them is still smooth. The mouth is a wide open oval, and the jaw runs long down to the chin. The near eye, on the right in the picture, sits under a brow that has lifted well clear of it, with a tall stretch of skin between them.

How to draw a surprised face, step by step

These steps copy the change measured on this head.

1. Draw the head at rest. Place the brow line, the eye line, the base of the nose and the mouth line, and draw the irises.
2. Raise each brow by a little under half an iris width at the point above the iris center, and raise each end by about a third of an iris width, so it arches higher.
3. Leave the eye opening alone. Keep it at nearly one iris width at the center, with the upper lid crossing the top of the iris.
4. Lower the chin by one and a half to two iris widths and redraw the jaw line down to it.
5. Open the mouth into an oval about two and a quarter iris widths tall, a fifth narrower than at rest, with the corners about one iris width inside the lines below the irises.
6. Keep the nose wings as they are and shorten the gap from the nose to the upper lip by about a sixth.

Common mistakes

• Opening the eyes into rings of white. On this head the opening changes very little; the larger change is the raised brow.
• Opening the mouth without lowering the chin. The chin comes down one and a half to two iris widths, so the face gets longer.
• Keeping the mouth at its resting width. It narrows by about a fifth as it opens.
• Adding lines across the forehead by habit. Neither drawing has them; add them only if your reference shows them.

What this does and does not cover

These are two drawings of one study head, one at rest and one surprised, made as separate models. The surprised one is drawn larger, so we measure each in its own iris width instead of laying one over the other. The two drawings also place the nose differently relative to the eyes, by about half an iris width, so we only claim the jaw drop that shows up from both the eyes and the nose. Take these numbers as a description of this pair and a way to check your own drawing. We have one drawing of each, so we can't tell how much two resting drawings of this head would differ from each other. We measured the front view; the turn is described, not measured, and the profile isn't covered.

A short exercise

Copy the resting drawing above, draw it again beside itself, and make the six changes in order, checking each against the iris. Then cover everything below the nose on both copies and compare the brow height and the gap to the lid with the surprised drawing above. Uncover the bottom and check that the chin moved down along with the lips. After that, try the same changes on a face of your own and compare it with your reference, since these amounts come from one head. For the parts themselves, see how to draw a brow ridge, how to draw eyelids and how to draw a jawline.

The rest and surprise plates, with the construction lines drawn over them, are in How to Draw the Head, the 43-page book included with Volume 1 and Volume 2. The rest of the head, angle by angle, is in how to draw the head at any angle.