Minimal head rotation reference
The minimal head is useful for studying a face with fewer sharp internal edges. Begin with the outside shape and the placement of the brow, nose and chin. Compare the curve of the cheek with the straighter turn into the jaw. In the tonal plates, broad value changes help locate the side plane even where the pencil drawing leaves it open. Add features after those larger relationships are settled.
Pencil studies through the turn
Turn this head yourself, one angle at a time: head turnaround reference.
Front, three-quarter and profile in tone
The same head from below and above
This head is also drawn from 20 degrees below and from 20 degrees above, around the turn: head from below reference and head from above reference.
Guides that draw this head
- How to draw the head from below
- How to draw the head from above
- How to draw a brow ridge: front, three-quarter and profile
- Face proportions for drawing, checked on four measured heads
- Face width proportions: the eyes, nose and mouth measured on ten heads
- How to draw a bald head: the outline from the front and the side
- How to draw a forehead: the slope, the brow step and where it turns
- How to draw a long face: raise the features, keep the jaw
- How to draw a thin face: the shading inside the outline
- How to draw an angular face: where the tone turns a corner
- How to draw a face looking down: what moves and by how much
- How to draw a face looking up: what moves and by how much
- How to draw different eye shapes
- How to draw different lip shapes
- How to draw eye bags: the lines under the lower lid
- How to draw eyes from the front, step by step
- How to hatch a face: which way the strokes run
- How to draw an oval face: the round curve in a taller box
The head guides in order use the same construction for every head.
Keep drawing
The minimal head at all sixteen angles, full size, with its turnaround loops and a practice sheet, is in study pack 04 and in head rotation volume 1.