How to draw an angry face: where the brows, eyes and mouth go
Archive of Fine Arts
The quick way to draw anger is to tilt two brow lines down toward the nose and leave the rest of the face alone. On the drawings measured here, much more changes. Next to the resting drawing, the angry one has the whole brow lower and closer to the eyes, two creases between the brows, narrower eyes, a wider nose and lips parted over the teeth. This guide compares one study head drawn at rest and angry, so you can see how far each part moves and check your own drawing against it. It covers a realistic angry face with the lips parted, from the front and a slight turn; a shouting mouth, cartoon anger 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 angry face is drawn a little larger than the resting one, about 9 percent, so each drawing is measured with its own iris. Measure your own iris the same way first.
The brow comes down onto the eye
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 anger it sits a little under one iris width above it, so the brow has come down a little over half an iris width.
The gap that matters most is the one between the lower edge of the brow and the upper lid, measured straight up from the center of the iris, because it needs no line at the nose to measure from. At rest it's about one iris width. In anger it shrinks to a little over half that. How to draw facial expressions measures the 3D head these drawings were made from and finds the same thing there: the gap from the brow to the eye nearly halves.
The inner end of each brow drops the most. At rest it sits about one iris width above the iris center; in anger it comes down about two thirds of that and lands on the crease of the upper lid, so near the nose the brow and the lid crease run together as one dark line. The outer end drops less, about a third of an iris width, which gives the brow its slant down toward the nose. The slant comes from the brow moving down, not from tilting a brow that stays where it was.
Two creases between the brows
The inner ends look pinched together, though on these drawings their sideways move is too small to measure. What shows the pinch is the skin between them. The angry drawing has two short curved creases there, each about one iris width long, about half an iris width either side of the center line of the face. The resting drawing has none. Draw the creases and the pull shows, even if you hardly move the brows sideways.
The eyes narrow
Measured at the center of the iris, the resting eye opens nearly one iris width from lid to lid. In anger it opens about three quarters of an iris width, so it loses about a fifth of its height. Both lids close in by about a tenth of an iris width each, the upper one coming down under the brow and the lower one coming up.
That's a smaller change in the eye than a smile makes. In how to draw a smile the lids close in by more and the brow stays nearly in place. In anger the brow does most of the work and the lids follow it. If you narrow the eye without lowering the brow, the face reads as a squint.
The nose and mouth
The nose wings spread a little under a tenth wider. The upper lip rises toward the nose, and the gap from the base of the nose to the top of the upper lip shrinks to about two thirds of its resting height, much as it does in a smile.
The lips part. At the middle the opening is a little under one iris width tall, and in the front drawing the teeth inside are left almost white. The mouth is about as wide as at rest. Drop a line down from the center of each iris, and the corners still land about half an iris width inside it, under the inner edge of the iris, about where they were at rest. They sit just below the middle of the opening.
Measured from the eyes, the bottom of the lower lip stays at about the same height as at rest, while the upper lip comes up toward the nose. On this pair the opening comes from the upper lip lifting, not from the jaw dropping. Measured from the nose, the lower lip sits lower, but the two drawings place the nose differently, so we don't read a jaw drop into that.
On a turned head
We didn't measure the turned drawings, so this part is a description of what the angry one shows. The brows are still low and pinched, with the creases between them and a short fold across the top of the nose. The near eye, on the right in the picture, is narrowed under its brow. The upper lip lifts off the upper teeth, which are drawn one by one here, and the fold from the nose wing to the corner of the mouth runs deeper than at rest.
How to draw an angry face, step by step
- 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.
- Lower each brow by a little over half an iris width above the iris, and bring the inner end down onto the crease of the upper lid.
- Draw two short creases between the brows, each about one iris width long.
- Close the lids in until each eye opens about three quarters of an iris width at the center.
- Widen the nose wings a little and shorten the gap from the nose to the upper lip by about a third.
- Part the lips a little under one iris width at the middle by lifting the upper lip, and keep the corners under the inner edge of the iris.
Common mistakes
- Tilting the brows without lowering them. The inner ends drop onto the lids and the whole brow comes down.
- Turning the mouth into a deep frown. On this head the corners sit only just below the middle of the opening, and the anger is in the brows and the open mouth.
- Leaving out the creases between the brows. They carry the pinch.
- Narrowing the eye from below only. The upper lid comes down under the brow, and the lower lid comes up a little to meet it.
What this does and does not cover
These are two drawings of one study head, one at rest and one angry, made as separate models. The angry 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 heights measured from the nose and heights measured from the iris don't quite agree. That's why we measure the brow and the eye from the iris and the mouth from 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
Draw any face at rest, copy it beside itself, and make the six changes above in order, checking each against the iris. Then cover the bottom half of both faces. If the top half alone doesn't read as angry, compare the height of the brows, their slant toward the nose and the lids with the angry drawing above. For the brow itself, see how to draw a brow ridge and how to draw eyelids.
The rest and anger 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.