How to draw facial expressions

If you draw a smile or a frown as a new face, the likeness slips and the head stops matching the construction under it. Build the head at rest first, with the ball, the brow line, the eye line and the base of the nose, then move only what the expression moves.

The plates here are one study head drawn at rest and in four expressions: a smile, surprise, sorrow and anger. Each expression is a model of its own, so the heights quoted below were measured on the head itself, in widths of the ball that stands for the cranium, from the base of the nose.

Measure from the base of the nose

The base of the nose barely moves in any expression, so it is the line to measure from. At rest on this head, the brow line sits a little under two fifths of the ball's width above it, the eye line is about an eighth of that width below the brow, and the chin is a little under a third below the nose.

Three moves do most of the work:

1. The brows go up or down against the eye line.
2. The lower lids rise when the cheeks rise, so the eyes narrow from below.
3. The jaw drops when the mouth opens.

Get those right on the construction and the expression reads before you draw a single crease.

The smile: the eyes close from below

In the smile the brow stays where it was, a little under two fifths of the ball's width above the nose. On the 3D head, what changes is the hollow under it: the eye line, measured at the deepest point of that hollow, climbs, and the gap closes from about an eighth to a twentieth of the ball's width as the cheeks rise and fill it from below. In the drawing the eyes narrow because both lids close in, the upper one a little more, which is why a smile shows in the eyes.

The mouth widens and its corners lift, and a fold runs from the wing of the nose past each corner of the mouth. A drawn smile that only bends the mouth upward looks forced, because the eyes stay as they were at rest. How to draw a smile measures how far the corners move out and up, and how much the eyes close.

Surprise: the brows lift and the jaw drops

Surprise moves the brow up. On this head the brow line rises to a little over two fifths of the ball's width above the nose, and the gap between the brow and the eye line opens from about an eighth to a sixth of that width. In the drawing the eyes open about as wide as at rest, and the change is in the brows and the jaw, as how to draw a surprised face measures.

The mouth drops open into an oval because the jaw swings down from the hinge in front of the ear. Lower the whole jaw, chin included, instead of stretching the mouth inside a face that keeps its length.

Anger: the brows come down and in

In anger the brow line drops to a little under a third of the ball's width above the nose, and the gap to the eye line nearly halves. The inner ends of the brows pull down and together, which puts short creases between them. The nostrils flare and the lips part over the teeth. How to draw an angry face measures the same change on the drawings, in iris widths.

The jaw moves too: the chin sits a little over a third of the ball's width below the base of the nose, against a little under a third at rest, as the mouth opens. Draw the lowered brow line and the lowered chin on the construction first, then the creases.

Sorrow: the inner brows rise and the mouth turns down

Sorrow moves the construction least. The brow line sits a little over a third of the ball's width above the nose, nearly where it was, and the gap to the eye is about a seventh of that width. What changes is the shape of each brow: the inner end lifts and the outer end stays down, so the brow slopes toward the temple. The corners of the mouth turn down.

Because the main lines hardly move, sorrow is the easiest expression to lose. Draw the slope of the brows and the turned-down mouth clearly, and keep the rest of the face at rest.

Expressions on a turned head

When the head turns, the lines still run level around the ball, and the expression changes how high they sit on it. Turn the head first, with the center line and the eye line wrapped around the form, then move the lines by the same amounts as from the front. On the far side of a turned head the moves look smaller because that half of the face is foreshortened.

A quick exercise

1. Draw the head at rest from the front, with the brow line, eye line and nose base.
2. Copy it four times beside itself, keeping the ball and the nose base in the same place.
3. Smile: keep the brow, close both lids in to narrow the eyes, widen and lift the mouth.
4. Surprise: raise the brow line, keep the eye opening, drop the jaw.
5. Anger: lower the brow line and pull the inner brows together, then drop the chin a little.
6. Sorrow: lift the inner ends of the brows only, and turn down the corners of the mouth.

Then try the same four on a head turned to three-quarter view. The eye guide and the mouth guide cover the features themselves, and how to draw an older face places the creases that age leaves on the same lines.

These expression plates, with the construction lines drawn over them, are plates 27 and 28 of How to Draw the Head, the 43-page book included with Volume 1 and Volume 2.

This guide is one step in how to draw the head at any angle, which puts all the head guides in order.