How to draw a face looking up: what moves and by how much

When a face looks up, the usual proportions stop fitting. Against the face, the ears seem to sink to the nose, the nose gets short and the eyes ride up the head. We measured how far each one moves.

From the front, a face tipped up 20 degrees and seen at eye level shows the head the same way as a level face seen from 20 degrees below. Only the neck and shoulders differ, and we didn't measure those. So we compared two front drawings of the minimal head: the eye-level one on its free rotation reference and the one from 20 degrees below in our free head from below reference. It's the only head we've drawn from the front at this angle, so this is one head at one tilt. On both drawings we read the top of the skull, the eye line, the base of the nose (its lowest edge at the middle of the face), the mouth, the bottom of the chin (the edge where the face turns under, not the far edge of the shaded jaw), and the top and bottom of the ear.

The usual ruler, the nose length, changes when the face tips, so the ruler here is the width of the head: the skull at its widest, without the ears. That width barely changes when a head tips up or down: two percent on these drawings. Measure it on your own drawing; if it's 10 cm, a fifth of a head width is 2 cm. The top of the skull is the top of its outline, which sits on a slightly different part of the skull once the head tips. The numbers describe this drawing, not people's heads, so use them to check your own drawing.

The ears stay, the face slides up

Measure everything down from the top of the skull. The top of the ear and the bottom of the lobe stay where they were at eye level, with barely any shift. The face moves up under them:

• The eye line rises about a sixth of a head width.
• The base of the nose, the mouth and the chin all rise about a quarter.

Where each one sits, in head widths below the top of the skull, level then looking up:

• Eye line: about two thirds, then half.
• Top of the ear: about two thirds in both drawings.
• Base of the nose: just under one, then a little under three quarters.
• Mouth: just over one, then five sixths.
• Bottom of the lobe: just under one in both drawings.
• Chin: about one and two fifths, then one and a seventh.

The nose gets shorter, the face under it doesn't

Because the eye line rises less than the base of the nose, the gap between them, the nose length, shrinks to about seven tenths of its eye-level length. From the base of the nose to the bottom of the chin stays the same length: a little over two fifths of a head width in both drawings.

So measured against its own shorter nose, within one drawing, the face under the nose looks longer: about one and two fifths nose lengths at eye level, about two looking up. The mouth keeps its distance below the nose too: a little over a tenth of a head width in both drawings.

Under the chin, the underside of the jaw now shows as a shaded band before it meets the throat. At the middle it's a seventh to a fifth of a head width deep, depending on which of its two lower lines you take.

The eyes move up the head

On the level drawing the eyes sit just above halfway from the top of the skull to the chin; looking up, a little higher still. The head also gets shorter on the page, so the rise hardly changes the share.

Where the ears end up

At eye level, the top of the ear sits at the eye line, and the lobe ends just below the base of the nose. Looking up, the top of the ear sits just above the base of the nose, level with the nostrils. The lobe ends about halfway from the mouth to the chin.

From the front, if the ears on your drawing still line up with the eyes and the nose, the face reads as level.

Up is not the mirror of down

We measured the same head looking down 20 degrees in how to draw a face looking down. In both tilts the ears hold and the base of the nose moves a quarter of a head width. The chin is where they part:

• Looking down, the chin moves less than the nose, so the face under the nose shortens to about four fifths, and the nose gets about a tenth longer.
• Looking up, the chin moves as far as the nose, so the face under the nose keeps its length, and the nose gets about 30 percent shorter.

The eye line moves a little less looking up, about a sixth of a head width against a fifth looking down, too close to call. So on this head, the face under the nose shortens only when the face looks down.

When the face is turned

These numbers are for a face seen from the front. In profile, a face looking up is the same profile turned on the page, nodding back around the ear, as how to draw a tilted head shows. At three-quarter it's somewhere between the two; we didn't measure it. The turned plates in the head from below reference show a viewer below a level head, which is not the same thing.

Order of work, for a 20-degree tip

Measure each step in head widths down from the top of the skull. These are this head's numbers, to check your drawing against.

1. Draw the skull and its width as you would at eye level, and put the top of the ear about two thirds of a head width down.
2. Draw the eye line half a head width down, about a sixth higher than at eye level.
3. Mark the base of the nose a little under three quarters of a head width down, just under the top of the ear, so the nose is shorter than you're used to.
4. Put the mouth about five sixths of a head width down, about an eighth below the nose, the same gap as at eye level.
5. Close the chin about one and a seventh head widths down, so the head is a little over one head width tall.
6. Add the underside of the jaw as a band below the chin, a seventh to a fifth of a head width deep.
7. Check the ears. The top of the ear should sit level with the nostrils, and the lobe about halfway from the mouth to the chin.

Mistakes the plates rule out

These are checked against one pair of plates, not against people.

• Moving the ears up with the face. The ears stay where they were on the skull.
• Keeping the nose at its eye-level length. From the front it's about 30 percent shorter.
• Shortening the chin as well. The face from the nose to the chin keeps its eye-level length.

What these numbers don't cover

We measured one tilt, about 20 degrees, on one head, from the front only (not three-quarter or profile), and only the head, not the neck or the shoulders. A steeper tilt moves everything further; we didn't measure how much. We didn't measure how far the construction lines curve.

Related guides

How to draw the head from below shows the same plates with the curving lines and open nostrils, three-quarter from below the turned view, and the head from a steep angle a bigger tilt. Face proportions gives the eye-level spacing these numbers start from.

A short exercise

Draw the minimal head from the front twice, the same size: once at eye level and once looking up. Start both from the same skull, keep the ears in the same place on it, and use the head-width marks on the second. Lay your drawings beside the two plates.

The minimal head is Study Pack 04, part of Volume 1.

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