How to draw an older face: folds that sit on the planes

Wrinkles drawn wherever age seems to belong tend to make a face look scratched rather than old. The folds on an older face sit on its planes, and each one follows the surface it lies on, so build the head first and then add the folds along its surfaces.

The figures here come from the deep-folds head, an older face, with the soft-planes head, a younger one, for comparison. Both are free in the head rotation reference. Both heads are bald, so hair and eyebrows aren't covered here.

Same construction, different surface

Compare the two fronts. They are two different heads, built on the same construction: cranium, center line, brow line, ears. On the younger face no line runs between the nose and the mouth, the corners of the mouth end cleanly, and the jaw is one smooth curve. On the older face the same structure carries:

• a fold from each side of the nose toward the corner of the mouth, faint from the front and clear at three-quarter
• a second curved line under each eye, below the faint one the younger face also has
• lines from the corners of the mouth down toward the jaw
• creases under the lower lip and on the chin
• short strokes between the brows, and lines across the forehead that show at three-quarter
• more drawn lines in the neck

On these plates the eyes, the nose and the mouth sit at the same heights on either head: from the front, the eye line is just below halfway from the top of the skull to the chin, the base of the nose a little under three quarters down, the mouth corners about five sixths down, just lower on the older head than on the younger. Real older faces change more than the surface: the lids get heavier, the lips thinner, the tip of the nose lower, and the cheeks lose fullness. The plates show the folds most clearly, so this guide sticks to them; take the rest from the person in front of you.

The fold from the nose to the mouth

The longest fold on these plates starts beside the wing of the nose and curves down and outward past the corner of the mouth. It marks where the front of the cheek meets the rounded barrel of the mouth. From the front the two folds are faint, a few strokes on each side. At 45 degrees the near fold is the longest fold on the face: it runs from the nose wing past the mouth corner, and a second line carries on from the mouth corner down toward the jaw, so the two read almost as one curve. In profile the fold starts just behind the wing of the nose and runs down to the corner of the mouth.

Draw it as a curve that follows the cheek. A dark, straight line from the nostril to the chin reads as a cut rather than a fold.

The eyes and the forehead

Below each lower lid, the older face has two curved lines where the younger face has one faint one. They follow the lower rim of the eye socket, and the lower one marks the edge of a small pouch, so they bend with the eye as the head turns. Short lines also fan out from the outer corner of the eye toward the temple: clearest in profile, faint at 45 degrees, with a few on the front plate too.

From the front, the deep-folds plates show short straight strokes between the brows and little or nothing across the forehead. At 45 degrees the forehead lines appear as short, broken lines stacked above the brow. They run roughly parallel to it and stop short of the sides of the forehead. Draw them short and light; a long unbroken line across the forehead is easy to overdo.

The jowl and the neck

In profile the jaw line isn't one clean edge anymore. In front of the jaw corner the lower edge of the face sags into a soft bulge, the jowl, and the outline follows it. The line from the corner of the mouth runs down and ends just above the jaw line, where the jowl meets the chin. Here age changes the outline itself, so check it on the line drawing on the deep-folds head page as well as the tonal one.

The neck muscle that runs from behind the ear down toward the pit of the neck is there on every head; on the older one it shows as a drawn line in profile, and the front of the throat runs down from under the chin. From the front, lines run down each side of the neck from below the jaw. The shadow under the chin is on both heads: it comes from the light above, not from age.

How dark the folds are

We read the darkest spot of each stroke at 83 points on the deep-folds plates at 0, 45 and 90 degrees. On all three, every fold point is lighter than every point on the upper lids, the nostrils and the mouth line: the lightest of those is about three steps below the paper, the darkest fold one to two steps, and most fold points about one step or lighter.

The outline is mostly darker than the folds, but not everywhere: from the front the sides of the neck are as light as two and a half steps below the paper, and in profile the back of the skull, the back of the neck and the jaw line drawn across the neck run from half a step to two steps below the paper, as light as the folds. These are readings of one drawn head at points picked by eye, and the slight blur in the reading makes thin lines read a little lighter than their darkest pixel.

Order of work

Work from large to small:

1. Build the head as you would any other: cranium, center line, brow and eye lines, ears, jaw. The planes of the head are the surfaces the folds will sit on.
2. Place the largest changes: the fold from the nose to the mouth as a light curve where the cheek meets the barrel of the mouth, the lines from the mouth corners, and in profile the jowl in the outline.
3. Add the smaller lines: under the eyes, at their corners, across the forehead, in the neck.
4. Check the darkness. The eyes, the nostrils and the mouth line are the darkest marks on the face; every fold should stay lighter than them.

Common mistakes

• Lines first. Wrinkles drawn before the construction have no surface to follow, so they float.
• Long, straight folds. The fold from the nose curves with the cheek; the forehead lines are short and broken.
• Every line equally dark. Folds drawn as dark as the outline make the face look scratched.
• Both folds at full length on a turned head. At 45 degrees the near fold is the long one; the far side of the mouth sits close to the outline, so its fold is short or hidden.

A short exercise

Open the soft-planes head and the deep-folds head and draw each at 0, 45 and 90 degrees with the same construction. Then add the folds to the second set only, checking where each one starts and ends on the plate. The jawline guide covers the jaw underneath the jowl, and the shading guide lights the planes underneath the folds one direction at a time.

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