How to draw a smile: where the corners go and why the eyes change

Most drawn smiles bend the mouth line upward and leave everything else alone. The result looks pasted on. On the head measured here, the smile also widens the mouth, lifts the whole line toward the nose and narrows the eyes. This guide compares one study head drawn at rest and smiling with the lips closed, so you can see how far each part moves and check your own drawing against something you can see on the page.

The unit here is the width of one iris, measured straight across from its left edge to its right edge. It came out the same on both front views, so it gives one ruler for the resting face and the smiling one. On your own drawing, measure your iris the same way first.

The corners move out past the pupils

Drop a line straight down from the center of each iris. On the resting head the mouth corners land under the inner edge of the iris, about half an iris width inside each line. Smiling, they land just outside the lines, a fifth to a third of an iris width past the pupils.

The mouth goes from a little under five iris widths across to about six, so it grows about a quarter wider. A smile drawn only by curving the line leaves out that change, and it's one of the largest in this pair.

The whole line rises and the corners rise more

At rest the corners of this mouth sit level with the middle of the line where the lips meet. Smiling, the whole line comes up toward the nose, and the corners come up farther than the middle. Measured from the base of the nose, the middle rises about two fifths of an iris width and the corners about four fifths, which leaves the corners a little under half an iris width above the middle.

Put that next to the outward move. The corners travel out by two thirds to three quarters of an iris width on each side and up by about four fifths, so they move on a slant, a little more up than out. Move each corner out and up along that slant, raise the middle by about half as much, and join them.

The eyes narrow

Measured at the center of the iris, the resting eye opens a little less than one iris width from lid to lid. Smiling, it opens about two thirds of an iris width, so it loses a quarter to a third of its height. On these plates both lids close in, the upper one more: measured from the center of the iris, the upper lid comes down about a sixth of an iris width and the lower lid comes up a little less than that.

The brow stays nearly where it was; on these drawings it comes down only about a tenth of an iris width. How to draw facial expressions measures the 3D head these drawings were made from: there the brow holds still and the hollow under it fills from below as the cheek comes up. So narrow the eye with the lids and leave the brow alone.

The upper lip rises toward the nose

The upper lip comes up with the corners. On this head the gap from the base of the nose to the top of the upper lip shrinks to about two thirds of its resting height. Both lips also stretch thinner, by about a tenth at the middle, as they're pulled wider.

A fold runs from the wing of the nose down past each corner, and in the smiling drawing there is a small curved mark just outside each corner where the cheek bunches. How to draw nasolabial folds measures that fold on a neutral face; we haven't measured how a smile changes it.

On a turned head

We measured the mouth again with the head turned 22.5 degrees. Find the point on the line where the lips meet, straight below the dip in the upper lip, and measure straight across from there to each corner. In the picture the near half is on the right. At rest the near half is a little under twice the far half; smiling it is about twice. Both halves grow, the far one by about a fifth and the near one by about a quarter, so the far corner still moves out even though the turn hides most of it.

The near corner is where the smile shows. It turns up into a short hook that runs into the cheek fold, while the far corner tucks behind the curve of the mouth. The corners lift less on the page than from the front, so on a turned head let the hook at the near corner carry the smile.

How to draw a smile, step by step

1. 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.
2. Drop two lines from the iris centers. Move each mouth corner out until it sits just outside its line.
3. Lift the corners by about four fifths of an iris width, raise the middle of the mouth line by about half as much, and join them.
4. Close the lids in until each eye opens about two thirds of an iris width at the center, the upper lid a little more than the lower, with the brow where it was.
5. Shorten the gap from the nose to the upper lip by about a third, and thin both lips a little.
6. Add the folds from the nose wings down past the corners, with a small curved mark beside each corner.

Common mistakes

• Bending the mouth without widening it. In this pair the corners move out past the pupils.
• Curving the line and leaving it where it was. The whole line rises, and the ends rise more than the middle.
• Leaving the eyes open as they were at rest. Both lids close in, or the smile looks forced.
• Dropping the brow to narrow the eye. That reads as a squint or a frown, not a smile.

What this does and does not cover

These are two drawings of one study head, one at rest and one smiling, made as separate models. The iris centers and the base of the nose sit in the same place relative to each other on both, to within about a tenth of an iris width, which is why we measure from them. We still can't separate the smile from differences between the two drawings, so take these numbers as a description of this pair and a way to check your own drawing. The smile has the lips closed, so a smile with teeth, where the jaw opens, isn't measured. We measured the front view and the 22.5 degree turn, not the profile.

A short exercise

Draw any face at rest. Copy it beside itself, then change only the six steps above, in order, checking each against the iris lines. Put the two side by side and look for the step that makes the smile reach the eyes; it's almost always the lids. For the mouth at other angles, see how to draw the mouth and lips at different angles.

The rest and smile 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.