The Face!

Now it's time to put what we've learned so far together and form the face!

Okay, there's 3 main parts of the skull that I didn't mention in the other sections. The "forehead" area is called the Frontal Bone. It's one of the (if not the) largest part of the skull. Right beside the orbit (eye socket) is the Temporal Fossa. A fossa is a shallow depression. If you gently feel right next to the orbit you can feel the depression. The Zygomatic bone is the cheekbone. This bone protrudes off the face quite a bit so it's called a projection. A Projection is a bone that you can grasp with your fingers.


We're gonna start with the basic proportions of the face! We can make the face a little easier to learn by breaking it down into measurements. These are general measurements, they're not meant to every single person out there. Think of them as a general rule of thumb.


We're gonna start with the basic shape of the head. From the front, the head has an ovalish shape that narrows slightly at the chin. From the side the face is formed by a circle and a slanted line. The circle forms the back of the head, and the line forms the front of the face (minus the nose). I can't find a better way to explain that so see the illustration above, it should make more sence.


Now generally the face is semetrical, so divide the shape in half. This is your centerline. This is an incredibly important tool that we'll use throughout the lessons!. Next we'll divide the head inhalf horrizontally. keep in mind we're dividing the Head, Not the Face!. The eyes are located on that line.


next we're gonna divide the area between the eyes and the chin in half. The base of the nose falls on this line.


Now let's divide the area between the base of the nose and the chin in half. The mouth is located on this line.


If we divide that same area into fourths we now have the lines for the upper and ower lip to fall inbetween. (please note: It's also common to divde the area into thirds, I choose to do fourths because I generally don't make a pronounced chin, either way is acceptable).
The ear can also be measured by the face. The upper part of the era is generally inline with the eyebrow (see side view). while the lower part of the ear is inline with the base of the nose.


If we draw an imaginary line from the corners of the eyes down we'll find the corners of the mouth.


and lastly, the distance between the eyes is equal to the width of the eye itself. There is a measurement for the width of the face (5 eyes lengths across), but I rarely use it when doing comic art because the face is slightly distorted

Onto the Next Lesson!