Sketching simple and cool looking human faces
Even if you cannot draw — just follow the method along to create simple yet cool looking human portraits
Drawing people is probably one of the most challenging exercises both for amateurs and for seasoned artists alike. Those who think they cannot draw stay away from the topic as if it were fire.
Over the past several years I was practicing the method I am suggesting here and the same time I was teaching it to students of my visual thinking classes — and to my surprise, this method is particularly simple for people to pick up quickly and use effectively afterward. In this article, I will demonstrate this to you.
The basic method — The ‘vanilla’ face
Find a stack of sticky notes or a small sheet of paper. Pick up a black felt tip pen or something similar. Now you are ready to go.
Step 1
Draw the head. By default you should aim for an oval shape, something looking like this:
Step 2
Draw the eyes. You should draw the eyes on the line that cut the head’s height in half. Draw eyes as either a pair of simple dots or a pair of very short dashes. I prefer dashes as they look larger:
Step 3
Draw the nose. Remember to keep it simple. A good idea is to draw a simple pointy or rounded curve. Just a simple one like this L-shaped line:
Step 4
Draw the mouth. It is a good idea to draw a mouth as a simple curve resembling a smile. Again, no need in elaborate drawings of lips. Keeping it a simple upside arch will make the portrait look positive, just as we want it:
Step 5
Draw the ears. Draw them as simple outlines for the circular shape of ears. Draw in one move. Place it slightly below the level of the eyes. Something like this:
Step 6
Draw the brows. Similar to the shape of the mouth, these should be very simple arches above each eye. Generally it is good to keep them as arches as this will give the portrait its positive look. You should be careful with the shape for the brows you choose as they are a powerful means for conveying emotions and it is easy to lose control of it especially when you are not sure what you are doing:
Step 7
Draw the hair. The general rule to follow here is to start with the outline of the hairstyle and then fill the shape with a few strokes to nudge the hair type — either straight or curly hair. Remember to keep the number of strokes you use down to a minimum. Like in 3 strokes here and 3 strokes there. There is no need to overdo things:
Step 8
Add accessories to the portrait. Remember that glasses are the important element of a person’s image, for those who wear them. Other things might include earrings, caps, tunnels, piercing, tattoos and so on.
Step 9
The last step is to draw the neck, the shoulders and then depict the clothing worn by the person. These things will make your portrait look a bit more realistic, and it will not be just a head floating in the air:
Exercise — Draw yourself
Do the following exercise now. Grab a post-it and a black felt tip pen. Look at yourself using a mirror or a selfie mode on your smartphone. Follow the steps and draw yourself. Share it with the #9stepsface hashtag. Would love to see your results!
The alterations
Every person is unique and the differences in our appearances are driven by little tiny details of the elements that constitute our physical features: the shape and the size of our noses, ears. The shape and size of our heads. The length and the type of our hair, the color of our skin and so on. Here I will show you how you could signify these details in a simple way whenever using the method above to draw real people.
Nose shape and size
As we explored it above, the nose must be a simple scribble drawn in one move. What you can play with though is its particular shape. If you drew a ‘normal’ nose, like the one on the leftmost side of the picture below, then the next time you could choose to draw a longer one, or a shorter one, a rounded one, a crooked one (even if almost like a bird’s beak!), a perky one and so on:
Ears shape and size
The same considerations apply to ears as well. You can play with the size and shape of ears. You can even draw elve’s ears!
Head shape
You can alterate the shape of the head to give your portraits recognizable features:
The shape of the head is important to signify the difference in male and female portraits. Usually, the male’s face is broader in the bottom while the female’s face is more gentle and narrower in the bottom, compared to the male ones:
Hairstyle
Drawing hair might sound like a tough assignment but there are ways to approach it without making it too difficult.
General advice goes like this:
- Try to start with the overall shape of the hairstyle and then fill it with the lines.
- Focus on what makes hairstyle distinguishable.
- Keep the number of lines down to a bare minimum.
- Mind curly versus straight hair.
- Mind light hair color versus dark hair color.
- Remember about moustache and beards.
- Use dots to signify shaved areas.
Have a look at a few examples below to inspire you:
Color of skin
To respect the diversity of people with regards to their race I use the brush pens to apply different tones for the skin color. Something like this:
Adults and kids
Sometimes you have to draw children and adults altogether and there is one secret that helps to capture the difference in appearances even when using simple drawings like in this method. The secret is about where you place the eyes. We discussed above that you normally place the eyes in the middle of the face’s height. When you draw children, however, you should place the eyes closer to the bottom of the face. A general rule suggests 1/3 of the face’s height, from the bottom:
Aged people
When drawing aged people you keep in mind the following things that help you signify features of age without making the drawing task too difficult:
- Ears and noses are larger when you are older.
- You can add a few dashes for wrinkles on the forehead, around the eyes and the mouth. It’s a simple trick that really works.
- You should keep the hair ‘lighter’ by basically drawing fewer lines there, so it looks like grey hair.
Drawing glasses
There is one hint that I have personally learned not so long ago — when it comes to drawing people wearing glasses it is a better idea to draw glasses first, and then add the eyes-dots into the empty spaces. This makes it easier to draw eyes that do not look off:
And there is no surprise, the shape of the glasses frame matters. In fact, people perceive glasses as a part of a person’s personality. Therefore it is important to draw them close to how they look in real:
Exercise — Draw diverse people
Find a photograph of your friend, or your family member and draw them. Draw a celebrity — like your favorite singer or actor. Do not feel comfortable drawing someone you know? I have a great solution just for you — here is the website that is generating photographs of people who do not exist — https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ This way you are not risking offending anyone! :D
Share your drawing with the #9stepsface hashtag. Would love to see your results!
When do you know the portrait you drew is good enough?
It is when you take a snapshot of the portrait and your smartphone is recognizing the drawing as a human face! Achievement unlocked!
Where do you apply the method?
You could use this simple method of drawing people for any purpose and reason. Simply to have fun while you are doodling, as one example. And here are a few cases to consider where the method comes specifically handy.
User personas
If you are involved in customer experience work or you are a part of a product team and you discuss personas quite often, you could then use the method to draw personas, on sticky notes, instead of using photographs. If you like.
Team members for kanban boards
If you are working in a team and you have boards around you, you could draw every team member and place them on kanban boards and other visual aids you might be using. It will be fun! Especially if team members are going to draw themselves! Just forward this article to each of them and be amazed at how well they will be able to accomplish the task.
Warm-up exercise for your workshop
If you are running a workshop or delivering a training, draw yourself in 9 steps could become your go-to icebreaker exercise. Spend 5 minutes with the group guiding them through the method step by step and then you have portraits of participants you could use for the rest of the workshop. It is that easy!
I often use thise exercise as a warm-up before my visual thinking class. Sometimes I use it as a means of capturing expectations at the beginning of a workshop. First people would draw their portraits on small sheets of paper, then they would write their expectations down on sticky notes and then they would bring those up and place them on a flipchart to share with the rest of the group:
Or maybe you will find your own way of applying the method, in which case I would love to hear back from you and learn from your experience!
I am an agile coach, product owner and a visual thinker living in Copenhagen, Denmark. I blog on visual thinking and share my random agile thoughts, if you want to read more. You can get in touch with me via my website or Instagram account or on Twitter. All the best!
