DRAWING VECTOR

PORTRAITS PART 2:
THE EYES
BY DOINK IN TUTORIALS ON APRIL 29, 2010 5 COMMENTS

In the previous post, Ive showed how you can prepare a sketch for the facial
proportions and what things you need to do in order to get things right. In this article I will
explain how to properly draw the human eye based on anatomy.
We will discuss all details based on this pencil sketches I made.

First, youll have to keep in mind that the eye isnt just an entity, it is composed of
multiple shapes with different shapes positioned adjacent to one another. Like in the first
part, placing them is crucial to a nice aspect and credibility. Remember that if you dont
want to draw an incredibly realistic eye, at least you have to make your audience that
youve drawn an eye.
Heres a basic sketch-up of the eye. Start shaping it along these rough lines. Also
observe proportions between eyelids and eyeball, eyeball, iris, angles and the positioning of
the tearduct.

THE EYEBALL
Lets start with the eyeball and shape up the rest around it. It shaped like a sphere and it
will have its own shading, namely the one from the top eyelid. So start drawing the full
eyeball without considering any other element.
Look at the sketch below and try to understand the shape of the eye on the outside.
This will give you an idea of how to sketch the eyelids. Starting from the closest part to the
nose, youll draw a wide-arcing curve that extends towards the corner. The bottom
eyelid has a more smooth curve and shares one of its contour lines with the eyeballs.

Remember to sketch the tearduct and the small extension between it and the top eyelid.
There are artists who dont draw it at all or just sketch it a bit, but your audience will
appreciate it of you do put a bit of details into it.

THE IRIS
Now for the iris. It is rounded and it should be drawn that way, just like the eyeball. Draw it
entirely and erase the unwanted part later.

The iris is e hidden about 30-35% behind the top eyelid and the pupil is concentric with the
iris. Dont place it right in the middle or your subject will look scared or as if he has
been drinking ten coffee mugs.

It has 3 basic elements you should keep in mind: contour, glow (the eyeball is wet and
smooth) and shade.
The contour should be thick, to make it stand out. Since its behind the top eyelid, it has
a small shading. When you place the glow, you must do it as if youd place it on the
eyeball. The rest of the iris must have the actual eye color with small lines to suggest the
muscles that expand and contract the pupil.

THE EYELIDS
Now lets start shaping up the eyelids. Add a smoother shape to the top eyelid and draw
the second line where the skin curls up to give it a bit of volume. Further sketch the shadow
it drops on the eyeball. Remember to draw the top eyelid with a thicker line. This will give
to your eye more perspective.

For the bottom eyelid, the inner contour starts from the eyeballs outline, comes in a
smooth curve and ends on the opposite side of the eyeball. The line-style should be: thickthin-thick to suggest the idea that it goes through lighting transitions.
When the eye is open, you can see the thickness of the bottom eyelid. Lets draw that.
The exterior line starts from the tearduct and follows a parallel path with the inner one.
Ive marked the bottom eyelid and the gap between the top eyelid and the tearduct.
Some artists make the mistake of leaving that part out, but if you do draw it, the eye will
have more volume and will have more credibility.

SHADING
As I stated in the beginning, its important to understand the shape of the eye in order to
add shading and lighting after youve established your light source. Ive made a
simplified version for you to understand better how you should properly do the shading.

Heres the basic vector shading of what weve done so far. I didnt add too many
details yet so youll get an even better comprehension of how the final portrait will look
like.