Expressions Ebook

HOW TO draw facial expressions by mitch leeuwe

YOU'LL LEARN: all the skills you need

to draw facial expressions for human characters

Copyright © 2020 by Mitch Leeuwe

how to draw FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For personal use only mitchleeuwe.nl

by mitch leeuwe

Printed in the Netherlands First Printing, 2020 Graphic design: Harmke Leeuwe harmke.com Copy editor: Nicole Cramer

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Hi there!

About this book

Let me introduce myself. I’m Mitch Leeuwe and am an illustrator from the Netherlands. I always drew a lot as a kid. I even had the childhood dream to become an animator at Disney. During my teenage years, I lost that dream. Luckily, I slowly started drawing more and more. When I was 19, I began to do some freelance work as a graphic designer, which made me consider picking up drawing again. I attended several drawing programs at schools but I learned most from online resources. Now, I’m a freelance artist working on visual development. This means I design characters, props and backgrounds for games, animation and toys. However, you probably know me from my Instagram where I release tutorials and more. My goal is to create a place where people can learn the things I wanted to learn when I started out.

Everyone can learn how to draw expressions. It’s a common misconception that you need to be talented to be able to draw. Natural drawing ability is only a small part of the equation. To truly excel at drawing it takes hard work and practice. I also had to learn to draw and the only reason I was able to turn this passion into a career is because I put in the hours to fine tune my craft. Learning to draw can be challenging because you need to find your own way. Although there is a lot of

In this book I’d like to share my knowledge about character expressions with you. When designing characters, expressions are an important element as they can demonstrate what the character is thinking and feeling. Expressions communicate emotions and thus give depth to your stories.

technique involved, you need to make a lot of choices yourself. For example, you can ask yourself what kind of style would you like to work in? What kind of artist would you like to become? If you’d like to learn how to draw character expressions I would advise you to practice with the exercises in this book. You can begin by copying the drawing steps I show you in this book. Once you are satisfied with those drawings, try drawing my characters with different expressions using your own creativity and ideas. After you have modified my drawings with your own expressions, you can then draw your own characters with their own expressions. Best, Mitch Leeuwe 5

facial expressions

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When you draw a character, you want to be able to show what your character feels and/or thinks. These thoughts and feelings are translated to emotions, which result in expressions. These expressions bring your characters to life. In this book I’ll share how I draw expressions and emotions through a variety of sketches and drawings where I show you my approach step by step. A good way to learn from this e-book is to copy the drawings and see how closely you can duplicate my drawings. Try to see the construction and follow the steps I share.

emotions

It’s difficult to draw original unique expressions from memory. That’s why I would advise you to use a mirror and act out some expressions then try to draw these (see photo above). Another great way to practice drawing expressions is to watch people in public. For example, when you’re in the train you can observe people and try to draw those expressions in your sketchbook. If you find that difficult, first draw them in a realistic way and then make a simplified version still using the real reference.

There are seven different basic emotions: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise, and contempt. For each of these basic emotions there are then sub emotions. For example, a sub-category of happy consists of emotions like fulfilled, content, glad, complete, satisfied, optimistic or pleased. Try to brainstorm a list of emotions and draw those in the most simple, graphical way you can.

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squash & stretch With drawing facial expressions it’s important to understand the basic anatomy of the head and how it moves when there is an expression. See the differences between the three different balls above. For example, notice how the head becomes stretched when there is a shocked expression. You can also see the opposite of this (head becomes squished) when there is an angry expression. Here you can see the same movements but with more detailed heads. Specifically, notice how the stretch and squish of the head has influence on the expressions. The nose, eyebrows, and other facial details move around the head.

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Here is another example of squash and stretch. See how everything is pushed down and pulled up.

Here is another image from the side to show you about the squash and stretch technique from another angle. Also, notice how the jaw moves when the mouth opens. It doesn’t simply drop down, but it rotates open.

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This book is about facial expressions and not about how to construct the head and cartoon anatomy. Even so, the image above is helpful in demonstrating the importance of breaking down the head into smaller parts to draw the expressions you want. When drawing a head try to keep in mind how the head is constructed. Breaking the head down into these smaller shapes helps make it easier to tackle the drawing step by step. The smaller shapes make it easier to rotate and manipulate the head in different angles and shapes. This is also the reason why drawing basic shapes (the cube, sphere, and cylinder) in different angles is an excellent exercise.

pull & push Drawing these arrows can help you to visualize how the powers of expression affect the head. Notice how the facial elements move and get pushed and pulled in place.

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I find that thinking about the perspective grid on the face is very useful. It doesn’t mean I draw these every time, but I try to keep this in mind when I’m drawing. When I get stuck with drawing an expression, I add the perspective grid to help me fine tune the expression and it’s a good method of spot-checking your work. That’s why I would recommend drawing these lines on top of your characters and see if everything lines up correctly. It can also help you figure out squash and stretch. A good method to get the wrinkles right, is to think about a rubber band that is pushed and pulled. The skin on the face moves in a similar way.

Here are some rough steps on how I draw heads. I start with drawing the construction first, then I’ll add secondary shapes, and I save the details for last! You could start drawing these heads steps by steps how I did it here. When you have done that, your next challenge is to draw this character with a different expression. You can also take these heads and draw the guides on top of it as I did with the previous image.

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exaggeration Push! An important lesson with drawing is to never be satisfied with your first drawing, especially when you’re drawing expressions because we tend to draw our first version a bit safe. Experiment with drawing different versions of the same expression and see how far you can go before it breaks. If you feel that you’ve gone too far you can always go back to your previous version. Sometimes your first drawing doesn’t look bad, but when you are drawing a second or third version you see that the first version looks a bit subdued.

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Here is another version of how to push or exaggerate an expression. Drawing these arrows on top of the illustration also helps to create more power and movement of the head. You can see that the exaggerations are inside the pushes and stretches.

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reference A great tip is to use photo references to draw facial expressions. I always have a mirror within reach when I’m drawing because it’s really useful to have references when drawing expressions. Try it for yourself and draw some expressions by looking in the mirror and act out some expressions! Have some fun with it and go crazy!

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You also don’t have to look the same as the character you’re drawing. For example, you can use your own head for drawing cartoon animal characters. Try to look past the appearance and look for what creates that specific emotion. How do the eyebrows stand? What is the shape of the cheeks? In what position is the mouth?

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The most effective way I’ve found to learn how to draw facial expressions is by drawing other people as a source for reference! It’s sometimes even better than drawing yourself because when you’re acting out an expression yourself you can be too self-aware. This is contrary to when you draw someone else. When you draw someone else you can focus more on your observations. You need to guess what that person is thinking and what kind of expression the person has. So try it out! Also when you travel by train, sit in a park, or another public area try to observe people and notice their expressions.

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the eyes They say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul. Eyes therefore are the most important part of showing our facial expressions. When drawing them, pushing and stretching also works here. See how the area around the eyes is being influenced by different expressions.

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When I draw the eyes, I often first draw a mask. This can be very helpful with the placement of the eyebrows, nose, and the eyeballs. You can also clearly feel this area around your own eyes. Under your eyeball you can feel the edge of your skull, of course this doesn’t move. However, your cheeks do influence the area around your eyes. Try drawing these masks around your characters and see if it helps you when drawing.

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As I mentioned previously, an exercise you could do with these eyes is to draw masks around them. This will help you understand how to apply those masks on your characters.

Through the eyes you can communicate a lot of emotions and thus read what the character is thinking. Try to name the emotion or see what the character is thinking from the eyes in this image.

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the mouth The mouth is also an important element in facial expressions. I use these arrows to create a dynamic mouth gesture and to show how the mouth is being pulled and pushed. The lips are soft and can transform into a variety of different shapes. They can be stretched very long or purse together. The teeth are hard and don’t change their shape.

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This are some more mouth gestures. A nice exercise to learn more about the dynamics of mouths could be to draw these mouths and add the arrows on top of them to see how they are being squashed and pulled.

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Often when you draw female mouths you clearly see the lips. In these drawings I drew the lips in a visible way. Notice the volume of the lips and what happens when they are being squashed and stretched.

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A pronunciation sheet is something that is used in animation for the lip sync of characters. For every sound that we make our mouth creates a different shape. In addition to the overall shape of the mouth changing per sound, the position of our teeth and our tongue also changes when we make different sounds. Try to pronounce these sounds in front of a mirror and create your own pronunciation sheet.

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I often start drawing a realistic version when I initially draw from a reference. Once that is complete, I create a more stylistic version, like I did here. I find it easier to start with a realistic version based on the reference (from a mirror) and remove details and simplify. How far it needs to be simplified depends of course on your personal style. In this case I went really far with the style.

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apply it all Here is an example of how I drew this character. In the first expression, the character has a neutral expression and you can see the shapes that make up the expression in a relaxed state. If you look at the other expressions you can see how the big shapes get squashed and stretched. You hear me continuously talk about this squash and stretch but it’s really one of the most important principles when drawing expressions.

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You can also see how the head is aimed upwards. Breaking it down in these shapes can help you with drawing it in these more difficult angles.

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Drawing heads in different angles can be quite difficult. The trick is to use really basic shapes to start with because those are easier to draw in different angles. Then you can add details and smaller shapes on top of those basic shapes.

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This is an example of how I draw different angles of the head. A specific angle can also help with strengthening the emotion. For example, when a person is sad they often look down. This makes the expression even stronger!

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portfolio tip

We tend to look at the eyes first when looking at a drawing. Then we follow the direction of the eyes. When you make good use if this knowledge, you can create an interesting flow between all of the heads, resembling a story. This is not only useful when you’re making an expression sheet for your portfolio, but also when you’re creating an illustration with multiple characters.

When you want to make an expression sheet for your portfolio, it is good to think about an interesting composition and how you order the heads on the sheet. On the next page I’ll share a little trick for this with you. Can you figure it out by looking at this image already?

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The expressions are very similar to emoticons. Try making some variations of these expressions or create your own stylistic character.

a more stylistic style When you prefer to draw characters in a more stylistic style, the head also stretches and squashes, but to a lesser degree. However, the mouth is really being squashed and stretched significantly! Notice the use of basic shapes and parallel lines in this style. 40

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our head through life

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This shape change of the head occurs with all genders.

When we are babies our head is very small and round. When we age, our head tends to get longer and when we become older the shape of our heads is shrinking, generally speaking. In this example I broke down the head in just a couple of shapes to show that more clearly.

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babies Here are more drawings of a baby’s head. The baby has a big round head, with big eyes. However, the mouth, nose, and ears are very small.

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Here are further sketches of a baby’s expressions. See if you can break those down with basic shapes like I did in the previous image.

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kids Kids, like babies, have quite large round heads. Some noticeable differences to the baby are that you can see the eyes become smaller and the other features are become bigger.

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A female teenager is already a bit older and you can see that her head is becoming longer and more angular.

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A female adult head.

adults Male with a strong, distinctive chin. With every expression I’m trying to keep the square shape of the jawline visible.

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Older people tend to have more wrinkles and thinner skin as gravity has begun to take its toll. With this elderly lady the heavy wrinkle lines accompanied by her hanging cheeks give her the appearance of an older person.

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Older people tend to have large noses and ears. Fun fact, the ears and nose are features that keep growing as we age.

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sketchbook tips

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sketchbook Learning to draw takes a lot of time (and pencils). Having a sketchbook with you is a great way of getting that drawing mileage. Because you can bring it with you wherever you go in your daily life, you have the opportunity to draw whenever you feel inspired with real world references all around you! Drawing expressions by using references from your favourite TV show or movie can also be fun! For bonus points, draw your roommate,

family, friends or partners (trust me, they love it!) when they are around. You can also take your sketchbook to a public place and see if you can find some interesting expressions from the people around you. Whatever you choose to do, remember to pick up your sketchbook regularly as practice is the only way you’re going to become the illustrator you want to be. Have fun with it and let the creative juices flow.

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conclusion & thank you

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that's it! That’s it! Drawing your own characters with their own facial expression is a great and powerful skill. The characters are the face of the game, animation show, or feature. But through their expression you can tell what they think and feel.

level. But having that goal might be even more important than achieving it as it pushes me to keep honing my skills day in and day out. For example, this year I worked on character art for television shows, a comic with wellknown princesses, toys, and board games. The goal is still to work on animated features. That is a very hard goal to reach as you’ll have to compete with the very best to get there. But don’t forget that the other sectors I just mentioned offer a lot of fun opportunities as well. You never know how things will develop!

Being a character designer might be the most popular job in the artist entertainment industry. At the same time, a lot of characters need to be made. They are not only used in animation shows and feature films, games (big and small), toys, board games, and commercials need character designs as well. Maybe you won’t be working on the biggest movie projects, but working on those different products can be just as fun!

Apart from always wanting to become a character designer, I also learned how to draw backgrounds, how to paint, and how storyboards work. A varied skill set will help you get more work. You don’t have to be a pro at each of these skills, but it will definitely help you to at least have a good understanding of it.

My goal was, and is, to become a character designer for Disney or Pixar. I don’t have a clue if I’ll ever reach that

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Contact me Instagram Mitch Leeuwe Patreon patreon.com/mitchleeuwe Gumroad gumroad.com/mitchleeuwe Website mitchleeuwe.nl

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