How To Draw Head Tilted Down

Nosotros have looked at constructing the human head from a few simple angles. In real life, of course, we rarely come across people's heads directly facing us or in perfect profile. The heads of real, living people are mobile and expressive – they tilt up, downward, or to the side, moving relatively independently of the body. The diagrams in art books have their place, just rules of thumb like 'the ears reach from the eyebrows to the lesser of the olfactory organ' are useless for almost every head you will actually see. And so, if the subject area is in front of u.s., we take to rely upon our eye. If we are drawing from imagination, nosotros have to rely upon a practiced familiarity with what heads await like from different angles.

In the blogpost on Drawing the Simple Caput we started with a solid, three-dimensional form, a sphere, and drew measuring lines on it to help the states place and relate the features. This is a more detailed expect at the same thing.

How the features change

In the diagram below I take fatigued some examples of how the features change their appearance equally the head moves through diverse positions.

By the manner, we'll discuss the muscles and forms of the neck separately. For now, think of the cervix as a cylinder below an egg-shaped head. Information technology is a bit lower in the front than at the dorsum.

Top row: We run into the head shifting from being angled down to being angled upwards. Come across how in the first phase the eyes become obscured under the brow, and the mouth under the olfactory organ. The position of the ears is very helpful: as the head looks downwards they ascension higher up the browline, and every bit the head looks up they fall below the level of the mouth. Notation also the importance of that extra plane under the jaw, betwixt the chin and the neck.

Heart row: The head turns from the back toward the front, gradually revealing more of the features.

Bottom row: A rotating side view of the head. As before, the ear is a peculiarly good indicator of what'due south going on.

Beneath I have included a farther diagram illustrating how the advent of the head changes. I constitute this online and have no thought where information technology is from, otherwise I would provide a credit – but I wanted to share it equally it's a swell analogy. Discover the contour line that runs down the front of the confront, and see how it runs over the features, extending out forth the nose, turning dorsum in underneath, curving over the lips, and down the cervix. Not only is this a guide to the direction the head is pointing, it models the caput as it goes, reminding yous that all these features take their own forms, their own solidity, their own depth or extension in relation to one some other. Even an experienced artist, though he or she doesn't normally bother to draw guidelines over everything, is on some level imagining the line is in that location.

Yous should written report this and copy each angle shown. Simply of course, that isn't enough. You need to draw as many real people's heads as you can. Hundreds of heads, from every direction. Don't forget to look from behind, too. Find photos of people on the internet and make drawings from them – by centre, no tracing! They don't have to be detailed, polished drawings. The purpose for at present is to larn the placings and proportions.

The jaw

Pay particular attention to the changing shape of the jaw every bit the head moves effectually. You can see from the analogy above that when we look downwards the jaw converges into a triangular shape. When nosotros move head upwards, the tip of the mentum draws level with the angle of the jaw. And when nosotros tilt the caput upwards further still, we see a distinct airplane where the lesser of the head meets the cylinder of the cervix.

Perspective

Nosotros all know that objects get smaller as they get further abroad. This applies to the nearest and farthest parts of the same object, as well. In the illustration below, note how the length of the book gets shorter as it recedes into space, and how the far edge becomes shorter than the near edge:

We find information technology easier to imagine a box in perspective than something as awkward as the man caput. So think of the head as a kind of box. As the head turns abroad from us, information technology will recede into space and the distances volition grow shorter.

Using the divided brawl and aeroplane method, nosotros carve up the head into thirds to assistance united states of america place the features. In perspective, the lengths of the thirds will get progressively smaller every bit they recede, i.e. towards the bottom of a caput tilted down, or the top of a head tilted upwardly.

Now draw heads

Think, humanity is diverse, so delight don't reproduce the same face countless times over. Await for a variety of age, sex, race, mass, etc, because your piece of work will be richer for information technology.

Below are a couple of sheets of heads that I drew for this exercise: not polished masterpieces, only sketches done fairly quickly to try and capture certain angles. You should probably be more adventurous than I was here. You learn a lot doing extreme angles.