This tutorial will show you how to draw a manga or anime-style male face in 3/4 view. It also includes step-by-step drawing examples.
It can be difficult to draw the head in a full view, including the faces and heads, in anime style.
This tutorial will help you understand the process of drawing with 16 steps.
It’s best to start with light lines if you plan to follow the tutorial using pencil or paper. You will need to erase some parts of your drawing between steps.
Step 1: Draw the top of the head
Start by drawing a circle around the head to determine the basic shape.
This circle can be thought of as a transparent 3d globe. Draw something inside it that would look like a slice of an apple at a certain angle. This will determine the center of your head and the direction that it is facing.
Step 2: Draw the Face Center Line
The half of the oval facing to the back of your head (left side) should be erased. The center of your face will be represented by a straight line from the forward-facing part. The line should run slightly to the back of your head. The line should reach at least to the bottom of your chin.
Once you are done, you will have a basic drawing that you can use to create the rest.
Step 3 – Draw the bottom of the head
Anime faces tend to have a very small, if not quite pointy, chin. To make the face appear more masculine, the chin can be drawn slightly lower at the end to give it a more masculine look.
Step 4 – Draw your neck
Although the tutorial is focused on the face, you’ll still need to include the neck and a hint of the shoulders. The drawing will not look right if it does not.
The necks are generally angled forward. This angle is slightly less apparent in a 3/4 view. Therefore, draw the neck titled just slightly towards the front.
See:
How To Draw an Anime Neck and Shoulders
Step 5 – Draw your Ear
Add the ear to the head (the other will be hidden behind it). It should be 1/4 inch taller than the head, with its top at the horizontal halfway point.
Step 6 – Draw your eyes
As in the previous example, draw a simple outline of your eyes. Place them so that their tops are aligned with the top of each ear (again, below the horizontal halfway point).
The eye should be drawn closer to the viewer, with one eye being wider than the other. Keep in mind that the eye is slightly set in the head. This is why the eye in front should be drawn farther away from the center of the face than that in the back.
Don’t add any details that aren’t necessary. This will be done later.
See:
- Drawing Anime Eyes from Different Angles
Step 7 – Draw your Eyebrows
The eyebrows are added a little above the eyes. To make the character more masculine, draw thicker eyebrows than what you would see on a female anime character.
These can be drawn in wave-like shapes, with the inner ends slightly down.
Similar to how the eyes draw the eyebrows closer to the viewer (0n left), the wider one is farther from the head’s center than the further away from one.
More eyebrow options are available at:
How to Draw Anime & Manga Eyebrows
Step 8 – Draw your nose
The character will have a well-defined nose and only a slight hint of one nostril. It will be slightly simplified and more pointed to keep the anime look.
Place the nose so that the bottom is at the same level as the bottom of your ears.
The bridge of your nose should be able to transition into the area surrounding the eyebrows. This can be seen on the far side of your face, with the line that defines your nose pointing towards the further away eyebrow (right).
Step 9 – Draw your mouth
Add the mouth halfway between the bottom and the top of the chin.
The bottom lip can be defined by a small curve. Position the mouth just slightly above the curve. Because the mouth is slightly indented and curved in the head, you’ll want most of its shape to be drawn on the forward side (left side) of your face.
This male mouth can be drawn larger (wider) than a female. You can make it look more natural by adding a slight break in the curve to define it. This is quite common in anime.
See: for more information on drawing anime mouths
- How To Draw Manga Mouth Expressions
- Side View
Step 10 – Clean Up the Drawing
Clean up the drawing by erasing any construction lines. You should now have a basic outline of a male anime-style head and face, without hair or other details.
Step 11 – Draw the front section of your hair
This tutorial will show you how to draw the hair.
Step by step Drawing Male Hair for Anime
It will be divided into forwarding, sides, and back sections. This is shown in red, green, and blue.
This is because it makes the process of drawing easier and more understandable than simply looking at everything as one large clump of hair.
Draw the front of your hair as shown in the picture above.
The character will have natural, but somewhat messy-looking hair of medium length.
This hair should be gathered in large clumps and oriented in different directions.
Step 12 – Draw the side sections of your hair
With a few clumps at the base of the nose, add the side sections as shown. The head will partially hide the background hair.
Step 13 – Draw the back section of your hair
Add the “back section” to the hair. It should have larger, more evenly distributed clumps towards the top and smaller, more tightly grouped clumps at the bottom.
Step 14 – Draw the small details of the facial features
This stage involves removing the hair from the top of the head and adding the details to the ears and eyes.
These are the areas you want to focus on around/inside your eyes:
- The pupils are the same or similar to the irises, but smaller
- Highlights (light reflecting off eyes) – In this case, a large and small highlight in each eye.
- The darkened/shaded top regions – the upper half of the irises
- Eyelids Just a hint with two lines slightly above your eyes
You can find a step-by-step breakdown of each eye’s parts here:
How To Draw Male Manga Eyes
As shown in the above example, you can also add inner details to the ear.
More information on drawing ears can be found here:
How To Draw Manga Ears
After you are done with this stage, you can trace over the lines to darken them. You can leave the lines that define the eye shadows and highlights light if you want them to blend in with the color/shading.
Step 15 – Apply color
After you are done with the line drawing, you can add color.
You may prefer to color your hair white if you are coloring on paper. These can be quite random so you don’t necessarily have to outline them beforehand. However, it is possible to do this if you feel it is easier.
You can also add highlights to the hair using a white pencil or white paint. It is recommended to add highlights over the color if you draw digitally.
You can lighten the highlights if they look too bright.
Learn more about how to draw hair highlights.
How to Draw Highlights in Anime Hair
The upper parts of your eyes/irises may appear darker than the rest. This is important as the eyes can appear strange without it (like a character with a crazy stare). This will prevent the eye color from being too dark.
Step 16 – Finish the drawing by adding shading
You can finish the drawing by adding some basic shading to certain areas of the face. The shading will be done as in other tutorials on 3dvkarts. This means that shadows will only be placed where they are most likely to appear in normal lighting conditions, such as in a well-lit room or outside.
This type of shading can be achieved by adding shadows to the following locations:
- The bottom tips of your hair can clump
- The head (cast by the hair and similar in form to hair clumps).
- The eyelids
- The upper parts of the white of your eyes (cast by your eyelashes)
- The inner parts of the ears
- Below the nose
- Upper neck (cast by a head)
See:
Step by step Shade your Anime Hair
See:
How to Shade An Anime Face Under Different Lighting
Conclusion
It can be difficult to draw a face in a 3/4 view. However, you can simplify the process by following a step-by-step approach. Start with the larger shapes and work your way down to the details. Once you are satisfied with the results, move on to the next step. To help you, you can also create your drawing using simpler shapes. How to Draw Explosions, Smoke & Fire Step by Step
See:
Beginner Guide to Drawing Anime & Manga
Check out this article for more information about drawing male faces
Step by step Drawing Male Anime Characters