Drawing faces is one of the most natural things for us to do, and they're very easy for people to see that they're faces because animals are evolved especially to be able to see faces- people mistakenly think this is just a human thing but it's clearly something that happened much earlier. We're so good at seeing faces we see them where they don't exist (paradolia). So drawing them for comics should be super simple, should it? Well it is and it isn't.

You can always get better at things and drawing faces is something that has a vast range of difficulties. They can be as simple as a circle with minimal features, or more advanced attempts with everything clearly laid out with shading and a perfect expression, and everything in between… How I do it is something in between: Sort of realistic but still pretty cartoony.

The easiest way to do more realistic faces is to understand the rules: The eyes go roughly halfway on the face. The eyebrows go up above and create a shaded line, the mouth and bottom of the nose divide the bottom of the face into thirds. And that's you average face. Drawing different ethnic traits though is very tricky without being racist! So practise those a lot before coming out with anything publicly.

An important thing to know is the myth of symmetry. The myth is that perfectly symmetrical faces are more beautiful, this idea was put forward a few years ago by a plastic surgeon of all people and many ate it up. The reality though that very symmetrical faces can actually give you an "uncanny valley" feel so that the face can start to look unnatural and alien. It's VERY easy to make perfectly symmetrical faces in art, now moreso than ever. You simply draw one side of a face, copy, paste, flip and join them. It's a good technique to use to quickly draw a portrait but a smart move is to rough up either side and remove some of that symmetry subtly. Beauty is about being average (not too far outside norms) and the cultural standards of that particular point in time, symmetry is a small and basic part of that, NOT the prime component: a good clue as to why this is the case is the fact that humans don't all look the same, people from different ethnicities have very different facial traits and beauty standards, and we can very easily see that beauty standards throughout time varied massively and constantly. Saying that beauty is based on symmetry is like saying cars are based on wheels- in one sense yes but in all other senses no.

How are you with drawing faces? What's your secret? Can you draw people of different ethnicities without being racist? What style of faces do you draw?

NEXT WEEK- The expression cast

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The Hotel - Trapped in a never ending loop inside an elevator. Are you going up, down, or… sideways? Ring the bell for service. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Please consider purchasing a copy of our latest DD anthology A Flock of Dreams to help DD https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/20/quackcast-697-the-dd-anthology-comic/

Featured comic:
It's My Turn to Save the World - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/12/featured-comic-its-my-turn-to-save-the-world/

Featured music:
The Hotel - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Hotel/ - by Pinupcitizen, rated T.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/

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