How to Draw a Face Profile

A face profile is the view of your face from the side. It is common to draw the front of the face with the subject looking directly at you, but sometimes the drawing is more interesting with the person looking away. Drawing the Profile of a face can be challenging, but with practice, you can do it in perfect proportion. Being able to draw the profile of a face will add more variety to your drawings, and sketches and will improve the overall quality of your work. To draw the profile of a face, you must understand the makeup of a head.

Things You'll Need

• pencil
• paper

Instructions

1. 

   Draw a circle to represent the skull. Think about what a are skeleton skull looks like. It starts with a round skull. Make the circle full and round.

2. 

   Draw the jaw. If you look at or imagine a skeleton, you can see that the jaw is attached to the skull which protects the brain. To draw the jaw line you need to first separate the circle into four equal quadrants. Next in the lower right quadrant (you can also choose to do left to do the other side of the face) draw a curved line that extends beyond the circle, and also a line from the cross line to meet the first line. You have created the jaw line.

3. 

   Draw the ear and nose. The ear and nose take up quite a bit of the lower portion of the head and are about the same size. Draw a line that is more than one half and less that two thirds of the bottom half of skulls circle. If you are using a model let the size of their ears and nose dictate how much space you can use a some people’s ears and nose are bigger than others. Draw a horizontal line to mark this measurement. The ear will extend from the center line where the lines intersect to the measuring line you just drew. The nose will begin just inside the circle on the horizontal line to the measuring line you just drew. It will slant outward and end outside of the jaw line.

4. 

   Draw the mouth. Mark the space where the mouth goes by drawing a line from the bottom of the circle to the front of the jaw line. This line marks the center of the lips. They don’t protrude outside of the line. Instead the center of the lips dip inward.

5. 

   Draw the chin and neck. The chin starts just under the lips, dipping inward below the lips and protruding outward to meet your jaw line. The neck extends outward from the head and comes from under the center of the jaw line and the back of the skull.

6. 

   Draw the eyes. The eyes are behind the point where the nose starts. Begin by drawing the iris of the eye like a small disk just below the horizontal line on the head. Next, draw a curved line from the bottom of the iris to the horizontal line. Next, draw the upper lid from the horizontal line to the top of the pupil. Draw eyebrows to frame the eye,

7. 

   Add hair. The hairline will start halfway between the top of the skull horizontal and curve downward to the front of the ear. You will want to add a peak for the hair at the temples and curve the hairline according to that of your model.

Tips & Warnings

• Make minor corrections and adjustments and add details. The model may not be the most beautiful specimen you’ve seen, but features have been exaggerated for demonstration purposes.

• Do not become discouraged if your profile image does not come out right the first few times.