How to Draw a Mouth

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Laura Pace, I'm here at Asel Art Supply, and today we're going to talk about, how to draw a mouth. Next to the eyes the mouth is probably the most expressive part of the human face. And there's going to be a lot of variation in peoples mouths. But the tips I'm going to give you are going to be a good guide to how to get it in the right position, the right proportions, and a general rule for making a mouth look realistic. I started out with this little sigil like line, right here, and I made a center line that represent the line that goes through the face between the eyes, down the nose and through the center of the mouth. The next picture here is a picture of the five main muscles that make up the lips, they're sort of an inverted pyramid right in the middle, number two, that gives the upper lip a pointed shape, and then there are two elliptical muscles on either side of that, and then the lower lip has two more strong elliptical muscles that give the lower lip kind of a more rectangular shape. In the third picture here I developed that a little bit more, so you can see how those five muscles define the shape of the lips. And then this is a more finished sketched of lips, where I put in details like lip color, a darker line that defines the center of the lips, lines at either end that show those muscles that pull the mouth out or in, and some highlights on the lower lip to give it a look of being fleshy and plump. Here's some side views of the mouth, so you see what those muscles look like from the side, you've got your little inverted pyramid right there, your upper lip muscles are turned down, and then the lower lip muscles make the lower lip appear to bulge out when you see it from the side. And here's a picture of a mouth with the mouth a little bit open so you can see the teeth, and you can also see how the upper lip cast a shadow onto the teeth. Now part of the diversity of mouth shapes I was talking about is due to difference of peoples age. You'll notice if you look at photographs of little children or babies, they have very plump lips, very shiny skin, because their skin is very elastic. And also the curves in a babies lips are very exaggerated curves. Whereas in an older person, since as we age we lose fat from our faces, we also lose fat from our lips, and that can make an older persons lip look much thinner, more like just straight lines. Older people sometimes tend to have vertical lines around the lips where the lips have lost their fullness. Another really important part of drawing realistic lips is, keep in mind the angle of the face. This person is looking down, and we're seeing their lips slightly from the side, and kind of a 3/4 view. So you'll notice I've drawn these lines of the eye, the nose and the mouth that wrap around the shape of the head. Keep that in mind because it's going to make the lip look like it's curved on that same line. And the next picture where we have this person looking up, kind of the opposite thing has happened, all of these lines turned down along with the line for the mouth, to give it a more 3 dimensional look. Now a quick way of rendering a persons mouth when you're drawing, is, usually since lights are coming from overhead, the upper lip is going to be in shadow, it's going to be dark looking. But the lower lip is going to be lighted, since it's receiving most of the light. So sometimes all you need is a shadow underneath it to define the shape of the lower lip. Here's another picture where I've drawn an open mouth with teeth. And you notice that I didn't detail these teeth very much, they're really just a white shape. There's a cast shadow from the upper lip again, and toward the edge of the mouth there's just a few lines drawn in. If you draw a line in for each tooth it tends to make the teeth look like they have a scary black out line, which might not be what you want, unless you're drawing a picture of some kind of monster. So that's what I have to tell you about drawing mouths. I suggest you practice. Take some photographs, get photographs out of magazines and copy them, trace them, practice as much as you can, and soon you'll be good at drawing mouths."