Head types

The human race is incredibly diverse. Obviously there are ethnic variations that have developed across the regions of the world, giving us skin colours that range from very pale to very dark brown, and all sorts of other variations of facial features, build and so on. But this is only one aspect of human variation. There are also the countless human variations within those groups. Here we’re limiting ourselves to the head, but even so, heads can be long or short, round or square, broad or narrow. Here are a few examples:

At the bottom right I’ve included Daumier’s famous caricature of King Louis Philippe with a pear-shaped head.

As well as the broad head shape, an artist also has the particular features to play with: hair, brows, eyes, noses, cheeks, mouths, jaws, etc, all of which vary according to their own parameters. Mixing up these elements opens the door to an infinite number of faces. Some of these inevitably resemble each other, even very closely, but every one is unique.

It is very limiting to draw only the individuals who are actually sitting in front of you. To really unleash your potential you need to be able to draw any person you please from imagination. You want to pick and choose specific characteristics that will make the character in your head spring to life on the page (or screen). How do we draw them?

Adjust the skull

As always, begin with the basic construction, namely the bony understructure. The first basic determinant of human variety is the skull. In Drawing the Head and Hands, Andrew Loomis suggests:

The simplest plan is first to think of the skull as being pliable and having taken a certain shape as a result of pressures – as if one squeezed a rubber ball into various shapes without changing its actual volume. Although skulls have a great variety of shapes, actual measurements tally very closely, which means that the volume is about the same and only the shape is different. Suppose we model a skull in soft clay, then, between boards, press it into various shapes. Thus out of the same volume we can make a narrow head, a wide head, flaring jaws, and all the other types.

Loomis is explaining that we must think of the skull as having plasticity:

In earlier articles we’ve looked at a couple of ways of constructing the human head, the most complete one being Loomis’ ball and plane method. Once you’ve got the hang of the method, you can experiment and do what you like with it.

So when you’re sketching in your ball and plane, think about the skull shape you want and amend the construction as you go. Here are some examples:

Bear in mind when someone is under- or overweight, it is a consequence of their eating behaviour, not their bone structure. 

Adjust the features

As for the features, there are three broad divisions of the head: try adjusting the measurements within these sections. You may be surprised how easily and dramatically changes in the spacing of forms can transform a head, but there are other variations we can make. The hairline can rise or fall, and the hair itself be thick or thin or non-existent. The brow ridge can be lower or higher, the forehead smooth or bumpy. The eyes can get closer together or further apart – they can be wide open or squinty or beady. The nose can be shorter or longer: look back at my article on how to draw the nose and consider the different types: Grecian, Roman, snub, etc. Experiment with the width of the cheekbone, increasing the width from the edge of the eye socket for a broad face and shortening it for a narrow one. The lower third of the head is essentially the jaw, which can be wide or narrow, long or short. Are the lips thin or fat, flat or pouty? Is the chin pointy or square, thrusting or receding?

To experiment with human variation, try taking an average-looking head and drawing lots and lots of variant versions, deliberately applying specific changes to it. Here is a set I did:

I’ve kept these variations subtle, but you might prefer more exaggeration, especially if you were designing cartoon or comics characters. However you play it, you will learn how changing particular features alters the appearance of a head. This awareness will help you to adjust your sketches so that your characters look precisely the way you want them to.

What to do

There are all sorts of things to think about when we try to create characters from imagination, and the variants I suggest above aren’t meant to be exhaustive. We haven’t discussed variations in ethnicity, age or facial expression, all of which are important to how we perceive someone. We’ll look at these separately.

It’s natural for artists to find a style within which to work, but it would be a terrible shame to let the fabulous richness of humanity go ignored, and to draw the same handful of (usually young and beautiful) people over and over again. Observe the people around you, whether friends and workmates or just people you pass by in the street or park. Draw lots of heads and deliberately make every one of them different. Start a drawing without any idea of where it’s going, and invent features on the spot. Approach it totally without fear. No one will see the pictures, and you needn’t keep them if you don’t want to. Go wild. Make mistakes. Exaggerate. Do caricatures, and fantastical things that wouldn’t normally exist. You can do them from all sorts of angles if you want to, but that’s not the main thing here. Consider not only the facial features but other forms of facial ‘furniture’ – for example facial hair (by the way, women have it too), or clothing accessories such as scarves, jewellery, makeup, hats, and other headgear such as headphones. If there’s a certain type of person you know you never draw, draw twenty or fifty or one hundred instances. Try drawing male and female twins.

You should also practice drawing to a brief, i.e. find or invent a description of an individual then try to draw them. This could be random, or you could describe how you imagine a particular character e.g. from a novel. Loomis suggests the following:

“John is big and raw-boned. His eyes are deepset under shaggy brows. There are hollows under his cheekbones. He has a big nose, heavy jaw and chin. His hair, though thin on top, is bushy around his ears and the back of his head. His eyes are small, dark and beady.” Now try to draw John...

This is a great suggestion, except I’d go further and suggest you also draw a Joanne, to the same brief (though she should probably have more hair!). You should also try drawing John and Joanne both as white people and as black people; as young people and as old people; as happy people and as sad people.

The array of characters you can come up with is infinite and every exercise of this sort will help you. The most important thing is to exercise your imagination and enjoy yourself.