How to Draw a Guy’s Face

Posted on 24. Oct, 2009 by DAS Team in Face, Tutorials

In this tutorial, i used Photoshop CS3 (but you can do it in Photoshop CS2). This is a sample of a guy’s face that you can just try to do for practice. Things to note is the strong bone structure and sharp facial features.

You first start by creating a new file. Notice that i created this artwork on a huge paper size just to make things clear and high quality. You can make it a bit smaller if you want just incase your computer can’t handle this kind of heavy work.

The first thing you start doing when drawing a guy’s face, is too outline your drawing. The outline is very important because it will give you a sense of proportion and scale to your figure.

Now that you have done the outline, you would choose a focal zone to start adding detail in. Artists choose to start detail in different areas but i usually find it easier to start with one of the eyes because it will define a lot of how features will be arranged next to one another. I started with the left eye, adding a little bit of detail to it.

After you have applied the basic colors, now with the start smudging. Use the smudge tool with strength 50% and accurately start blending in the colors together.

Now do the same thing with the other eye. Realize that when i do the eyes, i really care about what surrounds them. I start also applying the various shades of skin color above (forehead) and below (nose) the eyes. This will help you find that automatically you are drawing nearly half the face:

The nose top is always lighter above because this is where the lights strikes it more. You then start continuing applying the shades and using the smudging tool. Now it’s time to draw the mouth as below. You can see the color numbers that i have used that can help as references when doing your own art.

After completing the mouth, its time to apply some depth and bone structure to the face. Many people ignore this stage and do it rapidly, when in fact this is the most vital stage of all. Applying shades to the cheek is essential to help make your face very real. Start applying the shades with the arrangement as follows:

After you have done so, you can see a better image of how your drawing is becoming. Start looking at which parts need more attention to. Whether it’s the eyes, the nose or the mouth, its important to go back and redefine areas that need more details.

After you have done adding the details, there is one important feature that you can now start doing and that is the ear. I always prefer to do the ear the last step because this it’s location depends on all the other facial features you have done previously. Start by creating an outline for the ear. Always zoom out to see how well it is proportioned with the rest of the face.

Now, that you have finished the outline, start applying the various color shades that will help you will then blend together. Again i have written the color codes as references that you can use in your own artwork.

After completing the ear, there is the hair left. Start by first adding a base color for the hair. I started with a dark base and used a very light colored brush to draw each hair stroke. Its important to do this one by one. It can get a little time consuming but it’s not hard to do. When you have finished the hair strokes, start blending them lightly together. NOTE: When blending hair strokes, make sure that you use a VERY small smudge tool brush size.

Now we are done with the most detailed parts of our portait. We will now add color to the neck. Doing the neck is very simple, just add big patches of colors (depending on where you have is dark and where you have is light). We will then blend all these colors together with a big brush sized smudge tool.

We are now done with our portrait, so we can just add a little background effect for more realism. You can also make the background Black to make your portrait stand out even more.

This is how your final product show look like (Picture Below). I hope you found this tutorial helpful and please don’t forget to comment below. Thank you.

Tags: drawing, facial, facial features, guy's face, male, paint, portrait