I’ve made a post on how to draw the head and the face in the front and side view, now it’s time to learn how to draw the 3/4 view! It is one of the most common face angle people draw in, especially for beginners. In order to draw a 3/4 view face properly, you’ll need to understand some simple knowledge on perspective and anatomy, which I will go through in this post. Once you’ve learnt the basic rules, you can then adapt them into different styles of your choice. So without further ado, let’s begin.
Before we even start drawing, let’s take a look at some of the things we need to know about the face in 3/4 view.
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The eyes
In the 3/4 view, one part of the face is further away from the viewer compared to the other part. So one thing you need to know is that objects of the same size will look smaller when it’s further away from you. For example, a car right in front of you would look a lot bigger than a car 100 meters away from you.
When in the 3/4 view, the eye that is further away will be slightly smaller compared to the other eye that’s closer to us. However, don’t make it too small since the difference in distance isn’t too big. Also, note that the height of the eyes should still be the same, just the width will be smaller.
The eyebrows
Similar to the eyes, the eyebrows further away will be slightly shorter. They’ll also be more towards the left side of the eyes due to perspective. In more detail, the eyes are set into the skull while the eyebrows are more outward, this difference in depth is why the eyebrows are not directly above the eyes when viewed in angles.
In the drawing below, you can see that the eyebrows are not directly above the eyes, they are slightly to the left.
The nose
The nose is usually shown as a simple dot or line on the face in anime style. However, placing it correctly is important. The nose protrudes out of the face. So perspectives come into play when in 3/4 view, it should not be right down the middle of the eyes. It should be more towards the eyes that are further away. This is also why the guidelines are slightly curved. You will see them in the step by step tutorial below.
The mouth
Placing the mouth properly on the 3/4 view can be quite challenging for some. It doesn’t protrude out of the face as much as the nose. So it should be slightly more towards the middle of the eyes compared to the nose.
Drawing a 3/4 view in anime style
I will now go through my process in drawing the 3/4 head seen at the top of this post! Since this post is on drawing in the 3/4 view, I won’t go into detail about drawing the facial features and hair. I will make separate tutorials on them in the future.
Adding guidlines
As usual, I started off with a circle and some guidelines. Draw a curved line vertically around 3/4 to the side of the circle and one more at the other side.
One line will be guiding the centre of the face and another will help us locate where the ear and end of the jaw is.
Draw a horizontal line across the centre of the circle. This is to help locate the rest of the features later on, like eyebrows or eyes.
Adding the chin
Mark where you want the bottom of the chin to be. I wanted to draw a cute girl so the chin is not too low. Note that there’s a slight dip where the cheek is(left side). This is because our eyes sit slightly in the skull, so when viewed at 3/4 view, you can see a slight dip there depending on how deep-set the eyes are.
At the right side, the jaw ends aroughly where the other curved line and the circle touch.
Adding in features
The eyes sit slightly below the horizontal curve line we made earlier. It is also where there’s a slight dip above the cheeks.
And again as usual, the nose is between the eyebrows and bottom of the chin. The mouth is located between the nose and the bottom of the chin but alittle higher. The ear lies between the top of the eyes and the bottom of the nose, it also sits around the curved guide line on the right we made earlier.
Add in the hair
Add in the hair! Make sure there’s some volume/space between the hair and the skull! I’ll be making hair drawing tutorials in the future.
Colour!
Now you’re at the fun colouring part! Have fun! I will make tutorials on how I colour in the future.
So those are the steps and guidelines I’ve used to draw this head in 3/4 view! I hope you find it easy to follow! Try it out yourself and see if it works for you. There are many other ways in which you can construct your guidelines, feel free to try them all out and see which one suits you better.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and has found it useful. If you purchase anything through the affiliate links that I’ve provided, I’ll get a small amount of commission (at no extra cost to you!) which helps me continue writing art-related blog posts and tutorials like this one.
You may also be interested in:
- How to draw the head and face – anime-style guideline side view
- How to draw the head and face – anime-style guideline front view
- How to draw anime chibis – general features
- Digital painting for beginners
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7 Responses
Amazing and Adorable animes ???????
Thankyou! 😀
thankyou ^^
This really amazing, I love it 😀
thankyou!
Thanks A lot I’m trying to learn how to draw anime style characters this helps a lot!
Yo, this helped me a LOT. Thanks! Also, love the anime drawing, It’s so adorable!