Making Your Characters Look Different
a tutorial on varying facial structures & features

by C. S. Inman aka pussinboots

In this tutorial, I am going to assume that you can draw a basic head and body shape on your own, using passably standard proportions (hopefully better than mine). I am also going to assume you are some kind of cartoonist, since those are chiefly the people I wrote this for. :)

WHY BOTHER?

When an artist develops their own style, they often fall into the habit of giving all their characters similar facial and body structures and features. The only way you can tell them apart is by their clothing, hairstyles, and colors. This may not seem like a loathesome habit, especially not to someone whose style is heavily influenced by anime. After all, those characters are easy to tell apart and they are in the same style, right?

Something many people do not appreciate about most anime is that usually the characters look extremely different from one another even if they are in black and white dressed as monks with shaved heads! Character design in a well-drawn anime (and they are not all well-drawn just because they were produced -_-) is much more complicated than the same basic facial type over and over.

Since I just finished watching it ten minutes ago, I am going to use Berserk as an example.

As you can see, there are a lot of tiny differences that cause these three men to look dissimilar from one another, no matter what clothes or hairstyles they wear. This is optimal if you want people to easily tell which character is which, even when they get dirty from mud-wrestling or are sneaking about in the dark. However, there is an even more important reason! Different facial structures and shapes of features connote social implications about the character.

If figure A showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night crying and asked me to let him in, I just might do it--but if figure C showed up sobbing just as sorrowfully, I would have more of a problem, and it is not just because he is not as hot >:) hehe It is because the lines on his face show he is used to scowling, and his broken nose makes him look tougher. Before you start griping about me stereotyping people, I would like to point out that you can choose to ignore these preconceived notions, or use them to your advantage (as a thief, I imagine figure A would be much more successful because people would trust him all the time!). But it is important that you are aware of them and have control over them before you start complaining about them.

GETTING STARTED

Something a lot of people fail to realize is that your entire abilities as an artist are governed by one thing: the same shapes you learned in kindergarten. Do these guys look familiar? ;)

I hope you can still name them, because you are going to need them. If not, find a five year old--I am sure they would be willing to help you out.

Get out some paper and a pencil, and draw the basis for a human head's profile. Whatever technique you use is fine, and though it will be different (and hopefully better), yours should look at least similar to this --> Now draw a triangle where the nose should be. Do not compromise its shape yet--draw it as if it were an assignment you were about to turn it in to your Geometry teacher. For kicks, keep using the triangle when you draw in the eye and the eyebrow. They can have different angles, but keep their lines as straight as your mom. Okay, we are going to leave Triangle Dude alone for now. I want you to repeat the above steps, but this time use CIRCLE as the basis for the nose, eye, and--well, give the eyebrow a shot too, even though it might look kind of funny. We could use a laugh.

Bozo looks a little more messed up than our Triangle Dude, but that works well for our purposes! (In case you thought this was an AA meeting, our purpose is actually to learn how a very basic shape can change into a distinct facial feature.) I am going to add lids to Bozo's eyes, some trailing hair from his brow, and connect his nose to his face. (At least I hope Bozo is a he, because he is not going to make a very fetching girl with features like those.) I will add the same things to Triangle Dude. The nostrils I added are triangles and circles, to keep with the theme! I think it is high time we gave these poor guys some more shape to their faces, including ears, chins, and mouths with which to curse us in case they do not agree with our shape choices. For instance, I think Bozo might have a problem with the fact that I gave him two chins--but I wanted to keep the theme going! If you have not already done so, erase the lines you do not need anymore. Holy elf-and-a-mobster, Batman! These guys are starting to look like real people. Just a few more things to do, like finish the ears, add some facial contours/lines, pupils, and hair! This elf looks very pointy, courtesy of his Triangle Dude ancestry, and the mobster on the right is a very rotund man because he is made up of buttery circles. If you use a variety of circles, squares, and triangles when making up a face, you can get vastly different results, some of them not quite so extreme.

WHAT AM I MADE OF?

The best way to practice making faces different from each other is to start looking at real people and photographs and trying to identify where the triangle, circles, and squares go. If you are not a vampire, I assume you have a mirror in your house--start by looking at your own face and see what you are made of. As an example, I will use a recent photo of myself.

Even individual features are often very differently shaped from person to person. Try and make a habit of noticing the shapes of people's features so you can later sketch them out at will. Here are a variety of eyes donated to us by some celebrities (go ahead and guess who, the answers are at the bottom of the page).*

What shapes would you draw first for each eye? My choices are below, but they are not necessarily the correct answers--different people will see different things. I would like to advise you at this point, however, to put away the idea of only three shapes. If you have ever taken a Geometry class, you know there are many more, most of them with ridiculous latin names meant to confuse you.

I am actually terrible at drawing from a photo, which is one of the reasons I skipped a few steps (no use in you learning bad habits!) but what I meant to teach you was not how John Travolta's eye looks--I wanted to show you how his eye looks right next to Halle Berry's. Very different eyes, with their own unique eyebrows, and even though at first the shape looks basically the same, if you look carefully you can see what makes it so different. The above assortment of eyes was done in my typical comicbook/realistic hybrid style, but you can simplify or complicate the details according to your own goals.

Here are some similar sheets of sketches, to help with noses and mouths:

I was not trying to make the same male/female pattern on the mouths and noses as I had on the eyes, but I just noticed that if you try and match them up that way, you get some wacky faces. XD

It looks like I have a definite propensity for fat noses and even fatter lips, but of course you can size and refine the features however you like. But having all these amusing features is actually not going to help you very much at all if you keep drawing the exact same shape of a face. As you can see below, Prince Bish's face shape is the same as Grandpa Earhair's.

...And I think I speak for everyone when I say it is not a good thing.

The features that match Prince Bish look okay on that face shape, but the features that match Grandpa Earhair look strange. Part of this is because of his age; older people do not usually have a really smooth jaw. I am not going to talk about age yet, though, so for now concentrate on the fact that all of Grandpa Earhair's features are much rougher and bulkier, so they do not really match that delicate (triangular!) jawline. Someone could look like that, but say we want Grandpa Earhair to look more traditional (and less inbred). Below, I have fixed it with a good solid rectangle. (And two tiny little circles.)

Now both Prince Bish and Grandpa Earhair are relatively comfortable with their faces, and they can head off to the rollerskating rink to hang out with the girls we have not drawn yet. Maybe we should do that now...

OTHER FACTORS

Social stereotypes are not the only thing to keep in mind when creating your character's facial structure and features. Age and ethnicity are important factors, as well as attitude and scars. I doubt I am skilled enough to give an in-depth tutorial on any of these, but I can certainly devote a supplemental page to hints and tips.

BEFORE I LET YOU GO

I want to give credit to the following people and sites:

ArcticNightfall.Com's Berserk Fan Site - Thanks for the Berserk screenshots!
Letus.Org's "Behavior Matters" Page - The photo of me ;)
Google.Com - Various celebrity eyeballs
Skjold Photography - That picture I linked to of the white girl and the black girl (on the supplemental page)

* The celebrities were, from left to right: Conan O'Brien, Christina Ricci, Al Pacino, Lucy Liu, Viggo Mortensen, and Queen Latifah. (That bit about John Travolta and Halle Berry was a trick.)

Thanks for reading, and I hope this was helpful to you!

All material ©C. S. Inman aka pussinboots 2004. Do not alter, duplicate, or redistribute without express written permission. For permission, e-mail inappropriate@hotmail.com with "art tutorial" in subject.