Part 2 Adding the Features

1. Place ears on the sides of the head between the eye and nose lines. The top and bottom of each ear will line up with the eye and nose lines you drew earlier. Sketch oblong C-shapes between the guide lines for your ears so they connect to the sides of the circle and jawline. You can either leave the ears as is for a simple look, or draw the curves inside them to add more detail.

Look at your ears or pictures of real ears to get an idea of what they look like.
Ears can be various shapes, so choose whatever looks best on your character.

2. Add the tip of the nose where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect. In an anime or manga, the nose isn’t as visible from the front view as it is from the side. If you want to make a simple nose, just put a dot on the point where the nose guide line and the vertical center line intersect. For something slightly more complex, draw 2 short curved lines on either side of the center line to give the appearance of nostrils.

You can also draw a long straight or curved line extending up toward the eye line if you want to make your character’s nose more defined.

3. Draw the eyes so they’re below the guide line you drew earlier. If you’re drawing a male character, draw a horizontal line under the guide line you made that stops near the side of the head. For a female character, draw an arched line underneath your guide that goes toward the side of your character’s head. Place the bottom line for the eye anywhere above the tip of the nose. Draw the other eye on the opposite side of the face so it looks the same as the other.

Anime or manga characters have a variety of different eye shapes, so check your favorites to get ideas on how to draw the eyes on your character.

Practice drawing different eye expressions if you want your character to have a particular emotion. For example, an angry character may have narrower eyes and a surprised character will have their eyes wide open.

4. Give your character eyebrows above the eye line. Start the line for your character’s eyebrow above the corner of their eye slightly above the guide line you drew before. Draw a slightly curved or angled line, following the same shape as the top of the eye. You can either leave the eyebrow as a simple line or extend lines up from it and make it a rectangle. Draw another eyebrow over the other eye once you finish the first one.

Anime and manga eyebrows can be many shapes, like triangles or even circles.
Angle the eyebrows more if you want to make your character more expressive. For example, if the eyebrows are angled down toward the nose, then your character will look angry, but if you angle them down toward the ears, they’ll look sad or scared.

5. Put the mouth halfway between the nose and the chin. Find the halfway point between the character’s mouth and chin so you know where to place the mouth. If you want to make a simple mouth, draw a slightly curved horizontal line to make a smile or a frown. Put another slightly smaller line underneath the first to give the appearance of a bottom lip.

Look at different mouths and expressions for anime characters online to see how to make different expressions.

If you want to draw your character smiling with an open mouth, you do not need to draw every individual tooth. Only draw the line between the top and bottom teeth to separate them. Tip: The size of your character’s mouth depends on what expression you want them to have. If you want your character to look a little goofier, then make the mouth wide. For a more serious or quiet character, make the mouth small.