Tutorial Eyes

Alright now to explain this little tutorial. The top three are a little step by step of my go to style of eyes. The bottom three are examples of other eye styles, because there isn’t any one way of drawing eyes. 

The way that I like to do eyes is simple and round. They are pretty much just half circles. There are many tutorials that say that there should be a nice gap between the eyes. Most of them say that the gap should be as wide as one of the eyes. I tend to make the gap about half or in some cases around a third of the width of one of the eyes. These larger eyes do well with more rounded/chibi like styles. If you are drawing in a more realistic style try to keep the gap one eye wide. But also going too wide can make your character look a little bit off. So don’t be afraid to play around a bit with the gap between the eyes. 

The colored part of the eyes, or the iris, in my style are ovals. In real life the iris would be a circle. The oval irises can help me to better show where a character is looking. The pupils should rest in the middle of the irises. I personally from time to time will move the pupils slightly to one side to emphasize where the character is looking. If you do this make sure that you make both pupils lean in the same direction. 

Many anime styles give the eyes an indication of a lower eye lid. I normally opt out of doing that. I save having lower eye lid lines when I want to emphasize an emotion such at shock, fatigue, or joy. Eye lashes in are normally implied by how thick the upper eye lid line is. Some styles/characters have eye lashes that stick out more and you can see more of the individual strands. If you choose to show the strands, try to keep it consistent and make sure that each eye has the same amount. 

The size of the irises can vary a lot from character to character. The larger the irises are, the more child-like or innocent the eyes look. And easy way to make a character look more mature or level headed is the make the irises smaller. Also having narrower eyes can make a character look older as well. 

Eye brows are one of the most important parts of a characters face. They play a huge roll in showing how a character is feeling. Larger eye brows can make a face look more masculine or strong-willed. Thinner eye brows can make a face look more refined and well kept. Short eye brows can make a character look younger and longer eye brows will do the opposite.