[Jezebel]

Now I am in NO way claiming to be an expert on drawing eyes, I actually don't even think I'm all that good at it. I submitted this tut to deviant art and someone even left me a message saying it sucked. *grin* But I've had a few people ask me how I do it so I whipped this up. I hope that someone out there can make use of it!

Drawing the Human Eye

Step 1 - Start with a basic sketch of the eye. Notice how the lines droops down on the left and flares slightly upwards at the bottom to reveal the tear duct. I've noticed that many people forget to draw tear ducts on their eyes. Keep in mind that eyes vary a LOT from person to person. This eye is based off of my own. I think my eyes are rounder than average:



This is an example of how <b>not</b> to draw an eye. *grin* I see eyes like the one below all the time. Lots of people have a tendancy to draw the iris small and in the center of the eyeball, not touching either the upper or lower eyelids. Almost any time you see a relaxed eye, part of the iris will be concealed... unless the person has naturally bugged out eyes like me. *grin* Another problem with the drawing below is that the lines of the eyelid are overly defined. There is no sense of form because there are no varying line widths. This drawing doesn't show the subtle contours of the tear ducts and the folds in the lid.



Step 2 - Here I've started to develop the highlights. I pointed out specific areas which I think are important. Area number two is often neglected. It shows the highlight along the inner rim of the bottom lid. Your eyelids are not flat, they are thick folds of flesh that wrap around the eyeball. Look in the mirror at your own eye to see what I mean:



Step 3 - Start putting in shadows. A nice balance between light and shadow is important to make areas *pop*. :] Area 1 is pretty important... lots of people forget to shade the eyeball itself and leave it stark white. Remember that its called an eyeBALL for a reason. *grin*:



Step 4 - With a finer brush, add bolder highlights in specific areas. You'll notice things are getting a bit more crisp now. Notice that on section 2 the highlighted part of the iris is opposite the bright white highlight. This is how I usually draw it. I've heard that the eye almost always highlights this way - but don't quote me on that ;D And the same as the step above, you want to add light to the eyeball itself to make it appear round.:



Step 5 - Deepen the shadows along the lash line. I've always darkened the pupil as well as the rim around the iris. Often I notice that eyes are dark around the edges and in the center, then they sort of fade into the center where the highlight gets bold and the color of the eye is more evident.:



Step 6 - Last step! I added some "spokes" to the center of the eye to make it more realistic. I also added a bright hightlight to the tear duct. Remember that this is a wet surface we're dealing with, so parts of your eye appear glossy.:



Step 7 - Done! =D



This is just more of a starting point for me, I try to develop my stuff a little further... but this is the basics of how I work.

[SporQ]

cool jez, nice to see your technique

[paltsi]

Thanks alot. Good tutorial =)

[Laemtao]

Since noone has replied yet.. i feel its my duty to offer u a little praise for your kind contributory effort to the forum with this simplistic yet effective tutorial.. i got no crits on it..

in fact i like the eye alot and i think i do tend to leave out the tear duct in my rendering.. Thanks alot for sharing.

Mo

[Nicodemus]

nice, thanks for sharing

[Quasar]

Good stuff Jez!!

[Kaete]

Bah, the "It sucks" guy was just jealous. As Bill and Ted would say, that is a most excellent tutorial.

[B3AND1P]

I love the tutorial! I think I'm gonna have to try some of this in paintchat today. The only I would have to comment on is that you have no eye lashes!

Great stuff, I'll buy ya a beer or something if you do one on the nose next

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: B3AND1P ]

[Loki]

Hey guys - Hey Jez!

I took the freedome and went quickly over your eye. Here's what I added:

* Harder shadow from the eyelid - helps defining the eye

* Highlights in the white part of the eye / pseudo enviroment reflection - since the eye is wet, it picks up quite a bit from the enviroment.

* Detail in the pupil. Just for fun

* more wetness and redness in the corners of the eye

* sharpened the edges of the iris - since it's a hole with a sharp edge

What I didn't do is correcting the overall shape, since one would treat and shade the eye as a part of a sphere (rest is hidden by eyelis & skull) with a little sphere on top (the pupil/lens).
Very nice painting though Jez - made me want to play with it.

[Neo-MatrixX]

Good stuff.. but you forgot to mention the tools you used.

[Benji Schupp]

Cool! Thank you. I actually learned something. The highlight of the iris is opposite the one in the pupil! Aha! Nice people are always good to have around.

Benji

[Freddio]

Awesome.. Great tutorial..

I added a bit of stuff also, got a bit more depth into it more contrast also so the highlights look better.

[anomaly]

heh, not trying to be too anal here, but you guys forgot to put in eyelashes... the rest looks really good though!

[Freddio]

mine does

[Davey Newfoundland]

Im asian, so if i looked at my eye in the mirror, it would look different ha ha... aw thats not funny. good tutorial though, I learned quite a bit.

[sweetpea]

i couldn't help it.. the lack of lower eyelashes was driving me crazy. here's some lower lashes:

jezebel: lovely tutorial. when i get home from work tonite i'm going to follow it and see what my results are. thank you so much!

[Conor O Kane]

Wow, a community tutorial! Look what you've started. Great work everyone.

[Lunatique]

No one touched the eyebrow, so I guess I'll take that on.

I just added some rough strokes with the brush, and then used a small sized smudge brush and went over it for the feathered look.

Love the tutorial, Jez! This is very helpful for the beginners that's dying for this sort of instruction. Good job!



[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[Jezebel]

Wow!! I love the way everyone is adding their own steps into this!! The end result is so great! =)

(the reason I didn't add eyelashes to mine is because that's a secondary step to me... I just wanted to illustrate the basic structure of the eye. )

That's what makes it so damn cool that everyone has added all these details to it. Thanks so much

[Lunatique]

Nononono, YOU'RE the m--I mean, YOU'RE the girl!!

[Derek]

Jezebel,
Just a few comments... thoughts on eye studies really.

Remember that the cornea is a mound on the surface of a sphere. You'll get a bit of light playing as if you were shining a light upon a jeweled surface, an area of light collects on the far side of the highlight as well, though minor. The cornea will cast a shadow upon the ball.

Also, there will be reflected light from the upper surface of the lower lid back onto the lower part of the eyeball. The lower lid is subordinate at the outer edge to the upper lid in most cases.

You were right to do this, Jez, without eyelashes. But, should you want to include them, use them first as a shape of tone, not as individuals. Like you would do for eyebrows, be aware fo the number of directions that lashes grow in. It varies. For brows, it's generally in five directions.
Also, think of the upper and lower lid as having three planes each, this will help set up a light, middle and darker region that helps the form turn and work with the muscles that shape the eye from above, around, and below it.

Got no idea how well the paintover I did will show up. Will goof with it if it doesn't look so hot.

There's probably a ton of stuff I'm forgetting.

And... are you serious that some f-nut tried to blast your tut?



[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Derek Smith ]

[surferboi]

^ Bump ^

=)
anyhow finally got around to doing an eye
not up to par with you fellows yet but ima tryin.. anyone wanna help me out..
working on darkening the eyelashes and eyebrow now..
things i wanna work on is having a better shade for the white of the eye and adding suttle reflections in the eye

[ftgjcf]

whats up with these bloody eyes?