How To Show Expression With The Mouth!

How I draw kisses!

A quick tutorial/cheat sheet on how I draw kisses!! I’m going to assume you already know how to draw a head and how to angle it, because that’s an entire procedure in itself. I’m going to focus on mainly the lips and also try and tackle some common mistakes when you’re first starting out. 

Pursing the lips

So this is boring but crucial. If you don’t purse, their is no real kiss (take notes) bc placing your lips on top of someone else’s is not how you kiss… The most important part are the corners of the mouth, especially from the side view, because that’s what changes the most. 

The actual kissing yeee

Let’s start do a basic side view kiss on the lips. And believe it or not, I think this one is the hardest!  

Think about which parts of the face are going to be in front of the other! This can take some time to get the hang of, but once you get that down it’s easy. Also, focus on getting the heads at the right distance and angle. A common mistake is drawing them too close. 

The Lightning Shape: 

Still keeping in mind which part of the line is “Red’s” upper lip and which part is “Blue’s” lower lip, play around with the shape of the lightning. Very subtle changes can have a very strong impact! I usually go by feel, so take your time, but here are some things to look out for: 

Details squishing etc.

So yeah once the lightning shape looks good, I usually add details and squish parts of the face that will touch. Which usually includes the noses, but from this angle they won’t squish unless you intend on making nice big noses <3. By now it should look something like this: 

You don’t have to add the corners of the mouth! I usually do when I want to show that the character is smiling. 

One technique used a lot in anime/manga + other cartoony art styles, is fading lines where two soft-ish objects press hard against each other. The picture above explains it. 

Common mistakes

Getting down the crucial kissing part of fanart is hard and you will mess upp SO MANY TIIIIIIMES, but you learn from your mistakes, so don’t be discouraged. There are some things though that I frequently see when people draw kisses that makes it look awkward and stale, many of which I used to do myself. Here are some examples:

Try your best to avoid these. Most of the mistakes have little to do with the lips and more to do with the angle of the head. So getting that down before you move on to the lips is important. 

¾ view Kissing

There are not a lot of angles where you actually see the lips meet (or at least not that I can draw…). Depending on how the heads are placed in relation to each other, you may or may not see the lips in a ¾ view. The way I have demonstrated is done in a way that the nose will bump into the other’s upper cheek. 

Aaand that’s about it! These things will make more and more sense the more you draw them. At first it can seem very hard with so many things to keep track of, and it is, but practice makes perfect! 

Rule of thumb: does the angle and position of the heads make sense? How are the lips going to align? What parts of the face are going to be in front of the other? How much will the lips purse? And finally, what is going to squish? 

Thank you for reading! 😘

(☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞ now draw kisses

Late last year I wanted to start a series of short tutorials called Tip Jar, as a way of saying thanks to my fans and giving back to my patrons. This is the first of the series I have made, showing my technique on quickly filling in lineart so you can get to painting without coloring outside the lines faster. 

Someday I hope to turn these into video tutorials when I have the income and the time, but for now I hope that I will be able to share useful tips in this infographic format.

Full tutorial image

Support me on Patreon

Webcomic tips

In the conclusion for now, some things I’d really recommend doing if you’re seriously considering making a webcomic (or really a comic in general). Some of these don’t really apply to strips or gag-a-day type of comics, but I’m not talking about those here.

1. Write down ideas\sketch stuff, LEGIBLY. “I’m gonna remember it later” NEVER works. And if you scribble it somewhere on a piece of paper, you’d better scan it or retype in one doc later, because tiny notes always get lost among other doodles in my skethbooks.

(i know it’s hard to keep everything clean and organized, but this mess is just not productive)

If your project is a collaboration, save your conversations. If you’re working alone, make a blog for your ramblings. You have no clue what tears of relief I cry when I open that blog and rememeber I don’t have to painstakingly look through my heaps of sketchbooks and folders for a tiny idea I’m not even sure I wrote down a few months ago.

2. Inspiration folders, or even better, inspo blog with tags also help with collecting and remembering ideas. Color schemes, landscapes, style inspirations, atmospheric stuff, maybe some photo references, all those neat things.

3. Basic tier: character design sheets. Top tier: common poses, expressions. God tier: outfits they wear throughout the comic. Holy cow tier: turnaround sheets for all those outfits.

(I’d die trying to find good pages for references without these)

4. If you haven’t finished detailing the plot, don’t even think about moving on to drawing the comic. You’re gonna regret it when you come up with a really cool plot element that can’t be incorporated anymore because you’ve already drawn all the parts you could’ve tweaked.

5. Don’t just define the plot, make a script. Writing down the lines and the brief description of the actions serves me fine:

(notice that I approximately divided the pages & the text that’d go to each panel on a page)

6. Hard mode: make thumbnails for all the pages, if possible. At least whenever a new chapter starts. 

7. If your story involves some convoluted chronology shenanigans, you’d better write down the events of your timeline in the chronological order.

8. Backgrounds. You can’t avoid them, bro. Like half of the comics are backgrounds, especially if your story involves a lot of adventuring and looking around. I know it hurts, but you’ll have to become friends with them. Read some tutorials, practice on photos, go out and sketch some streets, use 3d programs (like Google Sketch) to understand the perspective, use sites like houseplans to visualize your buildings better, I don’t know. Just be prepared for their imminent evil.  

9. If you’re drawing digitally, pick a brush size for the lines and stick with it. You don’t want your lines and detail levels to look all wonky and inconsistent in different panels. And I don’t mean the cool stylistic varying lines, I mean this:

Also, things on the background should have thinner and/or lighter lines to avoid distraction. Usually less details too, unless you’re making a busy background with a simple foreground to help it pop out. Or wanna draw the attention to an object on the bg.

10. Readable fonts. Even if you chose to ignore people with poor sight or dyslexia, the majority of your readers aren’t gonna be excited about struggling to decypher this:

Also, as much as I love my black speech bubbles, colorful text on black still kinda hurts the eyes. I wouldn’t recommend doing that for all the characters. Black speech bubbles are usually used for creepy, inhuman voices. And yes, having a colorful outline in this case helps.

11. Probably newsflash, but did you know that panels have their place, order and functions? They do! My favourite thing ever is how I used panels when I was like 12:

(comics ain’t rocket science, but this one is)

The composition of the panels and word balloons always serve for a better reading experience. They guide your eyes over the page, so that you never feel lost or confused. The images in the comic equal frames in a movie, so it’s pretty damn important in what order you look at things and how quickly you can understand what’s going on!

(Eric Shanower & Scottie Young’s Wizard of Oz)

12. One update a week is fine for testing waters. Don’t overestimate yourself, especially if you have a pretty busy life outside it. A stable comic that updates slowly, but regularly is better than an unpredictable erratic one. You can always pick up the pace later, if you feel confident enough.

13. Try to always have a buffer - a couple of pages in reserve. If you’re making the pages much faster than you’re updating, this shouldn’t be a problem. But if those paces are equally the same, it’s goddamn HARD. But on the other hand, if something happens and you skip an update, those come in handy.

If you’re looking at this list and thinking “wow that’s a LOT of work”, you’re totally right. And it’s okay to be intimidated at first! But that’s why it’s important to start with something small. Once you get the formula down, these things will be natural to you.

I’m not an expert but I like hands a lot so hopefully some of this was helpful!

Tears tutorial by frecklesordirt

Simplified Anatomy by Mamoon26

MY FROND asked me how i draw shoes and then i got really into it and drew a whole bunch of SHOES HAHAH I hope this helps someone 

DON”T worry about getting the shape perfect at first bc you can always edit it later!! ALso this is just my really quick way of drawing shoes IT PROBABLY ISN”T EVEN RIGHT SOMETIMES LIEs down

How to do “extra” facial expressions!

Drawing basic facial expressions is not the hardest. Most people can draw a sad face, a happy face, angry etc., but making more multidimensional expressions is more of a challenge. I have gotten a lot of compliments on how I draw facial expressions, (specifically “angsty ones”) telling me that they are very dramatic and well… expressive! And there are actually only a few things I think about when I draw faces that take them to the next level, so I thought i’d illustrate them all here!

SUPER IMPORTANT TIP BEFORE WE START: Look at your own face when you draw faces. Even making the face when you are drawing (you don’t even have to look at it), will give you some sense of how the face muscles pull and where things fold and stretch, because you can feel it. You are the best reference when it comes to facial expressions!

Angles 

Draw the head in an angle that matches the expressions you want to make. It is not a requirement, but is going to add to the effect.

Symmetry vs asymmetry 

A face is rarely symmetric. Unless the face the character is making is 100 % relaxed or even dissociating, the eyebrows, mouth and facial muscles will have different placements of their respective side. This image shows the dramatic impact asymmetry has on a face: 

That’s the difference between a smile and a smirk!

The first one’s like “oh yeah?” and the second is like “oH YEAH??”

The “balloon squishing principle”

This is something I did subconsciously, and I didn’t know about until I made this tutorial. And this principle goes hand in hand with an asymmetric face. Basically, if you squish one part of the face, you need to even out the empty space by “inflating” the other part of the face so that it doesn’t appear shrunken. The picture hopefully explains it:

Teeth 

Don’t forget to add the gum when the mouth is open to its full potential!

Squinting and folding

Adding folds around the eyes when a character is squinting makes a HUGE difference. It makes a smile more genuine and a growl more intimidating. Adding folds to the face in general makes your characters more lifelike and ‘visually relatable’. Like, they look human, and less plastic or fake.

and so on..

Pupils and irises 

The placement of the iris and pupil in relation to the eyelids is very important! The less of the white you see, the more relaxed the character is. 

And then of course eyebrows and eyes go hand in hand!

Gestures, spitting, sweating… 

Adding more elements than just a face is key to making the character actually look like they are feeling what you want them to feel. Just the tiniest sweat drop adds to their anxiety, spitting adds frustration to their rage, slouching shoulders, waving hands, a double chin, extreme angles, the list goes on! Add whatever and see what kind of impact it makes! Does it do the trick? Great! Add it! 

Over exaggeration!! 

Remember that you can almost always exaggerate more. Don’t be afraid to do draw “too much” because you’re just experimenting. See what works and what doesn’t. What do you like to exaggerate?

Now that you know some theory, it’s time to practice!

Practicing!! 

The 25 Essential Expressions (a classic! I’ve done it multiple times)

And the one I do when I’m bored:

Fill a page with circles and fill them in with different expressions. Try and exaggerate as much as you can! 

This is mostly for experimenting. They are quicker to draw than complete faces, but the same rules should apply!

And that’s about it!

I don’t know if I covered everything in this tutorial, since some things might be obvious for me, and this post perhaps only scratches the surface. So feel free to send me a message if you want an explanation about something more in depth! Thank you for reading! And now DRAW!!! ✨🎨

Hair Tip #1 - When drawing hair, start with the hairline and hair part(s). Then keep the flow and volume in mind while you add details!

I’m not the best at drawing or painting hair, but someone on instagram requested that I make a post about it so hopefully this will help someone! This is the first of 3 tips I’m going to share.