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Yesterday, I wrote about the fundamentals of drawing faces, and I told you that the best place to start is to learn about proportion. In that way, the human body might be an easier subject than many others. Think about it: there are not carefully-written rules, based on hundreds of years of observation, for everything you draw. But the human body has always been a fascinating subject for artists, so I guess they just wanted to get it nailed.

Rules, famously, are made to be broken, though, and never more so than in art. I do suggest that you start by drawing several faces which precisely adhere to the rules. Then, when you know what you are doing, you can start to play around.

As I hinted yesterday, not every face sticks to the ‘rules’ in real life. Some people have very close-together eyes, others have them far apart. With some there is virtually no gap between nose and mouth, and others have a massive space. And so on. If it were otherwise, we’d have a lot of trouble recognising one another because we’d all look the same.

As far as I’m concerned, this variety in the human face gives you the ideal opportunity to test some limits while having fun. Draw some faces like I have above, and see what happens if you place the eyes very high or very low, to one side or one high and one low. Bunch the features up, or spread them far apart.

Some of the results might be:

> Features high on the face: can look as if the face is looking upwards. And of course, low, can look as if the face is looking downwards.

> Features low on the face with a big space above: a classic baby face. It’s useful to know that babies have bigger eyes, narrower, rounder mouths and a more snub nose than adults, plus the expanse from their eyes to the top of their heads is bigger. And, if they don’t have any hair, that effect is exaggerated.

This method can also be used to suggest an ‘egg head’ or brainbox, and because of that it is very useful for drawing your classic brainy alien. If brainy aliens are what you desire to draw, that is.

> All the features bunched up in the middle of a wide face: This can emphasise portliness.

> Features to one side: Just as the high or low features make a face look up or down, this can make it appear that your figure is looking off to one side.

I suggest you have a good play around on a piece of scrap paper, and see what you come up with. Don’t forget to share!