Prompt
Choose one of your character designs from the ongoing assignment. Draw 5 contrasting facial expressions for that character using only line and flat colors.
Suggestions for facial expressions
confused, furious, disgusted, heartbroken, flirty, lethargic, anxious, jealous, nervous, disappointed, proud, perky, feisty, apathetic
Tips
Look into a mirror as you draw, try out different facial expressions in the mirror to get ideas for how to draw your character’s face.
Consider what color scheme would be a good fit for the facial expression you are drawing.
Digital Techniques
- Brush opacity
- Color picking
- Color bucket
- Selection tool – lasso tool
Examples
Artworks by James, Steen, Crissie, Robyn, Tamara
Recommended software
Procreate, Krita, Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Paint Tool SAI, Adobe Fresco, MediBang Paint, Gimp
Artists for inspiration
Seung Eun Kim, Mr. Men & Little Miss books, Al Hirschfeld, Honoré-Victorin Daumier, Philip Burke, Mort Drucker, Robert Crumb
Character Design: Facial Expressions
Drawing a wide range of facial expressions is a great skill for character design! In this drawing tutorial, prompts for different facial expressions are provided: confused, furious, disgusted, heartbroken, and flirty. This video explores different ways of achieving a expression with Procreate. Demo led by Teaching Artists Deepti Menon and Jordan McCracken-Foster.
Color Palettes for Characters
This video demonstrates how to create several different color palettes for one character design, exploring how color can be used to establish a specific mood or personality in a character and how to group colors to work effectively with each other. Demo led by Teaching Artists Cat Huang and Jordan McCracken-Foster.
Share Your Progress
Post your ongoing progress in the #artprof-tracks channel in our Discord, you’ll get support and feedback from out staff and the community!
Tag us on Instagram @art.prof with #artproftrack to show us what you make! We love sharing what you create in our Instagram Stories
