How to draw emotions in anime style?

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

An anime character with absolutely no emotion on his face looks pretty boring. But it is worth changing the line of the mouth a little, and along with the character, you yourself can start smiling. And learning how to draw anime emotions is not difficult, all you need is a pencil, a piece of paper and a little practice.

Face drawing

Before you start drawing emotions, you need to draw your character's face. There are many ways to draw an anime character's face, but let's focus on the simplest of them:

1. Draw a circle with a pencil. It doesn't have to be perfectly shaped.
2. Draw a vertical line in the middle of the circle.
3. Divide it into three equal parts with horizontal lines. The top section is for the hair, the center section is for the forehead, and the bottom section is for the eyes.
4. From the third horizontal line down, draw a rectangle whose height is 2/3 of the circle.
5. Draw a horizontal line down the center of the rectangle, and then with another horizontal line divide the bottom of the rectangle in half.
6. Connect the top corners of the rectangle with the bottom center point to form a triangle.
7. Now draw the character's eyes, nose and mouth along the guide lines as shown in the picture.
8. Draw the character's cheeks and jaw.
9. Next, draw the ears (their height is equal to the height of the eyes), hair and finish the pupils and highlights for the eyes.

Positive emotions

Let's conditionally divide the emotions of anime characters into positive, negative and neutral. Positive will include smile, joy, laughter and falling in love.

How to draw anime emotions? When drawing, pay attention to the position of the eyebrows, the shape of the mouth and eyes. In a calm state, the character's mouth is depicted as a straight line or as a dashed line. Now let's look at how to draw anime emotions with a pencil for beginners in stages:

1. We draw the character's face, and in place of the mouth we make a slightly curved line. This is how you fake a smile.
2. If you want your character to smile more or be happy, draw the mouth slightly open, like an inverted D, and the lower eyelids of the eyes slightly raised to cover the iris.
3. To depict laughter, draw the mouth even more open, and the eyes closed and resembling two arcs.
4. Tears of joy are depicted with lowered eyebrows, a D-shaped mouth, teardrops at the corners of the eyes, and additional highlights in the eyes.
5. When a character falls in love, hearts appear instead of eyes, and a mouthresembles the number 3.

Neutral emotions

Neutral feelings include surprise, puzzlement, tiredness, indifference, and actions such as tongue sticking, sleep, and winking.

How to draw anime emotions related to neutral? When drawing such emotions, the eyes almost always change, the position of the eyebrows and mouth changes.

To depict the puzzled anime emotion step by step, draw one eyebrow lowered and the other one raised up. The character's eyes should look to the side or up. Make the mouth small and look like the letter L.

Surprise on the character's face is depicted with raised eyebrows, wide-open mouth and eyes. The pupils are drawn small.

If you want to draw a very strong surprise, then remove the eyebrows from the character, and instead of the eyes, draw two large circles with dots inside. The mouth is opened so wide that it merges with the chin.

For a tired character, draw eyebrows and upper eyelids with straight lines, and draw eyes with two dots. Under the eyes we make strokes and draw a mouth with an arc.

To make a character showing tongue, draw the eyebrows in a wave, the eyes in the form of two inverted Vs, the mouth in a slash, and the tongue in the form of an arch.

The sleeping hero's eyebrows are slightly tilted, his eyes are closed, and his mouth is open and looks like a small oval.

If you represent boredom, eyebrows should be straight and slanted, upper eyelids are drawn straightdashes, and eyes - small semicircles. The mouth is open and inclined, shaped like an uneven oval.

To portray a wink, draw the eyebrows raised, one eye closed, and the mouth with a slight smile.

Negative emotions

Negative emotions: anger, sadness, tears, fear and shock.

How to draw sadness anime emotion? First draw the raised eyebrows, then add some highlights to the eyes and make the mouth arch. Tears to the character are drawn in the form of two streams from the eyes. The eyes can be open and look down or completely closed.

To depict sobbing, draw closed eyes, from which tears flow in different directions in streams. At the same time, the mouth is open so that teeth are visible, which are depicted by an additional strip slightly uneven along the edges.

The frightened character has slanted eyebrows, wide eyes, and a smaller iris. Three vertical stripes are drawn near the lower eyelid. The mouth is depicted open, shaped like the number 8.

Shock is depicted by raised eyebrows, eyes in the form of small circles with strokes below and a wide-open mouth that merges with the chin.

How to draw anime anger emotion step by step? If you want to draw a disgruntled character, then this is done with the help of furrowed eyebrows and lowered corners of the mouth. To make the character's face seem even more annoyed, you need to draw wrinkles between the eyebrows, and draw a mouth with clenched teeth. To do this, draw a slightly uneven oval and a broken line in the middle.

In a rage, the character's mouth opens even more and teeth become visible. Eyebrows are more arched and irises are reduced.

Symbols that convey emotions

A feature of anime and manga is the use of symbols to display certain emotions. There are quite a few such characters, but let's focus on some of them. For example, a drop on a character's temple could mean stupor or overwork, while a lot of drops symbolize nervousness and embarrassment.

Another well-known symbol is strands or a cross. It can be drawn on the character's head, cheek, or clenched fist. Such a sign indicates that the character is very annoyed.

Sigh is represented by a small cloud next to the character's mouth. If the hero has spirals instead of eyes, it means that he is dizzy.

A spark that flashed in the character's eye symbolizes his irritation or rage, and rhombuses - a predatory brilliance.

Eyes without pupils are drawn on characters who are very angry or who have lost control of themselves. The absence of a nose indicates resentment or discontent of the hero.

Flame in the eyes is a symbol of anger or determination, and small crosses mean that the character has passed out.