How To Draw Eyes In 7 Steps: A Visual Guide - Biowars

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How many times have you angrily tossed your drawing papers into the bin because you couldn’t get your character’s eyes right?

We feel you.

Most artists struggle to get their eye drawings right.

The eyes are the second most complex organ in your body (after the brain), and, not only are they physiologically complex, they are said to “reflect” our emotions and personality.

No wonder learning how to draw eyes is challenging!

But, we can help!

BioWar’s lead illustrator Gonçalo Lopes created a video tutorial to walk you through the process of drawing eyes step by step.

This guide is beginner-friendly, so don’t worry if you have no formal training in drawing or art in general.

We’re also going to break the video into several steps, so you can read about the process of drawing eyes in addition to watching the video.

Table of Contents

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• The Tools You Need When Learning How To Draw Eyes
• Basic Steps To Drawing Eyes
  • Step #1: Draw The Iris
  • Step #2: Sketch The Eyelids
  • Step #3: Add The Pupil
• 2 Steps To Adding Details To Your Eye Drawing
  • Step #1: Shade The Pupil And Draw The Upper Lash Line
  • Step #2: Shade The Iris
• Finishing Touches To Drawing Eyes
  • Step #1: Draw The Eyelashes
  • Step #2: Add Depth To Eyes
• Recap On How To Draw Eyes

The Tools You Need When Learning How To Draw Eyes

Before you start learning how to draw eyes, you should first get the right tools for the job.

To create realistic drawings, most professional artists use:

• An H pencil: “H” stands for “hard”, meaning these pencils have a hard lead; you’d want to go in with an H pencil first because they leave a very gentle trace on paper, which is perfect for outlines and basic shapes.
• A 4B pencil: “B”, i.e. “black”, is a type of the softest lead; you’d want to use this type of pencil to create darker shadows that add to the realistic look.
• An HB pencil: “HB” means “hard black”; between “H”, i.e. the hardest type of lead and “B”, i.e. the softest, HB pencils are in the middle; they are “medium hard” and your best choice for the more intricate details and softer shadows.
• A kneaded eraser to accentuate the highlights and touch up the mistakes.
• Sketch paper that features micro-perforations, making corrections easier.

If you prefer using digital drawing tools, that’s totally fine.

What matters is that you know how to use such devices and platforms to create realistic works.

Biowars comic book Uncover the battle raging within!

Read the comic!

Basic Steps To Drawing Eyes

The first thing to do when you start drawing eyes is to understand the basic eye shapes.

By going from basics to specifics, you can set up a good structure for your drawing and avoid the struggles most beginners face when attempting to draw a realistic eye.

Let’s do this together one step at a time.

Step #1: Draw The Iris

What is the first thing you notice when you look into someone’s eyes?

It’s probably the color of their eyes, right?

So, let’s start drawing eyes by sketching the iris first.

Fun fact about your irises: they have a whopping 256 traits that make them unique, while your fingerprints have around 40!

Now, take your H pencil and apply slight pressure to it to draw a circle.

Don’t worry if the shape of your circle isn’t perfect; you’re creating an outline at this point, and you can fix parts you’re not happy with later on.

Then, draw a long horizontal line through the circle’s center. The ends of the line should mark the inner and outer eye corners, like this: