How to Draw Hyper Realistic Eyes | Step by Step

hey I'm Darlene and you're watching a rapid-fire art tutorial in this video I want to show you my unique method for drawing a hyper-realistic eye from complete scratch I'll walk you through step by step and give you all the details you'll need so you can follow along let's begin these are the materials I'll be using they'll be listed in detail down below you don't need all of them if you only have an HB pencil in a solid eraser that's completely fine don't let the lack or difference in materials discourage you I'm using a mechanical pencil with HB lead to start if you want to use only one pencil for the whole thing I'd recommend a 4b because it's very flexible regarding the range of values it can easily reach the first step is to draw a very light circle I like to hover my hand over the paper and make circular motions once I'm confident with that motion I'll lower my hand and draw the best circle that I can if your first attempt at drawing a circle looks like an oval don't even bother to erase it just draw additional lines around your oval until it slowly forms a more circular shape if you're finding it really hard to get past this just trace something circular and move on to the next step the next step is to decide on the slope or angle of the eye it can be angled in this this or this direction to varying degrees based on your liking use a straight edge to draw that line through your circle it doesn't have to go straight through the center but do try to keep it fairly close the next thing we need to do is form the shape of the eye starting first with the inner corner for this eye I'm going to draw a large corner on the left right outside of the circle you can kind of draw any unique shape you want a triangle a deep bowl shape a droopy one etc try to make it unique moving on to the top eyelid it's going to arch all the way across the circle and end at this intersection here just draw a stroke up across and then down and your stroke at this point here for the bottom lid we'll need to draw a more shallow curve just extend this stroke naturally to the right angle it down slightly and then back up again to close the loop that completes the eye shape but there's one more thing and that's the upper eyelid crease this crease forms when we open our eyes just use the shape of the top eyelid as a rough guide to follow along starting at the edge of the circle I'm going to draw a crease that stretches all the way to the right ending above the straight line so I'm going to end the crease above this line here I'm going to wrap the tail inwards but you can also flare it out and add wrinkles if you want now that we have a structure drawn out let's erase all of the initial construction lines so that would be the circle and the straight line going through it I bought this electric eraser on Amazon awhile ago and I'm just trying it out for the first time it's a lot more effective than a kneadable eraser for getting rid of construction lines quickly and cleanly time to draw some details in the eye where the inner corner of the eye opens up to the eyeball draw a very faint shallow curve to separate the two zones I'm going to draw the iris next for sizing a good rule of thumb is for the iris to take up about two quarters of the eye horizontally for this measurement I'm not including the inner corner of the eye if you want a perfectly shaped iris draw a full circle and then erase parts that fall outside of the eyeball let me just erase the top part the next step is to faintly outline our main highlight I'm going to draw a reflection from a rectangular light source such as a light box or a rectangular window you can choose any shape you want for this step a circle oval or two rectangles on either side you can really get creative here since the eyeball is a round surface don't forget to skew the shape of the reflection so it wraps around the curvature of the eyeball this will help give off the illusion of roundness you can make your shape more unique by throwing in some obstacles as well for example a photographer's head blocking the bottom left corner of the light source let's draw the reflection now you can draw yours anywhere but I prefer to place it inside the iris for an intense contrast after all the shading is done for the pupil let's make a mark in the very center of the iris you can find the center by drawing a cross through the iris the intersection between the two lines is the middle around this dot I'm gonna draw the pupil the size of the pupil depends on how much light is entering the eye there are other factors as well but let's keep this simple the pupil regulates the amount of light entering the eye by changing its size it will get wider in the dark and narrower when there's light with that general bit of information choose an appropriate size for your pupil while taking the environment of your drawing into consideration is your subject in a bright dim or dark room I think this is a good size for mine before you shave the pupil you can add a reflection inside or going through it I'm just drawing a random wavy shape and then I'm going to shade over it about 80% so it's barely there but it's still somewhat noticeable next is the iris we're gonna give it a lot of detail to make the ring of the iris look less like an outline let's thicken it slightly and blend it so the edges look much softer you can blend using your pencil by slowly working around the edge creating lighter and lighter lines until it fades to white or you can use a blending stump to smudge the graphite light smudging will result in light marks do this all the way around next we're gonna shave the entire iris while keeping the highlight the lightest we want to keep it as clean as possible if you're drawing a light-colored iris and the outline of your highlight is fairly dark you might want to lighten it up before you start shading since I'm drawing with a mechanical pencil I need to thicken the LED by holding it at an angle and scribbling until the strokes become thicker this will help you shade more smoothly when you shade with a pointy or a thin edge it's gonna look really scratchy it'll be very difficult to shade smoothly remember that thick strokes are easier to blend also try to keep your strokes close together for a smoother texture just give the iris a light shade of gray for now it doesn't have to match the iris ring okay let's think about the lighting for a bit and how that affects the eye and where we should add shadow based on the reflection in the eye we can tell that the light comes from the top right since the eyelid comes out in front of the eyeball there's gonna be some light blockage just below the top eyelid let's draw that cast shadow on the iris since we're only focusing on the iris right now make sure you lighten those pencil strokes as you work your way down so that the edge of the shadow is soft if you want the iris to be a darker color you can shade it further that's totally up to you again if your highlight outline is darker than the iris color you can lift a few layers of graphite away using an eatable eraser so it's less obvious just roll your eraser to a fine tip and dab lightly if you don't have a kneadable eraser try to shape the iris just enough so that the outline is barely visible now there's no visible outline around the highlight if you want you can leave the iris like this but if you want to give it a lot more detail please continue draw a faint wavy ribbon surrounding the pupil try to give it a random shape avoiding any obvious patterns the more random it is the more realistic alright now let's add some spokes coming out from the center of the pupil make sure your lines radiate from the very center it'll help to start your stroke from the center of the pupil and work your way out towards the ribbon so instead of doing this we're going to do this you can vary the darkness and thickness of each line for higher realism imagine the lighter space between each of these spokes as a piece of thread some of them are straight others can be curved but what they all have in common is they generally radiate outwards from the very center of the eye these threads disappear into the hole which is the pupil so where the spokes meet the convex areas of the ribbon the curves that jut outwards we're gonna create some shadows that give this particular part of the iris more depth making it appear deeper to create a more realistic edge to the pupil round off the end of each thread ever so slightly you can do this by drawing black triangles in between each thread so we worked on the inside of the ribbon but there's also the outside just draw tiny threads squiggling outwards and gradually disappearing as it nears the edge of the iris while you're doing this make sure to keep a small distance from the ribbon and give it an even amount of thickness all the way around try to keep everything outside of the ribbon very subtle where you're thickest most prominent threads intersect with the ribbon join the two sections together to form a vein like structure I'm doing that by rolling my eraser to a fine tip and erasing graphite along areas that separate the ribbon from the thread here's a clear example of what I mean once all the threads are drawn you can randomly darken the spaces in between to add depth to your iris the squiggly threads should fade out as they near the edge of the iris if they don't you can shade over their tails until they do start out lightly working in layers as you go just to make sure you're not shading too much because erasing is always harder than working slowly if you're happy with your iris move on to the next step we're gonna come back to this later to add more depth but for now let's finish the rest of the eye the next step is to shade everything else in starting inside the eye and then later the skin this inner corner has sort of a soft yet bumpy texture to it so as you shade it create a few bumps of different shapes and levels of protrusion for more info on how to shade click on the video above or in the description box below try to keep the shading fairly light for now once we have everything else shaded we can come back here to lighten or darken depending on how the rest of the drawing looks the eyeball looks very flat right now because it's a single shade of white to make it appear round try the contour shading technique by drawing curves that follow a contour of the round eyeball I'm just creating shallow curved strokes along the eyeball my strokes are darkest where the surface of the eyeball curves away from the light so in this case with a light shining down from the top right the left bottom side of the eyeball will appear darkest because it's furthest from the light again if you want to shade smoothly always remember to keep your pencil strokes thick and close together surfaces that face the light directly will be the lightest overall the right side of the eyeball will appear brighter than the left side because the light is coming from the right I'm also blending the edge of the iris out more you'll notice that I'm completely shading in the eyeball leaving the rectangular reflection as the only thing that's white this will make it pop out like crazy always make sure your patterns of light and shadow are consistent by referring to your light source constantly and seeing if any shadows are missing or if light needs to be added remember when we added a cast shadow right here because the eyelid was blocking light from reaching the eyeballs let's shade the white part of the eye in the same way just add a slightly darker shade of gray along the top okay we're done shading inside of the eye for now I want to draw a few details along the skin before shading it over here we sometimes have small wrinkles that stretch upward towards the eyelid crease just using some branch-like strokes to indicate those wrinkles while keeping my strokes light another detail is a small ledge that runs along each eyelid in real life there are no lines to indicate the edge just a slight difference in skin color so when you draw this line please keep it as faint as possible the more the top eyelid comes down or closes the less we'll see of the upper ledge let's use the contour shading technique to shade the skin just follow the shape of the eyelid or the crease and fill in the skin color slowly so instead of shading in this direction we're simply going to follow the eyelid shape if the ledge outline starts to disappear that's okay you don't want it to be too obvious but you also still need to see that it's there it's going to help us later on when we draw the eyelashes I like to work in layers my first pass is just a flat shade of light gray on the second pass I'll add darker shadows along the crease the darker the shadow is the deeper the crease will appear to stay consistent with patterns of light I'm shading the right side lighter than the left because my light source comes from the top right side my shading is darkest near the crease and becomes gradually lighter as I work away from it same contour shading technique down here at the bottom of the eye it's okay if your pencil strokes aren't completely smooth because the strokes can conveniently be interpreted as wrinkles directly under the ledge I'm going to shade the skin a little bit darker this will make the bottom of the eye appear less flat as I'm doing this I'm trying to make the ledge outline blend in with the skin this part is optional but I'm adding a few wrinkles under the eye using strokes that are sort of disconnected the darker the stroke the deeper and more unrealistic it will appear around the wrinkles you can use the cross hatching technique to create a texture that resembles skin just draw subtle strokes that go in all sorts of directions let's shade up here as well and then along the crease I'm darkening the graphite making it gradually lighter as I move away from the dip this will make it look like an actual crease instead of just a line on the drawing you can skip this next step if you're satisfied with a level of smoothness in the skin it will remove a small layer of graphite making your drawing appear a little bit lighter so beware I'm just using a soft piece of tissue wrapped around my finger to smudge the graphite getting the graphite bits to fill all those tiny valleys within the paper which should make the drawing look much smoother I'm sort of following the direction in which I shaded and I'm using a different area of the tissue as I move from section to section so that I don't smear darker graphite into a lighter zone which would create an unwanted blemish I'm also avoiding everything inside the iris because I don't want any of those details to be blurred and to keep that reflection clean again as I mentioned the drawing will appear a little bit lighter after you've done this here's what it looked like before I use the tissue paper and after I'm just gonna go back in and darken some areas again to bring back the level of depth that was lost again I'm just shading dark areas darker because the tissue made it look lighter than I prefer if you want to skip to the next step navigate to the time stamp displayed on the screen now the eye just doesn't look right without lashes so let's draw those next so the way I draw lashes is I draw 3 on each lid to start each pointing in a different direction like so once you have the three lashes drawn on each eyelid the rest should be very simple to fill in if you're having a little difficulty picturing the lash in 3d you can think of each lash as the letter J as you draw each one working from the outside in pinch the J until the space in between become so narrow that it turns into a straight line now if you want to be safe and plan out the shape and position of each and every lash you can do so by drawing them in very lightly so they'll be easy to erase this step is best done with the pointiest edge of a thin mechanical pencil mine is a 0.5 millimeter each of these lashes are rooted near the perimeter of the eyelids ledge try to keep your lashes close to that but avoid drawing them like a row of perfectly planted crops because these hairs grow in a more random fashion here's a clear example of what I mean I'm gonna go ahead and draw them in fairly dark using a 4b LED this will allow me to create darker strokes that don't require much downward pressure if you want to draw a lighter hairs stick to an HB or harder pencil when drawing lashes close together you can make the ends meet forming a triangle or a tent keep in mind that some randomness will look a lot more natural some lashes do grow in random directions so it's good to toss in a few that deviate from the majority so instead of drawing all the lashes in a boring predictable pattern create some randomness like this example here are a few more things I want to mention the bottom lashes are usually much shorter and thinner than the top and lashes closer to the inner corner of the eye whether they're on the top or bottom are the shortest and thinnest of them all when you're drawing lashes on females don't forget that you can give her mascara for anyone who isn't familiar with mascara it's a thick black liquid that you can apply to your lashes to make them appear thicker and fuller now I know someone you like to watch the whole process so I'm not going to cut this part short if you want to go to the next step please fall with the video to the time indicated on the screen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] if some lashes are too long you can easily shorten them by rolling your kneadable eraser to a very fine tip and dabbing the graphite away little by little ok I'm done with that now since I added a new element to the drawing lashes I will need to include a few small details resulting from that addition with these new lashes growing out of the skin the skin texture may look slightly different than before what do I mean by that sometimes a bump may form at the root of a hair here's a really exaggerated example of what I mean some people may have larger bumps than others and some none at all from my observation so if you want you can follow me with this step or skip it completely it's up to you such bumps will create shadows no matter the size let's shave the bumps along the root of each eyelash I'm doing a very light circular motion like so I'm being really sloppy because the skin here is almost hidden behind the thick wall of lashes but I still want some of that skin texture to show through it's just a small added detail all right well we move on to the bottom lashes the skin is much more visible because there are so few lashes so we can't really be a sloppy let me draw another diagram zooming in on the hair and skin bump the light comes from above so the shadow will be located at the base and underside of the bump I'm shading in tiny circular motions for added texture this diagram is also exaggerated let's draw more subtle shadows than that just deepening these wrinkles by making them darker here's a little test for you do the lashes effect anything else in the drawing if so what is it if you said that they block light creating cast shadows you're correct although they are very thin they do block a small amount of light it's most noticeable under the top lid it adds another layer of shadow along the eyeball just add a very light layer of graphite since we're working around this area already let's add a bunch of lash reflections at the top of the rectangular highlight it's just a mirror reflection of what's above I'm drawing short lines and very deep view shapes hold on let me add some darker shadows here these are singled out cast shadows from the eyelashes above the next and very last step is to make the drawing pop out of the page take a step back or a few steps from your sketchbook and look at where you could darken or lighten the eye this step is super fun so you have to make sure that your eye is fully or almost fully shaded in order for this step to really make a difference especially if your paper is white there shouldn't be too much paper colors showing through if there is try to shade a light layer of graphite over the area I'm still using the 4b lead just gonna go over the darkest areas and deepen those values further to create a higher contrast in other words I want to create a bigger difference between dark and light just going in and making dark areas darker than they were before this gives the drawing more depth if you're using an HB pencil for this it might be difficult to create these dark values because the pencil is meant for lighter work if your paper starts to become wrinkly due to all the friction it's probably a good idea to leave it at that I'm not going to narrate this because I'm just amplifying dark values so if you want to skip to the next step navigate to the time stamp displayed on the screen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] once you're satisfied use a white gel pen or a correction fluid to add a bright white inside the eye to create that glassy look where the light is intensely reflected aim for areas that are especially wet here I'm going along the edge of where the bottom eyelid touches the eyeball there's always an extra bit of fluid around here smooth wet surfaces reflect a lot more light than dry matte once this area near the tear duct is also very moist just add little bits of white in the lightest zones just going to use this gel to increase the size of the main highlight and clean up some of those eyelash reflections I'm not going to color the whole thing white because it's good to have some slight variation in value it's very rare for a large area to be completely white or on the other hand completely black if you want to tone back some of the white gel or whiteout you can always use your pencil to shade over it after it has dried if you don't have a white gel pen pencil crayon or correction fluid just use your eraser to lighten these zones as much as you possibly can just doing a final check I might as well darken some of that detail in the iris amplifying those darkest tones for a more dramatic look let me show you the difference here's the IRS before-and-after it looks a little deeper now if your eyeball doesn't look round enough you can always darken the value some more until it takes on the right shape just remember to keep the value transition very gradual a hard edge such as this may break the illusion of a round surface for more info on how to shade click on the video above or in the description box below alright I hope you guys enjoyed that and found it easy to follow if you did please give the video a thumbs up and let me know how it went for you in the comments also if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to my channel and hit the bell icon to get notified every time I post a new video

Channel: RapidFireArt

Views: 14,227,209

Rating: 4.8829908 out of 5

Keywords: how to draw a realistic eye, how to draw hyper realistic eyes, how to draw realistic eyes for beginners, drawing eyes for beginners, how to draw eyes for beginners, how to draw eyes step by step, detailed steps for drawing eyes, how to draw eyes easy, how to draw realistic eyes step by step for beginners, how to draw realistic eyes with pencil, how to draw realistic eyes easy step by step

Id: zqNZ9df0tho

Length: 51min 0sec (3060 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2018