How To Draw Anime Eyes

Hi, my name is Laura Watton, my website is pinkapplejam.com. I'm a co-founder of Sweatshop studios and I've been illustrating in manga style for almost 15 years.

OK, this is how I'm going to draw some manga eyes. Let's start with the basic eye examples, basic eye ideas. Whenever you start watching anime or reading some manga you will see that there are these huge big saucer-like things, very, very basic eye, something like this; an arch at the top, and a thin line at the bottom, big sphere in the middle.

A lot of 1990s animation actually had this sort of eye style. I was influenced a lot by it when I started getting into anime and manga. Hence this is the way I draw.

A typical guy would actually be exactly the same as this eye, just without the eyelashes. So I will do a very sneaky cheat and erase; and it would literally be a guy's version. Very, very easy, just don't add any eyelashes - very simple cheat there.

You might have a character that is a bit of an evil character, or a sneaky character. One of the characters perhaps doesn't even need to be sneaky, but his eyes can be a little bit shady, the top of his eye will be, the top eyelid will droop over his eye perhaps a little bit so it will be a little more relaxed, as you can see this is quiet wide and bright and showing a lot of the pupil and a lot of the white of the eye. This character, his eyelid up here, he's not quite sure what he thinks so he's keeping himself guarded.

Again, the typical female example would be just to add eyelashes. You can make it even more elegant, a little a bit more smooth, she can have eyelashes, she can have quiet heavy makeup perhaps. Maybe she's plotting something maybe she's a bit of an evil and maybe she just wants to copy your homework, you never know.

She's obviously thinking something. What would another type of eye be? A very sleepy eye; you've just woken up in the morning, that top eyelid is going to be very droopy. Perhaps, you're not going to have much of a shine in it, perhaps, you're going to be quite tired.

Waking up with a couple of lines underneath that eye; perhaps a kind of 'help me I need some coffee' sort of expression. If you've a baby, what sort of eye would a baby have, it would be absolutely massive, absolutely cute. A baby' eye would probably be quiet large, and in a lot of girls comics the female eye, actually, you've got lots of cross action going on to make it quiet bright and twinkly.

This could be a very young child's eye this could be a girl's eye. It could have lots of sparkles in it. Perhaps she's just seen that boy that she fancies, and therefore she's kind of lost in her loving, day-dreamy thoughts, you never know -lots and lots of eyelashes, especially around the bottom as well.

If I were going to draw an old person they may have lots of wrinkles around the eye. They could be quite friendly, they could be laughter lines; old age perhaps, but they could still be sprightly inside so the eye could still be quiet useful and exuberant, hence lots of the cross action. You can take always elements of each sort of character personality and put them in each character type.

Here this is little Lolly, she might have tiny little eyelashes and stuff. If it was an old man you can always give him glasses, again this is a gentle eye -it is a very rough example of one half of spectacles. The little lines around here denote glass, a very solid surface, and you can put reflection lines on it, if you decide.

Again, if it were an old man you could give him more wrinkles, that sort of thing. If the eyelid was closed entirely you wouldn't draw a pupil, but you would draw the top of the eyelid, like so. And if it was a girl the eyelashes would be coming downward if they were shutting their eyelid fully.

Those are some examples of how to draw manga eyes.
.