How To Draw Elves

I'm going to show you how to draw an elf, and you're going to need a pencil and I would always use a rubber for mistakes. First of all, I'm going to draw a sort of a circle, very pale, and then, I am going to draw an upside triangle - that would be the best way to describe it - but obviously without pointed edges. Then, I'm going to draw a line running down the middle, and that is to indicate the middle of the face because my elf is going to be turned slightly away from us, they're not face on.

Then, we need to draw a guideline for where we want the eyes to appear, and then a guideline for the nose, and then one for the mouth. Now, these outside lines can be, and probably will be, adjusted as you go along. Next, we want to indicate the edge of the face, so we want just the same in a human face, we need the brow bone and we need to indicate the cheekbone, and I'm going to really emphasize the cheekbone in an elf (it is quite prominent).

And then the hint of a chin, then we come across with the jaw line and up. I'm not going to draw any more of that for the moment. Next, I'm going to draw in the ears.

Now, an elf characteristically has rather large Spock-like pointed ears, so we're just going to draw the outside shape for the moment, and the same for the other side. Keep it all very light for the moment, so that for a later state, if you want to alter anything, you can. Now, at this stage, I'm going to draw in the back of the neck and the front of the neck.

Obviously, I'm going to concentrate today on just the face because, to be honest, the rest of the body of an elf is pretty much the same as the human figure (although I would make them look quite slim if I was doing that). So, I'm just going to do the face today. Next, we're going to draw in the nose, and we want to keep the nose quite petite and small on an elf, which is another characteristic of most elves, and I think of Tolkien's elves, and then, we bring the top of the nose up, so we're keeping the nose quite small.

Next, we're going to draw in the mouth, so we need to draw the bridge with the mouth in, and I'm going to have my elf smiling a little bit - I think that would be quite nice. So that's the middle of the mouth, and then I need to draw the top of the mouth like this, and the bottom of the mouth. Now, already, I'm really putting the mouth in a slightly different position from my original mark.

You might find as you go along, you will be doing the same thing as well (there's really nothing wrong with that). And then to give the mouth a three-dimensional fill, a little trick that a lot of artists use is to put a little shading just inside like so. So not to the edge, because immediately if you do that, it will flatten, so next, we're going to look at the eyebrows and on an elf, they're going to really arch upwards and be quite expressive, and you can make them quite long, longer than a human's eyebrows would be.

For the eyes, I would make a line here for the center and then a line on the other side, so then you can get the placing of the eyes correct and also for the fact that they slump quite a lot as well. And then, you need to actually draw either side of that line the shape of the eye itself, and on the bottom like so, and then we do exactly the same on the other side and the under-part of the eye. So that's the basic shape for the eyes.

Now, the pupils, I would do them center - the last thing you want is a cross-eyed elf. Obviously, the left eye is going to turn inward slightly, because this elf is looking at us, so you must be aware of that; if you try to centralize this eye, he or she would look very odd indeed. Okay, next, we need to center the pupils, that's the same on both eyes, in the center.

Now, a little trick you can use with eyes to make them more liquid and to make them look more alive is to quarter a section of the eye in each, then shade in the large part. Immediately, you get this kind of wet looking eye with