How to Draw Eyebrows

Each feature of our face plays an essential role in defining our appearance and participates in our communication. Eyebrows, which differ from one person to another, obviously fulfill this function.

Today, I will present a tutorial along with some tips to draw, style, and adjust the eyebrows of your characters to achieve the result you are looking for.

How to draw the shape of eyebrows

By observing these traits, we can distinguish two main parts. For this, let's draw two guide circles: the first, elongated horizontally with a regular width; the second, placed in a descending diagonal and tapering as it moves away from the first circle.

Once this step is completed, you can trace the contour and give it more definition and style to achieve the final look.

We will now divide this new outline into three sections. Here's how to proceed: the first will correspond to the base of the eyebrow, the second to the body, and the third will form the tip.

In the first section, draw slightly curved vertical lines, which you can embellish with a few small decorative hairs.

In the body, make longer and slanted lines, forming an acute angle. The tips will be oriented towards the end of the section.

Then, accentuate the curves: the hairs will always be directed towards the tip, and the closer you get to the end, the finer and shorter they become.

Finally, here is the complete eyebrow with the direction of each section, represented by red arrows for better overall clarity.

Different types of eyebrows

Taking these three sections into account, you can play with their proportions to customize the eyebrows and give your characters their own identity.

You can thus create thick or thin, long or short eyebrows simply by following the direction of each section. This way, each drawing gains in variety and character.

Take into account the position of the face

You now know how to draw and customize eyebrows. Let's move on to their placement on the face. You may have already noticed that sometimes your eyebrows look strange once drawn: this is less about their shape than their position.

Eyebrows are situated slightly forward due to the structure of the eye socket. This means that they only align perfectly with the eyes in a frontal view. As soon as the face turns, an increasingly noticeable shift appears between the start of the eye and the start of the eyebrow.

Drawing eyebrows according to emotions

Eyebrows play a fundamental role in the expression of emotions. Here are three key examples:

Neutral

This is the simplest example, used to show the basic shape and position.

Sadness

Here, the beginning of the eyebrow is raised while its tip remains downwards. To accentuate this emotion even more, almost in a caricatural way, you can draw the eyebrow with a downward curve.

Anger

In this case, the eyebrows become rigid. Their beginnings lower sharply, while the tips and arches rise, immediately conveying the expression of anger.

Here we are, the tutorial is finished! You now know how to define the shape of the eyebrows, draw each hair according to its section, position them correctly on the face, and modify them to express various emotions. It's time to put all of this into practice and create characters rich in identity and expression.

Editor and illustrator: Bryam