12 Step Anime Woman’s Head & Face Drawing Tutorial

Posted on by animeoutline

This tutorial explains how to draw an anime woman’s head and face step by step. The focus is on creating a middle aged looking female in the anime/manga style with proportion and facial features common to that type of character.

The age of the woman in this tutorial can be anywhere from late 20’s to late 30s (generally referred to as a middle aged woman or a lady). In anime these tend to be supporting characters such as someone’s co-worker, teacher, mom or aunt.

This focus of this guide is on explaining the specifics of drawing the type of character described above. It shows how to make a woman appear middle aged while also maintaining the anime or manga art style.

If you are going to be following along drawing on paper try and keep your lines very light as you will need to erase parts of the head in some of the steps. If you are drawing digitally then you should create the drawing in different “layers” (depending on the software you are using).

Above is a video that show how to draw an anime woman’s face line by line. You can watch it for a more detailed breakdown of the drawing process and then read the additional instructions and explanations below.

For more similar videos see the AnimeOutline YouTube channel.

Step 1 – Draw the Woman’s Head

Before drawing the head make a straight vertical line through the middle of where you wish to position it. This line will act as a guide that can help you see if both sides are in width. It can also help you position the facial features later on.

For a middle aged female anime character’s head draw it “taller” (longer vertically) than you would for a younger person. Kids generally have rounder faces than adults and therefore, a longer face will automatically make a character look older.

To help create the head’s shape first use a circle to define it’s upper part. The shape of this section generally does not need to change regardless of the age of the face you wish to show. However, the lower section that you want to draw next is the part that should be taller (as compared to a younger face).

To define the shape of the lower part of the head start with an inwards angled line running down from one side of the circle. Follow this line up with a curve and then another even more inwards angled line. Next, do the same for the other side of the head. Leave a little gap between the two sides that you can then join with a small curve to create the chin. This will complete the basic outline of the woman’s head.

You can then erase the lower part of the circle used to define the head’s upper area.

For a more in depth guide on the structure of anime faces see:

How to Draw an Anime Face (Structure & Proportions)

For even more on drawing anime heads also see:

How to Draw Different Styles of Anime Heads & Faces

Step 2 – Draw the Neck & Shoulders

Going down from the head draw the neck. As this is an anime character make the neck more slender than if you were drawing in a more realistic style. You can define the neck with just a pair of lightly curved lines.

Draw the shoulders starting with fairly straight downwards slopes going from the neck that then transition into curves as they go down.

As this is an adult woman you will want to make the shoulders somewhat wider in relation to the head than if you were drawing a young girl or a teenager. However, this is still a stylized anime woman so you generally want to make the shoulders narrower than you would for a real person.

Step 3 – Draw Smaller Eyes For an Adult Face

Bigger and wider eyes tend to make characters look younger. For an older anime characters draw the eyes vertically narrower and with slightly smaller irises/pupils in relation to the rest of the eye.

For a step by step guide on drawing more traditional anime eyes see:

How to Draw Anime Eyes (Normal Expression)

To position the eyes place them directly below the horizontal halfway point of the head. You can draw a light straight horizontal line to help you do this. Space the eyes roughly far enough apart that you can fit another eye in between them.

In the above image you can see how to draw the woman’s eyes from start to finish. However, you should wait to add their smaller details, color and shading until you get to those respective steps in the tutorial. Just come back to this example whenever you need to. For this step you only need to go up to the third example.

For drawing anime eyes with different expression see:

How to Draw Anime Eyes and Eye Expressions

Step 4 – Draw the Eyebrows Above the Eyes

Draw the woman’s eyebrows slightly above the eyes. Unlike the rest of the face there is nothing particularly different about them as compared to other types of anime characters.

For a fairly relaxed expression draw the eyebrows with their inner ends slightly lower down than their outer ends. For this particular character make the eyebrows wider around their inner ends and narrower towards their outer ends (with pointy outer tips).

For drawing different kinds of anime eyebrows see:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Eyebrows

Step 5 – Draw the Ears Lined up With the Top of the Eyes

Please note that the ears will be covered by the hair in later steps so drawing them can be optional. However it’s still generally a good idea to do so this can help you judge weather or not your character looks right. Drawing the head without the eras can just look odd. It’s also a good to know how to position them in case you want to draw a different hairstyle where the ears are visible.

To place the ears draw them with their upper ends close to the top of the eyes and their lower ends halfway between the top of the eyes and the bottom of the chin.

For more on drawing anime ears see:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Ears

Step 6 – Draw the Nose With Two Lines

In anime and manga noses in the front view are often shown as just a dot, a little line, or a pair of little lines as in this example. Generally, the last variant is used for longer faces like in this example.

Position the nose lines just slightly above the bottom of the ears. First, use a short vertical line to define it’s bridge. Next, leave a little gap to show it’s tip and then draw an even shorter vertical line for it’s under side.

You can erase a part of the center line from step one if you feel it gets in the way when drawing the nose.

For more variations of anime noses and for drawing them in different views see:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Noses

Step 7 – Place the Mouth With the Bottom Lip

Anime mouths are usually drawn as a single line (often broken up in the middle). The lips are often not shown at all or just hinted at. However, older characters tend to sometimes be drawn with more pronounced facial features so in this case the mouth is better defined. The woman will also be wearing lipstick which will be added later on when coloring.

Position the mouth so that it’s bottom lip is halfway between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin. Draw the opening of the mouth slightly above that. You can see a larger image of the mouth’s shape in step eleven.

For more on drawing anime mouth see:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Mouths Tutorial

Once you are done with this step you can erase the center line along the face to be able to better see how it looks. You can optionally leave the little bit along the neck to help you place the collar bones.

Step 8 – Draw the Collar Bones & Neck Muscles

Position the collar bones starting from roughly the areas where the shoulders begin to curve and draw them running angled downwards to the bottom of the neck. Going up from the collar bones draw a pair of slightly curved lines to indicate the neck muscles. The neck muscles tend to be more pronounced in older people so adding a hint of these will again help create the appearance of an adult woman.

For drawing anime necks and shoulders see:

How to Draw Anime Neck & Shoulders

For drawing the entire body of a younger anime character see:

How to Draw Anime Girl Full Body Step by Step

Step 9 – Draw Slightly Styled Looking Hair

In this example the woman has straight long hair, however, its drawn with curves on it’s bottom ends to make it look like it’s been styled with a curling iron. This is done again help to create the appearance of a lady/older woman as it’s very common for middle aged women to style their hair.

Draw the hair in three main parts starting with the hair along the forehead, followed by the hair on the sides of the head and finally the hair along the top and back of the head. To make it easier to distinguish between these sections they are shown in different colors (red, green and blue) but you can of course can just outline all of them in regular pencil (or grey/black if drawing digitally).

For more on this drawing approach see:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Hair – Female

Drawing the Hair Along the Forehead

Draw the hair along the forehead split in two and swept sideways. You can give each side a wave-like shape.

Drawing the Hair Along the Sides of the Head

Draw the hair along the sides curving around the face. Give each side splits on it’s end with somewhat sharper curves in their shapes than the rest of these sections. These curves will help create the “styled effect” described earlier.

Drawing the Hair Along the Top & Back of the Head

Draw the last section of the hair starting with the two parts that rest on the shoulders. Outline these with fairly smooth curves throughout their length and with fairly sharp upwards curves on their ends (again, to help make the hair look styled).

Next, draw the top/background area starting with a little split at the top of the head and running down to behind the shoulders. Make it’s outline wider near the bottom as it will fan out when it rests on them.

Finally, add some folds running along the background area near the neck.

Once done, erase the parts of the head and shoulders covered by the hair.

For more on anime hair see:

Step 10 – Draw the Details of the Eyes (Reflections, Pupils & Eyelids)

After you have all of the main parts of the head and face outlined you can draw the smaller details of the eyes. Don’t forget that you can refer back to step three for a larger image of them.

Drawing the Reflections

Generally, reflection in the eyes are determined by the light source or (sources) that a person is surrounded by. A pair of reflections such as in this example can be fairly common as one is created by the main light source (such as the sun for example) and the other by the main light source reflecting from some nearby surface.

Based on the above draw a pair of reflections inside each eye. As the main light source generally tends to be somewhere above (the sun or a light fixture) position the larger reflection higher up than the smaller one.

Drawing the Pupils

Make the pupils the same shapes as the irises but smaller and position them directly in the center of each iris.

Drawing the Eyelids

Above the eyes add just a hint of eyelids. Show each eyelid by drawing a small curve near the inner end of each eye.

Once done adding the details of the eyes trace over your drawing with darker lines. Please note that although generally you do not wish to give reflections dark outlines you can do so for those inside the eyes as the eyes are generally very reflective and the outlines will help stand out even more.

Step 11 – Color the Drawing

To color the drawing fill in each area described below with solid color.

First, make the eyelashes black. Next, outline a series of little reflection running along the upper area of the hair in the same color you wish to make the hair itself. In this case it’s a darker variant of blonde. Afterwards, color the hair leaving the reflections white.

If coloring digitally you can add the reflections over top of the hair color.

For more on drawing anime and manga style reflections in hair see:

Different Ways to Draw Anime Hair Highlights

Make the eyebrows the same color as the hair (you can color them at the same time).

Make the eyes green (or whatever color you prefer) with slightly darker green pupils. Afterwards, fill in the face, neck and shoulders with skin color.

Anime woman mouth & lips step by step drawing

When anime characters have their lips defined similar to what is shown in this example, usually, it’s to show that they are wearing lipstick. As lipstick is generally worn by adult women this again helps contribute to the guide’s goal of creating an adult looking female face.

Outline the shape of the lips in pink as shown above. Not giving them dark outline will help make the lips look softer (but this is optional). Also, outline a little broken up reflections on one side of the lower lip. These will help the lips look shiny and moist. The little break in the reflection it so help create a sense of the folds that lips tend to have. Afterwards, fill in the the outline (excluding the reflection) with a solid pink. Again, similar to the hair you can add the reflection over top of the color if drawing digitally.

For more on drawing anime lips see:

How to Draw Anime Lips Tutorial

For more on coloring an anime character see:

Step 12 – Shade the Drawing

For some generic shading darken the areas that normally tend to be away from the light. In this case the shadows are located in the following places:

Tiny shadows on the upper ends of the eyelid lines
Thin shadows along the upper ares of the eyes (cast by the eyelashes)
A small shadow to one side of the nose (cast by the nose itself)
A large shadow on the neck and shoulders (cast by the head and hair)
A large shadow along the inner are of the hair and the surrounding hair clumps (around the neck)
Small shadows between the hair splits

For examples of shading a face different lighting see:

How to Shade an Anime Face in Different Lighting

Conclusion

For older looking anime characters (adults) draw them with a longer faces and narrower eyes than you would for a younger characters. If you look at few photos of real people generally kids tend to have rounder faces and larger eyes (in relation to their head) than adults. As anime characters are fairly stylized these differences can be even more exaggerated.

Adults also tend to have more pronounced facial and body features.

By taking into account the things mentioned above you can draw a female face that looks like that of an adult woman.

For drawing a younger looking female faces see:

For drawing male faces see:

For drawing faces in 3/4 View see:

This tutorial was updated with new art. If you were looking for the older artwork, you can find it below: