A mouth is a great way to convey the mood of the character you are drawing. In anime, mouths are incredibly simplistic and portrayed with one or two lines. But their shape may depend on the emotion that the character expresses, or on the style of the anime itself.
Mouth location
To draw a mouth, we first draw the face of an anime character. To do this, draw a circle, draw a vertical line through its center and draw a chin. The eyes are located just below the center of the circle, and the tip of the nose approximately coincides with the lowest point of the circle.
To place a mouth on the face of an anime character, you can draw an additional three horizontal lines: one under the tip of the nose, the other below the chin, and a third between the two lines. The last line will help determine the location of the lower lip of the character. The cut of the mouth will be directly above this line.
How to draw an anime mouth
To draw a mouth for an anime character, you can use only two lines: with one longer line we mark the section of the mouth, and below we put a small dash to depict the lower lip. Sometimes in anime, the mouth is simplified to one line.
To draw an anime mouth open, you need to start with a contour image. When open, it resembles the letter D. Then a couple of parts should be added. These are usually teeth and tongue.
When painting over, the inside of the mouth should be the darkest, the tongue a little lighter, and the teeth made the lightest or left just white.
Also, if you want to draw an anime mouth open, then the chin should be drawn a little lower than usual.
How to draw anime character lips
Usually in the anime and manga, the characters do not draw lips, but they are still portrayed in more realistic styles. Also, lips are often painted in close-up scenes, even if before that they were drawn simplistically.
Before drawing an anime mouth and lips, it is important to understand their shape. To do this, you can draw a slightly open mouth in a fairly relaxed state. In this case, the shape of the upper and lower lips will be quite clearly visible.
In a relaxed state, the upper lip resembles the stretched letter "M", and the lower lip is often drawn with one smooth inverted arc. However, if you carefully examine the lips, you will notice that the lower part of the lip actually consists of two small bends that join together in one arc. The upper part of the lower lip consists of two curved lines that extend from the outer corners of the lips to the middle.
Try drawing the anime mouth and lips in this order:
- Draw a contour of the general shape of the lips.
- Draw the inner shape of the lips.
- Draw the inside of the mouth (if open).
- Add lip color if necessary
Since people have lips of different shapes and sizes, then in anime they can differ depending on the genre and style. Also, lips in most anime and manga genres are painted only for female characters. To draw the mouth of an anime guy use more straight and rough lines. For example, if the cut of the mouth and the lower lip of the girl is represented by a small arc, then the guyโs mouth is most often drawn with two even lines of different lengths. In addition, the mouths of male characters may be slightly larger than female ones. However, it all depends on the style. Quite often, the mouths of girls and guys in anime are drawn the same way.