Lesson 10 - Drawing a Nose

Okay, you've always wanted to draw a perfect nose. Admit it. Well, today is your lucky day. I've picked a great nose to use as our model. Here goes.

Back in lesson 8, we learned to draw the face proportions. The nose sits in the rectangle formed between the horizontal eye and nose line, and between the vertical inner eye lines like below:

If you look at your nose or any nose, it has a circle/ball shape in the end. So first, draw a circle touching the base of the rectangle. The circle should take up about half the width of the box. How tall should the circle be? It should take up not quite 1/3 of the length of your rectangle.

The top of your nostrils come up almost to the top of the circle/ball shape inside your nose. Draw a straight line just down from the top of your circle.

Your nostril holes start inside the circle. If you look at your nose, between your nostrils is a bridge of skin that will touch the bottom line in the middle of your nose. Leave a little bit of room between your nostrils for this. Your nostrils will curve up and out away from the center, like in the drawing below.

Now the flap of skin that surrounds your nostril hole will come up and out, not quite touching the bottom, but stretching out to the side line on both sides.

Now, the nostril flap will angle back in as it goes up. Keep this part of the line fairly straight. It's easy to run into trouble by curving here, so resist the urge and keep it straight as it angles up.

In many nostrils (but not all) the top of the nostril flap will then angle in to the ball shape. This curve is seldom bold, so if you put it in, make it light.

Okay, now you're ready to put in the bridge of your nose. Feel the bridge of your nose from between your eyes down into the ball of your nose. It may have a little variation (especially if it's been broken) but mostly it's pretty straight in this area. Draw two straight lines coming up from where the ball of your nose touches the straight line that runs into it. Take this line all the way to the top.

Now you have the basic structure of the nose. Erase out your helper lines inside the nose, including the ball. Leave just the very bottom of the ball between the two nostril holes. Just hint at the sides of the ball and where the nostril flaps curve back into the ball at the top. Your nose will look like this.

Now go back into your nostril holes and curve the underside back in like a the end of a paper clip. Stop early and don't compete the nostril hole. The rest is done with shading.

And there you have it. You just drew a great nose that looks like the picture below. Time to celebrate!

Next week: How to draw a mouth.