Need help drawing mouths/lips!!!

[Doubleagent Bob]

The topic really says it all. I can't draw lips to mouths( and teeth) or lips to save my life. The only way I can draw mouths and lips is a simple boring line. I've tried multiple tutorials, but I just can't get the hang of it. If I draw anything outside of a simple line it looks weird, especially on guys... (shudders).

I've tired looking for some help on deviantart, and I've tried googleing some tutorials, but I can't really find any that are not "How to draw super realistic mouths". Im not trying to make insanely real lips, but I don't want to make lines.

Any help would be appreciated!

[ShroudStar]

I think you're gonna have to look at real mouths and lips, man. You may not want to draw realistic ones but it's best to know them well before you break them down into something else. You can't draw decent hands without studying real hands and you can't draw a car without looking at an actual one. Why not just take a mirror and draw your own mouth, teeth, and lips? You are your own reference. Use it.

[Grief]

yup, like shroud said.

the mouth is a lot more than a simple slit, pay attention to volume and form. drawing from life is a good, if not the best, way of seeing how it works.

share some of your work, its easier to give pointers and suggestions if we can see where youre struggling.

[tandy1000]

Whenever i do lips i always have to remind myself to not try and get the little folds first but draw the overall large shapes and then go in and tweak the forms. Can you explain to us how you do your lips from start to finish?

[Ashtonw]

You can't draw mouths because you haven't been observing them and instead rely on tutorials to tell you what to do.

[Hexokinase]

Stephen Rogers Peck's Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist has a segment about mouths that I found useful. Check it out an your local library or Barnes and Noble.

[Line]

I've noticed that most people who have a problem drawing something, most probably don't understand the whole light & shade concept correclty. People tend to concentrate too much on drawing a finger by thinking "liiine stop, first knuckle, liiine stop, second kuckle, liine stop, round tip" and they repeat for the other side.

Drawing well, even to the point of memorizing something (not that it's required) has to do with understanding the whole volume of the object, not just lines and outlines.

Try what's been suggested, draw actual mouths but don't think "mouth slit, upper lip, weird wave, lower lip, cemicirular curve". Look at it the way you'de look at a cone. Think "light here, shadow here, halftone here" but when you are thinking that, don't just go in and put the tone, think about what it means. Think where the light is coming from, look at the subject and think "light here because the surface is like that in relation to the light, haltone here because this plane is bent inward in relation to the light plane so no direct light hits it, shadow there because that plane is underneath the light plane and it gets neither direct nor inderect light"

Think like that and you will slowly begin memorising the whole volume of any object you study, then everything will be easier. Look, think what about what it is you are looking at, and lastly mark it on your paper.

Phew, that was long!

[Raceme]

I would draw you a little tutorial, but I'm not somewhere I can do that right now. So, I would say ...

First, mark your placement (structure), corners in relationship to the nostrils and tip of nose, bottom of chin ... just a little tick on the paper.

Second, remember lips are wrapped around the barrel of the teeth (maxilla and mandible / upper and lower bone holding teeth). You see those false teeth cartoons?
like a horse shoe? Well, The lips are going to wrap around - so you see them from the
front and side. It helps to draw part of a cylinder to give a little structure here (lightly).

Third, break them into simple shapes to block in. Key here is simplify. If you're drawing a front view, it's one solution, 3/4 and side, different problems. I usually draw a light line to indicate the two peaks of the upper lip, one line - separate later. Bring down a line from each side (lightly) to where you marked the corners. Now look for the center of the upper lip, observe whether it takes a more pointy or softer curve downward.

Fourth, or whatever number I'm on, The bottom lip is more of a cylinder. The upper lip has harder plane breaks moving to turning in (to the inside of the mouth). The Bottom can usually have a softer roll from the inside of the mouth to where it rolls into the chin.

Don't forget they are two separate forms resting on each other. When I first learned how to draw lips, my mom showed me this little system with five oval shapes. Three for the upper lip (one little puff in the middle with one stretched to each side - oval that is).

The bottom was two oval forms a little larger. This little system works great for lighting the lips. Sorry I couldn't draw this for you. like i said, maybe later.

[OmenSpirits]

Stephen Rogers Peck's Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist has a segment about mouths that I found useful. Check it out an your local library or Barnes and Noble.

Love it, own it.

As I've thought about it, I can understand why the initial request in this thread was made.

Drawing from real life is the final way to go, but for some, their eyes and knowledge of anatomy aren't sufficient enough to grasp it, so we have to use diagrams and images to get the basic understanding, before we take the forward motion of real life.

Real life will in the end give realism to the drawing that it lacks otherwise.

Just my opinion. :lifedrawing:

[George Abraham]

Jumping from outline drawing to contour/volume/overlap line drawing is one of those epiphanies of progress. But when you make the jump it’s awesome but like walking for the first time, you need to get your balance and stuff.

I shat myself once, drawing a “figure scape” as if I am a miniature being walking around on a body drawing what I’m seeing, I found a new way of looking at problems, how would the lips look to a little dude that is a few inches tall, and from his viewing angle as he’s walking around on the surface of some sleeping monster woman’s face. It’s like drawing hills and valleys with overlap, volume, distance, slope etc... It’s awesome and I had a little emotion on my own there for a while tricking my mind into doing anatomy in a way it hasn't before my sense of perspective was awesome but proportion goes out of whack as you add stuff.

Kicking the habit is easy.. Ask yourself, If someone was asking me to draw something simple to illustrate something "right now"... Will I do it the old way doing outline or will I use volume and space?

I feel there must be more advanced ways to practice these feelings of form and dimension. I think that is why Bridgemann is so fun to draw, because he touches on that sense in the way he draws.

I feel there is a need to design some exercises drawing simple primitives in perspective freehand but touching on stuff like intersection. Cones, eggs, boxes and cylinders being merged in various ways but then you need to practice drawing the way they intersect, getting a feeling of the forms the intersections make.