Asian Eye Drawing Tutorial with Monochromatic Copic Markers (Whimsical Women #4)

I’ll be honest - Asian eye drawing - especially using a reference photo with a model in ¾ view, made me a little nervous at first, but I’m SO glad I chose this photo for our face drawing practice together!!!

I learned so much about drawing Asian eyes while studying the features on this gorgeous model, and hope I can make this easier for you if you haven’t known how to draw Asian eyes, and have been looking for a simple drawing tutorial to break this down for you step by step. 

I'm excited that this reference photo is in black and white. I really love to teaching in black and white because it really drills down the concept of  value scale drawing. 

As you can see, this model's face is in 3/4 view. People also refer to this as a three quarter portrait, 3/4 face, three quarter profile, three quarter view, they all mean the same thing.

Make sure you've got my cheatsheet on these face drawing guidelines before you begin drawing with me, because they really make a difference when you're trying to get the drawing proportions of the face correct.

If you don't have this cheatsheet,  - simply request it in the comments of today's video, and we'll email it to ya!

While I'm sketching in the model's face shape, I add a few lines to indicate where the hair is going to go. It's important to remember that hair has volume, and stretches up and over  the head, extending beyond the oval of the face you're drawing. It often falls within the oval as well!  

When you're feeling more confident about where your lines should be , start darkening the main hairline, the swoop of the jaw, etc. Take extra time getting the shape and angularity right for the eyes. For some reason the first one didn't give me problems but this second one really did. I did a lot of checking and re-checking on my reference photo because I wanted to make sure I got these right. (I love the eraser on the top of my blackwing pencils or my vanish eraser  -depending on how much erasing needs to be done!)

Using a circle template helped me confirm my irises were the same size (take help where you can get it! NO SHAME here!!). I also studied the shadow shapes around the model's eyes and drew some of those in as well to help me define their shape and remember these areas later when I was ready to shade. 

Really take your time on the mouth, because it also is a unique shape. It's tiny, but her lips are lush! ​

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After I got all my lines sketched in, I erased my guidelines and swatched my grayscale copic markers out to compare these to my photo. When I found a good match for the lightest shade of her face, I used that marker to lay down my first layer of color -all over her face and neck.  

​Then I moved up my copic swatch / value scale and selected the next shade up based on the shadows I saw in my reference photo. It's just a tad darker, and I add this in wherever I see slight shadows happening - along the hairline, eyes, nose, mouth and neck. 

Each time I begin adding a slightly darker shade, I place the nib of my marker into the shadows I've already shaded to make them get darker and deeper. These shadows also become a bit narrower, wherever the darkest darks go.

You'll see when you watch today's drawing tutorial, at this point of my drawing, I grabbed what I THOUGHT was an N3 marker. I had actually pulled the N6, and didn't even realize it until I had already touched her eyelid with it!! AHH!

I could freak out, but it's important for you to know that this kind of stuff happens to ALL of us, no matter what our experience level is!! And we just have to roll with it. If you're drawing along with me and struggling with anything here- just keep pushing through. What I've learned over the years with art, is most things are fixable and they come together if you keep working at it and don't give up. 

I decided to move on to the hair, knowing I'd figure something out later to try and fix her eye.

When you're drawing hair- make sure you're drawing the strands from root to tip every time.  Imagine how you would brush your own hair. What direction would you brush it in? Root to tip! This is the same way you need to draw in strands of hair if you want them to look more realistic. 

When I'm happy with my girl's hair, I decide to work on blending out some of those marker streaks in her face. My trick for this is to take the LIGHTEST shade of marker used in this area, and to drag it along the streaky areas in the opposite direction from the original strokes.

For this girl, since her skin is so light, I actually pulled a super light gray that was 2 shades lighter than what I'd already used for her lightest skin tone, and kinda love the effect!! 

I used my fineliner to get some of the details marked around her eyes, eyebrows, nostrils, mouth, and eyelashes. I even added some wispy strands of hair that I was seeing in my reference photo - near her ear, at the top of the forehead, etc. 

I used my pentel pocket brush to add some darker and thicker streaks to her hair, then pulled out my white colored pencil and added some highlighted streaks on top of that.

I added some black colored pencil in the thicker block sections of her hair, as well as to the teeny wisps around her ears and forehead. I also grabbed one of my light gray colored pencils to blend and soften some of the harsher shading marks in her face out.

I pulled my posca paint pen out at the end, because I just can't resist punching the highlights up! 

Remember I'm taking submissions of YOUR artwork for my upcoming book! Simply go to GET PUBLISHED, read the submission requirements and submit whatever pieces you did from the Whimsical Women of the World Portrait Drawing series! 

If you're posting your work on instagram, use #WhimsicalWomen with your post so we can see what you've done!! 

I hope you enjoy today's drawing tutorial on YouTube!! See you soon!!!