DOs & DON'Ts: How to Draw Eyelashes Step by Step for Beginners

Hey guys! In today's video, I'm going to show you how to draw eyelashes for beginners step-by-step because you guys told me you have troubles with that and I wanted to help you out. Of course, you can draw however you like. This tutorial is just for you to get started and to improve your drawings a little bit. The first thing I noticed in some of the eye drawings you guys sent me is that some of the strokes you use for the eyelashes look like this, rather straight and thick. Even though you might draw it quickly and randomly, this way the eyelashes won't look really natural. And even if you added some curves to the movement, the eyelashes can still look unnatural because they are still way too thick and even. If you look closely, you will notice that an eyelash is thick at the bottom and really thin and pointy at the top. Think of it as an Eiffel Tower, so it's kind of like a triangle. To get the top really thinly compared to the base, I would recommend to practice a few pencil movements. Move your pencil loosely and quickly over the paper while drawing a few check marks. Press on the pencil a little bit when you go downwards, but lift it up again once you start moving the pencil upwards. This way the stroke will move gradually from thick to thin. You can practice this movement in two different directions until you get a little bit more comfortable with that. Be sure to not press too hard when you draw. Holding the pencil loosely while you move it will result in a much smoother line. If the top part is still a bit too thick, you can use the sharpest edge of your pencil and carefully draw a thin line above it. Or you can also emphasize the bottom part of the eyelash by making it slightly thicker if the rest of the eyelash looks okay. This curve is not only important to make the eyelashes look more realistic on its own, but it also makes the whole eye look more realistic. If you go back to the left side and imagine we would draw the eye using the eyelashes I demonstrated here, the eyelashes would look way too straight on its own. They would look either way too straight up or way too straight down. If you want to draw realistically, this might be a problem because we all have eyelashes to protect our eyes from dust and other things by growing out in the shape similar to a roof. So this is important to keep in mind. Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to draw eyelashes in different angles because the eyelid itself is wrapped around the eye that is curved. As we practiced in the beginning, you can now practice a few more eyelash movements into different directions using the same techniques as I showed you in the beginning. But this time, let's focus on creating different types of eyelashes. Since they don't just grow in a curved motion but also into different directions, they can also overlap each other or you can also group them together to create a rather triangle shape. To make everything look more realistic, you can also play around with different lengths. You can create short lashes that are rather thin and medium to long lashes to make the eye and the eyelashes look more natural and realistic. Now before we start drawing the actual eye with the eyelashes, let's look at the shape of the eye first to make sure you get the right angle. Just drawing the eyelashes following the curve of the eye like that plus crossing and grouping them won't make the eyelashes look realistic. Here it's important to keep in mind where you add the eyelashes. When you draw the eyelashes that are above the iris, they look more straight up and facing towards you and when you add them to the sides, they face more and more to the sides. So either to the left or to the right. Keep this curve also in mind when you draw the eyes from the side and when they are closed. And now we can finally move on to the actual drawing. Before you start drawing all the eyelashes, you can plan out where you're going to add which eyelash so you don't forget. Keep the curve of the eye in mind so you know towards which side the eyelashes are facing. Also the lashes are usually shorter in the inner corners than on the outer sides. And the lower eyelashes are usually shorter and thinner than the upper lashes. Now you can go ahead and add a few lashes starting at one side and gradually moving to the other side while making sure to add them lightly and in a curving motion as you practice in the beginning. Again, you can cross some of the lashes, group them together, create shorter and longer lashes from time to time, it's really up to you. But if you draw eyelashes that have the same length, they can look a little bit more artificial. It doesn't have to look perfect, you can always practice and get better and better each time. This is just the general idea how you can draw eyelashes to make them look a little bit more realistic. You can also look at reference pictures to see how many eyelashes people have if you want to keep it more natural, you don't have to draw a ton of lashes. If you want the person to have thick eyelashes as if this person would wear mascara, you can go ahead and create a lot more eyelashes, add shadows and darker lines at the bottom of the eyelashes to make everything look more glamorous. The lashes also create shadows so you can also add a few shadows behind the eyelashes and below them. Some of them are also reflecting in the eye. Again, this is rather just a sketch to show you guys the general idea. If you want to make it look super realistic, I would recommend to look at a reference picture and really take time to draw everything properly. There are plenty of other tutorials that can help you create even more realistic drawings. But don't forget that you can draw however you like that fits your own personal style. Just enjoy creating art and have fun. I really hope it was helpful to you guys. Be sure to give this video a thumbs up if it was and if you want to learn how to draw the actual eye and make both eyes look the same, be sure to check out my tutorials right here. And if you are new here, don't forget to subscribe and to click on the bell button to get notified when I upload a new video on Thursdays and on Saturdays. Thank you so much for watching guys. Have a wonderful day and I will see you soon. Bye!