How To Break Down Faces: Simple Construction—From Potato Heads to Portraits That Don’t Suck
Let’s throw all the high-minded “just draw what you see” advice in the trash for a second. The face is a freakin’ minefield. If you’re not methodical, honest, and a little ruthless, you’re going to churn out an army of lumpy, haunted vegetables with eyes in all the wrong places. Drawing faces isn’t some mystical gift—it’s construction. Bricks, beams, and blueprints. The best portraits start as glorified stick figures and ugly ovals. If you’re skipping structure, you’re not drawing faces; you’re just doodling weird fruit with ears.
I’ve turned out enough “faces” that looked like they’d seen the Ark of the Covenant to know that this method works. If you can break a face into pieces and build it, you can make anyone recognizable—your mom, your enemy, even yourself.
Confession: My Early Portraits Looked Like Deformed Potatoes on Acid
We’ve all been there. Eyes too high, mouth sliding off the chin, ears growing like weeds. My sketchbooks were haunted with these mutant heads. The day I learned to break faces down—like a bricklayer, not a magician—was the day my portraits started looking human.
Step-By-Step: Rust Dawg’s Simple Face Construction Survival Guide
Step 1: The Egg (or Potato) Method
Start with a vertical oval—doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s your “skull.”
Draw a center line from top to bottom. Then, a horizontal halfway line—this is NOT the hairline, it’s the eye line.
Most beginners put the eyes way too high. Trust the process.
Step 2: Chop the Face Into Landmark Zones
Eyes: Divide the lower half of the oval in half again—this new line is the base of the nose.
Mouth: Divide from the base of the nose to the bottom of the chin in half again—this is where the mouth sits.
Ears: Top of the ears line up with the eye line; bottoms align with the base of the nose.
You should have a roadmap: horizontal “zones” for eyes, nose, mouth. Think of these as floors in a building. Everything sits on a damn floor.
Step 3: Build Features as Simple Shapes
Eyes are footballs or almonds sitting right on the eye line.
The face is roughly “five eyes” wide—measure the space between the eyes with the width of an eye.
Noses start as wedges, triangles, or just a shadow block. Don’t draw nostrils first—block the main shape, add holes last.
Mouths are a soft “bow” above the mouth line, bottom lip right below it. Don’t outline the whole thing; hint at corners and shadows.
Ears are basically “C” shapes with inner whorls—keep them simple, don’t obsess.
Ingredient Hack: The Plumb Line Trick
Hold your pencil vertically along the edge of your reference (or your own face in the mirror).
See how features line up—does the corner of the mouth line up with the center of the eye? Does the nose drop straight down from the brow?
Mark these lines lightly on your sketch. You’ll avoid “sliding features” and accidental Picasso moments.
Quick Fixes for the Most Common Face Fails
Eyes too high? Drop them down to the center line, then adjust the rest.
Mouth too wide or too small? Line up the mouth’s corners with the pupils.
Nose too big? The nostrils should fit inside the “eye space.” If the nose overlaps the width of the eyes, it’s time to shrink it.
Ears floating away? Keep them between eye line and base-of-nose, unless the head is tilted.
Dirty Truths: If You Want Likeness, Master the Blueprint—Not the Details
Most people obsess over eyelashes and teeth before they’ve even built the face’s foundation. The dirty reality is this: If the basic proportions are right, you can get away with murder in the details. If the construction’s off, no amount of rendering will save you. The world’s full of over-shaded, over-smudged, utterly unrecognizable “portraits” that died before they even started.
Rust Dawg’s Advanced Rituals for Consistently Human Faces
1. The “Angles and Planes” Upgrade
Once your basic structure is down, lightly map the cheekbones and jaw with angled lines—these are the “planes” of the face.
Think of the forehead, cheek, nose, and chin as flat-ish surfaces, not blobs. This trick helps you shade later and gives the head three-dimensional power.
2. The “Shadow Map”
Block in where the light and shadow fall before you commit to details.
Squint at your reference or your own mug in the mirror—shade in the sockets, under the nose, below the lower lip, and the “T” of the brow and nose bridge.
If the face reads in shadow, the details will fall into place with half the effort.
3. Rotate Your Head (on Paper)
Practice faces from profile, three-quarters, and even weird angles.
The roadmap doesn’t change—those landmark lines bend around the skull, but still divide the features.
If you can break down a face from any view, you’ll never be at the mercy of “front view only” syndrome.
Ingredient Hack: The Mirror Flip
After you finish your sketch, hold it up to a mirror or flip it in your drawing app.
Mistakes leap out when you reverse the image—crooked mouths, lopsided eyes, and slanted heads are suddenly obvious.
Make corrections, then flip it back. It’s the fastest “art teacher” you’ll ever use.
Survival Wisdom: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
Strip the face down to lines and blocks before you even think about prettying it up.
Squint, sketch, erase, and repeat until the features fall in the right zones.
Don’t try to “draw a nose.” Draw the shadow under the brow, the wedge of the nose bridge, the triangle of the tip.
Personal Confession:
Some of my strongest likenesses came from quick, ugly block-ins—never from obsessive fiddling with pupils or lips. Simplicity wins every time.
Survival Strategies for Real Faces, Not Soulless Mannequins
1. Gesture, Then Refine
Start loose. Draw the head with wild energy, fast marks, big shapes. Don’t worry if it looks “off”—your first pass is for energy and placement, not beauty. Once you’re happy, tighten up with cleaner lines and bolder shading.
2. Eyes Are Spheres, Not Stickers
Remember: eyes are round balls sitting in the skull, not just stickers slapped on top. Shade the upper lid shadow, hint at the tear duct, darken the upper rim for the lash line. If both eyes stare straight ahead like dinner plates, you missed the curve.
3. The Nose Is All About Planes and Shadows
Skip the “outline.” Use light and shadow to build the bridge, the wings, and the base. The shadow on the far side of the nose tells the viewer more than a hundred lines. Only after shading should you mark the nostrils—and never with heavy lines.
4. Mouths Have Volume, Not Just Lines
The lips wrap around the “barrel” of the teeth. Mark the central “bow,” shadow under the lower lip, and let the mouth corners fade into shadow. Outline only the center line—let light do the rest.
Ingredient Hack: Lay-in With Tone
Instead of line, use a soft pencil or charcoal and mass in shadows and shapes.
Smudge lightly for the first pass, then carve features out with an eraser.
This “sculpture approach” lets you move things around without eraser scars, and gives portraits instant life.
Quick Fixes for Classic Portrait Panic
One eye higher? Check your horizontal guidelines. Drop a new line and adjust—nobody’s counting eraser marks.
Face too long or short? Measure the “thirds”—hairline to brow, brow to base of nose, nose to chin should all be about the same length.
Neck too thin? Remember, necks are thick and strong—they often start wider than you think at the jaw.
Personal Confession:
My faces got ten times better the day I stopped worrying about likeness and started attacking the big shapes and shadows first. Ninety percent of the battle is in the setup—the last ten percent is just polish.
Ultimate Survival Wisdom: The Blueprint Never Lies
Never skip the construction phase.
Block in, measure, and fix before you fall in love with your lines.
Keep things ugly and loose until the structure is ironclad—then refine, shade, and add detail.
So get out there, draw your friends, strangers, or your own ugly mug in the mirror. Break every face down into landmarks, build it brick by brick, and watch your portraits go from “alien impostor” to “real human being.”
See Also:
Andrew Loomis, “Drawing the Head and Hands” (the classic method)
Proko’s Portrait Drawing Fundamentals (online, fun, no nonsense)
“Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth” (Loomis, again)