How to draw people with a mouse: figure and face

Why a mouse works for people

A mouse is bad at a long lively stroke and good at placing a form. A person is built from forms: a sphere for the head, a cylinder for the neck, a box for the ribcage. That is construction, not calligraphy. General mouse technique, without the figure, is in the guide on drawing with a mouse on a computer.

Form instead of a long stroke

Do not trace the silhouette in one move from the crown to the feet. Place an ellipse for the head, a trapezoid for the torso, two ovals for the thighs. The contour appears once the forms sit in the right places. A long mouse line almost always drifts, and the person starts to slide.

Short segments

Where you do need a contour, draw it in pieces a few millimeters long on the screen. Release the button between pieces. Line stabilization in the editor helps, but it does not replace short segments. The mouse still jitters on a long path.

Building the figure from volumes

Height first, details later. If the head is huge, the face will not save it. Measure in heads: an adult figure is about seven and a half heads tall. How to measure that is in the guide on proportions in drawing.

The head as a sphere

Draw a circle. Split it in half vertically. That is the eye line. Split it in half horizontally too. That is the middle of the face, and the nose sits on it. The ears sit between the eye line and the nose line. This is a diagram, not a portrait yet. Keep it until the size is right.

Torso and limbs

The shoulders are about two head-widths. The elbow lands at the waist, the wrist at the hip, the knee about halfway down the leg. With a mouse, mark those points as small circles, then connect them with narrow rectangles. On a first drawing the hand is a mitten and the foot is a wedge. Add fingers only after the figure is standing.

1. A circle for the head and an eye line.
2. Shoulders two heads wide.
3. The torso down to the hips, about two more heads.
4. Legs to the floor, with the knee at the midpoint.
5. Arms on top, elbow at the waist.

A face without a tablet

A face drawn with a mouse gains from flat fills and loses from hairline strokes. Do not try to draw one eyelash as its own mark. Build the planes, then the shadow shapes.

Axes and divisions

Three horizontals: the eyes, the base of the nose, the mouth. The gap between the brows and the eye line is small, not half the face. The mouth sits above the chin, not on the bottom edge of the circle. When the head turns, the horizontals become arcs, but the order of the divisions stays. A step-by-step portrait is in the guide on how to draw a portrait.

Eyes and mouth as fills

An eye is an almond made of two arcs, the pupil is a filled circle, and the highlight is a small white circle on top. At a distance the mouth is a dark band between the lips, not a row of teeth. Teeth drawn with a mouse on a small face turn into a fence. Add them only when the mouth is large and open.

How to avoid a doll

A doll does not come from a “bad mouse.” It comes from symmetry a living face does not have, and from a contour that is the same thickness everywhere.

Identical eyes

An eye copied and flipped in the editor looks stuck on. Draw the second eye again, next to the first, and compare the distance to the nose. One eye is almost always a little higher. Leave it that way.

Lines that are too thin

A one-pixel contour around the whole body makes the person look cut out of paper. Use a thicker line where the form turns away from the light: under the chin, under the arm, at the heel. Use a thinner line in the light, on the cheek and along the top of the shoulder. Change thickness with the bracket keys, not with pressure. A mouse does not send pressure.

• The head is a circle, not an egg shape on the first try.
• Do not draw fingers until the whole arm is in place.
• Put shadow in as a fill on its own layer, not as hatching.
• Save a version before you start “improving the eyes.”

Time to draw, not just read

Theory fades in a couple of days if you never use it. Open the editor and spend 15 minutes on what you just read. That is enough for the skill to stick.

Topics in this guide

• how to draw people with a mouse
• draw people on a computer
• figure drawing with a mouse
• face with a mouse
• draw a person without a tablet

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