How to draw ears on a head
Hello and welcome to Anatomy of a Sketch!
My name is Leah, and today I will be helping you understand the anatomy of ears, and how to draw them.
I am going to make this a super easy tutorial and keep it as simple as possible.
We will go over both how to draw ears from the front and how to draw ears from the side, and it will be less of a step-by-step and more of an observation of shape.
While this won’t be my typical step-by-step walkthrough, I hope it can be helpful to you in learning more about the shape of the ears, and their anatomy.
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The Anatomy of an Ear
Real quick, let’s go over the basic anatomy of an ear!
Before we can draw any part of the human body, we need to understand how it looks, its shape, and its form.
The ear is made up of 7 standard parts (the skin pit and skin tag pictured above are irregular).
Image credit to medlineplus.gov
The Helix, or the outside ridge of the ear.
Antihelical fold, or the space between the Helix and the Antihelix ridge.
The Antihelix, that large ridge in the middle that sticks out.
The External Auditory Canal, or the hole that leads to the eardrum and inner ear.
The Tragus is the small piece of cartilage that protects the Canal.
The Antitragus is the cartilage that sticks out underneath the Tragus.
And the Lobule, otherwise and more commonly known as the earlobe at the bottom of the ear.
The reason for going over these now is that we will be drawing each piece of the ear below.
How to draw ears from the front
When drawing ears from the front (when the character is facing forward), we want to be sure to use the correct proportions.
Like in the image above, the ears sit between the eyebrow line and the bottom of the nose.
Let’s get into drawing an ear from the front in detail.
In the image below, I have lightly sketched the side of the face and made marks where I want the ear to be.
The shape of the ear from this range is thin and ovular, but you can still see it’s shape.
After finishing my sketch, I traced over it on a new layer with a darker pen for detailed work.
Looking at the picture above, you can see some of the inside folds of the ear.
The shape of the ear will change slightly depending on the angle, and shape of the individual character’s ears.
How to draw ears from the side
Here is my basic sketch of an ear from the side.
This is all done with a pencil, you can see the rough hairy lines.
I always do this first to block out the shading and get an idea of what I want my image to look like.
Next, we move on to outlining.
Here, I faded the original pencil sketch and added a new layer on top.
This new layer has smoother lines, and you can see that I changed the shape of my lines a bit.
In this next step, I hid the sketch layer so you can see my final image.
This is just the linework, but you can see the basic shapes of the inside of the ear.
Below, I have labeled the different parts of the ear.
The only one from our reference photo at the beginning that I did not go into detail with is the external auditory canal.
That is because, for me, I would draw that part when I shade the image.
I have a full tutorial on how to draw a side profile that could be helpful for this.
Dimensions of the Ear
So, where does the ear sit on the head?
The height of the ears can be found easily by looking at the eyebrows and nose.
Looking at the image below, you will see that the white bars are right at the base of the eyebrow and the bottom of the nose, and the ear fits right between.
Making sure you have the correct placement will make all the difference in your portrait drawings!
Also, don’t ever feel like you have to draw your ears the same on every character.
Some characters have round ears.
Some have large ears, and some characters have narrow ears.
And I mean, if you’re drawing an elf character you may be drawing pointed ears!
All ears have the same parts but can have very different shapes.
It’s not a big thing that a lot of people will notice, but you can vary the shapes and sizes of your character’s ears, and it does add some depth to the character design.
If you have any questions, or would like me to do more of a step-by-step tutorial on drawing ears, please leave a comment!
I do read all my comments and try to send a reply as fast as possible.
Have fun drawing!
Want to learn how to illustrate in full color?
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What to learn next… How to draw a male side profile
Thank you for being here today and learning how to draw ears from me!
Be sure to share this post if you found it helpful, and I will see you in the next lesson!
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