Step 1
Start out by drawing just a simple, round shape several times until it is roughly a circle. Then draw a small line following the bottom of the circle shape for the bottom of the eye. You can draw the top of the eye where I have to give your character a young, innocent look or draw the it at half mast for an evil or dreamy look.
Step 3
Slightly above the top line, draw a smaller version of the top eye line to show the crease where the eye lid closes. Draw it at the level of the top point of the circle (the iris), even though you can't see it.
Step 3
For your simplest eyes you won't need inner eyelashes going toward the center of the face. Make sure that your eyelashes curve; generally, straight lines do not make pretty eyelashes. A few lashes on the bottom lid help make the eye more realistic and define the eye.
Step 4
Now we start the fun part. Wherever your character is going to be looking is where you want to center the iris. Add the light spots ("shines"). If the light source is coming from the left as seen here then your light spots will be lower left and upper right. If from the right, your light spots will be in the lower right and upper left and so on. Note: The bigger the light spots, the more innocent your character will appear to be.
This is where we ink everything, and that's pretty much it unless you want to color the eyes. If you don't want to color them, you should put some shading on the top of the iris, just under the top lid, to show shadows. If you want to color the eyes, continue on.
Step 5
Color in the colored areas with the lightest color that will be in the eyes, taking care to outline it thickly with a bit more color or pressure (depending on medium) for full impact. I used Chartreuse here.
Step 6
Just within the Chartreuse outline, I used Grass Green to make the edges of the iris seem darker without making them black. That way, I have an edge without the harshness of black.
Step 7
Three layers of different colors seems to be the minimum you can get away with for believable depth of tone, so I added another color (Dark Green) to outline even more. But now the dark tone takes up too much of our eye so...
Step 8
We go back to our lightest color and layer it again. Isn't Prismacolor a wonderful thing? It will soften the eyes as well as add light. If it is still not soft enough, try adding white to the light spots. It works really well although even I don't quite understand how.
Tutorial created by and copyright © Doodlekitty.
