Drawing someone from the side should be easy. You only have to draw half the features, right? One eye, half a mouth, one ear. Yet, most beginners end up with something that looks more like a squashed cartoon than a human being. The forehead is too small. The back of the head is missing. The neck looks like a literal pipe glued to the chin. Honestly, it’s frustrating.
If you’ve ever sketched a profile and felt like the face was sliding off the skull, you’re hitting the most common wall in portraiture. You're drawing what you think you see, not what’s actually there.
The Loomis Method and Why the Circle Matters
Most professional illustrators, from Marvel artists to fine art painters, start with the Andrew Loomis method. It’s been the gold standard since the 1940s. Basically, you start with a circle. But here is the kicker: the human head isn't a perfect sphere. It’s more like a ball that’s been flattened on the sides.
When you’re looking at a profile, you are looking directly at that flattened side.
You need to draw a smaller, vertical oval inside your main circle to represent the flat plane of the temporal bone. If you skip this, your head will lack depth. Think about it. Your skull has to house a brain. That requires volume. Most people draw the "face" part just fine but completely forget that the back of the head extends way further than they realize.
Proportions That Stop the "Smashed Face" Look
Let's get into the nitty-gritty of where things actually go.
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The "rule of thirds" is your best friend here. In a perfect profile, the distance from the hairline to the brow, the brow to the bottom of the nose, and the nose to the chin should be roughly equal. If you make the nose-to-chin section too long, your character looks like they have a massive jaw. Too short? They look like they have no chin at all.
Where does the ear go? This is where everyone messes up.
The ear actually sits much further back than you think. It lives in the lower back quadrant of that "inner circle" we talked about earlier. Specifically, the top of the ear usually aligns with the brow line, and the bottom aligns with the base of the nose. If you put the ear too close to the eye, the head looks cramped. Give it some room to breathe.
The Eye is a Triangle, Not an Oval
When you draw an eye from the front, it's an almond shape. From the side? It’s a triangle. Or a "V" lying on its side.
You aren't seeing the whole iris. You're seeing the side of the cornea. There is a specific depth between the bridge of the nose and the eyeball that most people miss. The eye is recessed. It sits under the brow bone. If you draw the eye right on the edge of the profile line, it’s going to look like a sticker stuck on the side of a face.
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The Silhouette: Navigating the "Nose-Lip-Chin" Rhythm
The most recognizable part of how to draw a profile face is the actual outline. It’s a rhythmic line.
- The Brow: It dips in right above the nose.
- The Nose: Don't just draw a triangle. Look at the septum. Look at how the nostril curves back toward the cheek.
- The Philtrum: That little dip between the nose and the upper lip. It’s tiny but vital.
- The Lips: The upper lip usually hangs slightly further forward than the lower lip. They aren't flush.
- The Chin: It should align roughly with the forehead.
The neck doesn't go straight down. That’s the "Popsicle Stick" mistake. In reality, the neck angles forward. The back of the neck starts higher up on the skull than the front does. If you draw the back of the neck starting at the jawline, you've just broken your character's neck.
Common Mistakes That Ruin Your Realism
I see this all the time in student sketches: the "Vertical Face."
People try to line everything up on a perfectly straight vertical axis. Humans aren't built on a plumb line. The jaw has an angle. The forehead has a slope. Even the most "perfect" models have slight irregularities.
Another big one? The cranium size.
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If you measure from the tip of the nose to the back of the head, it’s often almost the same distance as the top of the head to the chin. The "brain case" is huge. If your profile looks like a "neanderthal," you probably didn't give the back of the skull enough mass. Go bigger. You can always trim it down, but adding mass later is a pain.
Shading the Side View
Light hits a profile in a very specific way. Because the side of the face is a relatively flat plane compared to the front, you'll see a lot of "core shadows" along the jawline and the temple.
The cheekbone is a major landmark. It catches light. Just below it, there’s a pocket of shadow. If you’re aiming for a moody, noir look, high-contrast lighting on a profile is the way to go. It emphasizes the "landscape" of the face.
Technical Checklist for Your Next Sketch
- Start with a large circle (the cranium).
- Slice off the side (the temporal plane) with a smaller oval.
- Drop a vertical line from the brow to find the jaw's starting point.
- Place the ear in the gap between the jaw and the back of the head.
- Check your thirds: Hairline, Brow, Nose, Chin.
- Angle the neck—don't make it a pillar.
Practical Next Steps for Mastery
To actually get good at this, you need to stop drawing from your imagination for a while. Your brain is a liar. It wants to simplify complex shapes into symbols.
Go to a site like Line of Action or Pinterest and search specifically for "profile head reference." Spend thirty minutes doing nothing but "envelope" sketches. These are 30-second drawings where you only capture the outermost angles of the head. No eyes, no hair, just the shape.
Once you can nail the silhouette and the cranium-to-face ratio, the features will fall into place naturally. Grab a 2B pencil, keep your lines loose, and stop erasing so much. The "messy" lines often show you where the correct shape is hiding.
Focus on the negative space—the shape of the air around the nose and chin. Sometimes looking at what isn't the face helps you draw the face better than looking at the skin itself.