How to Draw Realistic Eyes. Plus our most recommended Drawing Course for Only $47.

When we draw the human eye, we usually draw an oval shape between the iris and pupil. Like Ford Maddox Brown, who is well known for drawing eyes well, we draw eyes as symmetrical ovals, we look at them as mirror images of each other.   

In this lesson, we will look at how to draw realistic eyes with a crayon. The eye is a beautiful motif that can be drawn with many different materials, and in combination with the eye, it can look like a precious gem hidden in our own body. In this tutorial, I will show you how to draw eyes without references. 

Draw the round iris and pupil in the middle in the shape of a mirror in the corner of the eye. Use your pencil to draw a line where you can see the shaded area and try to make it quick and easy. Draw with a slightly tilted pencil to capture the large areas and avoid sharp lines.   

This is done by looking at how much iris is visible on both sides of the pupil of the eye and how much of it covers the upper eyelid.

how to draw eye 500
Eye of an old person…

To fill the iris, draw different types of lines, such as a spoke that extends around the pupil, or a line that extends to the edge of the iris and begins and ends in random places. To create the shadow, use the 4B pencil to deepen the creases of the eyelids and shadow the edges of the eyes and bags.  

Take an HB pencil and draw a subtle shade of white around the eye. The reflection of the lashes reflects the surface of the eye so that there are 3 garish spots on the top of the white, and you can draw them on the tips of the lashes.

If the eyes are not smooth enough, it looks like you are breaking up the soft shadows with sharp edges and erasers. 

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The iris is the colored part that looks like a flat mirror image to the eye and has a curved surface. The area around the pupil – the black area in the middle of the iris – is the area that gives us our eye color. The reference image of the eyes shows that the irises are full of lights and shadows. 

The edges of the iris are darker than the rest of the eye due to the shadow and the high structural density in the eye.

Light falls on the eyelids, tear ducts, and overshadows the eyebrows. This darkens the eyelashes, iris, and pupil of each eye, as well as the darker parts of the eyelash and pupil.   

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Resist the urge to start drawing eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair at the end of your drawing so that the eyes as a whole look realistic and dimensional. Take a 2B pencil and draw the fibers coming from the middle of the iris. If you draw eyes in the blue or green light, you can leave them as they are.    

These first four steps show you the details of the eyes and how to draw them. You start to see how the eyes come to life and why layering is such a big part of the pencil drawing and why it is important to learn how to walk from top to bottom. After these four steps, I will draw and show you how to add color, shades, and highlights to bring your eyes to life. 

In this lesson on drawing the eyes, we will look at the anatomy of the eye and learn some helpful tips for correcting the eyes when drawing portraits. After you have learned something about the skin, you know what to look out for when drawing your eyes.  

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These small details can make a big difference when drawing realistic eyes. Consider the shape of the eye when drawing highlights to give the eye more dimension.    

When we draw eyes, we must remember that the eyeball is a sphere, so the features of the eye must be drawn in a way that highlights how they curve around the sphere.

The indication of the three angles that change from top to bottom lines and keeping these three angles in mind while I draw will help me to represent how I represent a particular eye and add a sense of realism to my drawings. The eyeball itself is also a sphere, and keeping this in mind will help to add volume and dimension.

7 how to draw realistic eyes

The difference between good and great when looking at a realistic eye drawing is a difference between breathtaking realism, reasonable similarity, and attention to detail, the latter being done through observation rather than drawing.   

This tutorial illustrates the process of drawing realistic eyes and highlights the knowledge and skills that can be acquired by drawing compelling content. Instead of a single eye, this tutorial shows you how to draw the infinite types of eyes in the world. The hope is that in this tutorial you will find some basic tips and learn some basic skills about sketching eyes and apply this knowledge to the types of eyes you want to draw in the future.    

Note that I left a little too much space between the iris of each eye and the top of the lower eyelid. In particular, the eye area next to the tear ducts is darker than the opposite corner of the eye, so dark that they look like shadows created by the eyelashes. The adjacent lines in the eye more than complement my iris pattern.