How to Draw a Mouth |01| Understanding the Mouth Curve

Ready to learn how to draw mouths?

In this lesson you’re going to learn about the structure of the mouth, and how to draw it on a curved plane. One of the rookie mistakes that people often make is to think of the mouth as a flat object.

The result of drawing the mouth this way is that it’s going to stretch oddly across your face, and not give you the kind of depth that you need to draw a good looking mouth.

how to draw a mouth curved mouths

Here’s a look at the different mouths that you’ll be exploring in this first lesson on how to draw mouths step by step

drawing mouths curve of mouth

Start off by drawing a curved surface from the front view that will represent the front of the mouth and the teeth.

The example image from the video is drawn a little lightly here, but basically what you are going to be using as a guide is a three dimensional cylinder to get the curvature of the mouth.

how to draw a mouth where teeth join

 

In this example image you can see a drawing of the skull and how the upper and lower jaws connect to each other. Having an understanding of this underlying bone structure is pretty important, not only when learning how to draw a mouth, but also for the other parts of the face.

Thinking of the mouth as a curved plane will really go a long way to drawing natural looking mouths.

draw a realistic mouth human skull

 

Here’s an example of a realistic skull so you can get a better sense of just how curved the mouth really is.

draw mouths easy angles and curves

 

The curve of the mouth really comes into play when you are drawing the mouth different angles. While the front view may not be the best way to see the curve, when you start to draw the mouth from the side or three quarter view you’re going to really see the curve become visible.

Drawing the mouth from an upper or lower angle is another situation where the curve is going to become a lot more apparent.

draw a mouth upper and lower view

 

Drawing Lips on the Mouth

In this example you can see the mouth drawn from several different angles. Going from left to right, these angles are:

  • Upper View
  • Front View
  • Lower View
  • Side View

Lips have been added to the mouth drawings but it’s most important to note the curvature of the mouth and how it appears different as you draw the mouth from different viewpoints.

drawing a mouth guidelines

 

In this example we’ve added some imaginary guide lines to further show the curve of the mouth as it appears from these different angles.

Now that you have an understanding of how the mouth sits on a curve, it’s time to go more in depth and learn about the structure of the mouth and the lips in the next lesson.

Check out the How to Draw a Mouth Video Course