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HOW TO DRAW
How to Draw Dogs’ Eyes
from cartoon to realistic
When drawing dogs the eyes are the most important part.
Add a pair of speaking eyes to a barely sketched picture, and the whole thing has meaning.
Sometimes I start with the eyes — after the initial shapes of the whole composition have been drawn in — and sometimes I leave them until last if I’ve not quite decided exactly what overall effect I wish to achieve.
But the eyes are always the bit I’m most uptight about because they’re the part of the drawing it’s most important to get right, and if I mess up that bit then I might have to start the whole thing again.
However, with a bit of practice, and thinking about how they work, they’re not that difficult.
In ‘How to Draw a Dog’ we started with a circle, which is always a good place to start when drawing anything.
Circles for eyes work, too.
Starting with basic cartoon eyes, the circle would be black, but with some of the white of the paper showing through for highlights. Eyes usually show some light in them. One dot of white will do it, or two or more.
In ‘How to Draw a Corgi’ eyebrows and mascara were added to the basic cartoon eyes.
This basic eye can show all kinds of moods and expressions depending on where the black bit is within the eye socket, and where the highlight is, too. There are many ways of changing this very basic eye representation to convey what you want.
Everything you want to do can be done with cartoon-type eyes.
But, if you want to draw more realistic eyes, it is just as straightforward, but will take a little longer.
