Here are some tips and tricks for drawing eyes. Several of you have asked questions about this kind of thing, and Aamer, in particular, has asked about his drawing of Al Pacino.

Here are 5 things that I would take into consideration, plus a sneak preview of an uncut, unedited video clip that will be a portion of the upcoming DVD on how to draw eyes.

1) When making eye contact, make the Iris round, a perfect circle. Then put the pupil in the center of that round sphere.

2) Add the highlight after completing the eye

3) Don’t draw highlight exactly like the reference. Usually just a single highlight to the side is the best. Almost never put the highlight in the pupil.

4) The pupil should be the darkest place in the face. The highlight should be the lightest point on the portrait. By creating the greatest level of contrast in the eye (highlight contrasting with the pupil) it makes the eyes become the focal point of the portrait.

5) Draw the entire portrait up in equal tone all over. In other words, fill in all of the dark areas with your 4H before starting with your 2H pencil, and so on.

Now here’s a video clip from the eye DVD that is in production now.