How to Draw Realistic Eyes

The skin on my upper eye socket is hanging down a little bit and creates a fold that covers the top of my eyelids.

For the front eye, let this fold start at the left and cut diagonally across the eyelid, and then curve down a bit at the inner eye corner.
On the other eye, the fold is just a curve. I recommend you look at the next picture for this, because I cleaned the lines up and you can see it better.



Okay, so here are the cleaned lines for the folds above my eyes.
Erase the eyelid's upper part that is hidden below the fold, before moving on.



Draw a thin line closely along the top and the bottom of each eye-shape, to outline the edge of the eyelids. For the eye in the back, the lines have to disappear behind the eye. They have to wrap around it. You can achieve this look by letting the lines curve around the eye's edge and touch it from the side.

Since the eyes aren't hovering in empty space, we have to outline the head structure around them. We do this just for the eye in the back, because we can't see the face's edge on the other side.

Draw a bulge for the eyebrow above the eye and a line going down from the eye's right edge at the bottom.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - 2.3: Outlining Eyebrows and Eye Details

Now lightly draw in the shapes for the eyebrows. Place them closely above the upper eyelid. The eyebrow in the back should disappear at the point where the bulge is at its outermost point.

Then add the small lacrimal caruncle to the eye's inner corner. Close of the corner with a curved line afterwards.

Move your eraser over the curves below the eyes to make them a bit fainter. You can also sketch in a few lines to point out the nose's edge on the left and how it transitions into the eye socket.


Add the iris as a big circle into both eyes. In a normal position, its top is covered by the upper eyelid, but at the bottom there is usually still a bit of space between iris and eyelid. The iris of the eye in the back is also partially hidden behind the nose. Afterwards, place the pupils as two smaller circles into the large irises.
This almost never looks right on the first attempt, so be prepared to erase and correct until it looks good. For example, the pupil in the back is still too large in this picture! I made it a bit smaller in the next step.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - 2.4: Last Details and Shading

In this step I added the eyebrows, eyelashes, and a pattern into the iris.

Let's start with the eyebrows.
Erase the eyebrow's outline until it is very faint and hard to see. Then fill it with many small, curved strokes of your pencil that flow in the natural direction of the hair's growth, which is from inside to outside.

Draw the eyelashes as a row of curved lines along the eyelids. At the center of the eyes, they usually appear shorter, because they are pointing directly towards us; but towards the outer eye corners they appear longer. On the lower eyelid the lashes are much shorter than above.

Now you can take your pencil and fill the irises with many little coils until you get a pattern as shown in the picture.



Now you can consider to apply a bit of shading to your drawing.
Just remember to also shade the eyeballs themselves, because they are often forgotten.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - Part 3: Side View

3.1: First Sketch


Start the eye as a triangular shape with a curved front.

Then lightly outline the larger shape of the eyeball around it.
It is good to remember that the whole eye actually has the shape of a sphere, although just a small part of it is visible.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - 3.2: Fold and Eyelid


Add the fold, where the skin from the upper eye socket meets the eyelid.

Then erase the upper part of the eyeball that is hidden in the eye socket, and outline the upper eyelid.

Don't draw forehead and nose as shown here, because they are too close to the eye, and I moved them a bit more to the right in the next step.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - 3.3: Eyebrow, Nose & Forehead

In this picture I moved the outline of the forehead and the nose a bit more to the right to make space for the eyebrow. So you can draw the outline for nose and forehead as shown here.

Then add the eyebrow afterwards.
Seen from the side, the eyebrow appears to be shorter and curves down at the beginning quite a bit (at least my eyebrows do.)

Now outline the lower eyelid.
Draw a line along the eye's bottom, and hide the largest part of the eyeball's bottom under the lacrimal sac.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - 3.4: Iris and Pupil

Draw in the iris.
When you look at it from the side, it has not the shape of a circle, but of an ellipse. While looking straight ahead, it usually touches the eyelid at the top, but leaves a bit of space between itself and the eyelid at the bottom.

Add the pupil afterwards. Don't let it touch the right edge, even if the eye is looking straight ahead. The transparent cornea is still in front of it.

How to Draw Realistic Eyes - 3.5: Eyelashes, Eyebrow, and Shading

Now let's move on to the eyebrow.
Move your eraser over its outline, until it becomes very faint, and then fill in many short, curved pencil strokes that run from the inner to the outer corner.
Also add the eyelashes, making them shorter at the eye's corner, because they are pointing more towards us at this point, and longer towards the eye's front.


Fill the iris with coils of light Grey, until you have a nice texture.
In the end, you can apply a bit of shading to bring out the shadows around the eye and nose.