How to Draw a Nose: A Guide for Beginners

In this tutorial, you will learn how easy it is to draw a nose using its simplest and most basic shapes. From there, you can see how to draw even more complex noses in different shapes and sizes. One objective is to create a unique, expressive, and creative face with personality.

For this tutorial, I mainly used Clip Studio Paint EX for iPad, although you can adapt all the explanations to other graphic apps such as Procreate, Photoshop, etc.

 

 

1. Basic structure of a nose

Before you start drawing noses in different styles and shapes, it’s best to secure your understanding of its basic structure. Once you grasp the basic foundation for a nose, it greatly helps when recreating it in another drawing style, from realistic to anime. If you follow this order, it will be much easier to draw the nose you need even without a face drawing reference.

 

Try to imagine the different basic shapes that make up a nose and break it down. Using flat and rectangular shapes will help you understand its volume. Below, we have various simplifications of the nose, separated by color. For the main structure of the nose, imagine a rectangle that can be narrowed at will as it gets closer to the tip of the nose. Or try to enlarge it a bit more when you are looking for a nose with wider nostrils.

 

 

2. Rounding out the shapes

Once you understand the basic structure of the nose, translate those rectangular and flattened elements into curved and spherical shapes. This will gradually begin to resemble a realistic nose. These are your first steps to sketching an easy drawing of a nose.

 

 

Notice how a nose can be realistically represented. Take the shaded areas into account to help understand the volumes. Once you have analyzed these shapes, try to blend them together. Use face references, photographs, etc. for this step. You can find tons of face reference images on sites like ArtStation or Pinterest. Try finding nose references from all angles, including from the side and from the front.

 

 

To easily represent the tip of the nose, draw a bigger sphere in the center, with two small ones on the sides. Sizes can vary depending on how you want the nose to look and feel free to add a rectangular structure to better understand each side of the nose.

 

 

3. Nose placement

Once we know the basic structure of the nose, let us look at how to fit it into the face. Several aspects and proportions must be taken into account. The nose is on the same vertical guideline that roughly divides the face into two. Its size can also be related to the ears. Often, if the nose is big, the ears are big, too. To designate where the nostrils fall, we can use the tear duct as a reference point.

 

 

4. Nose proportions according to sex and age

Once the basic structure of the nose has been fully understood, let us concentrate on how to use the right type of nose for each character. Research and identify different individual features that allow you to see age or sex differences between characters. A typical male nose differs from a female nose in that it usually has a more noticeable septum and larger nostrils. A more feminine nose would have a thinner septum and smaller nostrils. You can also round or sharpen the tip of the nose to make it a little thinner.

 

 

Another aspect to consider is age. As their body is still growing, children’s noses are much smaller than those of adults. You can see the same pattern when comparing the nose of an adult to that of an older adult. Look at how an older man’s nose is larger and drops down further compared to that of a middle-aged adult.

 

 

5. Nose types

Depending on the shape of the nose, the character acquires specific facial features. You can create a diverse cast of characters using different structures to make different nose types, thicker or thinner, with a high bridge or low bridge, and different sized nostrils. In the example below, I decided to draw a prominent nose on the three characters on top, and a smaller, sharper nose on the three characters on the bottom. The impression of the character will change just by changing something as humble as the nose.

 

 

When designing a character, it is interesting to experiment as you decide on your final design. In this case, let me show you an example of how different types of noses work on the same female face drawing.

 

 

6. Drawing a nose using different styles

Depending on their art styles, artists approach drawing noses differently and represent them in various ways in face line drawings. Here are five different interpretations of a nose. The first is a simple anime nose, the second is in a Disney style, the third is with an American comic book style, the fourth is my own style (I call it Stylish), and the fifth is a more realistic/semi-realistic take on my Stylish nose.

 

 

7. Applying noses to an illustration

To finish up the tutorial, let’s take a look at this step-by-step nose drawing so you can see how it is put together with the other elements that make up the face. I have drawn a small freckled nose to create some texture to the skin in the nose area. Note how important it is to know where to place highlights and shadows to achieve depth and volume. I always add some shine to the sides of the nostrils and at the tip, while using a darker shadow under the nose. The color of your illustration depends greatly on lighting, in addition to the character themselves. In my image, I used a neutral light source.

 

 

This concludes this tutorial! I hope you learned something new about drawing noses.

 

 

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