Eye Drawing References For Character Design

Eye References and Anatomy

While you can draw relatively simple and effective eyes without anatomical knowledge, character eye drawing is more effective when you understand how the eye works and the parts. The more you want your eyes to accomplish in a character design, especially if you are moving into sequential work like comics or animation, the more you want to understand the essentials of the eye and how it works.

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Despite the term eyeball, when we see most eyes, they tend not to be presented as entirely round. Instead, eyes are usually some variation of an almond shape. The underlying structure, the orb of the eye, is found under the skin of the eyelids, resting in the eye socket. For our purposes in understanding eyes for art reference, let’s look at some key features.

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The visible parts of the eyeball include:

• (1) Cornea: The clear lens that covers the iris and pupil. This lens is what creates a shine when drawing an eye. Those big shining lights in anime eyes tend to exaggerate the way light reflects off the cornea.
• (2) Iris: When considering eye color, you are thinking of the iris or the ring surrounding the pupil on the eye. Irises can be very important to a character design.
• (3) Pupil: Typically seen as “the dot” in the center of the eye, this black void takes in light and allows us to see. Something to consider is that the pupil will open and contract based on light, so that can influence character expressions.
• (4) Sclera: The sclera is usually the majority of the eye’s surface, and generally has a whitish color, though you can lean into other colors as well. The proportions between the sclera and iris, for example, can really influence the character design of the eyes.

For the parts that cover the eyeball of influence shape, we have:

• (5) Tear Duct: Sometimes artists include these, and sometimes not. They are the point where the eye meets the fold between the lids. While cartoony eyes tend to ignore these, they are a good detail for more detailed character designs.
• (6) Top Lid: This is the upper eyelid and is usually the most arch-like of the two. While both lids help make the eye take on different shapes, the top lid is usually the most influential.
• (7) Bottom Lid: The bottom lid can have a more subtle arch than the top lid and can sometimes be underplayed in character design, but is still incredibly useful in creating iconic eye shapes.
• (8) Brow Ridge: While not quite part of the initial eye, this ridge is part of the muscles surrounding the eye and connects to the eyebrow. The brow, which can be a topic of a post all on its own, goes a long way in influencing a character design.

The Iconic Eye vs. The Realistic Eye

Character design eyes tend to fall between two extremes. On one end, you have the iconic eye, tied to symbols. Symbols are a powerful tool in iconic character design you can learn by studying master designers. The symbolic eye can be as simple as white circles with little dots, or even just a dot itself. It depends on a character design, of course, but there are effective and iconic character eyes that can be quite understated.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the realistic eye. These eyes are more focused on presenting proportionally designed eyes with anatomical accuracy. At the furthest end of the spectrum, you’d expect to see these in realistic works. However, in most character designs, you probably won’t go fully realistic.

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Most character eye designs pick and choose elements between these two extremes to develop a unique style and emphasize certain design elements to convey meaning or attitude. It isn’t just about more detail either. Giant sparkly anime eyes may feature more detail, but they are certainly not more realistic. You’ll see that a lot of this just comes down to balance.

Stylizing Character Eyes

When creating character concept art, you should spend time working on the way you want their eyes to look. Creating many character eye-shape references and seeing what works and what may not go a long way toward a more cohesive design overall.

As for stylizing character eyes, there are four elements to consider: Shape, scale, proportion, and detail. Each of these elements plays with elements of eye anatomy in different ways. So drawing eye reference can be very handy as you experiment.

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Shape

Eye shape is one of the most obvious ways to stylize eyes. While most eyes are a variation of an almond shape, that doesn’t mean you need to limit yourself to that in a character design. Some designs may have more rounded shapes. Others may be more squared off. Plenty of cartoon eye references exist that show different and unusual eye shapes that seem to work.

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They work, however, because they still acknowledge the anatomy of the eye: those shapes are influenced by the brow ridge and eyelids. When playing with shapes, you’ll want to think about them in terms of those anatomical elements. While you are free to bend rules as you wish in character design, some things, such as the lower lid being more subtle and less defined, may be easier for people to accept. On the other hand, though, exaggerating and defying those expectations can be powerful as well.

Scale

In realistic works, eye scale is important; for example, Alita: Battle Angel (2019) applied anime-style giant eyes on realistic faces. It was a bold move but not everyone appreciated the stylization. Such exaggeration tends to go over better when visuals lean more toward the iconic than the realistic. It seemed easier to accept Alita’s large eyes in a drawing, but when rendered over the real face of an actress it was harder for audiences to accept.

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Scale can also imply things in character design. Larger eyes may be seen as more innocent, while smaller eyes may be seen as more suspicious or jaded. The scale of the eyes in proportion to other parts of the character design can be a powerful stylistic tool. When doing eye reference drawing for a character design sheet, you’ll probably spend a lot of time getting that scale consistent.

Proportion

Scale and proportion are different in this case; we referred to scale in terms of the size of the eye in relation to other parts of the face. For proportion, we look at the elements of the eye itself. For example, in a realistic eye, most of the surface of the eye we see is probably the iris. Sure, we can see the sclera, but it’s not as exaggerated as we might see in cartoons like Gravity Falls. Those eyes are 99% sclera.

In some anime, particularly moe and shojo styles, we see that a lot of the visible eye is the iris, but also the proportions of features in the iris tend to be a lot different than in realistic eyes. The iris itself covers more surface area and in turn, the cornea is larger, reflecting more light.

This also applies to things like the lids and brows. Putting proportional emphasis on a brow or lid can have a major influence on a design.

Detail

Lastly, we have detail. Detail can come in many forms when it comes to eye design references. It might be folds along the lids or maybe visible capillaries in the sclera. One common detail of eye anatomy that can be omitted in a lot of cartoony eye designs is the tear ducts.

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These details are a great way to communicate things about a character but are also easy to get lost in. They can also be hard to get consistent, requiring a lot of practice. When working on details in character eye design, aim for what is necessary to the elements of a character you are trying to establish. 

Cartoony Character Eyes

Part of establishing strong character design is having a grasp of character design fundamentals. The best way to learn about these fundamentals is through observing them in professional work. To help understand the amount of variation in the world of cartoon eye references, we should look at some pretty established examples and understand what they are doing.

Here are some iconic cartoon character eye references with commentary. There are so many examples, but the attempt here was to find some of the most iconic and visually unique ones out there.

The Simpsons

The style of eyes used in The Simpsons may be the most obvious example of simple cartoon eyes out there. Round and bulging, the eye shape takes the idea of the eyeball and displaces it to the outside of the head. Rather than being grotesque, however, it is charming and expressive, giving the characters are truly cartoonish look.

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The eyes also have no visible iris, leaning entirely on the pupil. There is no real additional detailing beyond that, aside from lids and brows being applied during key expressions.

Classic Mickey Mouse

Mickey’s classic eyes can be deceptive. The oval with the notch is not entirely the eye, but simply the pupil with the corneal shine applied. That little notch in the oval is a way to create that highlight in this case. 

In reality, the rounded “M” shape of Mickey’s brow is his scleral space. In black and white this isn’t entirely noticeable, but shading in promotional art, or the way an eyelid is drawn gives this away.

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This is the same principle that applies to the eyes of Sonic the Hedgehog. It is just more noticeable because of the distinct line that separated the bridge of his muzzle and the eye shape.

Rick and Morty

The eyes of characters in Rick and Morty tend to hail from the design principles of The Simpsons but add a unique touch of sometimes irregular shapes and the presence of irises in the shapes of asterisks. Rick and Morty‘s eyes have a very hand-drawn appearance, and the shape of the irises helps sell that and create something unique.

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One thing we can certainly take from Rick and Morty is the usage of personal touches in how eyes are drawn. Other cartoons have done the same thing to great effect. For example, Invader Zim featured rectangular irises, adapting the style of creator Johnen Vasquez.

The Powerpuff Girls

You can’t help but marvel at the absurdity of the eyes of Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles of The Powerpuff Girls. The titular characters play on large-eyed wonder where 90% of their eye consists of their iris and pupil, with only a thin sliver of the sclera. This exaggeration leans into anime aesthetics and tropes involving big eyes to create an air of cuteness. With The Powerpuff Girls being the satire it is, the cute eye aesthetic is taken to a logical extreme.

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My Little Pony

Lauren Faust, storyboard artist and character designer of The Powerpuff Girls, redesigned the ponies of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, giving them similar eyes. Again, these eyes are mostly iris and pupil with barely a hint of the sclera. What separates the Ponies from the Powerpuffs is the emphasis on the cornea. You know that the lens is more pronounced because of the amount of highlights on the eyes. You don’t get those dramatic highlights with The Powerpuff Girls, but they are all over the pony designs.

King of the Hill

While eye shapes and proportions in King of the Hill are definitely on the more “realistic” end of the design spectrum, these are still quite cartoony, iconic eyes. Specifically, the irises appear to be almost entirely black, like pupils, but if we look closely at many shots we can see a corneal shine. So the round black dot is the combination of the iris, pupil, and cornea.

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It’s quite a bit like how Disney’s animators handled the pupils in the early Mickey Mouse cartoons. That unique element of the stylization of eyes carried through across time and complexity and still works.

Hopefully, these cartoon eye references are helpful. Be sure to use examples of professional character design as you consider how to draw your cartoon character.

Anime Character Eyes

Eyes in anime and manga can often feel more diverse in comparison to cartoon eyes. However, each style has recurring trends that can be seen in project after project. Whether it comes down to shape, proportion, or any number of flourishes, you can find a lot of interesting anime eye references out there.

Here is a selection of anime-style eye references with commentary. Much like the cartoon examples earlier, this is only a small sample of a far larger pool of styles.

Mr. Osomatsu

The modern anime follow-up of the 1960s gag manga by Fuji Akatsuka sticks with the main design style of the original manga, despite the aging of the lead characters. As you can see in the example, as far as eyes are handled, these are pretty simple and akin to the style used in The Simpsons in the USA. 

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The sextuplets have similar eye shapes, all vertical ovals that are pretty bulbous. Their eyes are also almost entirely sclera except for their small pupils. If we think about these eyes in the context of a spectrum of iconic to realistic, these are leaning heavily in the direction of iconic.

One Piece

One Piece can be tricky because the style of eyes presented in the manga can vary wildly. The series has a wide variety of character designs presented as gags or leaning into tropes, so we’re gonna narrow our focus to the lead, Monkey D. Luffy.

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As you can see here, Luffy’s eye design is very similar to the iconic style of Mr. Osomatsu, only rather than ovals, the eye shape is round. Again, though, the majority of the eye presented is the sclera, except for dots for the iris and pupil. Sometimes a thin iris will be drawn around the pupil in close-ups, but that isn’t often. Luffy is a character with simple features that play off the exaggerated shapes he can take with his stretchy powers.

Jujutsu Kaisen

Looking at Yuji Itadori in Jujutsu Kaisen, we see we are adding some complexity to the eye designs while remaining more on the iconic end of the spectrum. The style of eyes in Jujutsu Kaisen put emphasis on shape by having distinct lines for the top and bottom lids. In Yuji’s case, they’re a little more squared off and angular, but they work together to form something a little more traditionally almond-shaped.

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As for the rest of the eye, there is a little more sclera than one might see in a realistic eye, but the other elements are there, such as the cornea, iris, and pupil. Yuji’s eyes are almost like a step up on the realism spectrum compared to previous examples.

Sailor Moon

For my generation, the go-to look of the “anime eye” was probably Sailor Moon. These eyes were unlike many of the eyes we saw in animation at the time, especially as anime was becoming a more regular thing in the mid-to-late 90s. What we see here is the proportions between the sclera and the rest of the eye shift dramatically. Usagi’s eye is almost 70% iris, with a large pupil. Plus, the cornea is quite apparent resulting in those giant highlights so associated with the shojo look of Sailor Moon.

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The eye shape is interesting. While there are distinct eyelids, with one more arched than the other, the overall shape of the eye is more rectangular. While not more realistic, Usagi’s eyes are definitely more detailed.

Demon Slayer

Demon Slayer’s Tanjiro is a character whose eye design is more aligned with Sailor Moon than Jujutsu Kaisen. As with Sailor Moon, we see a distinct emphasis on the iris against the sclera, resulting in big, expressive, innocent eyes, which befit the character. We also have the angular eyelids, with the upper eyelids having a more distinct arch.

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One thing to notice is that the lens has a gradient that blends in with the pupil, creating a pretty unique look. Because of this, the central point of the pupil is now displaced with large, singular highlights on the cornea, almost as if the pupil were white in this case.

Cowboy Bebop

Among the examples this week, Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop has eyes that most closely align with the realistic side of the eye design spectrum. With that said, you wouldn’t necessarily call his eye design entirely realistic either. The proportions and shape are too different. They are closer, but not quite there.

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However, this benefits the character, as it allows for further expression that can range from comedic to hard-edged. Spike’s a charming character whose design benefits from being goofy as much as he benefits from being badass. His eyes help sell that.

Hopefully, Spike and these other iconic anime and manga characters provide plenty of inspiration when designing your characters.

Character Eye Drawing References on CharacterHub

While you are in the process of figuring out the perfect eye design for your original character, remember that we’ve only scratched the surface of the variety of eye designs out there. If you’re looking for eye design references, check out the other OCs created by users at CharacterHub for inspiration. Users there have gone through the same OC design process you do, and have shared their characters for feedback and to show off their techniques.

Once you’re satisfied with your character design, don’t forget to add the new designs to the character’s profile you’ve been keeping for your project. Maybe you can even write a social post about your design process.

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