Indicate Dark Area At Top Of Iris
Make a line towards the upper half of the eye that will indicate the darker area partially created by the shadow and the eyelashes reflecting in the eyes.
You can erase the line overlapping the pupil in the next step. The reason for drawing it all the way though like that is to make sure that both sides match up and that you have a nice and smooth curve.
What Are Sanpaku Eyes
Sanpaku gan or sanpaku is a Japanese term meaning “three whites,” and is use to described eyes with a white portion visible either above or below the colored portion.
Usually, you can only see the whites of someone’s eyes, known as the sclera, on either side of the colored portion, aka the iris. However, some people have white visible above or below their iris as well.
In Korean, the same phenomenon is known as sambaegan eyes.
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In 1965, Japanese macrobiotic theorist George Ohsawa published a book called “You Are All Sanpaku,” in which he described the condition.
“For thousands of years, people of the Far East have been looking into each other’s eyes for signs of this dreaded condition. Any sign of sanpaku meant that a man’s entire system physical, physiological and spiritual was out of balance,” he writes. “He had committed sins against the order of the universe and he was therefore sick, unhappy, insane, what the West has come to call ‘accident prone’. The condition of sanpaku is a warning, a sign from nature, that one’s life is threatened by an early and tragic end.”
Ohsawa also stated that sanpaku conditions could be solved by adhering to a macrobiotic diet.
Drawing Anime Eyes Digitally
Digital anime art is one of the most popular things on social media. While most people think that its difficult, the reality is quite different. Digital anime art gets very easy when you use a reference image to do so, as Ergo Josh illustrated.
It will provide you with a base for drawing the characters eyes. Please dont hold back, thinking you might do it wrong. If something goes wrong, you can always erase it. Complete the outline fr the whole face, including eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth, and ears. After completing the face structure, start detailing the eyes and eye-brows.
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Dont Compare Yourself To The Masters
Another very common beginners mistake. You can compare your drawing to other drawings from a good artist but don´t discourage yourself.
So often I see beginners artists that finish a drawing and then ook up their favorite artist online and compare it line by line. Just to say, that their drawing sucks and they have to learn more and try harder etc.. This behavior will not help you and it will discourage you more than motivate you.
So look at your drawings and constructively think, what you could have done better and also what you did well on that drawing.
Add The Outer Top Eyelid Eyelashes

It should be noted that you could stop at step seven of this tutorial and have a perfectly normal anime eye but since the tutorial focuses on female eyes we will add some eyelashes.
The first place you want to add the eyelashes to is the outer corners of the eye. Generally eyelashes sort of fan out around the eyelids so you can draw anime eyelashes in a similar way.
Next add some smaller eyelashes at the inner corner of the eye.
Since the eyelashes are fairly small you can also shade them as you draw them.
There is no need to add any in the middle as these usually tend to point forward and therefore visually sort of just merge into one shape.
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How To Draw Anime Eyes 4 Different Styles
Many of the art tutorials you see online that teach you to draw anime or manga eyes are shown with paper and pencil, so its a breath of fresh air to see a digital tutorial too.
The artist shows you four different styles of anime eyes for you to try and draw. Moe-moe, kind, cool, and emotionless is the four different styles you can learn from this art tutorial.
The video has a voice-over, so its easy to follow the artist and draw along.
How To Draw Eyes From Realistic To Anime
Ok, I do have to admit that, Reinaldo Quintero is one of those damn right amazing artists out there. So its essential that I include his anime eye tutorial to the list.;
The tutorial is superb extensive, and REIQ truly shows you the very basics and also the fundamental of eye structure and how the eyelids work around the eyeball.
I do have to admit that it might be a bit too overwhelming, as there is so much to know and learn about the anatomy of the eye, but I still think this video is worth your time.
You might not be able to draw what he draws, but I would take this art tutorial as one of which you can learn from. Not necessarily practice from.
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Shapes And Colors Of Anime Eyes
It is helpful to divide the eye creation process into a few steps.
Lets go back and break it down once more and add the coloring process. Let me show you some coloring techniques parting from the grayscale drawing that we already have from the previous part:
Remember: On top of the basic grays with their respective gradients, add brightness and textures that match the style of your drawing .
Steps 1 and 2, start by making the eyelids, this will help you to figure out where to place the iris and the rest of the eye.
In step 3, add some basic grey tones and then
In step 4, I set the color layers blending mode. In this case, I used Overlay, but you are free to try a few out and choose another mode that you like better. This way, the color that you add will be perfectly integrated with the gray tones. On the right, you can see where the blending modes for layers are located in my software. The default mode is Normal. From here you can play around and find which mode you are comfortable with.
If youre aiming for colorful, engaging anime eyes, vibrant, saturated colors may be best.
Degrees Of Realism And Stylization
In anime and manga, eyes are drawn in various degrees of stylization. Human anatomy in anime is stylized often to the point of being unrealistic, yet still very recognizable as the anime counterpart of the real world person the artwork is describing.;
This is an important point. This means that if we are to draw anime, we must observe what we see in the world and put it through a stylizer machine before we output it on canvas as a more anime version of what we saw. Fortunately, we all have a stylizer machine called the brain!
In anime, there is a spectrum of on one end, very large anime looking eyes, and some on the other end, that are pretty realistic with some stylization flare. I tend to like something in the middle, although a lot depends on the artwork itself.;
You can use this guide to draw eyes and stylize to your own comfort. Check out the image right below, anime eyes drawn on the left are more stylized and the ones toward the right are more realistic.;
In anime, as we move away from realism, the shape of the eye is larger and more round, and the iris itself is drawn larger as well. More realistic anime eye drawings closer follow real human anatomy, with eye shape less rounded, although still styled.;
With that said, here are seven common elements present in most anime drawings of eyes.;
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Draw Your Own Anime Eyes Step
Lets now implement the common visual elements of drawing anime eyes by actually drawing one. Step by step.;
No, you dont have to draw a hundred of them like I did, just draw one, get a feel for it, then decide what you want to draw next!;
To me thats the great part of drawing, once a fresh canvas is in front of you, you get to decide what to do next! You feel like a ruler of your own domain or at least you should feel that way, or rather, you will feel that way once your skill level is where you are happy with it.;
Okay, without further ado, lets draw anime eyes.;So far we have learned eight basic parts of the eye as discussed in detail above, these are:;
- Eyelashes;
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How To Draw Eyes From An Angle In Anime Manga
Another great art tutorial from Mikey Mega Mega. While I would say that this tutorial is a bit more geared toward advanced artists, beginner artists can still learn from this.
Mikey shows you how to draw the eye from different angles, and while its not easy to understand all the rules and reasons behind every decision, I think this tutorial is still valuable and gives a lot of insight into the drawing process.
My Dog Seems To Have Sanpaku Eyes What Does That Mean

Pictures of yin sanpaku eyes looked awfully familiar to me, and I realized that the tilted-up look of eyes with whites showing at the bottom reminded me of the face my dog makes when she’s begging for treats.
If you’re worried that it might mean your furry friend is at risk for being assassinated à la JFK, you can relax.
Scientists discovered that eyebrow and eye movements of dogs are just an evolutionary tactic to get people to like them more.
A study showed that dogs who have a strong “puppy dog eyes” game are more likely to be adopted from a shelter than dogs who don’t. It’s possible that people with puppy dog eyes are just more effective at looking cute than other people.
So does the shape of your eyes predict your fate, or are they just nature’s way of making you look adorable?
You can decide for yourself.
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Are All Anime Eyes Big
No, not at all! Especially the more modern Anime have a lot more characters with smaller eyes. But the Eyes are still bigger than normal and other areas of the animations are still oversimplified.
So overall Style of Anime is obviously going to evolve further, as all styles do. But the core features of Anime will largely stay unchanged.
If you are interested in learning how to draw anime eyes then you check out this guide on drawing anime eyes.
Knowing The Dos And Dont Of Anime Eye Making
Several tutorials are available to draw the perfect anime eyes; the best one is Shinigami Arts Dont vs Do video. A comparison video, also known as Do and Dont, explains what people are doing wrong and the right way to do it. Such videos help you to understand what you have been doing wrong or how to avoid it.
One of the most common mistakes that many anime artists make is drawing anime eyes without proper mapping. If you want a perfect eye shape, use a base or reference line such as cross-sectional, rectangle, square, oval, or triangles. It is not only correct for the outer eye shape but also the eye pupil.
Another wrong way of drawing the eyes is to start from the shape of the eye-brows. Never do this. Always draw the eye-brows once you have finalised the eye shape.
Moreover, when it comes to adding details such as giving volume to the lashes, always do it at the end. And while you are doing all this, draw with gentle and soft strokes so it would be easy to erase.
Becoming a pro anime artist means being able to draw the perfect and identical shape and size. If you are an artist, youd already know how hard it is to get the ideal eye shape. However, the tutorials will help you master the skills very easily.
You can also search for anime eyes drawing tutorials. There is a wide range of tutorials that come from intermediate and professional anime artists. These are helpful because the artists are explaining from their experience.
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Learn From The Masters
Like I mentioned above, don´t compare your skill to masters of their art but that doesn´t mean, that you can´t learn from them. It is very important, that you look at art, that you like and that inspires you.
So if you encounter a problem, for example, you just can´t get the skin color right or the eyes, that you draw look weird. well, then you can either try again and again until it looks good or you can look at how other artists have solved these issues.
So learn from the Masters but don´t copy the masters!
Styles Of Anime & Manga Eyes
Most anime and manga eyes are drawn in a fairly simplified manner where a lot of the details are omitted.
One good guess as to why this is would be that artists have to draw many frames of animation or panels of a manga. Having to draw detailed realistic eyes every time would be far too time consuming.
Big eyes are also easier to see in small drawings inside a manga which in turn makes it easier to convey a characters emotional state.
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How To Draw Anime Eyes Male And Female
Anime eyes are wide and very expressive. They really show the characters feelings. Capture the emotions in your drawings with this simple and easy to follow how to draw anime eyes tutorial.
These guidelines are ones that you can see being used for female, male and the eyes of children. There are also guidelines about which types of anime eyes villains and other non-human characters should have.
The main factor that is dealt with is how certain emotions like innocence is portrayed. In order to achieve this you will see how the eyes of children are shown are being wide open. This signifies the innocence of childhood. For women the eyes are shown as being large and given an attractive shading on the upper lid.
The shape of the eyes for women are drawn in a certain manner so that the emotions like happiness, sorrow, bewilderment among the other emotions that we feel are all portrayed. Men on the hand are given smaller but well defined eyes. This is in contrast to the eyes of villains.
In some of the anime shows the anime eyes of villains are merely portrayed as little black dots. The expressions from these eyes are conveyed by the lines around the eyes as well as how the rest of the face is reacts to various events in the anime shows. To convey a more realistic look some animes will have the villains having eyes that are well defined and yet there is a look of evil shown within the eyes.
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Lets Start With How To Draw Female Anime Eyes
Start with freshly sharpened pencils. For fine detail you want to use H pencils. For texture and shading, use B pencils. The blacker and bolder the pencil, the softer the lead will be. Standard sketching pencils are HB or 2B.
Start with the simple round upper eyelid.
Begin to outline the lower eye.
The eye starts to take shape.
Connect the lower part of the eye ball.
Give the eyes a little life by adding some dimension. Reflection makes the eyes feel alive!
See how the eye is looking more and more alive!
Add an outline around the eye to add definition.
Fill in the pupil.
Shade around the white of the eye to add more detail. Add a couple eyelashes and youre done!
Famous People With Sanpaku Eyes

Many famous people are known for having sanpaku eyes, including Princess Diana and Billie Eilish.
Princess Diana in particular was often photographed with the lower whites of her eyes clearly visible, and her life’s story does seem to fit the predicted fate of those with yin sanpaku eyes.
President John F. Kennedy also had yin sanpaku eyes, and Ohsawa actually claimed to have predicted his death in 1963.
Photo:;Scanned from 1964 Warren Commission report , Public Domain
It is certainly true that Kennedy was often in danger. Even before his assassination, he was a hero during World War II and saved members of his Navy unit after his ship was attacked by a Japanese destroyer.
JFK also suffered from Addison’s disease, an endocrine disorder marked by insufficient adrenal gland function, and after his death it was revealed he also had hypothyroidism.
Ill health is said to be one of the hallmarks of having sanpaku eyes like his.
A notable example of yang sanpaku eyes, those with the white showing on top of their iris, is Charles Manson.
The late murderous cult leader had wild eyes, and the whites could be clearly seen above his irises.
Photo:
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