How to Draw Feminine Features

Co-authored by Claire Wentzel

Last Updated: May 19, 2020

You have a fairly good grasp of figure drawing, but somehow your women don't come away looking like... women. Here are the features to emphasize in order to create a more feminine look to your female figures.

With all figure drawing, you should begin with the torso, and end with the head. This is because the torso affects limb placement, and these together affect the angle of the head. Redrawing a head to suit a body is much easier than the other way around. For the sake of clarity, however, this article will begin with facial features.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Drawing the Face

1
Draw an oval face. Angles give it a more masculine look. Females often have softer chins and other features, so avoid squaring the jaw or sinking the cheeks until you have the other points mastered.
2
Draw a center-line through the oval to position the features. The eyes are approximately halfway down the head (measuring from the top of the head, not the hairline--hair should come later). The nose begins at the eye line and ends approximately halfway between the eye line and the bottom of the chin. The mouth falls approximately halfway between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin. Draw horizontal lines to act as guides, and we'll go over each facial feature.

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3
Draw the eyes. The eyes are usually spaced one eye-length apart. When drawing feminine eyes, remember that femininity is associated with softness and roundness. Large, rounded eyes will have a more feminine look than small, narrow ones. If your 'subject' has visible eyelid creases, articulate them well, and space them far enough from the eye as to be noticeable. Large irises are associated with both femininity and youth. Long, dark, well-illustrated eyelashes on both upper and lower lids are possibly considered the most feminine of the eye features. Remember that eyelashes curve outward as well as upward.
4
Master drawing the nose. The nose is one of the most difficult features to master, and also the one that can most affect how feminine or masculine your portrait will appear. Again, femininity is associated with softness and roundness--and in this particular case, a smaller size. Larger noses are considered more masculine than smaller ones. You may use sharper angles on the tip of the nose if you like, but articulate everything very softly. The fewer lines and the lighter the shading, the better. Illustrate the bridge as little as possible. The alae (the 'wings' protruding from each side of the nose) should be drawn in very lightly, if at all.
5
Draw the mouth. The mouth requires the same treatment as the eyes do. Soft and round, often large but not necessarily so. Lips do not usually seem to divide in the center of the mass. Typically the upper and lower lips will seem asymmetrical, with the lower being thicker, and the upper thinner. Often this is because the 'face' of the upper lip is slanted slightly downward, reducing the view. The mouth is possibly the easiest to 'feminize'. As long as both lips, both upper and lower, are well articulated, you're good to go.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Drawing the Figure

Move on to the figure. This isn't a lesson on figure drawing, but rather on what particular points will add more feminine qualities to the figures you are already drawing. We will assume that you have a fair grasp of human anatomy and simply touch on the areas that will help give your figures a more womanly appearance.

1
Drawing the neck. The female neck is often thinner, though not necessarily longer than the male neck. While male necks will often begin at the jawline, a female neck should begin notably inside that. Use the outside of your eyes as a guide. The clavicles (the two lovely curved collar bones) are usually more pronounced in females, as are the tendons that run up the neck between the clavicle and the head.
2
Work on the shoulders. Female shoulders are generally narrower than male shoulders and are slanted downward at a steeper angle.
3
Doing the feminine torso. The breasts are the most obvious addition to feminize the silhouette, but they aren't the most important. Femininity is summed up by the softly curved, rounded hourglass silhouette. The top of the hourglass is not created by the breasts--it is created by the shoulders. The shoulders and hips should be spaced roughly equal, with the torso narrowing significantly in the midsection. The narrowest spot should be just below the ribs, and just above the navel. Creating this silhouette will feminize even the most poorly 'endowed' figures. When articulating the abdomen, many people gravitate to a completely straight, even concave belly. Even when illustrating a very fit woman, the very curve of her frame will create a gentle, round slope beginning at the navel and descending to the groin. The buttocks are similar in that extra roundness in this area will feminize any silhouette (male or female!)
4
Concentrate on her limbs. Female limbs are generally more slender than male limbs, and less muscularly articulated. This is because women have a greater ratio of body fat to muscle mass than men do. This obscures most of the muscular striations. Because of this, articulate your muscles softly. It is not necessary to make your females flaccid and unfit to feminize them, simply use a gentle hand and avoid hard, sharp lines when illustrating muscles. It is also important to note that women carry more mass (fat and muscle) below the waist than above it, and the legs will often be round and substantial, even with slender arms.
- Work hard on the hands. A small palm with slender fingers, tapered at the tips to avoid looking 'stubby'. The wrist bone will also be more pronounced here than on most male figures.
- Work equally hard on the feet. As above. Small, slender, with more articulated anklebones.

Expert Q&A

Question

How can you get better at drawing faces?

Claire Wentzel
Award-Winning Artist and Strategic Creative Consultant
Claire Wentzel is an award-winning Artist and Strategic Creative Consultant. Her business, Red Rose Studios, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she also serves on the Clark County Public Art Committee. With over 20 years of experience, she specializes in mixed media participatory art, brand messaging, and building organizational culture. She earned her BA in Fine Art with Distinction from the University of Colorado-Boulder and completed a painting residency at the International School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture. Her chalk mural work has been featured in EdHat and I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival advertising.

Claire Wentzel

Award-Winning Artist and Strategic Creative Consultant

Expert Answer

Look at them. My favorite technique that I learned for drawing anything, but especially as a good technique to draw portraits, is blind contour drawing. This is an exercise where you look at your subject and you cannot look at your paper or lift up your pencil while you draw. You are training your eye to talk to your hand. This is a fundamental skill that really helps with drawing portraiture in particular.
Question

How can you get better at drawing humans in different poses?

Claire Wentzel
Award-Winning Artist and Strategic Creative Consultant
Claire Wentzel is an award-winning Artist and Strategic Creative Consultant. Her business, Red Rose Studios, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she also serves on the Clark County Public Art Committee. With over 20 years of experience, she specializes in mixed media participatory art, brand messaging, and building organizational culture. She earned her BA in Fine Art with Distinction from the University of Colorado-Boulder and completed a painting residency at the International School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture. Her chalk mural work has been featured in EdHat and I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival advertising.

Claire Wentzel

Award-Winning Artist and Strategic Creative Consultant

Expert Answer

The human figure is quite challenging to draw. One method is to do warm-up poses, where each pose lasts 30 seconds or maybe a minute. This forces you to get down the essential information as quickly as possible and you won't have time to get bogged down in the details. I think it's just a matter of doing it repetitively and giving yourself the freedom to have it look like whatever it's going to look like. Whatever you see first, just follow that line and then be done and move to the next pose.
Question

Can I at least put clothes on her?

Community Answer

Yes. While sketches are usually bare, the finished drawing usually has clothes on. You can give her a nice outfit now, she deserves it.

Warnings

A working knowledge of human anatomy, as well as figure drawing, is required! If you need more study in those areas, the instructions here will not help you. First learn to make your figures look human, and then focus on the gender details.

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