Sladjana
When you see a face in real life, there are certain elements we will probably focus on. The eyes will be one of the first things you notice, but the mouth will probably be a close second.
We not only speak with our mouths, but we also make many expressions using our mouths. They’re a big part of how we form expressions, so drawing them can be quite tricky.
The reason it can be tricky is that it will make the whole face look weird if you get it wrong even slightly.
This is true no matter the style that you’re drawing in, and it’s the case even for more stylized forms.
If you love anime in its many forms, you may have seen how many interpretations there are for the human mouth, and this can make it hard to learn how to draw an anime mouth.
Worry not if you want to learn how to draw one yourself, as you will find everything you need in this guide!
We will show you how to create your own anime mouth drawing, and then we will even go over a few ways to customize it.
So let’s not delay any further and find out how to create this drawing.
How to Draw An Anime Mouth – Let’s get Started!
Step 1
Calling anime one single style or genre is quite reductive, as the term refers to animation produced in Japan. There is a distinctive style associated with anime, but there are many different variations.
That can make learning how to create your own anime mouth challenging, as there are so many styles to choose from.
The one we are creating in this guide is simple and conforms to the most standard anime style.
That means that it will be easy to change and add to it when you have the hang of it, so once you know the basics then you will be able to recreate any of your favorite anime styles!
Before we start drawing our design, you can prepare for it in various ways. If you’re planning on drawing the mouth on the face of a character, then we would recommend drawing out the rough shape of the head.
This could be done with a light pencil or by pressing very softly with your regular pencil. You could also plan out the mouth in this way, whether you will be following our design closely or creating your own design.
To begin this first step, all you need to do is draw a simple curved line that angles up very slightly. This is because we will be making the mouth smile in the final design.
That’s really all there is to it for now, and then we can move on to the second step of the guide.
Step 2: Draw the start of the teeth
Now, we will add some teeth to your anime mouth drawing. Like the mouth in general, teeth can be drawn in many different ways when it comes to anime and cartoons in general.
Sometimes, teeth will be drawn as separate rounded shapes in the mouth, or they may even be pointy and sharp for more sinister characters.
The way the teeth are drawn can make a surprisingly important difference to the overall expression.
In this guide, we will go with a pretty standard design for anime teeth, but they will be very easy to customize later on.
That way, you could keep them nice and simple or make them more complicated.
That will come later, but for now let’s simply draw the teeth as they appear. This will be done with small straight vertical lines on the side and a curved line at the base of the teeth.
In this second step of the guide, the teeth will actually look like one large tooth spreading across the entirety of the mouth.
At the end of this step, we will have what looks a little like a French fry on its side.
It may not look like much right now, but it will start to take shape as we move on through the guide. That will come soon enough, so let’s proceed to the next step of the guide
Step 3: Draw the sides of the mouth
This third step of the guide will be another easy one for you to do. In this one, we will be drawing the sides of the mouth.
In our guide, you will see that the sides of the mouth for our version of this drawing of an anime mouth are simply made up of two curved vertical lines at the mouth’s corners.
The one on the left will be a bit shorter than the one on the right, and this is due to the angle of the mouth.
You may think that you should connect these two sides of the mouth at the base, but that isn’t the case.
Instead, there will be a rather large gap left at the base of the mouth, as you will see in our reference image. If you really don’t like how that looks, then you could add a line connecting them.
However, later on in the guide you will see that this gap is a stylistic choice that will look more natural when we have added more details.
If you’re changing up the style, then the sides of the mouth should still look more or less the same as the ones in our example. As for the sides of the mouth, that’s all we need to do for now!
Let’s head to step 4 to add some shading that will prepare you for the final details.
Step 4: Now add the shading at the mouth’s corners
Here, we have another super simple step for your drawing that should be pretty easy for you to do.
You can prepare for this shading by drawing a small curved line at the corner of each mouth. Then, carefully color in these areas to add the shading as it appears in our example.
We kept the shading fairly minimal for these areas, but you could add more or less shading depending on how you want the design to look.
Try not to overdo it and fill in too much of the mouth with shadowy areas, as we will be filling in the empty space with color for the tongue later.
In the next step, we will also go over ways that you could add more teeth and tongue details, so you should leave room for yourself in case you would like to add those kinds of details.
These are things to keep in mind, but they may not be something you need to worry about depending on the design you’re aiming for with this drawing.
Next up, we will be focusing on the final details of this design. You will also be able to add some of your own ideas and details, and we will go over a few of these ideas to get you started.
Step 5: Draw the final details
It’s all come down to this, as this step of the guide will be all about adding the final details of the drawing.
The details will be quite small and simple for the most part, but they will do a lot to help make this drawing look more dynamic.
First, we will add a few small line details surrounding the mouth. These will go around the corners to start with.
Then, we added a few small dots at the gap by the bottom of the mouth. It’s a subtle touch, but one that helps to bring it all together.
Next, we will focus on the teeth, and this is an aspect where you could do it in a few different ways. In our example, we kept things very simple.
We drew a row of small straight lines coming down from the top of the mouth. This suits the style we are going for, but you could also draw these lines all the way to the other side if you prefer.
You may even want to leave out these lines entirely! It’s all up to you, and it depends on how you would like to style the teeth.
Once you have added these details, you can add some elements around the mouth.
If you really feel like challenging yourself, you could draw the rest of the face that this mouth belongs to. This could be based on an existing anime character’s face, or you could design your own!
It’s up to you, and there are so many ways that you could finish off this design. When you’re happy with how it looks, we can move to the final step where we will color in your drawing!
Step 6: Now, finish off this anime mouth with some color
At first glance, the colors we used on this drawing are quite simple. There is skin tone, pink for the tongue and a few white spots.
If you look closer, however, you will see that the color choices are a bit more complicated that that.
For instance, we have mostly one color for the skin tone, but there is a darker patch below the mouth.
We also left a few white spots at various places to create the look of light reflecting on the skin. For the tongue, we used a light pink that has a much darker section at the top for some shading.
These are a few ways that show off how you can make the colors more dynamic with just a few small touches. Of course, you can also change the colors entirely.
You may wish to portray different skin tones or go for something more stylized. Then, you can play around with different art tools and mediums as well.
Watercolors and colored pencils would be great for the more subdued tones we used for our example, but you could also achieve brighter colors with colored pens or markers.
When choosing your mediums, you can stick to one set of mediums or mix different mediums.
For example, you could use some watercolors for most of the picture and then use some colored markers for certain highlights.
That is just a couple of examples, but now you can try out your ideas. Don’t be afraid to get creative with it and try out some unusual combinations!
Your Anime Mouth Drawing is Complete!
That brings us to the end of this guide on how to draw an anime mouth! This drawing was fairly simple, but that simplicity brings a lot of opportunities for customization and other details.
You could adapt the steps of this guide to any anime style or character that you like and it would still work.
Not only can you have fun with various details, but you can also try out different colors and art mediums.
This guide could be used for your own designs or to help you draw your favorite anime characters.
If you follow the steps, then you could adapt it to many different designs and recreate anything you like.
We also have other guides on drawing parts of the face in the same anime style that you can check out if you need help with other parts of the face, so be sure to seek those out if you need!
Whatever you do, we know that it will look amazing when it’s done! We would also love to see how your artwork turns out.
You can show us the finished result by sharing your finished artwork on our Facebook and Pinterest pages. We can’t wait to take a look!
