How to Draw & Colour Character Eyes in SAI

 

STEP 1.

For this Eye type, I start with a slightly curved line going upwards and once I'm satisfied with the length, I curve the line just a bit down. The eyelashes are the lines going outside the main line.

STEP 1.

For this Eye type, I start with a slightly curved line going upwards and once I'm satisfied with the length, I curve the line just a bit down. The eyelashes are the lines going outside the main line.

STEP 2.

Next, I draw a thin line for the lower lash line going down and then again at the end going up. I usually add also the little end at the upper lash line which is going down as if it is invisibly connected to the lower lash line.

STEP 3.

And now I just add the outlines of the iris. You can do it in the other shape which you prefer.

STEP 4.

When coloring eyes in SAI or photoshop, before I start coloring the eyes I choose grey or some other colour and on the new layer fill the whole area I'll be working at. After that I make another layer and put it an top the layer where I filled the area with grey and put the clipping mask. That way all the coloring will stay inside of the ,,grey area'' I colored previously. Anime eyes are usually white with a slight shadow of grey because of the lashes. In real life, eyes aren't completely white so when I draw semi realistic I tend to use a light shade of gray. Let's move on though, once I put the grey shade I usually blend it with a watercolour or oil/ol water tool. This time I'll leave it cell shaded. I also colored the iris with a base colour.

STEP 5.

Now, I make another layer and again put above the base coloring and ,,grey area,, layer and put a clipping mask. When we get to lights, I just repeat the layer process. So, now, I take a darker shade and I saturate it a bit. Draw the pupil with the same color. You can leave the shadows the way they are or blend the shade's ends like I did.

STEP 6.

On to the lights we go. This is the most fun part in my opinion. I went for a bit yellow for my lights. I used the luminosity effect for my lights layer but you can skip that. Play around with the lights and find the light placement you like the best. I blended some of my lights with a oil tool. After that, I make a new layer which I put on top of all layers including lineart and draw the white dot. You can make it any shape you come up with - circles,squares, stars, lines... And now for the final touches, I like to add some bright colours like light blue or pink, yellow...you can go for the orange also. I add a few dots of those and voila.

STEP 7.

Drawing anime eyes isn't hard and you can go pretty crazy with the designs. So don't be afraid to experiment. I drew some variations of the eyes, some are semi realistic. Some other tips when coloring anime eyes. On my lineart layer I put the preserve opacity on and then take a color I like and color the lineart. That way you can get rid of the harsh black lines. For the eyes I mostly take a darker color of the eye's iris. And I sometimes add with an airbrush tool a bright reddish colour to the corners of the eyes to warm them up a bit. So, this is it and I hope this helps someone in any way. :)

Source: dragoart