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Apr 2017

One of those things that I have always struggled with is drawing a profile of a person with glasses, as it can block out the eyes or on the other hand if you want to keep the character mysterious, are forced to draw the eyes anyway. In anime, I have seen the whole part that blocks the eye removed but I don't know how I feel about that...
How do you draw your profiles for glasses-wearing characters?

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    Apr '17
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    Apr '17
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Fantastic question. It's something I used to debate about with myself and I'm hoping other more experienced artists will chime in.

I'll say though that it helps if you decide what kind of glasses your character is wearing beforehand because not every glasses stem blocks the eyes in side view.

These glasses obscure the eye in profile: https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-profile-of-a-woman-wearing-glasses-with-ophthalmic-table-on-the-background-68648980.jpg21

Compared to these with higher stems: https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/young-man-side-profile-teenage-isolated-over-white-wearing-black-frame-nerd-type-vintage-glasses-32244052.jpg18

If you're drawing the first kind, you'll either have to obscure the eye or use that cheat where the stem disappears. But if you're drawing the second kind then you have no problems. wink

I hope you guys can see the pictures.

I find it difficult to draw detailed glasses in a profile view without blocking facial features, so I draw a small rectangle when drawing my glasses wearing character in a profile shot. Sometimes I draw a small line for the arm of the glasses, but not always. If your readers know that the character wears glasses, 'suggesting' the frames in a simple way like this is enough. You can still do things like not draw the eyes to hide what the character is feeling, but still keep the 'hint' of eyewear doing it this way.

I've always found it weird when manga/anime take out just that portion of frame that's obscuring the eye. The glasses I draw are usually on the thinner side and usually land more above the eye rather than through it, even if it's not super accurate. I only don't draw it when things are a little more comedic.

my boy Alphonzo has some big round glasses so heres what i usually do
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i cant say it's realistic but imo doesnt obscure a whole lot, and even if it does block the eye you can exaggerate the expression to help

I work in a highly stylized way, so I just draw the glasses on the side of their face hahah. It's completely inaccurate to how glasses work in real life, but so many American cartoons do it. Dexter's Lab, Invader Zim, Simpsons, Daria etc.

My character uses glasses, https://tapastic.com/series/theneighbors9
in my banner you can see the profile view
also the glasses are big enough so the frames dont block the eyes.
at first of the story he uses glasses that indeed block the eyes view but it is part of the character development haha