Basic Face Guidelines for Drawing Horror Characters

9 February 2026

Getting Started with Horror Drawing

Last updated: 1 September 2026

This tutorial walks you step by step through exactly how to place basic face guidelines, where they go on the head, and how to use them as a foundation for horror characters before distortion and exaggeration come into play.

These guidelines aren’t there to restrict your creativity. They’re there to give you a solid foundation, making it much easier to create believable horror faces before you start twisting proportions and adding unsettling details.

No anatomy exams. No perfection pressure. Just simple lines that help you place each facial feature with confidence.

When you draw a horror face, it’s surprisingly easy for the features to drift out of place. An eye ends up slightly too high, the nose slips off centre, or the mouth starts leaning in a direction you never intended.

That’s not a lack of skill. It’s usually a lack of structure.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn a simple method for placing face guidelines that keeps everything balanced from the beginning. Once you’ve built that foundation, you’ll have far more control when it’s time to exaggerate, distort and turn an ordinary face into something far more unsettling.

What You’ll Learn:

• What face guidelines are and why they create the foundation for drawing horror characters.
• How to draw a simple head shape as the starting point for building a face.
• Where to place the vertical and horizontal guidelines to keep facial features balanced and aligned.
• How to position the eyes, nose and mouth using simple, easy-to-follow guidelines.
• How to check your facial alignment before adding details like shading, expressions and texture.
• Why building structure before distortion helps horror faces look deliberately unsettling instead of accidentally unbalanced.
• A simple five-minute practice exercise to help you build confidence using face guidelines.

What These Guidelines Are For

Face guidelines are temporary planning lines drawn at the start of a sketch. They aren’t part of the finished drawing. Instead, they act as a simple framework that helps you place each facial feature before adding any details.

Think of them as a rough map for your face. Spending a minute drawing these guidelines first can save you from having to fix misplaced features later.

Their job is to:

• Anchor facial features so everything has a clear starting point.
• Keep everything aligned while you work, making it easier to judge proportions.
• Give you control before you intentionally exaggerate and distort features for horror.

They are meant to be:

• Light enough to erase easily.
• Adjustable as you refine your sketch.
• Temporary, disappearing once the final drawing begins to take shape.

If you can still clearly see all of your guidelines in the finished drawing, don’t worry – it happens to everyone. It usually just means they were drawn a little too dark or weren’t fully erased before adding the final details.

Step 1: Draw the Head Shape

Start by lightly drawing a simple egg-shaped outline for the head. It doesn’t need to look realistic or perfectly symmetrical at this stage.

Keep your pencil pressure light and use loose, gentle strokes rather than trying to create one perfect outline immediately. You can gradually adjust the shape until you’re happy with it.

For a face looking straight ahead, keep the head shape upright. For a head viewed at a slight angle, adjust the shape and direction of the head to match the angle you’re aiming for. The guidelines you add in the following steps will then follow this direction.

At this stage, don’t add the jaw, cheekbones, facial features or expression. You’re only creating the basic outer structure that will contain the face.

Focus on the overall size, shape and direction of the head rather than small details. This gives you a simple foundation for placing the facial guidelines accurately in the next steps.

Step 2: Draw the Vertical Centre Line

Draw a light vertical centre line from the top of the head shape to the bottom. This line runs through the middle of the face and acts as the main guide for positioning the facial features.

This line helps to:

• Divide the face into left and right sides.
• Keep the eyes, nose and mouth aligned.
• Show which direction the face is pointing.
• Provide a reference as you add the remaining guidelines.

For a face looking straight ahead, the centre line should run straight down the middle of the head, as shown in the first example.

When the head turns to the side, the centre line should curve around the shape of the head rather than staying straight. Notice how the curved line in the second example shifts towards one side of the face. This helps create the sense that you’re drawing a three-dimensional head rather than a flat shape.

Keep this guideline light because it is only there to help you position the features. The eye, nose and mouth placement in the following steps will all use this centre line as a reference.

Step 3: Place the Horizontal Eye Line

The eye line is one of the most important guidelines for establishing basic facial proportions. Draw a light horizontal line roughly halfway down the head, crossing the vertical centre line you added in the previous step.

This guideline marks where the eyes will be positioned, so don’t worry about drawing the eyes themselves yet.

Where it goes:

• Place the eye line roughly halfway between the top of the skull and the bottom of the chin.
• For a face looking straight ahead, keep the line level across the head.
• When the head turns, allow the eye line to curve around the form of the head, as shown in the second example.

It can feel strange placing the eye line this low at first. Beginners often leave too much room for the face and not enough for the upper part of the skull, which can push the eyes higher than they should be.

On the turned head, notice how the eye line wraps around the shape rather than travelling straight across it. Together with the curved centre line from Step 2, this helps show the direction the head is facing and gives you a better guide for positioning the features.

For now, keep the line light and simple. You’ll use it to position the eyes in the next step.

Step 4: Place the Eyes Along the Guideline

Now you can use the horizontal eye line to block in the basic position of the eyes. Keep the shapes simple at this stage – you’re establishing their placement and spacing rather than drawing finished eyes.

For the front-facing head, place both eyes directly along the eye line and use the vertical centre line to help keep them balanced on either side of the face.

Keep them simple:

• Use basic eye shapes rather than detailed eyes.
• Don’t add pupils, eyelashes or other small details yet.
• Keep both eyes positioned along the eye guideline.
• Concentrate on placement and spacing rather than expression.

For a face looking straight ahead, a useful starting point is to leave roughly one eye-width of space between the eyes. It doesn’t need to be measured perfectly; it’s simply a guide for creating believable basic proportions.

When the head turns, the spacing and apparent size of the eyes begin to change because you’re viewing the face in perspective. Follow the curved eye line and use the centre line to judge where each eye belongs, rather than trying to make both sides perfectly symmetrical.

This step helps prevent:

• Eyes being placed too high or low in relation to one another.
• Eyes sitting too close together or too far apart.
• Forcing symmetry onto a head that has turned.

Once the basic positions look right, leave the eyes alone for now. The remaining facial features can be placed around these guides before any details are developed.

Step 5: Indicate Nose Placement

Now lightly mark where the nose will sit. At this stage, you’re only establishing its position, not drawing the finished nose.

A simple guideline:

• The bottom of the nose usually sits about halfway between the horizontal eye line and the bottom of the chin.
• Imagine dividing the lower half of the face in half again. This gives you a useful starting point for positioning the nose.

For now, use a short horizontal mark across the centre line, like the one shown in the example. Keep it light and simple – you only need enough of a mark to remember where the bottom of the nose will eventually sit.

On the front-facing head, the nose mark sits directly across the vertical centre line. When the head turns, follow the centre line of the face rather than the centre of the head shape. This helps the nose stay aligned with the direction the face is pointing.

There’s no need to add nostrils, shading or any other details yet. The goal is simply to establish the nose position so the mouth and other features can be placed in relation to it.

Step 6: Indicate Mouth Placement

With the nose position established, lightly mark where the mouth will sit beneath it. You’re still concentrating on placement rather than detail, so there’s no need to draw finished lips or an expression yet.

Generally:

• The mouth usually sits about one-third of the distance between the bottom of the nose and the chin.
• Use the nose mark and chin as your reference points rather than guessing the position.
• Keep the mouth aligned with the vertical centre line of the face.

For the front-facing head, draw a simple horizontal line across the centre line. Keep it light and slightly wider than the nose mark, as shown in the example.

When the head turns, the mouth should follow the direction and perspective of the face rather than remaining perfectly horizontal. Use the curved centre line to help position it and allow the mouth line to follow the form of the head.

This step helps prevent:

• The mouth sitting too close to the nose.
• The mouth dropping too low towards the chin.
• The mouth becoming misaligned with the direction of the face.

Don’t worry about the shape of the lips yet. For now, you’re simply creating a clear guide for where the mouth belongs. With the eyes, nose and mouth positioned, the basic facial structure is now in place and ready to be developed further.

Step 7: Check Alignment Before Adding Details

Before adding eyelashes, wrinkles, shading or expressions, take a moment to check that all of your guidelines and facial features are working together.

A quick structure check now can save you from having to erase and reposition features once you’ve started adding detail.

Look for these three things:

1. Are both eyes following the horizontal eye line?

Both eyes should sit along the eye guideline you established earlier. On a front-facing head, they should appear fairly level and balanced.

On a turned head, the eye line curves around the form of the face, so don’t judge the eyes by whether they appear perfectly horizontal. Instead, check that both eyes follow the guideline naturally and make sense with the direction of the head.

2. Is the nose following the vertical centre line?

For a front-facing head, the nose mark should sit directly across the vertical centre line.

When the head turns, the centre line moves with the form of the face, as shown in the second example. Check that your nose follows this line rather than simply sitting in the middle of the visible head shape.

3. Does the mouth follow the direction of the face?

Check that the mouth is positioned beneath the nose and works with the same centre line. On a front-facing head, it should sit evenly across the centre.

On a turned head, the mouth should follow the perspective and direction of the face rather than being forced into a perfectly straight or symmetrical position.

If something doesn’t look quite right, make small adjustments now while your drawing is still made from simple guidelines. It’s much easier to correct the basic structure before adding shading, texture and finer details.

Tip: If you can tell something looks slightly off but can’t work out why, try looking at your drawing in a mirror, turning the page upside down or taking a photo of it. Seeing the drawing from a different viewpoint can make proportion and alignment problems much easier to spot.

Where Horror Comes In (After Structure)

Once your guidelines are in place, you can start intentionally breaking the rules.

This is where horror drawing becomes really fun. Because you’ve built a solid foundation first, you can distort facial features without the character looking accidentally incorrect.

For example, you might:

• Lower one eye to create an unsettling imbalance.
• Stretch or twist the mouth into an unnatural smile.
• Distort the jaw to make the face look more threatening.
• Tilt or exaggerate the head angle to create a more unsettling pose.

The difference is control. Every distortion is a creative choice rather than a mistake.

Without a solid structure underneath, facial features can easily look misplaced or unintentional. With good structure, even extreme distortions still feel believable because the face has an underlying sense of order.

As you continue learning horror art, you’ll find that the strongest monsters often begin with the same basic guidelines used for an ordinary face. Once the structure is established, you can twist, exaggerate and experiment as much as you like.

Five-Minute Practice Exercise

Before moving on to a finished horror character, spend just five minutes practising the basic face guidelines.

The goal isn’t to create a beautiful drawing. It’s to become comfortable placing the guidelines until they start to feel natural.

Try this simple exercise:

1. Draw a simple oval head.
2. Add a vertical centre line.
3. Add a horizontal eye line.
4. Place the eyes using simple shapes.
5. Lightly mark the nose and mouth positions.
6. Stop.

Yes, really – stop there.

Resist the temptation to add shading, hair, expressions or extra details. The purpose of this exercise is to practise building a strong foundation, not to create a finished illustration.

Repeat this several times using different head sizes, slight tilts and angles. The more often you practise the structure, the more natural it will feel when you begin drawing full horror characters.

Next, learn how to build a simple body structure with the Simple Body Guidelines for Drawing Horror Characters tutorial. Once you’ve combined both tutorials, you’ll have a solid foundation for drawing complete horror characters.

Conclusion: A Little Structure Goes a Long Way

If drawing horror faces has ever felt frustrating or unpredictable, this is the key idea to remember.

Your drawings weren’t failing. They simply didn’t have enough structure at the start.

Using simple face guidelines gives you control from the very beginning. When you later distort features or push them into unsettling territory, those changes feel intentional rather than accidental. Instead of fighting the face halfway through the drawing, you’re building on a solid foundation.

The goal isn’t to make your horror characters neat or perfectly realistic. The goal is to create a stable foundation that you can confidently build on. Structure doesn’t make your drawings stiff – it gives you the freedom to exaggerate, experiment and create believable horror.

So keep your guidelines light, keep things simple, and remember that the awkward early stage is part of the process. Every unsettling face starts with an ordinary foundation before it becomes something disturbing.

If your first sketch looks a little strange, that’s perfectly normal. Every artist starts with simple shapes before adding the details that bring a character to life. Keep practising, trust the process, and those basic guidelines will soon become second nature.

What You Learned:

• Face guidelines provide a simple framework that keeps facial features balanced before adding details or horror distortions.
• A simple head shape creates the foundation for the entire face, making it easier to build accurate proportions.
• The vertical centre line keeps facial features aligned, helping you position the eyes, nose and mouth correctly, even when the head is tilted.
• The horizontal eye line sits roughly halfway down the head, helping you avoid the common mistake of placing the eyes too high.
• Simple guidelines for the eyes, nose and mouth make it much easier to build a balanced face before adding expressions and details.
• Checking your alignment before refining the drawing allows you to spot and fix mistakes while they’re still quick and easy to correct.
• Building a strong structure first gives you the freedom to distort facial features intentionally, making your horror characters look deliberately unsettling rather than accidentally misshapen.
• Regular practice with these basic guidelines helps them become second nature, giving you a reliable foundation for drawing horror faces from any angle.