Drawing teeth well can make or break a portrait. Teeth shape the mouth and add character to a face. If done improperly, the face may seem unfinished or unrecognizable. This tutorial will instruct artists on how to draw teeth properly with simple tips and illustrations.
Step One: Negative Space
First, the artist needs to understand negative space before he can begin to draw.
Negative space is the area around an object, not the object itself. So, instead of drawing squares to represent teeth, the artist should draw the spaces in-between the teeth.
In the first illustration, the gap between the two front teeth is drawn. For most teeth, the artist draws the negative space as an inverted triangle, a line, and another triangle. This makes an hourglass shape. The hard lines are softened into curves by shading, since teeth are rarely perfect squares or rectangles.
Step Two: Continuing the Negative Space
Now that the first two front teeth are taking shape, the artist adds additional negative space to continue accumulating teeth.
In the second illustration, the hourglass-type sketch is repeated, side-by-side. The artist draws a curved line at the bottom of the hourglasses to connect them. Now, the rest of the teeth are taking shape.
Step Three: Gum and Lip Line
The artist draws the top of the teeth to finish up the drawing.
Often, the top of the teeth is the lip line. To create the lip, the artist will draw a flared V shape over the top of the front teeth’s hourglass shape, as shown in the third illustration.
In mouths that are more open, the top of the teeth with be the gum line. To draw a gum line, the artist connects the hourglass shapes with curved lines turned downward, as shown in illustration four.
The teeth are now finished.
Tips and Tricks
Of course, most teeth are not this perfectly shaped. Children’s teeth often have scalloped edges at the bottom, for instance. Maturity often wears away the bottoms of the teeth, making them smoother as the years progress. An artist can draw children’s teeth by adding a scallop to the curved line that connects the hourglass shapes at the bottom.
Time can also chip teeth. To draw a chipped tooth, the artist will simply draw a curved line at the bottom of the tooth that has a black jagged edge added to it, as shown in the third tooth in illustration four.
Using these tips an artist can render realistic looking teeth in all of his portraits.
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