How to draw anime mouths from a 45 degree angle

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Have you ever tried using realistic human lips on an anime character, and found it looks out of place?
Today we will learn how to draw good anime mouths on faces viewed from a diagonal angle. Let’s see how we can make lips and mouths look natural on the face!

Using the midline of the face

The lips of a real person are on the midline of the face and protrude like a bird’s beak. If we were to draw a character with a small jaw and chin, as we usually see in Japanese anime style, those kind of protruding lips would look strange and pouty.

So when illustrating Japanese Anime style characters, it is best to draw the mouth a bit closer in to the face than the midline for a more natural look. For women, the mouth should be drawn quite a bit away from the midline. For men, the mouth should be drawn so that the edge of the mouth slightly crosses the line.

Point 1

For feminine characters, draw the mouth away from the midline of the face.

Point 2

For masculine characters, draw the mouth so that only the edge crosses over the midline

Tips for drawing a feminine character’s mouth

When drawing a woman or feminine character’s mouth, try to leave a little gap in the mouth to represent highlights on the mouth, so that the lips look shiny and the mouth fits well with the small chin.
The inside of the mouth should also be simple, without realistically drawn teeth and tongue, to match the simplified anime style of the character.

Tips for drawing a masculine character’s mouth

The mouth of a male or masculine character can be set apart from a feminine character, firstly by the size. The mouth should be a lot wider with more definition like shading under the mouth to show the size of the bottom lip. Also we can add a little more detail like the teeth and tongue.
The lower teeth are hidden by the tongue, so they are not so visible, but we should see the top teeth when the mouth is open.
Omitting some of the outline and leaving subtle gaps can create a three-dimensional effect for men’s mouths too!