![](https://animeartmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/960.webp")
Anime and manga style is constantly evolving, and one of the key areas that always changes over time, is the eyes! The style of eyes you choose for your character can either date your image, or bring it right up-to-date. So let’s learn about some popular styles for you to use to create great, modern-looking characters!
One of the main features of 2020’s eyes is the details. For both men and women, we see a lot of fine lines and details in areas like the irises and the lash line.
Let’s take a look at 6 different styles of popular, modern eyes!
“Standard” eyes
A classic, simple example of the popular 2020’s style of eye.
Semi-realistic
This style will add a realistic edge to your character. By adding more detail to the eyes and eyelashes, you can make the eye instantly look much more real!
“Artistic” eyelashes
You might have seen eyes like this in recent anime style art. Adding an extra original touch to the eyelashes is a good way to make the eyes look stronger and add impact to the image!
Shiny eyes
These eyes have a really bright glow, which is almost unrealistic in terms of real life eyes. But this can really bring a character to life in anime! Here the pupil is almost entirely covered with a highlight, and there are smaller highlights all around the iris, and on the lash line. The main colour of the eye is also more grey than black, to help brighten up the whole eye. Making the white of the eye a little darker will help the highlights stand out more than if they were placed on a pure white eye.
“Artistic” irises
Really going crazy with the shape of the iris, and making the shape wavy or skewed can help to add an artistic, original appeal the the character.
Sparkling eyes
Sparkly eyes sometimes include effects that look more like a cosmic, or starry-sky design, or like a sparkling gemstone. Taking ideas from these kind of natural sparkly objects or scenes can help you with the design for sparkly eyes! Again, making the whole white of the eye a little darker will help the highlights stand out even more.
“Artistic” pupils
In this eye, we have replaced the iris with a sparkle mark, and also adapted the highlights and eyelashes to be sharper, and compliment this spiky, sparkly pupil. Like the other “artistic” styles, this kind of design ignores natural anatomy and biology to make for an interesting design!
Distinctively shaped irises and pupils
Finally, we have a design that will only ever be seen in illustration or anime, not in real life! This kind of design is often used on characters with a specific motif in their character design – adding this mark or motif to the eyes can be an interesting point to make your character stand out.
So there we have it! Plenty of exciting modern eye styles for you to use as a reference for your work! Remember to check out all the latest artworks on sites like Pixiv, Twitter and DeviantArt to make sure you’re on top of the latest art trends. Happy studying everyone!
Anime Art Academy is on Discord! Come and join our community!
