The second in my series of "studies", this one focuses on mouths. It's not exactly a tutorial, as you won't see any step-by-step instructions. It's more of an analysis and display of what I have learned so far.

In my quest to achieve a brand new drawing style, I studied many, many works of art by artists who were more capable than I. I always had trouble with mouths, so one day, I sat down at the computer and decided to do some research. I checked regular coloring tutorials, I checked stock photography, and I checked previously made paintings, doodles, and other misc. artwork. What I found really did shock me.

In those paintings where people make everything look so realistic, the mouth often looks very bad before the coloring is applied. Furthermore...it's a very simple line with a little bit more twisting than one might think. My problem was always that I tried to draw every little detail about the mouth. Things ended up looking terrible, and I couldn't figure out why.

Here's my advice: don't draw the lips. Draw the line that parts them. Use color to make them deeper, fuller, thinner, wider...you get the idea. If you check the thinnest, widest lines in the left panel, then relate them with their corresponding colored version, you will see what I mean.

Color can completely change the way that EVERYTHING looks.