Skull

Understand the skull’s forms, planes, and proportions to construct heads at different angles.

What it is

Treat the skull as a 3D structure that turns in space. Place the cranium, face mask, and jaw as large forms before adding features.

Place the eye sockets, cheekbones, nose, and jaw as solid masses beneath the skin. Keep these forms consistent as the head changes view.

Use the skull’s main planes to organize light and shadow. These include the sloping forehead, recessed eye sockets, projecting brow ridges and cheekbones, and the projecting chin.

Why it matters

Skull structure supports consistent head proportions and volume across views. Weak control can make features shift, flatten the face, or lose connection to the underlying forms.

You can check it when

• ✓Draw a basic skull from front, 3/4, side, up, and down views using simple forms without copying a reference line for line.
• ✓Turn a portrait through multiple views while keeping the head shape, bone structure, major planes, and stylized features connected.

Related skills

• Head construction (skull, head planes, Loomis-style or equivalent)
• Head in any position (rotation, tilt, perspective)
• Facial proportion and facial anatomy
• Primitive forms in any rotation (boxes, cylinders, spheres and modified spheres, cones, pyramids)
• Plane analysis and turning form with value
• Simplifying anatomy into usable surface forms