Drew eyes on top of the head for 20 years before a kid pointed it out

I was doodling this cartoon wolf during my lunch break on a roofing job in Bakersfield. Some kid maybe 10 years old walks by and goes "why are the eyes above the eyebrows?" I looked at my drawing and sure enough I had been putting the eyes right at the hairline for decades. Never even noticed because I was just copying how I always drew them as a kid. The kid showed me on his own sketch how the eyes should sit around the middle of the face oval. Blew my mind honestly. Now I can't unsee it in all my old drawings and even some professional comics I used to admire. Anyone else get stuck on some basic anatomy rule for ages without realizing?

3 comments

3 Comments

scott.drew20d ago

Wait, have you checked out the old Carl Barks Donald Duck comics? I went back and looked after I had my own eye placement revelation and a lot of those old masters put the eyes way too high too. It's almost like there was some unwritten rule back then that if you moved the eyes up you could show more expression in the brow or something. I think part of it is that when you learn to draw as a little kid you make the eyes huge and put them at the top because that's what a cartoon face looks like in your head, and then you just keep doing it without ever stopping to really look at a real face. The kid who pointed it out to you probably just got done with some basic art class where they hammer home proportions. Its funny how the biggest breakthroughs come from the most casual moments like a kid walking past your lunch break.

taraanderson20d ago

Wait, isn't it wild how something so simple can just go right past you for so long? I totally get that feeling of having your whole way of seeing things flipped around by some random moment. It's like your brain just locks into a certain way of doing something and you never question it because it's always been that way. I've had my own moments like that with drawing stuff and it really does make you go back and look at everything different. Seriously, good for that kid for speaking up, because sometimes you really need an outside set of eyes to snap you out of a bad habit.

sean_torres7120d ago

Wait seriously? Scott you're telling me Carl Barks put eyes too high too I mean I grew up on those comics and never once noticed! Thats kind of blowing my mind right now because I always thought those old drawings looked perfect but now Im gonna have to go dig out my collection and actually look at them. Its crazy how you can stare at something your whole life and just never really see it until someone points it out. That kid must have been paying real close attention to catch something like that during a lunch break too.