How to Paint a Skull Head
- 1). Study your skull reference, whether it be a picture in a book or a plastic model. Observe its round, spherical upper portion and its more angular, square lower portion, where the jawline and mouth are located. Other than an open oval shape, there is no nose on a skull.
- 2). Sketch your skull on paper with a pencil or charcoal. Practice by drawing a skull. You can follow the contours, or the outline, of the skull with your pencil line. A good template can be sketched by drawing a circle for the top of the skull on your paper, and then drawing a square over the bottom third of the circle, for the mouth and jaw.
- 3). Draw two circles for the eyes in the middle of the circle and an oval for the nose in the middle. The mouth can be drawn as a horizontally long rectangle in the middle of the square. Fill in teeth with vertical lines and one horizontal line. This will give you a very basic skull template. By observing your skull reference and using this simple template, you can create any kind of skull painting.
- 4). Sketch out your skull head painting on paper first. Transfer it to your final paper or prepared canvas by lightly drawing on it, using your sketch as a guide.
- 5). Paint your skull head with your paints and brushes. Let your artistic intuition guide your color choices and brushstrokes. Use shadow in the open cavities, and add highlights to create different tones. Take time to step back every once in a while to get a different perspective of your painting to see if it is working for you. Keep painting until you are satisfied with the result.
