How to Draw Cartoon Eyes

Learning how to draw cartoon eyes is a fundamental skill for any aspiring artist. Whether you're interested in creating playful and whimsical characters or more detailed and realistic illustrations, understanding the basics of drawing cartoon eyes is a great place to start. Create a range of eye shapes and emotions to add to your collection of stickers and sublimated makeup bags, or add it to your digital library of character features.

At Design Bundles, we have a selection of drawing guides that will go along great with your cartoon eyes. Add a cute button nose with this nose drawing tutorial, or create a mouth by learning how to draw lips.

For this step-by-step eye drawing tutorial, you can use any medium. Create a pencil drawing, use crayons and paint, or design digital artwork with your favorite applications like Procreate and DesignScape.

DesignScape is an online design software available with our Gold Plus Membership. If you still need to become a member, get a FREE 30-day trial of the Gold Plus Membership today.

Step 1 - Create your Cartoon Eye Sketch

To start, let's create some rough sketches of our cartoon eyes. We'll begin by shaping the eyes, adding the iris, then we can add in the eyelashes. We suggest using a sketching medium, such as a pencil or light-colored tool that can easily be erased or covered with color for these initial sketches.

Create the Guides

Before you start drawing your eyes, create your guidelines. You will need a vertical guide and two horizontal lines. These guides will help with how your eyes are shaped and angled.

Shape the Eye

On either side of the vertical lines, draw the cartoon eyes. Use your vertical guidelines to determine the height and angle of both eyes. With our example sketch below, you can see that we drew round eyes with a flat bottom that curves with our guides.

Add the Iris and Pupil

Next, draw the pupil and iris of the eye. The pupil is the small, circular black spot in the center of the eye, while the iris is the colored part of the eye that surrounds the pupil. Draw the iris arched-shaped or draw smaller shapes that fit inside the eye shape with space around it.

Draw smaller circles or ovals to make the pupil inside your iris sketch.

Add a Glare

Over your iris and pupil, sketch any shape or multiple shapes to create glare spots on your cartoon clipart. Make sure you draw the glare shapes on each eye and have them go in the same direction.

Add Eyelashes

To make the eyes look more expressive and feminine, add eyelashes to make Cute Face clipart. Draw a few long, curved lines at the top of the cartoon eye shape and the bottom outer corners.

Step 2 - Permanently Outline your Rough Sketches

Once you're happy with your cartoon eyes, it's time to finalize your drawing by outlining it. You can use a black pencil or ink brush to trace the sketch lines and create more defined cartoon eye outlines for your line art.

Add thick lines for the lashes and fill in the iris to make them stand out. You can create unique cartoon clipart by adding interest to the eyes as we did in our eye illustration below.

Erase any remaining sketch lines that you no longer need, including your guidelines.

Step 3 - Apply Color to your Drawing

Next, choose the colors you want to use for your cartoon eyes. You can use traditional coloring materials such as colored pencils or markers, or digital tools such as graphic tablets and software. Color the iris, pupil, eyelids, and any other details you added to your drawing.

When adding your color palette, pay attention to the lighting and shadows in your drawing to create a more realistic and three-dimensional effect. For example, if your character is in a brightly lit environment, you may want to use brighter and more vibrant colors for the iris and highlight while using lighter shades for the shadowed areas of the eye.

With such well-illustrated cartoon eyes, you can add them to all kinds of characters, like when you draw an elf. Keep at it, experiment with different styles and techniques, and most importantly, have fun!

Why not check out our other free drawing tutorials to add even more to your digital library? We know you will find your next drawing adventure in just a few clicks.