Hi! I love your art and even though we aren't really in many of the same fandoms anymore, I have always appreciated seeing the expressive things you create. Because so much of what you draw for is anime where facial features are unrealistic, how do you decide what the characters "look like" in your style? I'm trying to figure out how I draw individual characters in my own style, but it's so hard when I'm basing it off of the original animation, where they might have very stylistic eyes, etc.

Thank you

Actually, I understand your problem so much;__; Drawing someone you can see visually in a different artstyle and then altering the design to your style while still leaving the character recognizable and, well IN character can be such a paaainn!! I can never get the anime character right when I draw them for the first *quite a few* of times.

But as a piece of advice…mm, I always try to give them the features that FIT their personality, you know? WHILE trying to also keep the original design simultaneously. (for the basic example sharp, angled features for serious\sharp personality characters, and rounder ones for the excitable happy ones, but its more to it than that)

Personally I try to focus on getting their eye shape/ brows as close as possible (though I tend to alter that too if I think it would show more of their personality), and their hair. and the expressions. As to other things I tend to change them a bit..Like, if I draw Asahi it’s going to be all gentle lines, but I still try to keep him looking like a delinquent he’s compared to IF only he didn’t have those sheepish kind expressions because of his peaceful nature. That’s why I give him upturned brows and downturned eyes. Give them a sharper angle and Asahi WILL end up looking like an actual criminal.

Hinata is a ball of sunshine with wide range of expressions, the pure excitable child, so I try to give him kind of child-like features? If I can say so. Kageyama is all sharp lines and angles and expressions that are bordering adorable and kind of awkward. Intimidating, but not the point where it can be taken seriously because that kid is a dork:”D

When drawing someone you should always ask yourself what kind of character you are drawing, and what you actually want TO SHOW by drawing this character. Some characters are harder to figure out than others and take more time and experimenting, but eventually you’ll get a hang on it!

Also, general emotional palette of a character is super important too!! Not quite catching the look of a character will not be as noticeable as drawing them out of character and giving them the expressions that just isn’t THEIR. 

Give Kageyama Hinata’s expressions of happiness? It will not be Kageyama anymore. So it’s important to think about this, too:)

I hope it helped at least to some extent, that’s a nice question and I don’t think I can manage answering it well enough;_;

so I've been having a really hard time with heads and faces recently, especially the head shapes and eyes. Ive been trying to change it up a bit but I just can't get it how I like it and I was wondering if you had any piece of advice? Idk if its a style thing or what but its starting to really frustrate me (for some dumb reason ;u;) Thanks in advance!!

there’s such a good exercise for that, actually! It works especially well with differing the head shapes, but can work for eyes as well! You take your hand a draw a random shape. Then filling it with features. Say, you draw a potatoe-shaped object. It doesn’t have to be precise of anything, since it’s just your carcass. 

then, whatever comes to your mind about that shape. You can change it slightly if you want to, or you can leave it the way it is and just draw features (and extra volume to the head if necessary)

here’s just a few examples i could come up with 

they are fast so don’t look for too anatomically correct stuff, but you get the idea! Draw a lot of shapes and fill them in.. SOmetimes you should draw many to figure out what fits your character best.

I had the file with quite many shapes somewhere but I’m not sure if it’s on the laptop or pc so..without that. But generally, try it out! It’s not only fun, but can help you decide on the features and differ the shapes. You can do the same thing for eyes as well;)