Faces To Draw On A Balloon

A face can be the most important feature when creating a character, it is the first thing that we look at, it's the focal point of a design.

A face can be simple, or with a little more detail they can show some great expressions!

Design by游小白 - I love this design and the face, it's simple but it's perfect!

I know that many of you will be saying that you are not artistic (I can hear you), but I hope that I can give you a few pointers that will help you to have a go!

I would say that I am not a natural artist, but I am pretty good at copying, so when I am creating a character I look for idea's and inspiration to help me.

So where do I find my inspiration? I use a variety of different sources including Google search and Pinterest using key search words to help me to find what I am looking for.

Cartoon Faces to Draw - try this on both Google Search and Pinterest and you will see some great results.

Cute Characters is another great search, I found some great ideas when I searched using these keywords.

Drawing Cartoon Eyes - is another set great keywords.

If you are using Pinterest, start a 'Secret Board' that only you can see and save (pin) everything that inspires you! It might be a cartoon, or a character or even ideas for party decor, you can refer back to it at any time, it's a great tool!

So what tools do you need to create a face?

This all depends on what you have available? I use a variety of different materials when I create faces.

Sharpie & edding pens -I like both the Sharpie Fine Point and eddying 2000 black pens for adding in any of the black detail such as lashes and brows.

I use the edding 750 white paint marker to add little white highlight dots. Edding have a great range of pens from fine point to broad tip.

Water soluble paint markers - I use a ZIG Art & Graphic Twin pen for blush on the cheeks, because it's water-soluble it blends really easily. Use the paint brush end and just dab on a little of the colour, I use a bright pink, then smudge the colour with your finger to create the perfect 'blush' cheeks!

Vinyl cut out shapes - I find it so much better to create my eyes using my vinyl cutter (I use a Silhouette Cameo), the eye's in the picture below are made up in layers, starting with white, then blue, then black and then finally a small white dot. I designed my eye's first making sure that each layer fit into each other and that it was the correct size for the size of the head that I was making, I then cut and pasted each shape onto a new template so that I could cut out each shape in the colour that I wanted to use, remember to save these templates for future use.

If you don't have a vinyl cutter, which I did not have for a very long time, you can draw on your eyes with the pens we have talked about above, you just have to be very careful, start with the lighter colours and finish with the darkest colour.

This is a design that I created, the picture in the centre is the original that I used for my inspiration and not made from balloons. I made 2 different version as I wanted to show different techniques for the nose.

Here are some more great examples of faces on balloons, some have been drawn and others are stickers, they really do bring a design to life and can give so much personality to a design.

This Fairy was created by Jorge Antimo, the eyes are amazing, they really do bring this little fairy to life, these facial features are stickers made by Babbaboomstickers !

These lovely girls are the work of Lily Tan of MyAirtitude, the eyes that Lily creates are a major focal point of her designs, her designs are always instantly recognisable because of the eye's.

This lovely guy was created by Tatyana DjeTa Lyashko of DjeTa Balloons, his face is perfect, it really suits his character!

This lovely turtle is the work of Florence Buret, she has added a face and the shell detail too!

I would recommend to start that you just inflate a balloon, find a face that you like and have a go at drawing it, once you feel that you have mastered the technique then create your balloon sculpture/character and add a face with confidence!