There's no one right way to draw eyes. Here are 22 ways artists on Magma drew theirs, and how you can learn from them.
In "Draw Eyes in Your Style!", a public Art Jam on Magma that 116 artists joined, everyone drew a pair of eyes in the same long frame, side by side on one shared canvas. Some are pencil studies, some are cartoon eyes with dot pupils, some glow in neon colors. The green eyes lit from below (#12) are the host's own.
Open the Art JamDraw the eye as a ball under two lids, not a flat almond. These artists painted the lid thickness, the shadow on the white of the eye and the color inside the iris.
In the blue-grey eye (#2) the white is a pale grey, darker right under the upper lid where the lid casts its shadow. The lower lid has its own lighter rim. The artist's own caption: "Realism is not really my thing but it wasnt as boring as i expected".
The three studies (#42) show the same eye open, looking up and closed. Looking up, the upper lid hides most of the iris. Closed, the eye is just a lid crease and a line of lashes.
#95Make the eyes big and the irises tall, keep the lines simple and let the highlights do the work. Most anime eyes skip the lid crease and the tear duct.
The brown eyes (#35) have no black outline at all: the lids are drawn in pinks and browns. The irises are darker at the top, and a small bright highlight sits in the same place in both eyes.
In (#40) strands of pink hair are drawn right across the amber eyes. The eyes stay readable because the irises are the strongest color in the picture.
#35
Start from a real eye and push one thing: the light, the colors, the pupil shape or the size. Cartoon eyes can be just an oval, a pupil and a shine.
The green eyes (#12) are lit from below, with warm orange skin, a teal glow down the nose and brows pulled low. The same eyes lit from above would look much calmer.
The eye in (#64) is painted almost entirely in blues and greys. The only other colors are the yellow cross in the pupil and a touch of pink in the highlight, so that's where you look.
The pixel kitty (#39) has eyes that fill most of its face, each with a large highlight. A few pixels of whiskers and a tongue are all the rest it needs.
#12
#64
Pages of quick eye sketches are how most artists practice. Draw the same eye many times, from different angles, and keep the lines loose.
The sketch page (#36) has eyes from different angles, most in a few loose lines, one filled in with dark shading.
In the eight eyes in (#63) the lashes are soft dark smudges along the lid, not rows of single hairs.
The fastest way to get better at eyes is to draw them next to other people. 11 of the 22 drawings on this page were made in Art Jams: shared canvases where everyone draws at the same time.
Join an eye jam and see how others draw lids, irises and highlights, then ask them how they did it. The biggest, "draw eyes in your art style", has had 5,976 artists join. Or host your own: set a frame for each person, share the link, and compare styles.
No eye jam is live at the moment. Browse the open Art Jams, or start your own and share the link.
The basic shapes behind an eye. Once they're down, pick a way from above and make it yours.
Counts from Magma's public Art Jams and posts, September 2026.
Open a free canvas in your browser. Nothing to install, and it works on Chromebooks too. Post it when you're done, and it could end up on this page.
Draw eyes nowThere's no single right way. Start with simple shapes (a circle for the eyeball, two curved lids over it, a circle for the iris and a highlight), then pick a style: realistic, anime, stylized or a quick sketch. The easiest way to improve is to draw alongside others in an eye Art Jam and see how they do it.
Make the eye tall and large, with a thick upper lash line and a light or broken lower one. Draw a big iris that's darker at the top and add one large highlight, placed the same in both eyes. The anime eyes on this page are good examples.
Treat the eye as a ball under two lids. Show the thickness of the lids, keep the white of the eye greyish with a shadow under the upper lid, and use several shades in the iris. Studying the same eye open, looking up and closed helps.
Draw it on Magma and post it to your public feed. We pick drawings for this page from public posts, and every one is credited to its artist.
Draw some eyes now
Draw eyes now
