How to Draw a Bald Man Step by Step (Smiling Graphite Portrait)

With no hair to hide behind, a bald head shows you its true shape — which makes it one of the best subjects for learning how a skull really sits on a face. This lesson draws a smiling older man with a bald head, a big friendly grin and a collared shirt, turned slightly to one side, in 12 small steps that take about 12 minutes. If you want to learn how to draw a bald man, you’ll practice the dome of the head, shading a round form, and the cheek and eye changes that make a smile look genuine.

Understanding the bald head

The skull is bigger than most people think. Above the eyebrows, the forehead and dome take up roughly a third of the head’s height before the curve even starts to turn back, and the head is almost as deep from front to back as it is tall. In this three-quarter view, the back of the skull extends well behind the ear, and the ear itself sits behind the vertical centre of the head.

Shade the dome like a ball. The top, facing the light, stays lightest. A band of darker tone — the core shadow — wraps around the side turning away from you, and just inside the far edge a slightly lighter strip of reflected light keeps the head from looking flat. Subtle skin texture and a few curved forehead wrinkles sit on top of that tone; they never replace it.

The smile changes the whole face, not just the mouth. The cheeks push up into round masses, the lower eyelids rise and narrow the eyes, and crow’s feet fan out from the outer corners. The folds from the nose to the mouth deepen into curved brackets around the closed-lip grin, and the corners of the mouth pull up and back toward the cheeks.

Age adds weight lower in the face: softer jowls along the jaw, a slightly fuller chin, and a large ear with a long lobe. Keep the collared shirt simple, with a few clean folds, so the head stays the brightest and most detailed part of the drawing.