1
Pick an angle
Tap one of the nine presets — front, 3/4, profile, back, high, low, top-down, worm's-eye — or drag to orbit the head yourself. Presets and free orbit share the same camera.
Free artist tool
Head Angle Reference Tool
An interactive 3D head you can turn to any angle. Jump to the nine face angles artists actually name — front, three-quarter, profile, back, high, low, top-down, worm's-eye — and export a printable angle sheet. Free, no sign-up, runs in your browser.
How to use the head angle reference
2
Read the construction
The centre, brow, eye, and jaw lines are projected onto the model itself, so you can watch each landmark curve around the skull as the angle changes.
3
Export what you need
Download the single angle as a PNG (transparent background optional), or export all nine as one angle sheet — screen version for reference, printable version for the wall.
Face angle reference: what each angle is called
Angle names are not decoration — they are how references, tutorials, and art directors describe what they want. Each one below opens the tool on that exact camera position, so you can compare the wording against the geometry instead of guessing.
Full face (front view)
Both eyes, both ears, and a symmetrical jaw. The hardest angle to draw well because any asymmetry error shows up twice.
Open this angleThree-quarter (3/4)
The workhorse angle. The far eye compresses toward the edge of the face and the nose starts to overlap the far cheek — that overlap is what sells the volume.
Open this angleProfile
A pure 90° side view. The classic trap here is ear placement: the ear sits behind the vertical midline of the skull, not in the middle of the head.
Open this angleBack three-quarter
Shows the cranial mass and the back plane of the jaw. Useful for over-the-shoulder shots where only the cheekbone edge is visible.
Open this angleHigh angle
Camera above the eye line. The cranium enlarges, the jaw shortens, and the eye line bows downward across the face.
Open this angleLow angle
Camera below the eye line. The jaw and chin widen, the nose base opens up, and the eye line bows upward.
Open this angleTop-down
Directly overhead. Almost the whole face disappears behind the brow and the top of the skull — mostly a hair and cranium study.
Open this angleWorm's-eye
Directly underneath. The underside of the jaw, the nostrils, and the neck cylinder dominate; the eyes recede behind the cheekbones.
Open this angleBack of head
No facial landmarks at all. Getting the skull-to-neck transition and the ear silhouette right is the whole job.
Open this angleThe Loomis method is what makes an angle drawable
A reference photo tells you what an angle looks like. The Loomis construction tells you why: a ball for the cranium, a flat plane sliced off each side, and a jaw mass hung from it. The guide lines on the model above are that construction — as you orbit, watch how the brow, eye, and mouth lines curve with the surface. Those curves are the whole trick to drawing heads at angles you have never photographed.
Head angle reference FAQ
What are the names of the different head angles?
Artists usually name head angles by how much of the face the camera can see. Full face (or front view) shows both eyes and both ears symmetrically. Three-quarter (3/4) turns the head about a third of the way, so the far eye sits closer to the edge of the face and the far cheek partly hides the nose. Two-thirds sits between 3/4 and profile. Profile is a pure side view at 90°. On the vertical axis, a high angle looks down at the head, a low angle looks up, top-down is directly overhead, and a worm's-eye view is directly underneath. The tool above uses these same names for its nine presets.
How do I draw a head from an angle I cannot photograph?
Set the angle on the 3D head above, then draw from it. Because the model is real geometry rather than a photo, you can put the camera anywhere — including top-down and worm's-eye views that are almost impossible to shoot with a real model. Block in the skull as a ball first, find where the brow, eye, and mouth lines wrap around it at that angle, then build the features on top of that scaffolding.
Why is the three-quarter view the most used head angle?
Three-quarter shows both the front and side planes of the head at once, so it reads as a solid volume instead of a flat symmetrical mask. It also breaks the perfect symmetry of a front view, which is what makes front views hard to draw convincingly — any error is doubled and immediately visible. That is why comic panels, portrait commissions, and character sheets lean on 3/4 so heavily.
Is this head angle reference free?
Yes. The 3D viewer, the nine angle presets, and both export formats are free with no sign-up. Everything renders in your browser with WebGL, so no images are uploaded or sent to a server.
Can I print the angle sheet?
Yes. The printable export lays the nine angles out on A4 or US Letter at 300 DPI on a white background with angle labels, sized to pin up next to your desk. The screen export is the same nine angles on a dark background for on-screen reference.
Keep going
Top-down face referenceHead lighting referenceGrid maker for drawingHow to draw a faceGenerate a structure sketch
9 preset angles available as deep links, for example /head-angle-reference?angle=three-quarter-right.