Let’s continue to shape the outline of the kitten’s head. Extend the jawline from under the mouth area. Next, start shaping the side of the kitten’s face. Notice again that I am not drawing precisely on top of my circle guideline from the first step. Instead, I am drawing alongside it. The circle guideline is meant to be a guide, nothing more. It’s very apparent that our little kitten’s head is much smaller than our circle would suggest, so it’s okay to make those adjustments.

Next, let’s identify the top of the kitten’s head. First, I’m going to locate where the ears should be. This vertical guideline shows that the ear on the right is aligned a little to the right of the eye. I’m also judging the amount of space between the eye and the top of the head. It tells me I need to bring the top much lower than the circular guideline. The other ear is aligned just to the right of the nose. Then, I see I need to bring the head outline much closer to the eye.

To draw the outline of the first ear, we already marked where along the head one edge begins. The other edge of the ear connects right along where the outer edge of the eye is located. So, we’ll mark that. Also, it looks as if the top tip of the ear is aligned somewhere above the area of the inner corner of the eye. We can mark that as well. Now we can simply connect the marks to complete the ear outline, while still purposefully drawing the lines in a manner that properly shapes the ear.

We already identified where the second ear connects to the head. However, the ear should connect with a more diagonal line. Next, we need to find where the other side of the ear connects. The reference photograph reveals that the edge of the head is about two eye-widths away from the corner of the eye. So, I can use my pencil to measure this and find the approximate location.

Now we know how wide to make the head. The ear itself connects below the eye level. The top tip of this ear is slightly lower than the first one. Connect the ear at the base and finish the side of the head.

We no longer need most of these guidelines, so we can start erasing them now. I mentioned earlier how guidelines at the start of a drawing are only meant to be guides to help us find a starting point. We don’t have to stick to those guidelines if the reference shows we need to go in another direction. You can clearly see how much smaller our kitten’s head ended up being than the circle guideline from the beginning.

As you erase, take care to maintain the contours of the kitten’s face. We can also erase the guidelines inside the ears.

Now, very carefully erase the remaining guidelines inside the outline of the kitten’s face. Try your best to not erase the outline of the facial features you drew up to this point. I’m using just the corner of my eraser. If you’d rather, you can use a kneaded eraser instead.