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Description
The rule of thumb has always been that the head in profile is roughly twice that in front view. Roughly is a tad optimistic. If you use that as your guide you end up with alien melon heads. Even so, many pass down the rule to the next generation, people you trust, like Disney teachers and Fine Arts people, and trusted illustrators from all areas of commercial art. But it never worked for me. So, after reviewing the actual models used by some of these people, and realizing how they modify the model to make it work (by shortening that roughly twice part into something more adaptive), I sat down today and worked it out for myself. What I found is that the ideal for a normal looking head is roughly 1 to 1.5 without counting the nose, or 1 and .75 if you count the nose. Burne Hogarth got it WRONG, which is why his heads often look like alien melon heads (see his, "Drawing Dynamic Heads").

Note: Disney and Famous Artists School also teach this rule of thumb using the double egg, saying that the head is like two eggs overlapping on each other at right angles - one vertical for the front view, the other horizontal for the profile. It's good for a rough estimate, but, again, it doesn't work without a lot of monkeying that presupposes knowledge of correct proportions. It's an aid to construction but not a check.

Description
The rule of thumb has always been that the head in profile is roughly twice that in front view. Roughly is a tad optimistic. If you use that as your guide you end up with alien melon heads. Even so, many pass down the rule to the next generation, people you trust, like Disney teachers and Fine Arts people, and trusted illustrators from all areas of commercial art. But it never worked for me. So, after reviewing the actual models used by some of these people, and realizing how they modify the model to make it work (by shortening that roughly twice part into something more adaptive), I sat down today and worked it out for myself. What I found is that the ideal for a normal looking head is roughly 1 to 1.5 without counting the nose, or 1 and .75 if you count the nose. Burne Hogarth got it WRONG, which is why his heads often look like alien melon heads (see his, "Drawing Dynamic Heads").

Note: Disney and Famous Artists School also teach this rule of thumb using the double egg, saying that the head is like two eggs overlapping on each other at right angles - one vertical for the front view, the other horizontal for the profile. It's good for a rough estimate, but, again, it doesn't work without a lot of monkeying that presupposes knowledge of correct proportions. It's an aid to construction but not a check.