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one of my bigger problems (and of many others) is drawing a face that is easy to recognize. some faces are obviously much easier than others (obama comes to mind) but the problem remains. basically what im asking is what are the main focal points on a face that makes it recognizable so you can do a minimal yet recognizable face?

I'd say eyes and mouth, as can be evinced from ascii emoticons like :) :| :( ;) ;p , etc.

That depends. If you're going for a cartoony look, then that's fine. But if you're amaing for a more realistic face, you start to realize that nobody actually ever goes :P.

Unfortunately, I have not studied the art of capturing/portraying expression at all, but I'm sure there are some veteran artists here who will have advice on the matter.

You're talking about caricaturing a particular person, right? The most distinguishing features are going to be different from one person to another. Hitler, for example, is extremely unmistakable. Whereas some people are very hard to capture.

The art of the caricaturist is to identify and distill the distinguishing features. Everyone has to discover their own method of drawing each person. I remember reading an anthology of Jules Feiffer's political cartoons, and he talked about the process of "discovering" each of the presidents as they came into office - some came easily, others were extremely elusive. But you got a sense that each one was an individual puzzle to be solved.

Im not sure if you guys are fully getting my question. basically what im saying is what are the main parts of the face that really define the face and make it unique? Obviously i cant draw in every line on the face im studying so what are the important parts?

Yeah I'm saying that the answer to that question is different for every face.

Cheek structure, chin, eyebrow ridge, nose, and hairline. Oh, and eyes and mouth. Yeah.

 I would argue against the idea that some people have faces that are more recognizable.  Its just that they are iconic and that allows for a much larger margin of error where people will still recognize them because they are famous or iconic (Hitler, Obama ). I can't say for sure but it seems like eyes, nose , mouth, forehead, and chin are the most important.  And in those you must look at distance apart, length, and width.  As well as any items they might wear or distinguishing features like facial hair or a mole.  Just look at Hitler, his little hitler-stache makes him instantly look like hitler.  Even if the face doesnt look exactly like hitler people will recognize him as that.  So if you are doing somebody famous you can alot of times pick out things that help to distinguish them (like jay leno's chin)

I realize drawing a hitler stache on any face makes it look like hitler but being able to draw a recognizable hitler who has no hair or stache is more what im going for. I guess ill just work at it.

It's all about caricatures, and greatly exaggerating certain facial features that might be slightly abnormal in real life.  Political cartoons are a great example of this, look how all of these different cartoonists drew President Obama:

(I realize these are all from the primaries last year - I can't find any more up-to-date cartoons)
(http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/z/4/2/obama-clinging-jd0424d.jpg)
(http://www.unionleader.com/uploads/media-items/2008/march/306edtoonreplace.jpg)
(http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/WrightRants/images/beeler.gif)

Each of these images look quite different from each other, but they all still look like Obama, because of a certain emphasis of facial features, (such as an elongated face, and ears that poke from the head).  I'm not saying that an image has to be a caricature to be recognizable, though it definitely helps to emphasize the features that make the face unique.