Drawing prompts

Fifty faces to draw on Willy

A structured prompt list, from two-minute mustaches to full portraits, because everyone runs out of ideas after the beard.

Why a list helps

Every session starts the same way: mustache, eyebrows, silence. The toy has no levels, so it needs prompts the way a blank page does. Read one out loud, argue about the result, tilt, repeat. The prompt spinner on this site deals these at random; the list below is the same idea on paper, sorted by effort.

Two-minute faces

• A handlebar mustache and nothing else
• One giant unibrow
• A tiny goatee, way too small for his face
• Sideburns down to the chin
• A single curl on top, cartoon-baby style
• Angry eyebrows
• Surprised eyebrows, halfway up the forehead
• A soul patch
• Three hairs total, combed over
• A milk mustache

Five-minute faces

• A full pirate beard with a curled mustache
• A mohawk
• Muttonchops joined to a mustache, no chin beard
• A wizard beard, longer than the chin allows
• Slicked-back hair with a widow’s peak
• A flat-top haircut
• Cat whiskers and pointy ears
• A monocle and a thin mustache
• Winter mode: hat, earmuffs, chin scarf
• A lion mane all the way around

Character studies

• Your grandfather, as accurately as possible
• A sea captain who has seen things
• A 1970s rock drummer
• A distinguished professor mid-lecture
• Santa in the off-season
• A detective in a deerstalker hat
• A viking, horns optional
• The barber gave up halfway
• A judge with powdered wig
• Every uncle at Thanksgiving, one at a time

Challenges and games

• Draw with your eyes closed, then guess what it is
• One player draws the left half, the other the right
• Copy the face of someone in the room until they notice
• Give Willy the hair you had in your last school photo
• Speed round: best mustache in twenty seconds
• Draw the same face twice in a row, exactly
• Pass the wand every ten seconds, no talking
• Make him sad, then fix it with one drag of the wand
• The dictionary game: someone names a word, draw it as hair
• Draw the most hair the board can physically hold

The long game

• A four-season series: same face in spring, summer, fall, winter
• His entire life story in five faces, bald to bald
• A family portrait: draw each member of your family in turn
• Recreate a famous painting, argue about which one it was
• Draw yesterday’s weather as a hairstyle
• The before and after of a barbershop visit
• A face using only taps, no drags
• A face using only one continuous drag
• The world’s worst haircut, then vote
• Freestyle: empty the whole bottom pile onto his head and sculpt down