How You Can Draw Anime Characters

Do not confuse it with manga, which means Japanese comic book. So, when people are talking about manga or anime, they mean the same thing. When it comes to drawing anime and manga, still there are some technical differences. But, the basic idea is the same.

● Alright, the first thing you need to do to learn drawing anime is observe. If you are a total beginner to sketching, then you will have to observe even more. The best way to do this is to get some Manga comic books and look at them.

You can also play some anime on computer, and play and pause it in different close up scenes. This will give you a pretty good idea of how the face and other body parts look.

● You will observe the manga characters have a head where the chin is pointed, lot of stylish haircuts, extreme expressions at sometimes, and neutral expressions at most times. They also have big eyes with pupils showing off and tiny noses.

● Now, it is time to take the observations to the paper. Grab a sketching plain paper, some pencils, eraser, and sharpener.

Then start drawing an oval for the face and join the lower half of jaw and chin to this oval. This is the basic guideline for the face. If you want to draw a female, then the face will be more slender. For male character the jaw will be shown.

● After you are done with this, draw horizontal outlines where you will be placing the eyes, nose, and mouth. Place the eyes, draw them big with pupils showing off. You can look at a manga comic book to see how the eyes look.

Then draw a simple small line for the nose and shade it at the inside a little. For the mouth, just draw a simple horizontal line below the nose and above the chin. There you are done with most of the face.

Now, on the oval top outline, start drawing the hair with sharp edges and then draw lot of long bangs. Don't go overboard with the hair, let some eyes be visible. The hair will be different for a girl and guy character, so make sure you pick the appropriate hairstyle according to the gender.

● Once you are done with the face, start drawing the body. It will be good to take some drawing lessons to learn about the human anatomy. Work in forms, as this will make it easier to draw.

For example, use rectangles for male torso, use cylinders for arms, ovals for palms, triangles for feet, etc. You will need to study anatomy while drawing the torso of male and female. As males have triangle-shaped torso, while female's have an hourglass shape.

● Once you are done drawing the body forms, start adding details. But, don't add too much details, keep the drawing simple. Then add the appropriate clothes according to the gender. You can also sketch a simple prop, for example a backpack for a school girl or a katana for a Samurai.

Do not be discouraged, if you didn't get the anime character drawing in the first go. Keep on practicing and surfing the Internet for more tutorials. Video tutorials are the best as they are easiest to understand. If you wish to take learning anime further then, use Christopher Hart's book 'Manga for the Beginner'. So, good luck!