Cute Anime Girl

About

You Will Need (4 things)

Steps (20 steps, 40 minutes)

1. 1

   Open a new canvas on Paint/Photoshop/Gimp/Paint Tool Sai etc or grab a blank piece of paper.

2. 2

   To start draw a circle for the head, draw a horizontal line from the middle of the circle and then a pointed oval for the chin. Setting the horizontal line off centre slightly gives a 3/4 view. If you are drawing on paper and plan to scan the image in, it may be helpful to draw your construction lines with a blue pencil.

3. 3

   Draw the shoulders sloping from the neck. The pink lines show guidelines for her face. Her eyes will end there the circle ends, and go up about halfway her face. Her nose and mouth take up the same amount of space as her eyes, large eyes are a characteristic of anime/manga style. These proportions would look strange on a real person, but help give anime style it's cute appearance.

4. 4

   Eyes are separated by one eyes width, and eyebrows should follow along the arc of the upper eyelid.

5. 5

   Using the construction lines as a guide, shape out the basic features of her face. Since this is just a rough sketch, you don't have to worry about it being perfect.

6. 6

   Hair starts from the top of the hair and flows downwards with gravity.

7. 7

   Block of the basic shape of her hair as a guide. Ears should go from the eyebrow down to the nose however for cute proportions I made her ear smaller and only go to the upper eyelash.

8. 8

   Now for some details. For her clothing I decided to draw a sailor suit/ sailor fuku. This traditional school uniform is worn by many well known protagonists in anime such as Usagi from Sailor Moon, Haruhi from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Kagome from Inuyasha.

   Images found on Google.

9. 9

   Draw in the uniform. Hair clips are an extra cute accessory to give our girl some personality. Using hair ties, head bands and other accessories can give your drawing a different identity.

10. 10

    This step is optional, but I decided to draw out a more detailed sketch before doing the outline. This makes it easier to line and allows me to fix mistakes. Flipping the drawing over helps to spot and mistakes. This can be done pretty easily on the computer, but you could also hold your paper to the mirror if you are drawing by hand. Try not to get too caught up with making everything perfect though else you will stress yourself out! Drawing should be fun and relaxing!

11. 11

    Time to do the outline! This is done with a black pen or brush. Varying the line thickness helps give your picture depth. On the computer, open up a new layer to draw on and lower the opacity of the sketch so you can draw over it. By hand any kind of black pen or marker will do. Once you've finished outlining, rub off the pencil construction lines gently to avoid tearing the paper. Depending on the pen you used, you may want to wait a second after finishing to avoid smudging your lines.

12. 12

    Now for colour! I lay down all the base colours on different layers but you may choose just to colour one area (e.g hair, skin, eyes) first before moving onto the next.

13. 13

    In anime the shading is generally quite simple, using only one or two shades to save time whilst drawing all the frames for the animation. This style of shading is commonly called 'cel shading'. In order to do this, it is important to have a clear idea of where your light is coming from and so which areas will be in the dark and need shading. My light will be from the upper left, so the darkest areas will on her right.

14. 14

    Using a colour that is a few shades darker draw the shadows of her hair. If you are colouring with markers or pencils, going over an area you have already coloured will make it appear darker.

15. 15

    Taking a lighter colour, draw parts of her hair that would be illuminated by the light. You can also draw a band of highlights round her head.

16. 16

    Use this same method to colour the skin and clothes.

17. 17

    There are many different ways to shade the eyes, but this is the method I use. Firstly, draw a semi-circle in the middle of her eye, and then draw two sloping diagonals either side, and fill it in.

18. 18

    Then draw another semi circle under the first, but leave a space in the middle directly under the first. Fill the space with a lighter colour to give depth to the eye.

19. 19

    Almost done! To finish the drawing off, add some white highlights to the eyes and blush on the cheeks.

20. 20

    I finished off with by adding cherry blossom/ sakura background. Hope this helped! Have fun doodling!