https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/how-to-draw-a-manga-chibi-film-cel • Posted by StringNinja
To draw your Chibi you first need a large circle. You can then roughly mark off where your facial features will be positioned by drawing one line vertically straight down the middle of this circle and the another, at right angles to this, horizontally through the circle. This is the eye line. In the lower half of the circle, half way between the middle line and the bottom, draw another horizontal line. This is the mouth line. Below your main circle draw another vertical straight line, starting at the edge of the bottom of the circle, down to a point which is roughly one head below. Drawn some more horizontal guides half way down, the mid point above this half way line, just below the 'chin' and then another a little way below this.
You can now start to pencil in facial details such as the eyes, mine a slits placed well below the actual eye line to look cuter, a small mouth, again slightly below the mouth line this time, ears, the tops being level with the eye line, and eyebrows, just above the eye lines. You then draw to curved lines from the neck area down to run level the third guideline from the top, these are arms which are tucked behing the chibis back, two lines from the seconds guideline from the top down to the same point, this defines the torso, and start to bulk out the legs starting from the bottom horizontal guide to just above where the feet will start.
You then can define the chin a bit more, you can make this squarer for male chibis. You can start to draw specific items of clothing such a a skirt, and pencil in the basic hair shape.
you can now finalise all the details and either go over all the final lines in pen or just press harder with the pencil to make these more prominent.
You can now erase all the unwanted guidelines. You may want to stop here or continue on to ink the images.
Grab your acetate and sharpie marker and trace you chibi with nice smooth flowing lines.
**Flip the acetate over so that the pen is one the back before you start to paint** (I forgot to do this so had to trace it again on the other side once I was finished painting) Starting with the 'shadow' areas of the chibi carefully paint between the lines in the shape that you want the shadow to be. (sorry I forgot to take a photo of this stage so hope you'll understand what i mean with the next image) Try to make this as opaque as possible by holding it up to the light to check for gaps. Once this layer is dry take your next colour and work in the same fashion. Keep on layering the colours always starting with the shadows on the bottom as this is what you will see from the other side.
Hopefully this shows what I mean by painting the shadows first.
Heres what mine looks like from the wrong side after all the paint layers are complete.
Once all the paints have dried you can turn it over and see your finished chibi.