About
How to draw manga/anime style girl
Manga originated in Japan developed by legendary artists such as Osamu Tezuka (sometimes known as 'the father of manga') for creating the dynamic, large eyes, small mouths and much loved style we know today. For this tutorial I'm using a Graphics Tablet and Paint Tool Sai, but it's fine to just use pen and paper too!
- Xion entered her project Cute Anime Girl to Japan Crate 04 May 10:15
- Xion published her project Cute Anime Girl 04 May 10:04
You Will Need
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Step 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.
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Step 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.
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Step 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.
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Step 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!
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Step 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.
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Step 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.