How To Draw An Anime Character In 2023

Are you an aspiring artist who loves anime? Well, in this blog post I’m going to teach you how to draw an anime character that looks just like the ones you see on your favorite TV shows and movies. It’s actually not as hard as you might think, and with a little bit of practice you’ll be able to create some amazing works of art.

In this tutorial you will learn

• How to draw basic anatomy
• Learn to draw with basic shapes
• How to draw a face
• Tidying things up

Step 1

First, draw the head. This is pretty simple as she’s facing the view directly. I usually start with the head first.

Step 2

Next I usually draw I rough sketch of the pose I want. I first begin with drawing a line for the shoulders, and then I draw a line for the hips. I then add shapes for the shoulders and hips. Since this is a female, the hips are more outward.

Another tip I want to point out is if you’re drawing on paper, don’t draw the rough sketch HARD. Remember, you have to erase these lines after. If you need a good drawing pencil, I made a post about the best ones. I prefer drawing with a tablet as it’s more flexible. Here is a post about budget friendly tablets in case you want to buy one.

Step 3

In anime, the character’s proportions are exaggerated. In this case, this character’s torso is 3 heads tall. Usually the characters I draw have this proportion.

At this stage it doesn’t have to be perfect as we are still in the rough sketch phase.

Step 4

Draw the rib cage. The size of the rib cage will determine the size of the torso. For an even more exaggerated look, try making the rib cage more thin.

Step 5

Next we draw the rough shapes for the arms Length wise, the arm is usually from the shoulder to the waist.

Step 6

Now we draw the lines for the legs. This gives us a general direction as to where the pose is going.

Step 7

Now we start to flesh out the arms.

Step 8

With the arms fleshed out, it’s time to flesh out the entire body.

Step 9

Next we draw the hands and the neck. The hands can be hard to draw. I made a tutorial on how to draw hands to give you some practice with them.

Step 10

We add the collarbone and the stomach next. Usually I use the centerline we drew on step 2 as guidance on the stomach. We also add the arm pit as well.

Step 11

We now sketch in the breasts. Breasts are usually in the middle of the rib cage. If you’re creating an even more exaggerated character, you could sketch them a bit higher up on the rib cage.

Step 12

At this stage we clean up our lines. Usually what I do at this point is I flip the sketch horizontally. What this does is it helps your brain spot mistakes if you think things look a bit iffy.

If you’re drawing on a piece of paper, just flip the paper and point it at a light source. You should be able to tell if things don’t look right.

Step 13

Let’s now focus on the eyes. First, draw one eye. After that, draw a line across the face marking the width of the eye, so you have a guide on the other eye.

Step 14

Keep in mind that since our character is looking straight ahead, that means the proportion of the other eye is the same as the eye you just drew. The eyes are usually an eye apart from each other.

Step 15

Continuing from step 16, we can see the eyes are one eye apart from each other.

Step 17.

We now draw the rest of the face.

Step 18

With the rest of the face done, we erase our guidelines.

Step 19

The hair can be made with basic shapes. For the bangs usually just rough shapes comprising of the hair.

Step 20

Sketch in her glasses. You could try different shapes of glasses. I just went with oval.

Step 21

Now that her face is done, let’s have a look at where we are now. We need to decide on what kind of clothes to give her. We could make it easy and just give her a swimsuit and be done with her. But for this sketch, I’ve chosen to give her a sweater.

Step 22

Sketch in a simple sweater. Make sure to think in 3D. The sweater isn’t going to be a flat 2D item slapped on top of her. It needs to follow the curve of her body

Step 23

Now we add the sewing lines to the sweater. It adds more form to the clothes. At this point, we’re essentially done with the character. But you could improve her some more with varying degrees of line width and shadow..

Step 24

Here I varied the width of some of the lines. Doing this is the same process with inking. Vary the line width at intersections of the sketch to give it more depth.

Step 25

The final part you can shade in the picture now. Remember, shading depends on where the sun is at. In this sketch, I decided to make it on the top left and I sketched according to where the sun is.

Conclusion

Drawing an anime character wearing a sweater was definitely fun, and I think anyone can do it with a bit of practice. If you want to make your characters even more realistic (or if you’re just starting out), try using references – there are tons of pictures online that will help you get the proportions and details right. And don’t forget to have fun while you’re drawing – experiment with different poses, clothing, and hairstyles to create your own unique style. Thanks for reading, and I hope you give this tutorial a try!