How To Draw Your Own Anime Character

Wait Why Are There So Many Anime Character Generator Tools

Due to the popularity surge anime has gone through in recent years, plenty of anime character generators have popped up on the internet. While creating an anime character on one of these online character creators is usually easy, there are a stupid number of anime character maker tools online that deliver very poor results.

Finding the best anime character maker can take a long time, so to make things easier for you, we have gathered some of the best anime character creators on the web. Some of these character creators are exceptionally easy to use. In contrast, others require some hours of dedicated practice to get the user to understand the interface.

Section 22 Drawing Faces

Now that you have your characters head with all of the needed facial features, its probably a good time to add some ears and hair .

Ears are relatively simple unless youre showing them really up close. For this tutorial, theyll be pretty basic. Typically, ears should go from about the top of the eyes to the bottom of the nose. Its usually a good idea to look at a picture of an ear for reference during this part just so you can get a more solid idea of the shape. Obviously the earlobe will be thicker than the tip of the ear, but its entirely up to you when deciding how big they should be or what shape looks best.

Manga hair this is where you can really use your imagination. Short, long, curly, straight, spiked, bangs, tied back. The options are almost endless. Lets keep it simple, though.

Very lightly, draw a rough outline of the hair. Dont worry about parts or points or anything like that yet. Just focus on where you want the hairline to sit and how it should lay around the ears. From here you can start experimenting with length, bangs, and more of the fine details. Unlike realistic hair that is made up of millions of individual strands, manga hair is drawn in several sections or clumps. Once the shape of the hair is how you like it, you can start adding some finer lines throughout the different sections of hair to indicate the way it flows and where shadows will lie.

Which Anime Character Are You

Are you an avid anime watcher? Animation produced in Japan, anime has become popular worldwide since the late twentieth century, attracting fans of all backgrounds and tastes. Some countries have even produced their own anime-inspired cartoons. While anime uses similar production methods, the catch-all term describes diverse shows in genres like action-adventure, sci-fi, comedy, horror, drama, and more. Fans develop an emotional attachment to iconic art styles, epic story arcs, cultural tidbits, and, of course, memorable casts of characters. Protagonists usually have relatable stories to draw in fans. They have to face their fears, overcome new challenges, and often mature throughout the series. Take this quiz to see which popular character you identify with most.

Quiz WriterKyle

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Don’t Forget The Hair

“Some years ago I went from hating drawing hair to loving it,” Ørum. “Previously, I used to view working out all the details and directions of the hair as a tedious endeavour. Now I think of it more as a large, organic shape, which like a flag in the wind indicates and emphasises the movement of the character or its surroundings.

“Start by creating a large shape and divide it into shorter sections, while thinking about where the hair is parted and where the hairline is. Every line should help to define the volume, shape and direction of the hair.”

How To Draw Arms For Anime

Did you know that the arm is the same length as the torso?

What about other tidbits of advice like the forearm is the same length as the upper arm and the elbow is always at the belly button?

This tutorial is packed full of memorable information teaching you how to draw the armmuscles and allin many different poses while sticking to the anime style.

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All In One2 Lectures 54min

• Part1

• 11,035 Students
• 3 Courses

Hello, I am Tufan. I have been dealing with art and drawing for as long as I can remember, I develop myself as much as I can and still continue to learn new things. I have knowledge about pencil drawing, anime – manga style, portrait drawing and drawing with dry paint. I wanted to share my knowledge with you on the Udemy platform. I hope you find it useful and my tutorials will help you add something to yourself.

Incorporating Plot And Dialogue

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Refine Shading And Color

You can now paint or shade the image in black and white. As you indicate shading, make a note for yourself about where the light source is located. Try to keep the shading realistic, so that your drawing comes off as more believable. It can be helpful to use a photo reference for shading if you have trouble visualizing where the light and shadows will hit. If you are working in color, avoid using black for shading. Instead, use a deeper version of the way that the color looks in the light.

What To Expect From This Tutorial

Im going to break it down into a few sections so its easier to follow. We will be covering everything from your initial , to rough sketches and inking, to shading and coloring. Not all manga is created equal there are tons of nuances depending on the kind of style youre into. Because of this, well be focusing on drawing eyes, faces, and the differences in andm . To keep things simple, this tutorial will focus on drawing the head of a character. Check out other tutorials later on for more advanced tips on bodies, poses, hands, feet, etc.

So, there you go. Once you get all your tools together, youre ready to begin.

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First Lets Think About Whats On The Inside The Core Of A Character

The most important part of a character is their personality.

You might be thinking, Im an illustrator, and Im not especially interested in drawing manga, so I dont need to give my character a personality. However, a characters outward appearance alone doesnt help you imagine the kind of pose or expression they will have.

For that, you need a personality. Without one, you can end up drawing the same character over and over again. If giving a character a soul makes it original, then a characters personality is their soul.

Establishing the main personality traits and branching out

However, its hard to just start deciding character traits. So first, well decide on their main traits and slowly branch out from there.

First things to decide upon

• In a story, what kind of role would this character have?
• What kind of background would they have? Are they comic book characters, a character with a worldview from the inside, are they designed around a specific motif?
• Sex, gender, age
• Personality

Out of all of these, personality is the most important. That being said, lets try not to add too many ideas all at once, but instead, aim for about two or three main traits.

In one word, how would you describe your character? Think of foundational character traits such as selfish, cold, emotional, passionate, etc. Once decided, we can then start branching out from the main trait.

Conflict leading to personality

Bonus Tip Get Feedback

You can get some basic feedback by showing people your character designs and giving them some idea of the plot. You can also show them your planning sketches to see if what is happening in the panels actually makes sense to other people.

It might be hard for a friend to criticize your work but ask for honest feedback.

Criticism may also be hard to take but if you are truly serious about doing something then you should be willing to listen to the opinions of others. At the same time remember that not every bit of advice or criticism from everyone is always valid. Definitely try and talk to more than one person and get a general consensus of your work.

If you know someone who is a professional artist or writer they may be a very good person to ask for some help and advice.

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Brainstorm Your Character And Build A Concept For Their Pose

You character brainstorming can take many forms, including finding references, inspiration, and getting to know about your character. The more you know the character the better you will be able to represent them visually. This is one reason that it can be much easier to get started with drawing fan art than drawing original characters. Those that you represent in fan art already have a story, posture, and style that you can draw from. If you intend to make an original character, you’ll have to make choices about all these character traits.

• What’s your character’s posture like? Fitness level, and overall style?
• Do they perfectly fix their hair in the morning or is it slightly messy?
• What kind of clothes do they wear?
• What are they normally doing? It’s a good idea to portray the character in the act of doing something that most defines them.

How To Start In Manga With Cheap Tools

Prepare to be taught by a real manga artist with professional experience in drawing and selling manga.

He shares all his tips and tricks on a wide array of topics, from which ink you might use to how to avoid crinkled pages.

Short and to the point, this video is loaded with useful information thatll hook you up with the right supplies to create your own original manga pages.

We covered some recommended supplies before but I think this video does a better job explaining how they work in the anime style.

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Make Your Character Distinctive

Whether you’re creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character design needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people’s attention.

When devising The Simpsons, Matt Groening knew he had to offer the viewers something different. He reckoned that when viewers were flicking through TV channels and came across the show, the characters’ unusually bright yellow skin colour would grab their attention.

Paint Realistic Manga Portraits

Just because anime and manga have simplified color and bold linework doesnt mean you cant change the style. Plenty of anime styles use more realistic designs.

This tutorial shows you how to start a loose sketch and move into adding swathes of color, all the while blending and keeping color harmony.

When trying to paint realistic versions of anime characters its best to use a picture as a reference. Maybe even grab a sleek anime art book of your favorite series and use that concept art as a reference.

Just pick out a character and get painting!

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How To Draw Anime Neck & Shoulders

Skipping out on the shoulder muscles is one of the biggest beginner mistakes you can make.

These frame the torso and make a big impact on the final design.

This tutorial teaches you all about the muscles in the neck and how they connect to the shoulders. Once finished, youll understand how to connect the head to the body in any pose or angle you desire.

Color Anime Skin In Photoshop

When coloring an anime character its essential to get the skin right.

Choose uncomplimentary colors or place the shadows in the wrong place and your character will look waxy and out of place.

This tutorial goes over how to choose your skin tone and shows you a few traditional techniques to use when shading.

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Main Things To Remember When Drawing Your Anime Character

While I already showed you the final image and how I draw anime characters, these are the main things I want you to remember when drawing your anime character.

• What kind of culture the character has?
• What is the environment the character is living in?
• What about the world and timeline? Ancient, futuristic, medieval?
• What is the age of your character?
• What about the personality or things he/she likes to do?
• What is the overall feeling or emotion the character should evoke? Anger, cuteness, joy, sadness?
• Clothes tell a lot about the character, as does pose and hair.
• Facial expression can support the characters personality but doesnt have to the determining factor

The above few bullet-points are the ones that I would think when drawing anime characters. Ive drawn quite a few and have to say its one of the best things to draw.

Designing and drawing anime characters is a blast, and if you want to draw your own anime character. A good place to start is by getting inspired and gathering those reference images.

Create Your Own Anime Character

Have you tried to draw or to create an anime character based on your opinion? If not, try this quiz and see what will happen! 🙂

• What nationality do you want for your anime?
• A.& nbsp

• Sample Question

• Sample QuestionWho were you in school?Tomboy

• Sample QuestionHow would you describe your work ethic? You may choose to consider:- Your approach to school tasks or job tasks on an everyday basis.- Your determination and diligence when carrying out these tasks.Select all that apply, but do NOT tick all or none boxes otherwise, you’ll get inaccurate results.You work when it benefits your loved ones, and take the job no matter what the opposition states.You prefer to get servants to carry out mundane tasks – carrying out high-risk tasks is more your style.You prefer to think that you’re in charge while bossing your friends to carry out the chores.

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Focus On Facial Expression

Expressions showing a character’s range of emotions and depicting its ups and downs will further flesh out your character. Depending on its personality, a figure’s emotions might be muted and wry or explosive and wildly exaggerated.

“When you know the basics of drawing a face, play with the expression of the character,” says Ørum. “Use a mirror to read your own face and notice the subtle changes. Push and pull the eyebrows to show emotion. Avoid giving the face symmetry. The mouth will always favours a side and it gives life to the drawing. And give the head a tilt to add nuance.”

Classic examples of exaggerated expressions can be found in the work of the legendary Tex Avery: the eyes of his Wild Wolf character often pop out of its head when it’s excited. Another example of how expressions communicate motions is deadpan Droopy, who barely registers any sort of emotion at all.

Section 21 Drawing Manga Eyes

There are probably hundreds of different styles you can use for eyes, but we will just go over some of the basics. For obvious reasons, male eyes differ greatly from female eyes, just as evil eyes look much different than good guy eyes. We could spend hours going over every single nuance, so for this tutorial, well keep it simple.

If youre interested this quora anwser is a reasonably comprehensive explanation of what different aspects of eyes could mean when drawing your Manga.

Lets start off with a basic female manga eye first. Start by drawing a curved line where the top of the eyelid and the eyelashes will sit. From here you will want to draw a large oval shape underneath, roughly the same width and the first line you made. Leave one side of the oval open .

Now you should have something that is starting to resemble an eye. If for whatever reason you arent happy with it thus far, just gently erase and start again. This is why you are pressing so lightly with the pencil. When the inking starts, theres no going back.

Inside this first oval, youll want to draw another smaller oval that is slightly overlapped on the top by the eyelashes. Then, draw yet another oval around pupil to represent the iris . If youre tired of drawing ovals, too bad There are more coming.

This next part is something very common among manga and anime .

Light reflections.

For the interested, these reflections are called catchlights in both film and photography.

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