Work lightly in pencil so you can erase and make changes if you need to. If you have trouble drawing a circle, use a compass to help you draw one. Don’t add any facial features yet since you may need to make adjustments to the size of the head later on.
Measure your proportions each time or else your anime character won’t look natural. The guide line will also help keep your drawing symmetrical.
When you’re finished, the head and torso together will be about 3 heads tall. Your anime girl’s shoulders should be about 1 ½ times wider than the head. Draw small circles on the top corners of the hourglass shape if you want to visualize the shoulder joints better.
The upper arms and forearms on your drawing will be the same length. Try posing the arms a different way if you don’t want them straight down. Just make sure the total length of each arm is about the same length as the drawing’s torso.
Make sure both legs are the same length or else your drawing won’t look symmetrical.
Be careful not to erase the outline for your character or else you’ll have to redraw it.
Look at various characters’ hairstyles to get an idea of different anime hair that you can draw. Draw the hairstyles on a piece of tracing paper on top of your drawing so you can practice sketching without affecting the rest of your drawing. That way, you can try multiple styles before committing to one.
Look at pictures of real people wearing the kind of clothes you want to draw on your character so you can see where it folds and bunches up so you can make your drawing more realistic.
Male anime characters usually have longer, narrower faces than females. Don’t draw your circle too large or else you won’t be able to fit the rest of the body on the page.
You can also draw horizontal lines marking the head size along the vertical guide. That way you can visually see where the character’s anatomy lines up.
Your character’s shoulders should be about twice the width of their head and the hips slightly narrower. Put circles on the top corners of the shoulders to mark the joints so you can visualize them better. Keep the body as symmetrical as you can so your character looks proportional.
You can draw mitten shapes if you don’t want to add fingers right away to your character’s hands. The arms will be about the same length or slightly longer than your character’s torso.
Draw one leg first and extend horizontal guidelines from the knee joint and foot so you can line them up when you add the other leg. Hold your drawing out in front of you and look at its proportions to see if they look natural or unnatural.
If you don’t have an eraser on your pencil, you can either use a block eraser or a small clickable eraser to work in tight areas.
You don’t have to add muscles if you plan on drawing loose-fitting clothes on them. Look at musculature charts to see what shapes and lines the muscles would make on your character.
Practice drawing clothes on a sheet of tracing paper so you don’t have to draw and erase on your drawing each time.
