I took a shot at drawing a character for a story I’ve been working on for awhile (months, years)? This isn’t really a tutorial but a record of the steps I took to draw her. This character is not done at all and she’s getting more folds and shading. I need to decide if I want to do cell shading again or try a harder type of shading.

I’m not even sure who this character will be but she’s temporarily named Angora. I might not even use her since I don’t hold on to characters unless they feel right. Maybe she needs some redesigning. Click to read more …

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I decided to create a digital character and see how far I could go in a drawing tutorial. First a little sketching. Then some line cleanup. Lay over some lineart. Erase the sketches beneath. Add details. Add color. Do cell style shading. I don’t get how professional digital artists pull that off in 6 hours. I worked on this guy for 6 hours and I was able to get the lineart done only. Now at 11 o’clock, I’m yawning too much to even see my keyboard. Since I’m on break, I want to see how far I can take him. Maybe I’ll even add a background.

When drawing or painting, the artist has a boatload of choices. Painters can choose between watercolor, acrylic, and oils. Sketchers can use graphite pencils, regular pencils, or go straight to pen. Digital artists can use a mouse, tablet, or pen tool. You can even combine different tools. For instance, you can start off with graphite pencils on drawing paper, then scan the drawing with a really good scanner, and then use the pen tool to replace the rough sketch with smooth lines. You can even print out a piece of digital art, fix a mistake, and then scan the image again. Click to read more …

Tags: angel, Art, character, drawing, fantasy, figure, halberd, sketch, sketching, staff, wand, wing, winged, wings

Part One of the Hair Trilogy

Part Two of the Hair Trilogy

How to Draw a Long Hair Explosion!

Hello to you all! This is the last hair tutorial from me for awhile. I got really carried away with the drawing, but I created a bunch of new hairstyles that I’m going to put on my characters. Today I’m playing around with long hair. The really great thing about long hair is that there’s really no limit to what you can do with it. And long hair looks so… cool. *(^_^)*

Lengthening the hair on a character means only one thing… HAIR EXPLOSION! That’s right. Bangs, strands, flips, curls, and dos can go all over the place.

I really, really love drawing long hair. Hair can have a fine, coarse, or wirey texture. People with drier hair have all sorts of curls that flow and bounce all over the head like they’re taking over the joint. Wetter hair is long and free-spirited, blowing whereever the wind wants to take it. Some hair-owners try to make their hair symmetrical and pretty, while others let hair go wherever they want it to. The wilder the hair, the more interesting it is to look at.

I’ve seen cartoon hair in three styles. The most common seems to be the angle look, since the really sharp edges of the angle show up really nice on a cartoon. Figure one shows the basic principles of the angles. Lazier artists draw huge gobs of hair and then fill these gobs in with lines. But these gobs of hair can look really great, especially if colored well. You can see the gobs of hair in figure 2. They have a really nice cartoon look to them. But if you’re going for a much more realistic look, you might want to try drawing each strand individually. There’s really no limit to how realistic you can make each strand of hair, but you should keep two things in mind. The more realistic you make your hair, the more realistic you should make the rest of the character. Also, the more realistic you make the hair, the longer it will take to draw the entire head of hair. Really, there’s no limit to how detailed you can make a head of hair.

Figure 1                     Figure 2

Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, bangs, cartoon, cartoon drawing, comb, curly, Digital Art, do, draw, drawing tutorial, forehead, hair, hairbrush, hairstyle, how to draw cartoons, illustration, manga, paintbrush tool, scalp, sketch, sketching, spikey, spiky, strands, traditional Art, Tutorial, widow's peak

The next natural drawing tutorial is “How to Draw Medium Hair.” Short hair stays on the top of the head and sometimes throws a party, except when a comb comes to crash it. Medium hair often covers the ears, or extends down part of the neck. That includes my favorite hairstyle, the one that is made up of curved triangles and wraps around the character’s head, making it look really round. Its a common hairstyle in Japan both among men and women.
Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, artist, bangs, cartoon, cartoon drawing, curly, draw, drawing tutorial, face, hair, hairbrush, hairstyle, how to draw cartoons, manga, Pencils, sketch, sketching, strands, Tutorial

From a frontal perspective, features are mostly symmetrical. An artist doesn’t have to worry about the size of one eye in relation to the size of another eye. Drawing a face might become pretty easy, even routine. That is, until the artist is forced to turn the figure’s head. The eye that is closer to the point of view suddenly gets larger, while the eye moving away from the point-of-view shrinks. One ear gets bigger, while the other ear might completely vanish. The sides of the faces become distorted, with one side becoming rounder than the other. The face changes, and one of the illustrator’s biggest challenges is to adjust the proportions so that they look natural. Click to read more …

Tags: 3-D, 3D, draw, drawing, Eyes, face, features, frontal, illustrator, Perspective, profile, quarter, side, sketch, sketching, symmetry

This is a late tutorial I whipped up after a long day cranking out papers and freelance work. At least Marisol and I went out today. We read Santa Responds: He’s Had Enough…and He’s Writing Back! the whole way through at a bookstore (so we didn’t have to pay for it ). We read a book on the 501 greatest movies of all time (like 501 is an original number. Why not 44432)? I also ritualistically checked out the cartooning section.

Anyway, I’m amazed by the infinite number of cartoon eye varieties. It seems like in some mediums, the shape and style of the eye is the most crucial part of determining a character’s appearance and identity. Cartoon eyes show both emotion and personality. Wide eyes indicate emotion, while more narrowed eyes indicate a focused and confident character. Though coloring, glare, and shading can be used to add personality to a character, I believe that the most effective and reliable way to distinguish a character from other characters is to give him distinct eyes. This is especially true with anime eyes. So I decided to do 7 mini tutorials in one. Each one of these is done in a step-by-step fashion. It’s really hard to describe what I did in this tutorial, so I’m including pictures. Enjoy. Click to read more …

Tags: cartoon, draw, drawing, eye, Eyes, illustration, manga, sketch, sketching, Tutorial

New artists sometimes panic over proportions. I remember when I first tried drawing at age 7, all my character’s hands were bigger than their heads. Later on in life, I struggled to draw legs that looked right. My legs looked enormous while my bodies looked like oompa-loompa bodies.

Well, it turns out that I wasn’t completely off base if I were a Japanese cartoon artist. Really short, stubby arms and legs are the style found in chibi-style drawing. Really long legs are common in Shoujo manga, while really big heads are given to characters in order to increase their comicalness. Click to read more …

Tags: anime, cartoon, cartooning, chibi, comic, draw, drawing, figure, manga, Perspective, profile, proportion, shoujo, sketch

Okay… none of the two techniques worked for you. Don’t worry… they didn’t work for me either in the beginning when I first entered the art realm. I used to think guidelines were dumb until I learned how near impossible poses and action movements are to draw. I also avoided free sketching until I started worrying that everything I ever drew was just a copy of what someone else drew or photographed. But every new piece of artwork is like a new friend (to quote the great Bob Ross) and with all the awkwardness that comes with starting a conversation with someone you never talked to before. You have to break the ice, and sometimes breaking the ice feels near impossible. Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, character development, draw, drawing, getting started, manga, profile, sketch, sketching

Since Alex wrote about HOW to get started with the drawing process (“Free-Sketching”), I will write about the tools needed to get started, since, as we all know, the days of the rock and slate are gone (unless that’s how you roll, I’m sorry for making assumptions). So what are the tools necessary for drawing? Click to read more …

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Tags: Art, artist, cartoon, digital, digitally, draw, drawing, drawing tutorial, guidelines, manga, sketch, sketching, stylus, tablet, Tutorial