How to draw manga: Step-by-step guide for learning to draw basic manga chibis - Kim Sofia

Introduction

Have you ever drawn stylized mini versions (“chibis”) of your characters? Small and cute chibis are great for illustrations or for printing on keyrings and other accessories. In this tutorial, I’ll show you some tips for drawing chibi characters and preparing the image file for printing as keyrings or other items. A chibi is a form of stylized character drawing that originates in Japan. Chibi characters are usually between two and four heads tall.

They are often used on merchandise for popular anime series. With huge, distinct facial expressions, they are also useful when good at creating a fun or cute atmosphere.

In this tutorial, I will teach you how to draw chibi characters.

Once you know how to draw chibis, you may find it much easier to draw these cute characters compared to typically proportioned characters.

How to draw chibis

Big head / small body ratio

When drawing the chibi character, the head should be drawn larger. This drawing technique that contrasts with the height of the small body can highlight the cuteness of the character. Under normal circumstances, the length of the torso and legs are basically equal.

Under normal circumstances, the two head figures are divided into two equal parts, the length of the head and the body are basically equal; the figure of such a proportion is exaggerated, the head is big and small, very cute.

The character can be divided into three equal parts, the length of the torso and legs are basically the same, about the height of one head. Similarly, the figure's body is smaller than the head, which makes the figure look more lovely.

Short limbs and simplified hands and feet

It can be seen from the example that chibis have short limbs.

The normal palm ignores the details, and the geometric outline becomes simple.

In addition to changes in body proportions, the contours of the characters and limbs of chibi have also changed. When drawing, some details are ignored on the basis of the standard scale character, and the shape of the limbs is geometricalized.

The picture above is a comparison of the normal foot deformed into the chibi's foot, which is almost the same as the hand deformed. Ignore the performance of details when drawing, and gradually draw the outer contour of the foot round and full. At the same time, we must maintain the smoothness of the lines.

When drawing the legs, it is also necessary to ignore some details on the basis of the standard proportional characters, to simplify the drawing of the legs.

The chibi’s legs of the character are very round and there is no obvious distinction between muscle contours and joints. Just outline the outer contour when drawing.

The detail performance of the chibi's legs has been weakened a lot, just a simple line performance, without too much detail.

Chibi’s face drawing

Round face

Draw a square first.

Cut the four corners of the square with a straight line.

Continue to cut the circle with a straight line.

Draw a circle to represent the head.

Determine the position and orientation of the facial features.

Draw the girl's face and head

Draw the appearance of the facial features on the auxiliary line.

8 . Use black, brown, light gray lead pen to draw the color of the girl's eyes.

9. Use a deep flesh pencil to draw your skin tone.

10. Use brown pencil to draw the color of the girl's hair.

Sunflower face

First draw an ellipse, representing the head

Draw the face of the person based on the original figure.

Determine the position of the facial features.

Draw the facial features and face shape of the character.

Draw the girl's hairstyle.

Then draw the girl's neck and shoulders.

Use black and brown pencils to draw the colors of the eyes and pupils, and brown, ocher, orange, and yellow pencils to draw the gradient colors of the pupils.