Learn To Draw

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Learn To Draw Japanese Animation

Japanese Animation or Anime is one of the most beloved kinds of cartoons all over the world. These are basically cartoons that are based on Japanese Manga series, or comics that were brought to life by being animated. If you want to learn to draw Japanese Animation, here are the things that you should know.
They Are Based On Manga
One thing that you should remember when drawing Japanese Animation is that they are based Manga. Thus, the style of drawing would be pretty be pretty much the same, only that they are moving for the animated version. Here are some things that you should take note in drawing this style of cartoons.
Characters Have Wild Hairstyles
If you observe characters in this kind of genre, you’ll see that they usually have wild hairdos. More often, male characters have long hair. In fact, there are some shows that sometimes men are mistaken to be women because of their long tresses. Their hair colors are also wild too. You can see pink and green haired characters. The style of their hair could be very extreme also. Often times, their hair would be sticking up and out to different directions.
When drawing hair, all you have to do is draw them into clumps that would stand as hair strands. For female characters, ponytails, headbands, pigtails and loose hairstyles are common. For men that have long hair, loose let down hair is also in fashion along with ponytails. Bangs are also in for both sexes.
The General Male
Most male characters would be muscular. A lot of them are depicted to be warriors of some sort. A lot of them are also lean and tall. It is normal for you to see blue or even pink colored hair male characters. However, this doesn’t really mean that they are gay.
The General Female
Most female characters are depicted to have slim bodies and long legs. These features are also emphasized by the type of clothing that females wear. More often they wear clothing that shows off their long legs, especially if the setting of the story is in the modern times. The breasts are also prominent. Women also have sharper chins and snub noses.
Little People?
Do not be surprised if you get to see characters that look like little people. These are called “Chibi’s”. These are basically distorted versions of characters. Although proportion is a rule when drawing, Chibis are intended to have a distorted proportion. This is done to achieve a ‘cuteness’ factor. This type of drawing is usually applied for child-like characters. They have big heads, small bodies, big eyes and no nose.
Villains For villains, characters are usually drawn to be more realistic. There is more shading to make their faces look scarier and the lines used are more crooked than smooth and straight. You could usually find them in the form of mafia’s or gangs. Big bosses are also usually not seen. Body parts such as hands, feet or a mouth smoking a tobacco are the commonly used images whenever the big boss is focused on.
Cute Vs. Macho
For cute Anime’s the drawings are often simplistic with huge eyes and a lot of hearts and touches of pink. However, for macho type of Anime’s, the characters have more details and are rendered to be more realistic.

Learn To Draw Anime Characters

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Anime art is one of most popular fads around the world nowadays. This kind of cartoons is loved by many and it has evolved tremendously as more fans become hooked up in drawing their own anime characters. If you are one of those that want to learn to draw anime characters, here are the basics of what you should know in order to start out.

What Is Your Character?

First, you should identify the character you are drawing. Who is he/she? Is he/she old, teenaged, or a child? Is your character good or bad? Getting to know the features of your character would generally be your guide in being able to draw him/her out of your imagination. Try to have a set of personality characteristics for your character so that you can have a basis.

The General Styles

There are main archetypes used in depicting characters in anime. These could serve as your basis but not your prison in creating your own character.

Cute characters are usually depicted with large eyes, round cheekbones, and closely set facial parts. Evil characters are usually drawn more 'realistically'. They also have sharp protruding cheekbones and very small pupils. Their eyes more often than not appear to be shady.

Shoujo characters or those girly-girl characters usually have sharp chins and huge expressive eyes. They also have elegant nose bridges and slender bodies. Stupid characters have round heads and bodies. They also have less details and simplistic features. Their eyes are most often tiny, in some cases are just dots. If your character is a fighter, just like those in Dragon Ball Z, he/she would also have simplistic features but with exaggerated body proportions and a small head.

These are the basic prototypes in creating Anime characters. However, do not limit yourself with those stated above. Try to experiment and play around with the features. This is the only way you can make your character your own and not just some plain Anime looking character.

Hairstyle

The possible hairstyles that characters could have are endless. This is the beauty of Anime art. They could have wild, out of this world hairstyles and they would still look good. Generally, hair strands are drawn in clumps. All you have to do is draw grass like shaped clumps of hair just to give their hairdo some form and style. Bangs are common with these characters. The color you can use is not limited to black, blonde, brunette or auburn. In fact, most characters have wildly colored hair such as green, purple, pink and blue.

Eyes

The eyes are usually prominent with Anime characters. This is what differentiates one character from another. If you observe, there are a lot of white portions in their eye. This is so that it would have a reflective appearance. This also makes the eyes more lively and appealing. You can observe this especially with Shoujo characters or other female characters.

There is also no limit with the color used. Some characters even have pink, and purples eyes. Usually, eye color also compliments the hair color. You may see some blue haired characters with blue eyes and purple haired characters with pink eyes. Sky’s the limit in choosing eye colors.

Clothing

Most Anime characters are in school uniforms or traditional Japanese costumes. However, there are also characters wearing Western style of clothing. It basically depend on the overall theme of the story.

Learn To Draw Faces

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Being able to draw a face is considered to be an outright talent by many. This kind of talent is also possessed by a lot of artists. However, the ability to realistically draw a face would be a different subject matter at hand. If you want to learn to draw faces, doing it the realistic method would be the best way to do it.

Map And Plan

Although it may seem complex, drawing faces is quite simple. Just as with any kind of art, there are some basic guidelines that you can follow and use. One of these would be mapping. For you to have a realistic output, you should be able to map the face correctly. This is imperative, before you even add on finer details.

You should not just out rightly copy the face of your model as if it were some outline on a kid’s coloring book. Certain preliminary steps are needed if you want your drawing to have form, structure, depth and a convincing aura.

The Egg

You can start mapping out by using the egg technique. Do this by drawing an oval that has the shape of an egg. Try to find its center and draw a line downwards to it. Take note of this line. It would be a very important landmark for you throughout your drawing process. It would serve as your midpoint so that you can measure nose width, eye separation, eyebrow separation, etc. Since this is a sketch, try do draw lightly with your pencil.

After vertically separating the upper half of the egg into two, separate it again so that you would have 3 equal parts. Do this by placing 2 horizontal lines on your egg’s body. These three areas would demarcate important aspects of the face. Try your best to make them evenly proportioned.

The top part of your egg would become the top portion of your subject’s hairline. The lowest portion of that area would also become your subject’s eyebrows. Next, the middle portion would be the part of the face starting from the eyebrows down to the most bottom part of the nose. Lastly, the third area is allotted for the nose bottom, lips and edge of the chin.

Notes On Measurement

There are also some basic guidelines for measurement and facial feature proportions. For instance, 2 of the said egg segments turned sideways would give you the sideway measurement starting from one cheek to another. You should also take into consideration the measurement of the eyes. Make sure that the size of one eye would be equal to the space in between both eyes. You should also check and see if your drawing’s nose wings are lined up with each eye’s corner.

Now, focus on the bottom segment of your egg. If you divide this into half, by the use of a horizontal line, you would get the line that serves to be the bottom of your subject’s bottom lip. If you have drawn the lips already, take a look at its corners. Make sure they are aligned with each eye’s pupil.

As for the ears, they should also be visible even if it’s a front view image you are drawing. This is because they aren’t simply sitting flat on your head’s side. As a guide, you can simply look for the midline of the middle segment of your egg.

However, be careful that you do not overdo the size of the ears. They should only stick out approximately as far as the egg’s main center line up to the nose wing.