DRAWING TIPS: Materials - Thick, large paper. Maybe... 10" - 13" paper, not too floppy. You want it slightly stiff, or else it's too thin. Pencils. Simple No. 2 pencil for light strokes at the beginning, hard led mechanical pencils for the final lines. Erasers. Rubbery white blocky ones, doughy erasers, or simple pink ones are fine! Sometimes you need more than just the pencil erasers! Markers or colored pencils. BE PICKY. Some markers and colored pencils suck. I'm not mincing words here. They suck. Steer clear of Crayola, some people use Crayola markers, but those are for younger kids who don't take art seriously. Alcohol-based markers and wax colored pencils are the best to use. Heads - Start with a simple, very light circle as round as possible and about as big as you want the head to be. After that, you can lightly outline the head shape you want. Then, make a cross where the face should be to help with eye, nose, mouth, and ear positioning. As for ears, keep it simple. It could be human, elf, or animal ears, doesn't matter. For human ears, a simple round shape with a small, inner half circle at the base of the ear. For elf ears, point the ears with a small, rounded, L shape that stops just at the point. Don't be afraid to mess around and fail! That's how you learn! Have fun with adding your own little perks and fun things like earrings or fur or changing the ear itself! Eyes - Keep eyes simple, but don't be lazy. You can mess up eyes easily and ruin the whole face. When it comes to drawing, the slightest mess-up of a line can ruin an entire part of it. But mistakes will help you learn, and it helps to know exactly what to erase to fix it. DON'T ERASE OR THROW AWAY THE ENTIRE DRAWING UNLESS YOU'RE USING PEN. A curved upper line for the top of the eye, make it slightly thick of a line, and dark. Then, a lower curved line for the bottom. Pupil and iris, color in the pupil. Done! Wide eyes are for less serious characters and happy-go-lucky. More slender eyes are for sarcastic, serious, or if you want the character to have more of a cool, punkish vibe. Add shading as you want, but don't put a lot. The color will speak for itself LOL. Hands - The hardest part of drawing. Took me months to get it right. Start with a sort of light, large diamond shape without the bottom point and instead attached to the wrist. From there, you can add the fingers. USE YOUR OWN HANDS. LOOK AT THEM. FIGURE OUT WHERE THE FINGERS ARE AND THE LENGTHS OF EACH. IT HELPED ME SO MUCH. Hair - Not much to say here! Have fun and experiment! Don't be afraid to fail! Copy off of hairstyles you like. Learn. General body & poses - Stick figures! Use stick figures as a base before drawing the body over it! Tip: Sad, nervous, or scared poses are more withdrawn, keeping to themselves, while comfortable, happy, and/or excited poses are more outdrawn, like a burst or so. Females are more slender, males are more bulky and strong. When I draw nonbinary characters, I kind of like to mix, like, maybe a slender body, but strong muscles and a more masculine hairstyle. Feel free to have fun with it! There's no right or wrong way to do any of this, I'm just giving you some tips! Other - There's not much more I can say. Just this. It may sound cheesy and cliche, but it's true: PRACTICE IS KEY. If you fail, change something and try again, fail again, etc, over and over again, you'll improve. With time. You will get frustrated and want to throw a sketchbook across the room. I've done the same. It's just a part of improving. Laugh over your mistakes and try again. If you made a mistake and made your character look weird and crazy, laugh. Laugh. It will help, trust me. Laugh over your failure with a friend, then try again.
NOTE: Press space to switch backdrops for examples.
