Draw a Chibi Character

Chibi is a Japanese word used to describe a "small thing or a person with a small body." Chibi is a simple, cute form of manga -- Super Deformed or SD is another name for chibis and it's meaning is obvious. It is essentially a version of manga/anime.

Steps

Basic Chibi Character

  1. Sketch the head. First draw a big circle and an angle slightly curved for the jaw line. Indicate the centre of the face by drawing two intersecting curved lines.
  2. Sketch the body. In drawing chibi characters, we make the body smaller in proportion compared to the head.
  3. Draw the face details. You can draw a normal anime eyes but make it larger. In drawing the nose and the mouth, you can use a short stroke and a curved line.
  4. Draw the hair. Make it simple, don’t add thin strands of hair. You can add other details like hairpins, bows or ribbons to make it more stylish.
  5. Follow the outline and draw the jawline and the neck.
  6. Draw the dress. Make the dress simple and don’t add a lot of crease lines.
  7. Draw the hands and the legs. You can draw the fingers by adding simple curved angles and lines. In anime short skirts are usually paired with long striped socks, you can use it in your drawing.
  8. Erase unnecessary lines.
  9. Colour your drawing as desired.

Chibi Based on Anime Character

  1. Search for a picture of an anime character that you’d like to make a chibi. In this example, we use Naruto as a reference.
  2. Draw the body outline. Copy the pose of your character but make the head larger in proportion to the body. You don’t have to add the hand details yet, you can just draw simple curve for the hand and feet.
  3. Draw the details on the face. Copy the style of the eyes but make it larger. Make sure to add the details on the face, in this case Naruto’s 3 curved lines located on each side of his cheeks.
  4. Copy the hair and other details like his headband.
  5. Draw the ears and the jawline using the outline drawn earlier.
  6. Draw the body. Simplify the dress by removing a few details like crease lines, but make sure it’s still recognizable as the character you’re basing it from.
  7. Erase your outlines and darken your drawing.
  8. Colour your drawing.



Tips

  • Try keep your lines thin when you draw! You may need to erase things, and it isn't as easy to erase hard lines than thin, light ones.
  • Draw the chibi in pencil, so that you can rub out mistakes, then go over you original pencil lines with a black fineliner so that they really stand out! Also, felt tips/markers usually work better than pencils when colouring in by hand as they don't leave as many streaky lines.
  • Practice drawing the eyes and different expressions, think of as many as you can and just draw the different faces, if you don’t want to draw the whole head then just draw the eyes, nose dashes and mouth
  • Use sharpened pencils to get fine lines and to keep everything consistent.
  • It is always good to keep the faces of the chibis simple and cute!
  • Keep looking for different examples of chibis. look at how the different eyes and clothing are drawn.
  • Try drawing huge eyes and a small nose!
  • Try places like gaiaonline for great little chibi/manga characters to practice drawing, lots of players will pay [in in-game money] for chibi art, go to www.gaiaonline.com to sign up then check out the forums for people looking for art, it’s a good place to practice drawing.
  • If you want to add a light blush to the cheeks, use a pigment, like a pink eyeshadow or blush works well. Just get a bit of the pigment on a sponge eyeshadow applicator or a small brush, and lightly dab it on the cheeks.
  • Keep your hands clean so you don’t smudge pencil lines, you can even wear a latex glove if you need to.
  • Try to keep the head bigger than the body, as it makes it look cute, more chibi, and less anime/manga.

Warnings

  • Never be discouraged by doing something wrong, just keep trying until you get it right, especially for CG it can take many months until you can control the graphics programme properly and make your chibis look lifelike and 3D.

Things You'll Need

  • Pencils and erasers
  • Paper
  • For CG - a drawing program on your computer, like paint, paint.NET, manga studio, Photoshop, photostudio 5.5 and adobe. If you need a free program, try GIMP. (Try using a bamboo tablet. When you connect it to your Desktop/Laptop draw on it and the drawing will appear on your computer screen then when you are done you can edit it) OR You can draw on a piece of paper then scan it to your computer then edit it.
  • For traditional - Colored pencils or markers to color in the chibi when you are done.

Related Articles

  • Create Fur in Photoshop
  • Animate in Adobe Illustrator
  • Use the Brush Tool in Adobe Illustrator

Sources and Citations

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