Post by Dee Aethelwyne: Drawing Process

Hi, guys! I'm Dee, and I like drawing.

I blog at faerytalesandfantasy.blogspot.com, although I'm not very good at doing it regularly. I have been posting more often recently, though.

This post isn't really a tutorial. It's more along the lines of let-me-show-you-how-I-draw. I apologize for the horrible pictures--the only camera I had on hand was my iPod, and the lighting was awful.

Sketch out the basic pose.

 This is a really rough sketch, just for me to kind of envision what I'm drawing before I start putting in the specifics. I like playing with the lines of the body and legs, and seeing how the pose showcases a certain emotion.

Add in body shapes.

 I'm still learning proportions, so please forgive the horrible figure. ;)

Clothing and hair details.

 This is my favorite part. It's where the personality of the character really starts to come out, and I love being able to design whatever outfit I feel like them wearing.

Dark the lines you want to keep.

 Pretty straightforward. Don't darken the guidelines from earlier, just the outline.

Ink.

I like inking drawings so the side opposite the light source has a thicker line than the other side. It's just a stylistic thing--you don't have to do it if you don't like it.

Flat colors.

I used Copic markers to color this, but you can use whatever you have on hand. It's all just the flat base color for now. 

AFTERNOTE: I don't like the color scheme I used for this. I should have done her hair in pink and her dress a pale blue. 

Shading!

Add shading according to your own style, put on the finishing touches, and you're done!

Anyways, that was a really quick tutorial. Once again, sorry for the poor quality! I'll put together a better one for you all someday to make up for this. :)

Anyone have any questions? I'd love to answer them.

How to draw a female manga body

Hey everybody, Catsi here. Again. I'm doing another art post (yay!), this time on drawing body proportions.

I won't spend forever rambling about art before we get into the tutorial this time. All I have to say is that this is just my way of drawing bodies. There are tons of other ways--just google it. Try different styles, and find out what works for you.

So here we go.

 Step one: Draw the head.

If you missed my last tutorial on drawing faces, here's a link: http://windowtothesoulcontests.blogspot.com/2014/03/how-draw-manga-face.html

 Step two: Add circles for the body.

A smaller one for the upper torso, and a larger one for the hips.

 Step three: Circles for legs and arms.

I only drew one circle for each arm, since the pose I'm drawing will have the character with her hands behind her back.

 Not a step: Proportions

I just drew a few brackets to give you an idea of how everything is proportioned, using the head as a comparison. Each bracket is one head long.

 Step four: Out line the torso and arms.

Take your time, and make sure that everything looks like the way it should be. 

 Step five: Outline the legs.

Again, take your time. Try to make the legs look symmetrical.

 Step six: Feet.

I have the toes pointing toward each other in this picture, but feel free to experiment and do them however you like.

 Step seven: Add clothing.

This may look like a complicated step, but it's not too hard. Just have fun and draw her clothes in your favorite style. A few wrinkles here and there will add a bit of realism to the drawing.

 Step eight: Outline the hair.

I've chosen to give my character sideswept bangs and a single braid over her shoulder. It's just the rough outline at this point--I'll make it more detailed later on.

 Bonus tutorial: Braids, step one

I erased all the lines under the braid, just so I can see to work.

 Bonus tutorial: Braids, step two

Don't try to make the exact shapes that I have drawn--they're not supposed to be perfect. Just make a few heart-ish-diamond-ish shapes, getting smaller as you go down the braid. A little ponytail on the end finishes up the outline.

 Bonus tutorial: Braids, step three

Add a few lines for the strand of hair every here and there, making sure they're going in the right direction for the braid. Voila! Done.

 Step nine: Darken your lines.

Make sure not to darken the guidelines your drew early on--you want to be able to erase those in the next step.

 Step eight: Erase guidelines.

If you drew your guidelines lightly enough, and your outlines dark enough, you'll be able to erase the guidelines easily and not have to stress over accidentally erasing a line that you want to keep. Even if you do erase one, it'll be dark enough that the mark will still be on the paper, and you can go back over it.

 Step nine: Finishing touches!

Sign, date, and add extra lines in the hair and clothing. Ta-da! You're all done.

A few quick tips for you:

In this tutorial, I had my character's feet pointing toward each other. I think that makes her look cute, and conveys an air of innocence. 

If you so choose, you can spread the legs farther apart, making your character seem more determined.

I've also got a nice little reference sheet of different poses for you. Move around an arm or leg by changing to location of a circle, and make an entirely new pose!

(I've left the guidelines unerased, so you can see the circles underneath the clothing.)

Well, I guess that's it. Hope you all had fun! If you have any questions, just post in the comments.

Also, I'd love to see how your drawing turned out! Feel free to email it to us, at windowtothesoulcontests[at]gmail.com, or if you posted it on your blog, drop us a link in the comments.

We have an art contest going on right now. You can view the guidelines here: http://windowtothesoulcontests.blogspot.com/2014/05/mother-art-contest.html

Mother Art Contest

Deadline extended to June 25th!

     As you can see from the title, this will be an art contest, about mothers. During May. How fitting. You can use any art style you like, but the subject must show something having to do with mothers. It doesn't have to be an actual mother, or even female, but some quality of motherhood must be included. Catsi and I will be judging, and we will be judging based on the look of the drawing, but more so, emotion. If the chibi drawing evokes more emotion than the gorgeous painting, the chibi drawing will win. (And lets face it, mothers are almost always accompanied by babies, and chibi drawings make great babies.)

     The prize is publicity. We will tweet the winner's links and (with their permission) image, as well as post them on Facebook. Well, here are the guidelines:

"Mother Art Contest" or some variation of that should be in the subject line. Basically, just be sure that it is obvious which contest you are submitting to.

You may include a short bio, no more than 150 words.

You may include links to your blog, Facebook page, Twitter profile, website, etc. These can either be in your bio or after it.

Your name or pseudonym should be in your bio or, if you do not have a bio, in the body of the email.

If you sign your works you should provide two versions, the original and one with your name blurred out.

If you do not want us to display your image, mention it in your submission email. Otherwise, we will show it on our website, in our newsletter, and possibly on Facebook and Twitter. If you would like it to be posted on our website and newsletter but not Facebook and Twitter, mention it in your email and we will respect your wishes. This does not disqualify you, nor will it affect your chances of winning.

Your submission should be in GIF, PNG, JPEG or PSD format. 3D art is accepted and encouraged, but it must be a flattened image in one of the above formats.

Your submission should not contain any nudity. This website is intended for adults and teenagers, and is, in fact, run by teenagers, so we would appreciate that you respect that.

All rights remain with the creator.

We assume that you have all rights, or permission from the other creators, and that you were an integral part of the creation of your submitted work. If there are multiple creators you may have multiple bios and connected links.

You may send in up to three images, preferably in one email. Previous and simultaneous submissions are welcome.

Send all submissions before midnight on June 22nd.

Send your submissions and any questions (which we are happy to answer) to windowtothesoulcontests[at]gmail.com


We have one other contest currently running, this one is prose, in fact it's a prose contest. If you're interested, click here.

How to Draw a Manga Face

Post by Catsi Eceer, co-founder

     Hey everybody, it's me again, Catsi. Instead of boring you all to death with ramblings on writing, this time I'm going to bore you all to death with ramblings on art! How exciting!

     All right, I'm actually not going to be doing a whole lot of rambling. Most of the post will be done in pictures, so you don't even have to look at the words (although I'll be adding extra tips after each picture, so you may want to pay attention).

     This is lesson is on drawing a manga face. Faces are actually really hard, and they were something I struggled with for a long time. But now I've figured out how to use guidelines to make sure you have everything proportioned properly, and my faces usually turn out quite nicely.

     There are several ways to draw manga faces. Just google "how to draw manga faces" and you'll get a gazillion different tutorials on different ways to draw them. This is my preferred approach, with guidelines that work for me. After you've completed the tutorial, try changing things to make it just right for you.

Step one: Draw a circle.

     Simple enough. Circles aren't too tricky, but if you're struggling to get it right, you can try using a stencil. (Even just trace a lid... I've done that before.)

Step two: Divide the circle into four parts.

      A straight line down, and a straight line across. Try to get these as even as possible. (You can see that I'm not so great at drawing straight lines...)

Step three: Divide the lower half into four more parts.

      This may look complicated, but all you have to do is draw a line dividing the lower half of the circle in half, and then each of those parts in half again (a total of three new lines).

Step four: Bring the center line down farther and draw another horizontal line.

      Oh no, not more straight lines! The distance between the lower horizontal line and the bottom of the circle is equal to three of the subsections you made in step three.

Step five: Draw two more vertical lines.

     The two new lines go from the edges of the last subsection line in the circle to the lower horizontal line. If your center horizontal line is exactly in the middle, the two section created in this step should be even.

Step six: One more straight line.

     This line should be halfway down the lines drawn in the last step, but not the center line. Great job, you've finished the guidelines, or the "skull," as my sister likes to call it. Now we'll actually start drawing the face.

Step seven: Begin drawing the chin.

      Draw two diagonal lines, each starting in the third-from-bottom subsection and going down the intersection of the mid-lower horizontal line and the side vertical lines.

Step eight: Finish the chin.

      Draw two more diagonal lines to connect the lines you drew in the last step at the intersection of the lower horizontal line and the center vertical line.

Step nine: Guidelines for the eyes.

     Just continue the side vertical lines up to the third subsection lines. These will help you place the eyes in the next step.

Step ten: Draw the upper eyelids.

     The distance between the lines should be equal to one of the lines. (You can make the eyelids a little more even then I did... I'm horrible at drawing even eyes.)

Step eleven: Draw the irises.

     Draw two rather irregular rectangles for the irises. I also added the corner of the eyes in this step, however depending on what your character's eyes look like, you may want to draw them differently.

Step twelve: Draw the nose.

     Oh, noes! Manga noses are so easy to draw. Just a little line at the intersection of the center vertical line and the bottom of the circle.

Step thirteen: Add the ears.

     Step thirteen--The part I am really horrible at. (I'm not normally superstitious... but really?) I drew the ears a little too small here, so feel free to make them larger. The top of the ear should be about level with halfway through the eyes.

Step fourteen: Eyebrows.

     I usually draw the eyebrows before the mouth, because I think the eyebrows add more expression than the mouth does. I never really know what expression I'm going to draw until I draw the eyebrows. These are rather neutral eyebrows, so I'm going to go with the default manga expression: cheerful.

Step fifteen: Draw the mouth.

     To complete the cheerful look, just add a gently curving smile.

Step sixteen: Add details.

     Add detail to the inside of the ears, and the eyes.

Step seventeen: Erase the guidelines.

     If you're going to be inking your drawing, you can skip this step. I really dislike inking, for some reason (probably because I'm horrible at it), so I'm just going to stick with a pencil sketch for this one. I erase the guidelines now because it's really tricky to erase them without erasing hair.

Step eighteen: Add a neck and shoulders.

     Because you don't want your head just floating on the paper. Make sure the neck looks strong enough to support the head!

Step nineteen: Draw outlines for the hair.

     We're almost finished, I promise. The character I'm drawing has straight bangs and very curly hair (although you can't tell that now) but feel free to use any hairstyle that strikes your fancy.

Step twenty: Add more details to the hair.

     Unless you're actually drawing the character that I am, you can skip this step. I'm just sketching in where the curls are going to fall.

Step twenty-one: More details.

     Now I'm actually filling in the curls, and I've given her a headband.

(Zoom in on the curls)

     Here you can see that the curls are just a bunch of lopsided rectangles stacked on each other. This produces a very tight curl. If you want something looser, make the rectangles softer and larger.

Step twenty-two: More details.

     I've just added a few lines in each of the curl rectangles to make it a bit more realistic.

(Zoom in on curls)

     Yep. Just a bunch of lines in the rectangles.

Step twenty-three: Draw some more details.

     I've filled in her eyes except for the irises and the highlight, as well as her headband. I also added some clothing details that are specific to this character, and detail of her collarbone.

Step twenty-four: Shade, sign and date!

     I didn't actually do much shading with this one. It's a lot simpler than what I normally draw, however if you want to shade, go ahead and do it. Just figure out where your light source is and darken accordingly. Sign your name at the bottom, date it, and voila! you have completed a manga face.

     How did yours turn out? Any questions I can clear up for you?

To learn more about Catsi, see the About Us page.

We have one ongoing haiku contest. See the guidelines here.