This tutorial will show you how to draw an anime girl in just 15 steps. It focuses on drawing the face of such characters from the front view.
This tutorial focuses on drawing beautiful anime characters, as the title suggests. These characters are often the “pretty girls” in anime and manga, but they may not be the protagonist. Drawing an anime girl that looks beautiful can be a difficult task, as they are often drawn to be cute. This tutorial will show you how to position and draw the head and facial features of a “pretty girls” character archetype.
You should note that similar tutorials may have been posted on 3DVKARTS. There might be some overlap or similar information. This particular character has slightly different proportions, so be sure to read.
You should also note that the tutorial shows how to achieve the “beautiful girls” look. However, this tutorial is only one example. There are many other ways to draw this character.
The tutorial covers drawing techniques that can be applied to art in general, as well as tips for creating a specific anime/manga look.
Step 1: Draw the Top of the Head and the Center Guide Line
Draw a horizontal line across the center of your drawing area to create a star. It will be tall enough for the head, neck, and top of the shoulders to pass through.
This line serves as a guideline to ensure that the shoulders/neck/head are equal in width. It can be used later to help position and space facial features.
Draw a circle at the top of this line that will represent the head.
Step 2: Draw the bottom of the head
Project two lines from the lower half to the circle, pointing towards the center. These lines should then become curves, and then continue to sharpen their angles until they join the curve at the chin.
The illustration shows the breakdown.
Step 3: Draw the neck/shoulders
The neck should be very thin relative to the head, and quite long. The neck should eventually transition into the shoulder muscles, which should then transition into your shoulders.
A long, slender neck will highlight a beautiful person.
This tutorial is mainly focused on the face so we won’t go into detail about how to draw these.
See: for more information about drawing anime necks
How To Draw an Anime Neck and Shoulders
Step 4 – Place the Eyes Horizontally
Horizontally divide the head in half to position the eyes, as shown in the above example. You can place the eyes slightly lower than this halfway point for the “beautiful girls” character. The large forehead will enhance the “cuteness”.
Step 5 – Space the Eyes Horizontally and Draw their Basic Outlines
You should leave enough space between the eyes to allow for another eye when spacing them horizontally.
Draw your eyes narrowly with thicker top eyelashes.
This stage is where you can outline the basic shape and size of your eyes, without having to draw all the details like the eyelashes.
It is important to correctly place all facial features.
See:
Beginner Guide to Drawing Anime & Manga
Step 6 – Position and Draw the Eyebrows
The eyelashes should be drawn slightly higher than the eyes to create thicker, slightly higher inner ends. This will give the character individuality.
See: for more examples of different types of anime/manga eyelashes
Step by Step Drawing Eyelashes for Animes
Step 7 – Position and Draw the Nose
The halfway point between horizontal lines for the middle and bottom of the head will be just above the nose.
The nose should be shaped into a small oval. However, the side closest to the center of your face should be slightly smaller.
Step 8 – Position and Draw the Mouth
The mouth should be placed halfway between the bottom and top of the nose.
Keep the mouth small and draw a slight downwards curve. You should not draw too many curves, or your character could end up with an unhappy expression.
Step 9 – Position and Draw the Ears
Place the ears so that their tops are slightly lower than the tops of your eyes, and their bottoms just below the nose. The ears for this character will be drawn slightly smaller than the other characters on 3DVKARTS.
You can find more information about drawing ears and the other placements here:
How To Draw Manga Ears
This will cover most of the ears so it is unnecessary to draw their inner details.
Step 10 – Draw the sides of your hair
Once you have completed your facial features, you can begin to draw the hair.
We will style her hair in a neat, tidy way to emphasize the fact that she is beautiful and takes care of herself.
You can think of the hair as being divided into the top, sides, and back. This explanation is detailed and includes examples of different hairstyles.
How To Draw Manga Hair – Female
Start by drawing the “sides”. These will be two long “clumps”, which start at the top of your head and end with a pair of splits just below the shoulders.
These should be slightly bent to hug the face/head.
Step 11 – Draw the front of your hair
The front part of your hair should be tucked under your sides.
Step 12 – Draw the back/top of the hair
The top/back section should be drawn. Also, the middle should be cut. First, the hair should stick slightly higher up towards the top of the head. Next, move closer to the top of the head near the upper ends of the sides. It should curve towards the bottom of the head, and then it should stick slightly higher up.
Once you are done drawing your hair, you can erase any parts of your head or ears that are not covered.
If you’re wondering why it is important to draw the entire head and ears, and not just the hair, there are several reasons. The first is that it’s easier to place facial features when you know the size of your head (as shown in the previous steps). Another benefit is the ability to avoid making mistakes.
Here is a list of mistakes that anime artists make when drawing.
Common Mistakes in Drawing Manga & Anime
Step 13 – Add the small details
Once you have drawn the outline of your hair and placed all facial features, you can start to draw the details.
These will be:
- The inner details of the eyes
- Hairstyles
- Mole/Beauty mark
You can see a detailed explanation of how to draw the eyes:
Tutorial Drawing Female Anime Eyes
Although the eyes in the above example are slightly different, all the steps of drawing can be applied to this tutorial.
Below is a step-by-step drawing of the details for the eyes. Please note that the irises have been shaded to make it easier to see the highlights in the final drawing. You may want to color the eyes a different color if you plan on coloring them.
You can finish the eye area by adding a few more hair folds, as shown in the second example.
You can also place a small beauty mark/mole below the eye (or in other areas). You can also emphasize the beauty of the girl by adding a little mole/beauty mark just below one eye (or other places).
To make it easier to see, you can see the face in a slightly larger size.
Step 14 – Color your drawing
It’s important to remember that coloring the character on paper may leave white marks for highlights. (See next step). It’s much easier to add highlights at the end of digital coloring.
You have many options for color choices. We will be giving her a light blonde hair color and complementary colored blue eyes.
See:
A Beginner’s Guide to Picking Colors for Drawing Anime & Manga
Step 15 – Shade and Finish the Drawing
Shadows can be used to create a very basic shading effect. These shadows will look like this:
- You will see tiny shadows around your eyes
- You will see small shadows under the eyelashes (cast from the eyelashes).
- Very small shadow to one side.
- Shaded ears
- Large shadow on the neck, in the form of the chin (cast from the head).
- The shaded inner portion of hair fully between the head/neck, and the side hair
You can add highlights to your hair by drawing white zigzag lines. You can leave the area white and color around it, as we suggested. You can also use a white pen to add them over top, or digitally.
Conclusion
As we mentioned at the beginning of this tutorial, anime female characters are cute by nature so it can be difficult to draw one that is beautiful. This tutorial will help you create such characters by guiding you through the placement of facial features and proportions.
Her large forehead adds to her “cuteness”, while her big, but narrower (than is common in anime) eyes give her a mature look. The slightly condescending look of her raised eyebrows and downward-curved mouth is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s almost like she is a queen or someone from the upper classes. It’s also quite relaxed and natural.
This is just one way to draw such characters. You can find more information on how to draw different archetypes of anime characters at:
- Tutorial Drawing 3DVKARTS Characters
- How to Draw Anime Male Hair Step by Step
- Step-by-step instructions on how to draw a cute anime girl
- Step by step Drawing an Anime Girl with a Mask
