Secret Tricks To Draw Anime Side Profile as a Beginner
By Barsha Bhattacharya
04 November, 2024
Movies
Are you amazed by the realistic anime characters? I know it’s hard to ignore how humanly they look.
And who can ignore the charm of side profiles of their favorite anime characters? Here is a step-by-step trick if you feel the same and want to draw their site profiles easily.
This easy-to-learn step-by-step process will help you draw the side faces of your favorite anime characters. It provides a line-by-line breakdown and a step-wise illustration.
Drawing Your Favorite Anime Side Profile
Drawing a side profile may seem easy. However, it is very tricky. Hence, this tutorial. It will make the process easier for you. Get a prominent breakdown of how to structure a face drawing. I will also offer a delicate and detailed instruction to create all facial features exactly as you see.
You can check out how to frame your drawing from my description. However, there are also additional examples of some steps in the figures.
Guess what? The process may be easier than you think. The approach to drawing a female and male face is the same here.
Sequence To Draw Anime Side Profile View
There are many videos available online. You can easily go to YouTube to find one. After that, you can follow the steps I will describe below.
It will help you create finer details for the side profile.
Step 1:
The first step is to draw the side profile of the character’s head. Firstly, an oval shape creates the upper part of the character’s head. Remember, we are talking about an anime character here. So, it is natural to draw large foreheads. Moreover, we will make the faces comparatively taller than normal animated faces.
The second part is drawing the lower section of the head. The lower part drops down from the front end of the face. Create this with a fine line, running down from one side of the oval in a slightly angular position.
After that, a light curve is made to create the chin portion. Then, join it with the oval. This curved lower end represents the chin and the jaw outline.
The third step is to make the face front in this anime site profile.
Here, you will create a curved line, the nose bridge running till the end of the nose tip.
Since we are drawing anime here, the nose tip of our character will be slightly higher than the 1/4th of the head’s total height.
I will describe more about drawing the nose in the 7th section of this tutorial. However, this step is done by drawing a line connecting the chin curve with the nose end.
Don’t make your drawing cluttered. Hence, erase the line marking the face front. Keep the nose curve, the line joining it with the chin curve, and the chin extension that connects with the oval.
Maintaining this outline, erase the other crossing lines. There should only be a single jointed outline with the oval, and this shape can be created in three steps.
Step 2:
In this step, we will draw the neck segment. We will go down from the lower end of the head to draw the neck. However, the rule of exception for anime drawings works here as well.
We will make the neck thinner than it generally is. But remember not to make the neck as we draw it from the front. Rather, check YouTube drawings to understand how an anime site profile neck usually looks. Draw your outline accordingly.
After that, erase the lower part of the oval shape from the previous step so that the neck seems connected to the head.
Step 3:
In this step, we will be outlining the ear. Find the tip value that ended the jawline. Extend the continuous line (jawline) from that tip and draw your ear in a favorable position.
Secret tip: imagine your head is vertically divided into two. Now, your ear should be midway so that it is slightly past this halfway point towards the rear end of the head.
Step 4:
In this step, we will draw the eyelashes of the character’s side profile. However, we will apply the exceptions that we considered for anime drawing. Therefore, we will define the shape of our character’s eye with eyelashes.
In this case, the eyelashes should be positioned slightly below the horizontal halfway point of the head we have drawn.
Step 5:
After the eyelashes, we will draw the iris. The iris will be positioned inside the eyelashes. But here we are, looking at the eye from an angle.
Hence, we will make the iris oval-shaped. Also, remember that the upper end of the iris will be covered by the. So merge the oval with the eyelashes. Don’t complete the upper round part of the oval.
Step 6:
To complete the eye, we will create the eyebrow now. The eyebrow will move widely towards the forehead section of our drawing. It will also grow narrow as it moves towards the other direction.
Meanwhile, most anime faces can differ from each other because of their eyebrows. You can watch a tutorial on YouTube on how to look at different kinds of eyebrows for the anime side profile.
Step 7:
We will be drawing the nose and mouth in this step. The simplest way to do that is using the line between the nose tip and the chin curve here.
This will be a guiding outline where we will create the curve of the lips and the lower part of the nose.
Pro tip: remember, the lower lips should be approximately 1/8 of the distance from the chin to the upper tip of the head.
When the lips or outline, we can erase the outline we drew earlier, from the nose to the chin.
Step 8:
In this step, we will be drawing our front hair. However, the hair can be complex in the Anime side profile. But we will draw the simplest version here. So, split your hair into three parts. It is better if the three parts are in three different colors. Firstly, we find many anime characters with multi-color hair. Secondly, the coloring will make it easier to distinguish between them.
For example, you can make the front hair red and the side hair green. The top hair can usually be blue or black. You can also make the whole hair black or any other color.
Step 9:
In this step, draw the side hair that drops down along the face. The easiest way is to draw a large plump along the side, which splits into two parts towards the end. You can also draw a line between them to indicate folds.
Step 10:
In this step, draw the top hair and the whole hair background. Start drawing the card line of the top part of the hair parallel to the upper head outline. Go till the back of the head.
After that, draw a series of 5 to 6 clumps along the bottom. You can also use more folds around the year to denote clumsy hair.
When you draw the clumps, try to angle them differently. This angling makes the hair more natural.
Step 11:
In this step, we will make the eye more detailed. Watch a tutorial video or a step-by-step detailing picture online. However, you should choose content that explains the side view of the eye well. Here are the main things to cover:
1. Start with drawing the upper part of the eyelid.
2. Then draw the pupil of the eye and highlight it to show that light is reflecting from the eye
3. Thirdly, make the eyelashes a bit more detailed around the outer eye corner
4. Make the eyelashes darker and the pupil likewise.
Step 12:
In this step, you will do pencil shading. Firstly, fill the iris of the eye with shades. After that, shades for the eyebrows and the hair will be drawn.
You may also use colors instead of a pencil. When you do the hair shades, leave a white streak going horizontally from the forehead to the back end of the head. It shows highlights in the hair.
Drawing The Shadows
After the hair and details are done, draw the shadows. Remember, you should consider a light source and a light angle to draw shadows on the face. However, most anime scenes show side profile shading generically.
So, common lighting conditions can be considered even if you’re portraying a warm day or evening.
Steps For General Shading
Firstly, add shade around the eyelid area. Secondly, cast a shadow underneath the eyelashes. Hardly covered the upper area of the neck region with shades representing shadows of the head and the hair. Finally, draw the shadow of the lower hair clumps falling on the neck region.
Wrapping Up: Be precise!
The anime side profile drawing may need less detail than the straight-up face. But that is not how it is. In the side profile, there is more detail.
I recommend closely following this guide to create a manageable side profile picture. When you are trying to improve as an anime artist, it is your chance to learn the grammar.
If the tutorial helped you leave your feedback in the comment section.
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