How to Draw and Color an Anime Headshot

Hello there! This is my first instructable. I hope you enjoy doing this and leave feedback! :)

So this is basically how I draw a female anime headshot/bust. The photos aren't that high quality, but they should be fine.

There's lots of steps, but I hope it's not too long.

Step 1: What You Need

For this you will need:

• paper

• a lead pencil

• eraser

• felt tip or ballpoint pen

• colored pencils, preferably ones that like to blend with each other. :)

Step 2: Drawing the Basic Head Shape

To start with, you will need to get your pencil and paper out.
Then, draw a circle on your page LIGHTLY.
Afterwards, you draw a sort of upside down triangle on the bottom of the circle.

Step 3: Adding More Lines

Now you put a sort of plus sign across the face. This will help you to position the facial features in the right places.

I drew a hairline and a part on the back of the head but you do not new to draw this. And if you do, for the love of all that is good, don't shade it in like I did. It makes it way harder to erase afterwards.

Oh yeah, you add the ear after that. It's sort of a semi-circular shape that starts just under the horizontal line on the face.

Step 4: I See All

Alrighty, now we're gonna start with the eyes.
They go a little above the horizontal line. This is cause I always start with the top of the eye. The eyes end at the horizontal line.

So just draw a thick curved line for the top row of eyelashes.

Step 5: Eyeballin'

Now you just draw two circles under the lashes but above that horizontal line.

You can also add little lines above the lashes for a little eye crease.

Step 6: What's That Smell?

You draw the nose now.

It's a little higher than that curved line of the circle.

I suppose it's a 'v' sort of shape.

Step 7: Omnomnom

Now it's the mouth!

You draw two lines that are slightly curved and close to each other.

No, these are not two mouths.

Step 8: Details, Details.

Okay, now that you've completed those steps, you can add a little detail in the eyes. Be careful not to make the pupils too big!

Step 9: It's Getting Hairy

Now for the fun part (well in my opinion), the hair!

Start with drawing some curved lines like in the picture, making sure that they don't look to scruffy or too flat.

Step 10: Let Down Your Golden Hair

Now, just draw some more lines so that they connect and look like reasonable chunks of hair. You can add some more or get rid of some at this point if you like.

You might also want to add the neck in. Don't worry about putting any clothing on her just yet.

Step 11: Inky

Now you start the inking process!
Just take out your pens and go over the lines you've drawn (except for the guidelines!).

If you're not sure what guidelines are, refer to the finished picture and see what lines are missing.
If you're still confused, it's the lines on the face and any lines under the hair.

I've also added a loose shirt on her while I was inking. If you don't feel confident drawing the shirt straight up in pen, then do it in pencil first. :)

Step 12: In Technicolor

Erase all the lead pencil and make sure there aren't any eraser bits on your page.

Now you can start coloring!
I've chosen for my girls hair to be blue.
For whatever color you are coloring her hair, you need two different shades of it.

Okay, you're going to mark out the spots that are going to be left white (or colored in veeerrrry lightly with your lightest color) with your color that's the lightest. After that, you're going to need to color all the spaces but the marked ones with the lightest color.

Step 13: Gradient

Now you're going to take your darker pencil and go from the tips up, gradually getting lighter.

It's a little hard to see in my pictures, but you notice it a bit, right?

Step 14: Show Some Skin

Now we're going to start on the skin.
For this you'll need a peachy/flesh colored pencil and a red or crimson pencil.

You're going to start by adding your red/crimson to the cheeks like how it is on the left side of the face lightly.

You're then going to layer over with the flesh color, pressing down hard and slowly fading out.

Repeat this with the nose and the lips.

Then go over the face lightly with your skin color to brig it together.
You may also add some more shading around the nose and under the fringe.

Step 15: Fleshy

Now we're on to the neck area. Put a small amount of red in the places shown in the picture.
Blend it with the skin color and lightly go over the whole area.
Shade in a bit around the hair and where the neck starts.

Step 16: Clothing

Now you need to color the shirt.
Shade in with your seasides color around the few creases and where there would be a shadow.

Step 17: Headband

I decided to turn that bit of shading I done earlier into a headband~
It was colored with a brown pencil and a red pencil. Again, with that gradient sort of thing I did on the hair.

You can also color the eyes. Just color it solidly and leave a white space.


AND YOU'RE DONE! I hope it was fun and not too difficult to understand.