Photoshop Tips : How To Draw Anime 0

This tutorial will show you how to draw anime-style hair eyes and basic head structure.

Introduction

Hi and welcome! Thanks for coming and taking a peek at this tutorial. Now get comfortable, grab a pen and paper, a drawing tablet or your mouse and let's draw a head! There are certainly other (and possibly better) ways of doing it. Please just accept it as one way of drawing anime.
Also, this is not a tutorial for beginners so you'll probably need basic or better PhotoShop, coloring and imagination skills before attempting this tutorial.
Let's proceed


Structure

First we'll tackle 'Structure'
We'll start with our working lines. A good start is a circle (diagram.1). So draw a circle.

Now draw a line where you want the center of the face (i'm going to call it the "noseline") down the middle, I've offset mine to the right and curved it around as if it were a ball, but instead of wrapping around the bottom, I've continued straight down so the noseline drops to around where the chin should be.

Then draw a second line around the center, like the equator, for your eyeline. Now lines from the eyeline where the ears go, about halfway around the ball (diagram.2)
Okay, draw rough outlines of ears from the earline back. Now add a jaw from just below the ear to the chin point. Note: You should be able to see the proper shape by now so if you drew your chin point too high or too low you'll probably notice it and can correct it.

Now do the same on the other side of the face: from earline to the chin.
I'm not exactly sure how I put the eyemarks in, I more or less guessed, but take a look at diagram.3 and guess too.
Now you should have something that looks like diagram.3.

Features
Now erase the equator eyeline, noseline and earlines, Don't erase the eyemarks (shown in red) and you could have something that looks like this or better. 

Now on a new layer draw the features in. I always start with the head outline, then the top of the eye, the lower lid, nose mouth and ear in that order. I'm using the same features I used for Yumi but heres some examples of anime-bits you can test out.
 

Now get rid of the bottom layer or completely erase the original pencil.
Add pupils, eyebrow lines, ear details, lips and now you should have lines ready to be tidied up and detailed.

  
Now turn the opacity on this layer down to around 20%
and on a new layer, or your pen start drawing the facial features one by one.

Eyes
Let's start with the eyes. Here's a step by step of this type of eye.

1. Draw the lash line or the eyelid in, Thicken it, with girl eyes I like to do that pointy sticky out bit.
2. Pupil and Iris, semi circle iris and quite a big pupil.
3. Erase a circle near the left of the pupil, this is a shiny effect. and fill in the sides of the iris.
4. Draw in an eyebrow and a small line above the lashes about one third the length of the eye in the centre.
5. Add any details you like, I added a second shiny thing, and some random lines inside the iris.

Now do exactly the same thing, backwards for the other side, except put the pupil in it's proper position, and don't mirror the iris pattern.

Adding nose, mouths and ears
Okay, Get rid of the eye working lines underneath and maybe you'll have this exact image (hopefully):

Now add a nose, mouth and ears. They're pretty straightforward - just tidy up the lines you have already have.

 Line the jaw and neck in. Necks can be skinny, fat, muscular or made up of two lines. Just draw lines until you are happy with neck width and length.

Hairstyle time 

Anime means awesome frikkin hairdos!
Go crazy on hairstyles - spikes, shorn, flowing metal, etc... Just make sure you don't cut into the head. Keep your major outline outside of the head, unless you really insist your character look stupid.

I chose this sort of Style for mine:

 It's all swirly fringed and spiky sided.

Shading
 
The next thing I do is shadows and shading. I do a cheap style of cel shading where I make a new layer above everything 'Color, Lines' and turn the opacity down to around 25% then I use a black brush and draw where I think needs a shadow. (BLACK)
 
Then I make a squiggly line across the hair in white on the same layer, although you may want it brighter
using the same sort of ball/skull shape. I draw another little shiny thing on the bottom lip and maybe half the of the iris. (WHITE)
 

Now draw these lines under the eyes. I don't know what they are, but include them anyway

Then on a new layer I add a little blush and lip color by putting a bright pink splotch (with a large softened brush) on the cheeks and carefully line the lips. Then I turn the layer into a multiply layer and fade it to around 20%.

Finally, add a pattern in the iris (perhaps a squiggly, perhaps a moon, perhaps a squiggly moon), add a second layer of shadow and whatever accessories you want - Glasses, Goggles, Face Hair, Piercings, etc... and you're all set!
 

That's all,  have fun and practice those eyes and hair they are the base of all cool anime!