Q&A for How to Draw a Chibi Character

Your style is something you develop over time, not immediately. If you're a beginner, you should look up tutorials on Youtube or Deviantart. Once you start understanding how to draw a chibi, you can begin to develop your own unique style.

Make the adult more refined and taller and make the child shorter, simple, casual and innocent. These will work well unless it's an assassin family, in which case make them look a little wicked and cheeky.

Male hair is often swept to one side in anime. Also, keep in mind that hair flows like water - Give it a point to flow from!

No. After all, real heads aren't perfectly circular. Some artists like to start with a circle as an outline, but you can experiment and see which method works best for you.

Try adding them in while doing the hair, and making them slightly curved for dimension. You can also draw a few loose strands of "fur" around the base of the ears!

Add the makeup in during the coloring of the face, and use a low opacity if that is an option. Don't do it during the lineart or else it will make the face overcluttered and makeup doesn't really need an outline. If you need to, you can outline it with a slightly darker version of the makeup color.

You can draw stubs for hands and/or feet.

Use various shading techniques to give the illusion that your chibi is three dimensional.

You can get free apps such as Autodesk SketchBook and Adobe Sketch or buy Procreate for $5.99.

Once you have the basics down, you can start experimenting with your own. However, you should master the basics first. Your own style will develop naturally over time.

A good way to make a character surprised is to make the eyes taller and shrink the pupils, raise the eyebrows, and keep the mouth low on the face. You can also use cartoon marks, such as an exclamation point above the head.

Draw the face without the headband, then draw on the headband and rub out parts of the eyebrow that are covered by the headband.

The hair should cover the eyes in my opinion. It wouldn't make much sense for the eyes to overlap.

It all depends on your current style. If you feel you have more control using a pencil over a stylus, then you should use paper.

For moving, you can draw it in a running/walking position, and if it is running, draw a few lines behind it to represent movement. For speaking, you can have the mouth open and the head maybe tilted a bit, and I always like to draw it with the hand out in a gesture, but that's not required. For moving and speaking, have them in the walking position and looking forward or back depending on who they're speaking to.

Yes, but this will probably take some skill, so you might need to practice a while before your drawings turn out the way you want them to.

Well, you can get a smaller eraser (they are not expensive), or you can cut your eraser into smaller pieces.

You could try a triangle, semicircle or something squarish. Develop a style over time. Afterwards, it will come naturally.

Try to make the rest of the head (not the top) a bit bigger, and then maybe draw the whole body around the way you drew the head. Keep in mind that Chibi isn't the only style of manga. Shoujo is another that you can try to experiment with.

Just draw some free flowing 'chunks.' A common characteristic in Chibi is the hair isn't very detailed. It's more one solid color with a few simple highlights and shadows. Some parts of the hair are outlined.

Yes, I am 12 and draw all the time. Drawing is actually really good for your brain.

Just try to make it look a little circular. TIP: don't try to hard (it's pretty simple) and draw lightly/sketch so you won't have to do too much erasing.

Just make them smaller, simpler and make the eyes bigger. Some Pokemon are made to look chibi in their design (Pikachu or Mew) so pay close attention to that!

No. Chibi refers to cute, stubby people or animals. It doesn't specifically refer it to anime or manga.

Try to making a stick drawing first, and measuring the legs and arms before you begin.

Do the base lines the same, but instead of adding facial details, draw and color hair over the head and part of the back, depending on length. Then rub out the original lines.

You need to draw the middle of the body shorter, as well as the arms and legs. Leave the hands as curves.

That depends on what kind of device you'll be using for your drawing and coloring. If there's an app store available on your device, the best thing to do would be to explore the top rated art/drawing apps in the store.

Start by drawing a large circle for the face and make 2 lines that intersect through it. Make 2 wide eyes on the horizontal line and then draw a mouth near the bottom half with a small nose above it. The large eyes are one of the main characteristics of a chibi character. Add whatever kind of hairstyle you want to the head to complete your basic character face.

Chibi characters are known for their short stature, oversized heads, small bodies, and large eyes. Start by drawing a large circle for the head and add big, bulging eyes to it. Give the character a small mouth and nose to make the eyes seem larger. Then, draw a small body and add features like hair and accessories.