Q&A for How to Draw an Anime Girl

Think about where the center of each limb and body part should be. That's where your frame goes. Then, you build your way around that!

Absolutely! There is nothing wrong with tracing characters, especially if you're just starting out and you're trying to learn more about drawing. Tracing can be a great way to get used to the basics of anime illustration, and there's no shame in that.

Try drawing lightly rather than pressing down so that your pencil is just barely skimming the paper. Additionally, make sure that you have a good eraser - whether it's on your pencil or separate from it. When an eraser is hard and inflexible, it'll just smear your drawing.

For the hands, it can be easier if you have someone have their hand in the position you want to draw the hand. You can also use your own hand, but it is a bit harder. For the hair, it should never be flat to the outline of the head. First, draw the back of the hair, like a bottom layer, then the bangs, then add anything else that you think would look good or natural. But in most anime/mangas, the hair can sometimes have a gravity-less look, so just draw what feels natural to you. For the clothes, draw a rough sketch of the outfit on a separate piece of paper, then draw it on, try to stay near to the body's shape, unless you want the clothing to be baggy.

Yes, that's a great way to develop your creativity and own drawing style.

Don't exaggerate her body. Real women don't always look like Victoria's Secret models. Just draw like you see her in your mind's eye. Or have someone pose for you, then draw the person in an anime style.

Ponytails are easy to start with. Remember to make strands of hair and that drawing in a space between the two sides of hair in her face will look better. Keep practicing––hair is actually not that easy to render when drawing, as it requires careful lines and good shading.

Eyes are hard to do. Remember that the eyes are made up of shapes. See How to Draw Anime Eyes for more help.

Make them either large and shiny or slightly squinched up and imperfect. Make tears at the very corners and the skin around the eyes slightly redder then normal.

Keep practicing until it becomes what you expect of it. You can erase many of the unwanted lines once you have the lines that do work -- perhaps the problem is that you have too many lines at the moment.

You can clothe your anime girl in whatever designs you wish. If you are just getting started, stick to basic shapes, like A-line dresses.

There's no specific place to put the nose, it's just whatever feels natural. Usually the position of the nose varies based on who/what you're drawing. Anime people usually have their noses around two thirds of the way down the person's head. Just try to experiment with different nose positions and see which one looks right.

Check out this article for tips: how to draw anime hands .

Have someone model for you, and keep practicing. You should try to find your own style of anime, too.

First you draw them as small ovals and then start making the fingers any way you would like.

Take a sheet of scratch paper, and practice hands by drawing them in different positions. You could place your hand in a flat position and try to copy the shape first. Always doodle a sketch on the paper every once in awhile. You should be able to memorize how a hand looks that way.

Sharpie pens work quite well.

If you draw darkly, then it will be harder to erase. Try sketching lightly.

Check out pictures with different face settings and trace them loosely. You just need the overlay. Get away from the original drawing and try finishing the piece yourself. Challenge yourself with different faces. This also aids in personal style development.

I'm also a beginner but I have a few ideas that helped me. You could get a video game or anime show as an example format to make a character. You could also look at a picture of yourself and look at an anime character then draw the body of that anime character and draw them with features that look like yours!

That's really going to depend on your medium. Photoshop has a huge array of shades if you work online. If you are using paint, mixing circles of paint with progressively more white will give you shades. If using colored pencils, vary your pressure on the page.

Think about what you want the girl to look like. Want her to look sassy? Draw a high ponytail and her head a little tilted. Want her to look sweet/kind? Draw long hair with gentle eyes. Want her to look playful/childish, but cute? Draw pigtails.

Well, all I can say is that drawing takes a lot of patience and practice. If this is intimidating, start with simpler projects.

Check out different art websites and tutorials. You could even watch other people drawing.

Try looking at other artists' styles and finding one that matches your own for the rest of the body. See how the legs are done, and incorporate this into your own style.

Anime chins are normally pointy, so if you're drawing anime, you should probably stick with that. If you don't want to, then just sort of circle around from one side of the face to the other without drawing the point.

You can make stop motion animation by drawing many drawings and then taking pictures of them and make it into a movie.

Computers generally offer more capability than a mobile device. See online reviews for more information.

Practice. For the head, draw a circle, then two short slightly slanted lines down from the opposite sides of the head, then connect them with curved lines to make the jaw. Keep practicing until you get it right.

This is probably because you are still learning how to draw expressive faces. If you are spending a lot of time drawing cute, shiny anime eyes and less time thinking about what emotion the character is feeling, your characters might all look blank like zombies. Try deciding before you start drawing what the character is feeling, and try to make it show. Anime is very stylized, so don't be afraid to push the expression beyond what would look normal on a real human face. You can also try exercises like drawing as many emotions as possible - try them first in just a very simplified style, like a smiley face; see how much emotion you can show with very few lines. Then try again in anime style.