Halloween special - How to draw animal ears on people (guest appearance of vampire fangs).

Here is part two of the 2014 Halloween special, animal ears! My character Jamie has a little secret to reveal, he is in fact half kitsune and sports a very large and fetching pair of ears when he isn't hiding them with magic.

There are as many variations of ears as there are animals, but for the two step by steps I have chosen Jamie (fox ears) and Storm (rabbit/hare ears) to represent triangular and tall respectively.

For triangular ears I recommend drawing the top line first, then connecting back to the head depending on the size and set of the ears. Jamie’s are low set and large. Next a line is drawn to separate the inside of the ear from the outside and the inside is filled with fluff. Jamie has very unique markings in the form of a black ear stripe, when for a fox usually the whole top of the ear would be black. Profile is always hard, here he has the ear tilted back slightly to make things easier.

Below we have high small (perhaps a cat?), low small (drooping sadly) and ‘in hair’ high small triangular ears.

Storm’s hair and ears are usually black, but I have left them white so you can see the detail. For tall ears like this, instead of drawing a topline you draw a ‘support line’ as I like to call it. Basically a representation of the inner centre of the ear (imagine a stick up the middle of a fabric ear holding it up. From there I sketch out the slightly triangular shape of the outer ear. The opening can only really be seen clearly from the side (and here the triangles are on both sides, making a distinctive diamond shape). Note the ‘support line’ actually makes a useful defining line if the inside of the ear can be seen.

Many other ears follow the same pattern when it comes to location. Don't let strange shapes deter you. The 'aquatic monster' ear is three spines joined with curved lines radiating from the rough location of the human ear. Same with the roots of most ears. They often look more realistic if you can draw them where normal human ears go although smaller cat ears especially can look good on the top of the head as well. Construct droopy rabbit ears the same way, just with a little more curve and obviously going the other way! Floppy Labrador ears are drawn top first like Jamies, then curving down into a triangle shape. Greyhound ears are again drawn top line first, then sweeping back up to the main folded section that connects to the head.

Just a pet peeve, I have seem many people draw fangs too large and too straight! Look at my little example to see they are set where your canines would be (obviously) and are curved and do not extend below the bottom lip. These fangs are visible yet elegant to make your vampire as menacing and attractive as possible. ;)

Go get some photo's of animals. Almost any ear can be constructed with the 'top first' or 'support line' method. There are an infinite number to choose from (bear ears, like rounded cat ears, are particularly cute) so go pick an animal and make your own!

Halloween special - How to draw manga animal tails on humans.

Welcome to part one of the 2014 Halloween special, tails! These fabulous appendages come in all shapes and sizes, but are all constructed in a similar way. Don’t believe me? Look below.

To start a tail, a line is drawn from root to tip (however long you want). The location of the root is very important. The tail will be an elongated tail bone and thus comes out of the base of the spine, not the middle of the bottom as I have seen people do before. There can be a slightly higher or lower set, but remember it still should still look as if it could realistically be an elongated tail bone (as that is what all tails are after all).  

The only difference is how you flesh it out. For a cat, you flesh it out relatively slim with a squared off end, for a fox or fluffy dog lots of fluff, a devil add a triangle to the end. You can have them short (like the rabbit/hare/deer tail shown here) or long, thick or thin depending on the species. Most of the difference in thickness will be fluff…

Another suggestion, look at the tails above and see if you can make a dragon (thick at base, tapers to tip, scaly) and a horse (just a bit longer than the deer/rabbit but as thin as a cat with long silky hair). The horse should be the most difficult. The ‘dock’ (and thus the movable part) only reaches the ‘bottom of the bottom’ but the hair can be ground length, making it look as though it has very narrow range of motion compared to a fox for example, when it is actually just short.

Get creative and start working on your spooky characters! My deviant art account is http://vulcanvet.deviantart.com/      - don’t be shy, drop a comment and show me your work! I would love to see what tail variations people can think of.

Eyes, from wide open to closed - reference.

Expression. Such a difficult thing to get right as it involves the whole face in complex ways, but for now some basic expression can be given through the eyes and eyebrows as long as you know how to draw an eye from way open all the way through closed.

Below we have a set of six eyes from the front, and the same set of six from the side.

The first eye is neutral for reference, notice the small crease above the eye. This will be useful and it designates the size of the eyeball in relation to the open part. On the second set of eyes, you can see they are half closed (note full eyeball is delineated at the top) but are closed in a sleepy/bored fashion (eyebrow still neutral). Contrast this with the angry eyes directly below where the eyebrow comes down over the inside edge of the eye and an angry crease can be seen on the forehead. Always draw the shape of the complete eye, then you can choose where to put the eyelid at any level. The third eye is closed yet the full shape of the eye is still indicated by the ‘top crease’. The fourth eye is shocked, notice how the pupil can be drawn contracted for extra effect and the eyebrow lifts out of shot. The angry eye we have already mentioned is similar to the half closed, although the shape can be altered slightly to emphasise angularity. The sad eye seems to droop a little on the outside and the eyebrow follows. Here I have added a larger pupil and water welling on the edge.

The eye from the side is shorter and more triangular than when seen from the front.

In order, neutral, half closed (used for sleepy, bored, stern but not angry look etc. depending on the set of the mouth and other features), closed (asleep, bliss, anything when eye is closed), wide open (shock, panic), angry (mostly eyebrows giving this impression) and sad/about to cry.

You can combine some of these for even more options (one shut one open equals a wink or with a grimace  and angry eyebrows maybe pain, the possibilities are endless). I will add a full face expression tutorial when I am less busy and have the time to draw them all. Being a vet student is hard work…

Until then, keep practising with the reference sheets I provide! I am sorry about how ‘reference’ like these eye tutorials are, but I will make it up to you guys with the Halloween special on Friday. See you there!

Picking an eye shape. Rectangular, oval or triangular?

Alright. Now time to look at eyes in some detail. This will be a short set as on Friday I have a little treat for you, a halloween special! Get your spooky on ready but until then, back to eyes. The basic thing to know is there are three main shapes to choose from (with many variations of course), rectangular, oval and triangular. I would use rectangular eyes for cheerful or normal characters, oval for mysterious, serious or Asian characters and triangular for those with a more menacing appearance (perhaps a villain, someone who takes no nonsense or a really serious person, more so than oval). The construction of eyes will not be delved into in that much detail as they are actually very simple, however I will be posting a tutorial constructing a single complex eye in great detail later on. This tutorial is more the basics on different shapes. Just take a good look below.

Firstly we see how the guidelines for the eye (see head tutorial) can be used as is or with an oval inside them (at varying angles depending on what type of character we have). The first eye is plain rectangular with a kink in the top line  just over halfway along (outside edges of all eyes here is to the right). This type of eye is literally drawn 'as is' inside the guide. Men don’t tend to have large eyelashes but I like to give most of my men a little point on the inside and out depending on eye shape as they tend to be more feminine. The more lashes, the girlier he will look. Although the iris is round, not all of it is visible so it always looks like a half moon/incomplete circle when neutral.

The row below shows three oval eyes. Notice how the main difference lies in whether or not the lines are smooth (more feminine/kind) or angular and where the eye outline is ‘open’. For Asian characters I recommend the inside of the eye to be closed and the opening on the outside. It just looks more Asian that way. Also tilt can be important. The middle one is ‘straighter’ than the outer two. I give my very mysterious or elven characters tilted eyes and more human characters straighter ones although it is all personal preference. Tilted eyes can also make a character look sly or shifty.

Next we have a straight topped rectangular eye (in contrast to the more open and kinder looking kink topped rectangular eye) followed by two more triangular in appearance. Notice how all of these eyes are neutral but the narrower triangular eyes or straight tops automatically look more serious or angry than the wide or round ones.

The final row gives some more stylised variations on oval and rectangular. In the middle you can also see a more stylized iris and pupil a bit more like the style seem in the works of Matsuri Hino (or my poor imitation therof). I recommend starting with the simple pupil and iris with highlights, then moving on to adding more detail to the iris (lines and shadow) before moving on to study more complex approaches. The detail is usually lost on anything but an extreme close up anyway. In short, pick a style you are comfortable with and suits your character.

Take these three basic shapes and toy with them. Pick a shape carefully for each character taking into account above points. Try to make every characters eyes unique in some way (unless they are related) and really make them reflect the personality within. The next guide today will be on how we can express some emotion with those eyes so you won’t be stuck drawing one facial expression over and over. If you need anything in more detail just drop a comment and I will be happy to oblige.

How to draw manga feet.

Now we have, feet! (also a request from my sister). These alien like appendages always look so strange because we hardly spend time looking at them. Even if we do we rarely pay much attention. Take a look at the image and off we go (please ignore the faint inking, I drew this during an hour break between lectures this morning and had to use a biro instead of a proper fine-liner as I was a silly sausage and forgot to bring my pen and have to use university scanners, not having any of my own,  so had to do draw with whatever I had).

A basic triangle with the top cut off will do as a guide for most situations. The lines here aren’t any particular measurement unfortunately, it depends on how big your character’s feet are (look at the ‘how many heads high’ tutorial for a rough idea). They are just there for me to have some guide on the height or length of the foot (hence why the bottom view looks smaller as the foot is longer than it is high). The most difficult parts of the foot are the toes and the ankles. The big toe is quite large and the other four get smaller in an arc pattern (see bottom left).

All I can say here really is closely observe the examples here and your own feet to get a rough idea for the size of the toes when seen from different angles, the ankle bone closest to the big toe is actually slightly higher than the one on the opposite side and toes are bigger than you think! Other than that it is hard to set proportional rules as the foot doesn’t divide neatly into halves etc. like the hands (roughly) or the body in general. The good news? Most of the time your characters will be wearing wonderful devices known as shoes, which can be constructed around the guide triangle and no need for toes (bottom right)! I recommend you practice your barefoot drawing right away though as you never know when you will need it.

If you have any requests, just leave a comment and I will do my best to post what you need. See you next Wednesday for another set of tutorials/reference guides!

How to draw manga hands.

At the request of my dear sister, The next tutorial will be on hands. Dreadfully difficult little things to draw or so everyone says, but if you ever get stuck remember, you have a pair yourself! A mirror can become invaluable when drawing that awkward pose or angle, just remember that a left hand becomes a right one in the mirror and vice versa. Take a look at the image below.

The main thing to remember about hands is they are essentially a flat box with some tubes attached. That’s right. A box with some slightly squared off cylinders attached and a bit of a triangle for the thumb base. Not so intimidating now are they? Seriously everyone stresses about hands when all they require is a bit of practice and patience, (it took me… actually I am not admitting how long it took me to get to my current hand drawing level but it did take an embarrassingly long time so don’t be discouraged). Each space between the line here represents quarter of a head for those wondering roughly how big a character’s hands should be. If you rest your hand against your face your fingers should just reach your brow… at least mine do.

First draw the palm (a box, roughly square for front or back view and much narrower for the sides). From here add lines for four fingers and a thumb, pay close attention to their lengths, the ‘middle finger’ tends to be longer than the other three with the pinky being the shortest. The ring finger and index finger are roughly the same length in women while the ring finger is slightly longer in men (mostly, this is actually my hand and it has more of a male setup despite me being female, exceptions do exist).

Draw some circles for the joints and flesh out the fingers. The thumb will be the hardest part but think of it as a dumpy finger attached to the palm by a sort of triangle. The major palm creases run in an arc from the top thumb joint and another from between the index and middle fingers. Add the creases on the wrist and the fingers and done! Not so hard really is it?  Half the battle is getting the fingers the right length and having some form other than shapeless tubes (which I fail at most of the time). For the top, the only definition you tend to see is around the knuckles, joints (more creases than the underside sort of in an oval) and sometimes the tendons on the back of the hand.

The example here is a right hand but flip them if you need left. I have included some common angles for you to use as reference. Using the images of all fingers down you should be able to draw some down and some up. Use your own hands and a mirror to practice some more. After all, it’s only a box and some cylinders! Sorry if the font changes partway on you guys... the preview changes it even though it is all in the same font, honest! Computers eh? What can you do. *shrugs*

The manga head from different angles.

Alright, now we have covered the whole body it’s time to start working on the details! Below is an image of the step by step construction of a head at several different angles.

Lets start with the straight on view at the top and work down. As you can see, the head can be constructed in the same basic three steps as the rest of the body (I have separated the final step into two here, basic features followed by finer detail).

The most important things to take note of are the hair and the eye line. The hair is not plastered to the head, but is drawn around it and away from it. This style isn't the best example due to the deep spikes, but in general the circle of the hair should always be bigger than that of the head to add volume. The eyes are halfway between the top of the head and the bottom of the chin. It is a common mistake to focus on the face and put the eyes too high which works fine for many of our favourite western cartoon characters but doesn't really work for manga which is much more realistic proportionally.

As for the eyes themselves, they come in many shapes and sizes but the men tend to have smaller more realistically proportioned eyes than manga women. As a rough guide, the inside edges of the eyes should be around the outside edge of the nose. The eyelashes (difficult to tell apart here as the drawing is small but the spikes on the inside edge) can come in a little further than this (as shown here) if your guy has more girly fuller eyes.

The hairline varies, but is usually just below the halfway mark between the eyes and the top of the head even though it obviously isn't always a straight line. This is where your bangs will come from even if they flop down over your character’s face. The nose ends roughly halfway between the eyes and chin, the mouth being just above halfway between the end of the nose and the chin. Human beings seem to work on ‘just about halves’ a lot, so use this to your advantage! The neck is roughly three quarters of the width of the head (don’t make necks too skinny or your character’s heads will fall off! Only joking, but they will look like they are about to fall off).

Looking at the fine detail, you will see lines above the eyes (unless the character is really surprised) showing the full extent of the eyeball as the eye is not fully open. Another line can be used to define the lower lip and even the upper in finer feminine characters in larger drawings (the line above the upper lip in the bottom picture was actually me dropping my pen. I leave any mistakes here to prove we are all human!). The eyes were really quickly done and the detail within a good eye is too complex to mention here (wait for my eyes tutorial) but note the location of the eyebrows and angle of the eyes may change with expression. Take a good look at human ears… they are hell to draw! I find a simple outer top line with an inner not-closed circle works as a good simplification. The final touch will be the muscle/tendon lines on the neck from the corner of the jaw moving down towards the gap between the collar bones.

In order to get the three quarters view, take a good look at the frontal view and the profile. Notice how the ears are about a quarter of the head from the back of the skull? The nose and lips are especially difficult in profile but the same location apply as for the frontal view. If you can grasp the frontal and profile three quarters should be easy! Once you have them all experiment with images of your favourite characters and see if you can draw a whole spectrum from full frontal to full profile. The key thing is to remember that the eyes are a little more compact in profile and slightly different in shape than when seen from the front. The iris and pupil also tend to be squished (taller and narrower) and close to the front of the eye.

The final two, looking up and looking down, are probably the most difficult. The way to do it is look at where the curved line for the eyes in the first step starts and finishes. The same place (on the midline) as before right? Yep. It just curves up or down! From there you can work out the location of the ears (above the eyes when looking down, opposite for looking up,they don’t really move that much as they are close to the centre of rotation) and  the chin. The chin is easy when looking down (it pivots in and only drops slightly, the whole head may also drop if they bend down a little but we will look at that when we get to crazy poses) but looking up is often difficult. I messed up quite a bit here but the general principle is follow the central face line to the location of the chin, and join it to the points of the jaw (level with the bottom of the head construction circle) with a triangle, either facing up or down depending on the degree of elevation. The key is that simple! Connect up that jaw!

Experiment with your own characters (or fanart if adventurous) and keep practising until you get these angles right, then move on to some more unusual stuff and surprise me!

See you next Wednesday for another tutorial!