How to draw a male body in the correct anime style

In this lesson, we will learn how to draw male figures in anime style, from initial sketching to final coloring with vibrant hues. This lesson is geared towards both beginners and experienced artists, and will help you improve your skills in drawing anime or cartoon characters.

The program used is Clip Studio Paint. You can apply the same steps in programs like Photoshop, Procreate, or even paper drawing, whether on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. The most important thing is to follow the steps with me.

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Step 1: Sketch drawing of the male body

We start by drawing the head, because this will make things much easier for us:

• We draw a circle to determine the size of the head.
• We draw two side lines to define the boundaries of the face.
• We add a vertical line in the middle of the circle to divide the face in half, which determines the location of the nose and mouth.
• We draw two horizontal lines to mark the location of the eyes, and a line above them for the forehead line or hairline.
• We add the jaws and extend the lines towards the chin, to complete the shape of the head.

Step two: Adding the entire body

Now let's move on to drawing the male body. Follow these steps:

• From the chin, we draw a vertical line downwards representing the spine.
• We add necklines in the shape of an inverted triangle.
• We draw two horizontal lines to determine the width of the shoulders.
• We define the body structure: chest, waist, and muscles.
• We add the arms with clear lines.

Step three: Drawing the body details

Now that we have finished drawing the auxiliary sketch, we move on to the step of drawing the details:

• We draw the neck and chest more clearly.
• We identify the arms and muscles, especially the abdominal muscles and body curves.
• We define the facial features.

A look at where we've arrived

Here is the character before us, fully drawn. After we applied all the previous steps, we did not find any significant difficulty in drawing the details of the male body, and this is where the importance of the guidelines comes from. .

Step four: Inking

This step is easy, as it is considered the inking stage over the previous drawing, and it is as follows:

• We add two new Layers: one for inking the hair and one for inking the body, via Layer > New Raster Layer.
• We select the Pen tool or Curve Tool from the toolbar.
• From the Color Wheel, we choose the color black.
• We begin by precisely defining all the lines, paying attention to the natural curves of the male body.

Step five: Coloring the drawing

At this stage, we will color the anime character we have finished, and the steps are as follows:

• We add a new layer for each element (skin, hair, clothes) via Layer > New Raster Layer.
• We choose the main color for each part of the Color Wheel.
• We use the Fill Tool with the option "Refer Only to Editing Layer" or fill only the selected layer so that the color does not leak out.

Step six: Shading

We will shade the young man with the shading color we previously defined, and the method is as follows:

• Above the skin tone layer, we add a new shading layer and set it to Multiply from the Layer Property menu.
• We choose a shade that is darker than the skin tone.
• We use the Pencil Tool to color the shadow areas under the arms, under the head, and around the neck.
• We use the Airbrush > Soft tool to shade light areas such as the chest and sides of the torso.
• We add a new layer on top of each coloring layer and set it to Add (Glow).
• We choose a lighter shade than the base color.
• We color in areas of light such as muscle prominences, collarbones, and upper shoulders.

How to draw a male body in anime: A body drawing lesson

The soft or airbrush tool, as shown in the image below.

In order for only the desired area of the drawing to be colored, choose the fill tool that is designed to color only the selected layer, and I have indicated it for you in the image below.

Final result

Here is the final result of the lesson on drawing the male body. Notice that we added some stray strands around the hair, as well as glitter, in order to get a more attractive drawing.

Apply these steps, and you will see amazing results. Drawing a male body is much easier for me than for a female body, and it might be for you too, because it doesn't involve as many body curves. On the contrary, we rely heavily on geometric shapes that easily define the body's structure. Thank you, and I'll see you in future lessons, God willing.