Hello, welcome to this new tutorial where I will show you my method of drawing chibis, how I color them or how I make poses thanks to constructions based on circles and curves.

 

Chibi: Chibi is a drawing style in which the characters are drawn small in size, cute and adorable. They have caricatured proportions, often they have no fingers and their hands are represented by mittens, when they have hands and fingers, these approach the proportions of a baby, they will be rounded and rounded.

Chibis often have no feet. Their legs end in a sort of hoof or they can also have "V" / "U" shaped "stumps" like a ballerina's shoes.

Different proportions

 

You don't have to follow the rules of chibi style. There are many ways to draw them, you can draw them hands or feet, make them big eyes, a nose, a neck or not. Your only limit is your imagination. Quickly, you will succeed in having your own style of chibis by testing different combinations.

 

Regarding the proportions, we can calculate them in heads.

 

For example, on the first chibi, his body is half a head. By adding the head, we have proportions of a head and a half for this chibi

The second has a head for its body. The proportions are two heads for this chibi

The third has two heads for its body. The proportions are three heads for this chibi.

The fourth has three heads for its body. The proportions are 4 heads for this chibi.

 

The more heads your character has, the more complex it will be and will be closer to a realistic rendering.

 

When I draw chibis, I often make a circle for the head, on this one, I draw a cross so that I can then place the elements of his face like the eyes, nose and mouth.

 

Then I draw a pipe for the neck. You don't have to draw a neck, on the first chibi, it doesn't.

 

Then I draw an oval shape like a potato for the body.

Above, I will place circles at the joints of the shoulders and hips on which the arms and legs will rest, which I will represent by lines.

For the hands, I make mittens and for the feet lines, but as said before, you can not draw feet or hands or on the contrary make them more realistic by drawing toes and fingers.

 

 

The constructions made, I go to the sketch on a new layer. Above, my character will build. You can make many strokes, don't worry if your sketch looks dirty, it's a rough draft that can be deleted later when we go to the lines.

 

You may have noticed it, but on the first one it doesn't have a nose, regularly the chibis don't have a nose, but for my part, I prefer to draw one for them.

 

The more heads your chibi has, the more complex and detailed the design will be.

The fingers are rounder and I am not drawing the joints in detail, you can draw inspiration from toddler or baby hands.

 

Between the two-headed chibi and the four-headed chibi, the face is less squashed, there is more room to space the elements of the face on the last one than on the second.

 

It's up to you to choose which proportions you prefer. Personally my style of chibi is between the second and the third.

On a new layer, I switch to inking.

For my inking, I use a lightly textured brush and I like to fill my strokes with hairline.

 

Solids and hairlines are different line thicknesses in the design, it helps make your design more lively and dynamic. To do this, you have to thicken your line in some places to make it thicker. Often in places where two lines meet.

 

The thickness of the lines also allows to give depth and an idea of distance in a drawing. Elements in the foreground will be thicker and more accentuated than a farther object which will be lighter in terms of its features.

 

When you are done with your inking, you can hide the pencil layer or remove it.

I then move on to solid colors. For my solids, I apply one color per layer, this will allow me to work with each color more easily afterwards.

I always start with a color that is light enough for my solid color, the rendering will be much darker once the shadows are applied.

It only remains for me to put the shadows and lights on each flat area. I will detail my coloring method with the tools used later in the tutorial.

 

For coloring, you can do very basic colos with a shadow area, leave it flat, or on the contrary do a very detailed colo with several shadows or even start with painting.

 

For my part, for my summer camps, I use between three and four different shadows and a warm light.

Drawing tips

Here is a small simple tutorial to learn how to draw a head from the front, three-quarter and in profile.

 

For the face head, I draw a circle on which I will place a cross. This cross will allow me to easily pose the elements of the face.

 

I use this circle to make the shape of my head, the top of the skull will be more rounded, where the cheeks arrive, I make a recess and then make a rounded semi-circle.

 

The base of the face made, I place my eyes on the horizontal line, I line them up on either side of the vertical line and base myself on it to put the mouth.

 

All that remains is to do the details like the hair and coloring.

 

For the hair, avoid doing a lot of lines, bundle up and then you can do some unique strokes to represent small flyaways. Do not hesitate to be flexible in your features.

For a three-quarter face, I start on a circle on which I place my cross slightly off-center on the left. If your face is turned to the right, the cross will be on the other side.

 

I use this to place my cheek as well as the ear.

Remember that the base of one ear sits on the same line as the tip of the nose and the top of the ear sits on the line of the eye.

A chibi may be a deformation and caricature of a character, but the basics of proportion still help to place certain elements of the face and body correctly.

 

I then place the eyes, the mouth and I finish with the details and the coloring.

For the profile, I draw a construction based on circles, ovals, potatoes: p

 

I use these constructions to make a sketch of the character. For a chibi, you don't need to draw lips, chin, you can simplify your design to make it cuter.

 

Remember that the base of the fingers in normal proportion is in the middle of the thigh, so you can use these base proportions to correctly place body parts like the arms.

Here are some examples for drawing different arms and legs.

The first looks like mittens and small boots, I only draw the thumb in my fingers and the rest is plain.

In the second, we have small stumps, no detail on the fingers or toes.

In the third, I make big arms and feet as if the character had hooves.

And the last one has realistic arms and legs.

If you want to place the ears correctly, you can draw a line from the eyes to the top of the ear and from the nose to the bottom of the ear.

For the fingertips when the arms are placed at the side of the body, you can place them at the mid-thigh.

You can also use trapezoids and geometric shapes to draw chibis according to their gender.

For the male, the base of the shoulders is wider than that of the hips and for the female, it will be the reverse.

 

But if you want to make unisex chibis instead, a ring works for both.

For expressions, if you have a breakdown of ideas. You can rely on the emojis present in your applications to make your facial expressions. They are a good basis for having very expressive characters.

Colorization and construction of poses

In this part of the tutorial I will show you my method for doing dynamic poses but also show you my method of coloring with the tools and brushes used. To do dynamic poses, I often start by making a curve, on which I place the limbs. Do not hesitate to move the arms and legs of your characters and not to leave them in the continuity of the body (do not do like me on the XD examples).

I then do the basics of body building.

The head by a circle, the neck by a pipe, the torso by a potato or a trapezoid, the pelvis by a second inverted trapezoid. I place the joints of the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees in a circle and I connect the limbs with lines.

The more intense and pronounced the curve, the more your character will have a dynamic pose.

I make a first sketch based on the construction by drawing the naked chibi and then I do the details on a second. I will use the second to make my line.

I make my line on a new layer, above the sketch layer, the intensity of which I will lower to have better visibility of the line.

 

I use a lightly secured brush in black. On this line, I will do full and loose in the line.

 

Characteristic of the Pen 1 brush:

brush size 1.11

Antialiasing: the second

Stabilization: 60

 

The line is done, I will hide the sketch or delete it so that only the line is visible.

I put my solids, each color on a separate layer. The line layer is located above the color.

Having a different layer per color will allow me to work with the shadows independently of each other.

 

Some do everything in painting, but personally, I like to order my colorization in stages.

We start with the skin of chibis. As you can see there are two different shadows.

 

To work with the shadows, I put a new layer on top of the skin area and I will put this layer as a clipping mask on the previous layer. It's the little icon in your layers window that looks like two superimposed gray squares with dots on it. (image shown below in the pink rectangle) I always work the same way when I color, regardless of the colors used.

As you can see for the shadows, I use a slightly darker shade than the solid, I use two for the skin. One approaching the solid, but slightly darker and the second shadow is much darker for the contrast and sometimes I add a small bluish shadow under the hair

I place the shadows under the hair, the skirts, under the neck, in the ear as well as under the nose when there is one and under the eye.

 

If you have trouble seeing the features of the tool, you can right click and open the image in a new tab.

 

I use the G pen

Tool Features: Brush Size 8.58

Antialiasing: the fourth

Stabilization 56

 

After putting my shadows, I blend everything with the blender tool. It looks like two small drops.

 

Tool feature:

Size: 23.87

Color stretch: 37

Hardness: 2

Brush density 51

 

The shadow layer is on top of the solid and I check the clipping mask on the lower layer. (logo in the pink frame on the right)

The skin done, I move on to the hair. Here, I added on the same layer the color of the pants for the second and fourth chibi, so I will work these shadows at the same time.

After putting my shadows, I move on to highlighting. To do this, I make a new layer over my solid and over the shadow layer that I put as a clipping mask. (small acronym in the blue square)

The layer must be in glow density mode, this mode will allow you to have a bright and vivid light.

I place my light zone on the left, I make small strokes with the G feather and a pink color and then I give a little airbrush with the shadow and the same color.

 

Tool features:

 

G pen:

Tool Features: Brush Size 8.58

Antialiasing: the fourth

Stabilization 56

 

Airbrush Shadow:

Brush size: 100

Combination mode: normal

Hardness: 1

Brush density: 30

Continuous spraying: checked

 

I then go over the character's clothes. I use two shadows, a first one closer to that of the solid and a much darker one for the contrast.

I start by using a G feather to put my shadows, with the light on the left, I place the shadows on the right and where there are folds.

Then I soften it all up with the blender.

 

G pen:

Tool Features: Brush Size 8.58

Antialiasing: the fourth

Stabilization 56

 

Tool feature:

Size: 23.87

Color stretch: 37

Hardness: 2

Brush density 51

 

And finally, I add the light on a new layer in clipping mode on top of the solid and shadow layers and I put the layer in glow density mode.

 

I use a pink color and draw strokes with the G Pen and then with the shadow I intensify the color on the left with the airbrush.

G pen:

Tool Features: Brush Size 8.58

Antialiasing: the fourth

Stabilization 56

 

Airbrush Shadow:

Brush size: 100

Combination mode: normal

Hardness: 1

Brush density: 30

Continuous spraying: checked

 

Here is the result obtained after having colored all my solids, I also put a bluish shadow for the eyes and above the line layer, I made a white circle that I softened with the mixer to reflect the eye.

 

 

Do not hesitate to color your line to have continuity in your colorization. For that, you just have to put a new clipping mask layer on top of your line layer and color your line with the colors you want.

 

Personally, I find my colors very saturated, so I'm going to use a correction mask and play with the brightness and contrasts.

To have the correction layers, go to layer - new correction layer and choose your correction layer, play with the parameters until you get the desired result.

 

For my illustration, I softened the colors that I found too saturated.

 

Examples boys

 

 

I show you a step by step this time with chibi boy. I detail it less than the one above.

 

I start by making a stick figure structure to get an idea of the poses.

Then I make the structure with geometric shapes and sticks on which I will base myself to make the sketch.

Based on the structure, I make a sketch. Don't worry if your sketch is dirty and full of strokes. A line will be made over it.

I make a line above the sketch. On my line, I do different line thicknesses, what we call full and thin lines.

 

I then put the solids, one color per layer and I will work each color and shadows independently.

I work on the shadows and lights, color my line and make the light in the eyes and our illustration is finished.

Animals

You don't necessarily have to just make human chibis, it works with animals too. To make animal chibis, you just have to keep the proportion ratio exaggerated and caricatured as for humans. Make them big heads, the eyes should take a big place on the face and a small body will be enough to make animal chibis.

 

 

You can make them realistic or you can keep the animal head and anthropomorphize the body, have them wear clothes and make them stand up.

For my examples, I decided to keep the original body and not make them human characteristics.

 

 

I drew a cat, a deer or doe, a bee and a shiba inu

 

As with human chibis, the creation process is the same.

I do my various constructions

I rely on the constructions to make the sketch.

I then go to the line

I do my solids, one color per layer

And I put the shadows and the lights on my solids. I then play with the contrasts, I put the line in color and our animal chibis are finished.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, gave you some tips or even the inspiration to make your own chibis. Have a good creation process and thank you for following this tutorial.