Hi everyone!

In this tutorial I'm going to share my thoughts and the process of how to draw a cyberpunk character.

But first of all what cyberpunk is?

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of low-life and high tech, featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics. (thanks to Wikipedia)

I'm not a huge fan of cyberpunk so for me, this tutorial is also exploring and learning something new.

And before we jump into drawing let's start with boring stuff.

First, we have to know what this character is designed for.

If it's a video game or a movie, let's say we need to design a humanoid droid. We can go crazy with details. Because it will be modeled one time and that's it.

But if we need to design a character for manga/comic or animation we have to keep things fairly simple. Because we have to draw it a million times. Right?

But in this case, we're just having fun, studying.

So I didn't want to make a character in a dark, gloomy, hopeless setting like in Blade Runner, Judge Dredd or Akira, and so on. I wanted to make something more "brighter" more colorful.

So let's get to work!

Now it's time to go to gather some references.

I have already done it!

And based on references I gathered, that's how my character is gonna look like.

I want to present to you CYBERPUNK STARTER PACK

And the first thing in it is a jacket with a glowing collar.

That's a trend this summer/ winter.

Next is metal chin/neck or both. Also a pretty common thing

Nice and shiny cyber limb!

Pair of sneakers. Laceless, of course!

Belts, straps. Most of the time, performing a decorative function.

Cyber glasses. With adjustable zoom.

Katana, of course. To slice your enemies.

Neon, obviously

and some kandji

Here they're all together.

Of course, there is more than that, but that's enough for now.

For some of you, it may be obvious, for others it may be not.

The point is, let's say we assigned/hired or commissioned to design a cyberpunk character.

But we have never drawn anything like that. We were drawing fantasy stuff, like fairies, elves, and unicorns.

And if clothes and shoes are not a big problem for us to draw, but cyber limbs and metal chins, that's what we have to work on. We have to break things down, study, study how other artists approach the design, maybe looking for patterns.

Doing this exercise, (breaking things down) you will expand your visual library and increase your growth as an artist much more than just observing your references.

Try it yourself!

Ok! Now it's time to put what we've learned into a real deal!

I sketched a base for my character. You can grab it if you want.

And let's draw over it!

Here's what I've got

But the first version looked a bit generic. So I decided to continue my exploration.

And design, in general, is an iterative process.

Most of the time, your first ideas aren't the greatest.

Ok. Now let's talk about color.

I usually start with three main colors.

Where two of them are dominant ( yellow and blue ) and one supportive ( pink )

 

Now we need to subdivide, add more variation of the color.

And here are my final color roughs.

Now we just need to choose which one we like the most and render it more accurately.

I like number 3.

Clothes with a glowing collar - checked.

Really neat cyber legs - checked.

She's even has a mask! Irreplaceable thing, nowadays.

Here is my finished lines

+6 more hours of hard work and we are done!

And using a new nice feature recently added, I created a timelapse of a process.