Learn to Draw Action Heroes Read online

  Ear Variations

  This example shows you how easy it is to take the existing ear and add some variation to it. You don’t always have to start from scratch with your designs. Recycling your work can save lots of time, and it’s better for the environment! You can change an ear design by tweaking just one element. Shorten or extend a piece, make it sharper or more rounded. Experiment and practice.

  Drawing the Ears: Side View

  Now let’s learn to draw the ears from the side view. Although this is a bit tougher to accomplish, there are still some fun ways to make the process easier to achieve.

  1 DRAW A VERTICAL GUIDELINE

  Start by drawing the height that you would like your head to be. Then mark the halfway point with a horizontal line. It doesn’t have to be perfect but close to the middle is a nice place to start. This will also be the point where we later place the eyes.

  2 START ADDING DETAILS

  Draw the Y-like shape in the top middle of the ear. Have the shape taper in and almost connect to the bottom ear lobe area. Now draw in the tragus which looks like the little bump on the left side of the ear. Think of it like a cover for the opening to the ear. Add two small curved lines for the shape of the opening to the ear.

  3 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES

  Draw the shadows. Using the guides that we have put into place, this becomes very easy to do. Try to imagine how the shadows would wrap around the forms in a three-dimensional environment. The more you envision that concept, the better your drawings will get.

  4 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Add crosshatching to further round out the forms. The ear has lots of curves and bends so feel free to show it in your line work. Curving the lines around with the shapes you have drawn will add to that effect.

  Changing the Shape

  Once again you can take the existing ear drawing and convert it to a fictional ear with just a few changes in shape. Practice drawing lots of variations of this same design to take your ear art to the next level.

  Hairstyles: Defining the Hairline

  In this lesson you will work on drawing hair. In order to do so you must first figure out where to put it. Hair can get a little wild at times, so let’s try to tame it a bit.

  1 SKETCH THE HAIRLINE

  When drawing hair, first define a hairline on your character. This helps you to focus on where to put all those fancy lines you are about to draw. This is a basic step, but it is a very important one.

  2 DEVELOP THE HAIR

  Draw the general hair shapes but keep them bulked together and overlapping in various ways. Don’t try to draw each strand or the hair will look like spaghetti. I love spaghetti but not in my hair! Think of the hair as ribbons flowing in and out of one another.

  Practice Drawing Texture and Shape

  Practice drawing samples like this one off to the side of your work. It helps to get the basics down before drawing your masterpiece. Practice the shape and texture hair can have. Log in lots of these samples, and your art will improve very quickly.

  1 SKETCH THE HAIRLINE

  Let’s try it again on this angled pose using the same concept. We will make the hair a bit thinner and refine the line work this time. Draw the hairline as before.

  2 SKETCH THE DIRECTION OF THE HAIR

  Start to think about the shape of the hair and also the direction that the forms will be taking. The more you visualize before you start drawing, the better. Make sure to curve the lines in and out of one another to avoid hair that appears flat or plain.

  3 DRAW THE HAIR SHAPES

  Draw the general shapes and use quick curved lines to create the forms. Then go back in with more lines to add to the texture of the hair. Avoid short sketchy lines for this type of drawing. Smooth fluid lines work better here.

  4 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  With all your line work in place, you can refine the hair with your shading. Use the shadows to give your forms depth. Leave areas white to show highlights and also to illustrate loose strands of hair flowing around the larger shapes. Don’t forget to add little curves here and there at the ends of your lines. It gives the hair more life.

  Drawing Hairstyles: Curly Hair

  In this lesson you will be tackling the topic of curly hair. You will be drawing some basic shapes to help put the curls into place, so let’s get moving shall we?

  1 DRAW THE GUIDELINE

  First, draw a cup. Well, no it’s not a cup but it does resemble one. This cone-like shape will help keep our curls in place.

  2 SKETCH THE OUTLINE

  Draw a ribbon flowing downward into the cup. Use the sides of the cup like barriers to confine the curls.

  3 ADD TEXTURE AND SHADOWS

  Gently erase your guidelines and start to add in the texture of the hair. Use drop shadows to help define the forms and give them depth.

  4 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Refine the texture of the hair even further with line variations. Try to picture high and low areas in the hair. Then draw loose strands of hair coming off the edges to add to the realism.

  1 SKETCH THE OUTLINE

  Let’s draw some curls that are elongated. Start by drawing the basic overlapping shapes. Try to envision them flowing in and out of the larger form. Taper toward the ends and put a bit of curve on the tips.

  2 ADD LINE WEIGHT

  Start adding in shadows and line weight. Think about how certain parts of the hair would cast shadows on other parts. Round some of the edges of the shadows so they appear to have body. Use line weight to give the hair more depth.

  3 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  The groundwork is in place and now the rendering is much easier to do. Think about where the highlights might be and how they would react to surface of the hair. Use white edge lighting to keep some separation in the forms. Make sure to include smaller loose strands of hair to finish off the work.

  1 SKETCH THE HAIRLINE

  Start with the shape of the character’s head. Draw out the basic hairline.

  2 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPE

  When drawing tighter curls you can first draw the overall shape of the hair. Then draw in the shapes of shadows to round out the form. This provides a guide for adding in the curls.

  3 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Draw tiny curls that start tighter together and begin to separate to show the highlight area. You can get this effect by using any type of stipple shading. The further the character is away from the camera, the tinier the effect will be.

  Drawing Heads: Forward View

  In this lesson you will draw the male head in a forward facing view. We will focus on the alignment of the features and the distance of them from one another.

  1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES

  Draw a line the height of the character’s head. Then draw another line at the halfway point. Divide the bottom section into halves and draw another line there. Now take the remaining section at the bottom and draw two more lines to divide it into equal thirds. Draw a circle for the top of the head. Don’t worry about this being a perfect measurement. A larger circle will create a wider face and a smaller circle will give us a more elongated face.

  2 DRAW THE EARS

  Use the top two marks as the guidelines for the ears. You can draw horizontal lines to help you mark the location for the ears. Draw the ears as simple disk shapes for now. They can angle slightly inward at the bottom to help you visualize your character a bit better. Connect the edge of the circle to the ears with a small line on each side.

  3 ADD THE REST OF THE GUIDELINES

  Draw a horizontal line from the third line up from the bottom. This is our top lip line, but it will also give us a guide for where the curve of the jawline will go. Draw the shape of the jaw by connecting the ears to that new line and then drawing the angles that meet the chin area. Now draw a cylinder for the neck area. Notice that everything is very angular at this stage. It helps to figure out perspective this way. We will add more organic lines over top of these.

  4 PLACE THE FEATURES

>   Draw the eyes in below the top line that meets the top of the ears. Remember that the eyes are equally spaced to the width of one eye. Use the distance between the eyes to determine the width of the nose. Draw the nose shape like a pyramid that ends at the bottom of the ears. Draw an M shape for the top lip and a stretched-out U shape for the bottom lip. Then divide the top of the head into thirds. The hairline belongs around the top one-third area.

  5 DEVELOP THE FEATURES

  Gently erase your construction lines and start to add in more organic lines. All the measurements are done, and now we can get to the fun stuff! Draw the hair with wavy lines that go in and out of the larger forms. Draw the iris one third of the width of the eye. Do not put the pupil too close to the top eyelid unless you want the character to look sleepy. Remember to draw a drop shadow onto the iris to give the eyes more depth. Be sure to use lots of curves at this stage of your drawing.

  6 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Now that the drawing is in place, add shading and refine your lines. This is where style takes over and you can be more creative. Focus on trying to render different surfaces in your comic drawings. The shirt should render differently than the hair and skin, for example. And when in doubt, give your character some chin fuzz.

  Drawing Heads: Downward Angle

  In this lesson you will learn how to draw the face pointed downward. This can be a nice touch to a dramatic scene or a great way to make a tough guy look more tough. When the head is pointed downward with the eyes looking up it conveys a threatening look much like an animal getting ready to attack!

  1 DRAW ROUGH GUIDELINES

  Draw a circle for the top of the head. Then draw a box tapering slightly at the bottom. This will help to draw the face in a downward perspective. If you need to push the downward effect, taper the corners in even more.

  2 SKETCH A MEASURING GRID

  Draw a line from corner to corner of the box. The intersection of lines will give us our middle mark in proper perspective. Draw a vertical middle line. Then draw a line across horizontally from this middle mark and give it a curve upward on the ends. This will help us to place the eyes and also start to envision our drawing as a three-dimensional shape.

  3 SKETCH THE HEAD SHAPE

  Gently erase the box and use the light lines as a guide to draw in your head shape. Remember to taper the sides of the head and to create angles for the jawline. Notice how much we removed from the original circle shape to create the shape of the head.

  4 PRACTICE WORKING WITH MEASURING GRIDS

  Let’s go over this measuring device in more detail. Split the box in half horizontally then split the lower half again. Draw lines from corner to corner. We now have more lines to work with on the bottom half to help with placement of the nose and mouth. They are again in perfect perspective. This is a useful tool for drawing characters and architecture as well.

  5 ADD THE NOSE

  Gently erase again and define the character features. We can use the new line from the segmented grid to place the nose. Draw the nose as a triangular shape. Also use the middle line to place the brows. Remember that from this angle all these lines will take a downward curve more dramatically than before. Start to shape the face by adding in the cheekbones. Keep the narrowing of the face in mind from this angle.

  6 DRAW THE EYES AND MOUTH

  Draw the mouth. We know that it goes beneath the nose and above the chin, but placement can be tricky. I would err on the side of closer to the nose from this angle. Remember that the top lip will be less visible, and the bottom lip will be more visible. Now draw in the ears. To help push the perspective, make sure to raise them above the eyes. Draw the eye shapes as well.

  7 DEVELOP THE FEATURES

  Gently erase all the guidelines and start to create the look of your character. Flesh out the forms and make the lines more organic looking with curves. The drawing can still be rough, even at this stage. You want to hold off on tightening up your details until you have all your ideas worked out in your head. Then you can render away with crosshatching and final line work.

  8 REFINE THE FINAL LOOK

  Gently erase any leftover sketch lines and bring your character to life. Now you can draw in your lines with more conviction and tighten up all your edges. Don’t be afraid to add lots of little lines for texture and grit if it’s right for your character. That is the fun stuff that your fans like to see.

  Drawing Heads: Upward Angle

  This lesson demonstrates a more advanced drawing of the head. It’s a tricky topic for a lot of artists so we will be using some techniques from the Andrew Loomis Method, which is popular among a lot of comic book professionals.

  1 START WITH A BASIC CIRCLE GUIDE

  Draw a circle and then draw an oval shape within that circle. You will need to practice what size this oval will be based upon the character you are trying to draw. Facial features are different for all sorts of character types, but this gives you a basic starting point. For this exercise, draw the circle about 6/8 the size of the original one. Create a cross section in the smaller oval, then continue the middle line across the larger circle to represent the position of the brow.

  2 DIVIDE THE CIRCLE

  Square off the edge of the small oval and bring a line across from the bottom. This will represent the nose area and also help to divide the face into thirds. Using the section you just drew, mark a bottom third and also a top third. Keep in mind the top third will be shorter from this perspective than the bottom third. Draw a small curve for the start of the jawline at the bottom of the smaller circle.

  3 SKETCH THE NOSE AND EAR PLACEMENT

  Draw a pyramid shape to help form the nose. From this angle we would see the bottom of the nose so draw just a primitive shape for now. Also draw in the bottom of the jawline. I like to shade this in to get a better idea of how this shape looks. It can be a confusing area since we are not used to this perspective, so study it often. Now draw a small oval in the bottom left quarter of the first small circle we drew. Finally draw a line from that cross section on the left to the chin. This helps to further shape the face.

  4 DRAW ROUGH FACIAL FEATURES

  Gently erase the construction lines and start to draw in the more organic lines of the face. Here we can start to really define what our character looks like. Draw in the mouth with the M shape we talked about before, shortening the side furthest away from us to illustrate the depth. Draw in the eyes. From this angle, the further eye will be slightly covered by the bridge of the nose. Detail the lower part of the nose and remember that one nostril will be covered by the septum of the nose. You can also draw in a cylinder shape for the neck area. Give the neck a bend so it doesn’t look like an actual cylinder.

  5 SKETCH THE HAIR SHAPE AND FACIAL FEATURES

  Now draw in the shape and style of the hair. Start with basic clumps and patterns for the hair and add the details later. Draw the eyes. Remember that the iris makes up a third of the eyes from a front view. So you have to perceive what that will look like from this angle. The circles of the iris would take an oval shape and the pupils would as well.

  6 REFINE THE FEATURES

  Gently erase your lines again, and draw the character one more time with heavier line weight. Repeat this step as many times as you need to feel comfortable with your lines. Don’t waste time rendering a bunch of lines over a design that you are still unhappy with. Clean up the lines; doing so will make your rendering look more confident.

  7 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Define your final line work and shading. You don’t have to add extreme shadows to every piece to get the work to stand out. Add small shadows along the edges and vary your detail lines to create depth. Add both light and heavy lines to the hair to create the effect you’re looking for. And there you have it: a character doing some intense bird watching!

  Drawing Expressions: Anger

  This lesson covers how to draw the expression of anger. This is a very important expression to get right, since most of your c
haracters will more than likely be mad during your epic fight scenes!

  1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES

  Draw a circle for the top part of the head. Then draw a line to represent the height of the head. Then draw a line halfway down where the eyes will go.