How to Draw a Cute Anime Girl Step by Step
This step by step tutorial shows how to draw a cute anime girl with an explanation of proportions that make a female character look “cute” as well as illustrated examples.
Anime characters are usually drawn “cute” by default (though some styles are more serious) but you can tweak the proportions and positioning of the facial features in certain ways (explained in the steps below) to make a character look more cute even by anime standards.
It should also be noted that by making a character look cuter you will also usually automatically make them look younger. Though sometimes even adult characters are still drawn this way.
For drawing the entire body see the following tutorials:
Step 1 – Drawing a Cute Anime Girl’s Head
Cute looking anime characters usually have bigger heads and foreheads with smaller chins.
For the front view start by drawing an oval for the top of the head and to that add the bottom half of the face. The bottom part of the face should narrows significantly as it goes down.
For the side view once again start with the oval of the top of the head an onto that draw the nose/jaw area. Leave out the details such as the lips for later steps.
At this stage simply estimate the placement of the nose for the side view (covered in Step 3).
For more on drawing different styles of anime heads see:
How to Draw Different Styles of Anime Heads & Faces
Step 2 – Place and Draw the Eyes & Eyebrows
For a cuter look place the eyes even lower down than normal. Also make sure that you draw the eyes big and tall.
In this case we will actually place the eyes by first placing the eyebrows. To do this draw a horizontal line exactly through the middle of the head and draw the bottom of the eyebrows touching this line. Keep in mind that the eyes can move depending on the characters facial expression. This placement is for eyebrows in their natural position.
You can draw a hint of the eyelids directly on this line and the eyebrows slightly below that.
For more on drawing anime eyes see:
How to Draw Anime Eyes and Eye Expressions
Step 3 – Placing & Drawing the Nose
Draw the nose between the line through the middle of the face and the bottom of the chin.
For more on drawing anime noses see:
How to Draw Anime and Manga Noses
Step 4 – Drawing & Placing the Ears
The ears will be covered by hair in later steps but we will go over placing them in case you want to draw a different hairstyle.
Place the ears between the top of the halfway point between the top of the eyes and the chin.
For more on drawing anime ears see:
How to Draw Anime and Manga Ears
Step 5 – Placing & Drawing the Mouth
To place the mouth draw it exactly between the nose and the chin.
For a cute look make sure to draw a small mouth. You can also draw a little break inside the mouth line.
For more on drawing anime mouths see:
Step 6 – Drawing Cheeks & Blush
To give the character an even cuter (but also more childish) appearance add some blush on the cheeks. For the line drawing version you can do this by drawing some angled lines.
Step 7 – Drawing the Hair
For a cute looking character you can make the hair fairly “puffy” drawing it a good distance away from the head.
For more on drawing anime hair you can see:
How to Draw Anime & Manga Male & Female Hair
You may notice that there are also some collar bones and clothes added in this step. For more on drawing these you can see:
Step 8 – Coloring the Character
You can pretty much color a cute character character same as you would any other one.
Simply fill in each area with the appropriate color and add some basic shading afterwards.
Add some shading on the head as there will usually be a shadow there cast by the head and some shadows on the face cast by the hair.
You can also add some very light red/pink to the blush on the cheeks.
For more on coloring an anime character see:
How to Color an Anime Character Step by Step
Conclusion
As this tutorial was for a “cute” looking anime character the proportions were slightly different than the ones recommended in some other tutorials here on AnimeOutline. Please keep in mind that while these proportion are based on the general trends for cute looking anime characters there is no one clear set of guide lines that will fit all of them. You can always experiment with different proportions and see what you get.
For other similar tutorials see:
- How to Draw a Beautiful Anime Girl Step by Step
- How to Draw an Anime Boy (12 Steps With Proportions)
- 8 Step Anime Woman’s Head & Face Drawing Tutorial
- How to Draw Anime Characters Tutorial
