How to Draw a Cute Girl Step by Step

Posted on by animeoutline

This tutorial show how to draw a cute girl with a “chibi” anime look. It consists of ten steps that go over drawing each part of the body.

As the title implies the focus of this guide is on creating a drawing of a girl that looks cute. It explains what art style, pose, facial expression, clothes and colors you can use to achieve this.

The style used for this particular examples is the “chibi” sub-style of anime and manga where characters are drawn with big heads and small bodies. Although the proportions used in this drawing are not quite as extreme as in the more common variety of “chibi” art.

Due to their big eyes and round faces anime characters tend to already look fairly cute. The “chibi” sub-style further emphasizes these features making it a good fit for this tutorial.

It should also be noted that although “chibi” characters tend to look younger, the girl in this example is an adult or an older teenager.

For drawing kids in the anime style see:

How to Draw an Anime Little Girl (Entire Body)

Unless drawing digitally you should start the tutorial in pencil and make light and easy to erase lines until you get to the later steps. This is important because you will need to do some erasing in between the different stages.

Above you can see the video version of this tutorial. It’s recommended that you watch it in addition to reading the instructions below. The video provides a very easy to follow, in depth, line by line breakdown of the drawing process.

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Step 1 – Draw the Girl’s Head & Neck

For both real people and stylized characters such as this one it’s generally a good idea to start the drawing with the head which can be used to measure the body (shown lower down).

Another good idea is to use some basic guide lines to help you avoid mistakes. For this reason make a straight vertical line through the middle of your page or drawing area (as tall or slightly taller than you intend to draw the girl). At the upper end of this line draw a circle to help you get the shape of the upper part of the head.

Going down from the circle add the head’s lower section. Be sure to make this part very short (vertically narrow) with a rounded chin. As already mentioned, round faces tend to look cuter. You can erase the lower half of the circle afterwards.

For a tutorial on the structure of an anime/manga head see the following:

How to Draw an Anime Face (Structure & Proportions)

You can see how the head can be used to measure the height of the body so that you know how tall to draw it. In this example the girl’s overall height is 4 and 1/3 heads (measured from the top of the head to the heels).

Coming down from the lower part of the head draw the neck. As this is a stylized “chibi” character make the neck very narrow in relation to the head.

For more on drawing neck as well as shoulders and collar bones (added in the next step) see:

How to Draw Anime Neck & Shoulders

Step 2 – Draw the Body

Going down from the neck add the body.

Make the body very small with narrow shoulders that are just barely wider than the head itself. As already mentioned, this is a key aspect of the cute “chibi” style.

Leave the areas where the shoulders transition into the arms open and draw the sides of the torso and the hips hips. Leave the areas where the legs are attached open as well.

Overall make the body narrower around the waist and very slightly wider as it goes up. Make it significantly wider as it goes down.

Add the collar bones and breasts once you have the main shape of the body outlined.

It’s important to note that for this character the height of the body plus half the head is about the same as the length of the legs (again, measured down to the heels).

For drawing the entire female body in a more traditional anime or manga style see:

How to Draw Anime Girl Full Body Step by Step

Step 3 – Draw the Legs

Add the legs staring with the upper part of each one going down to the knees. Next, add the lower parts down to the ankles.

To further contribute to the girl’s cute appearance draw the legs with the knees pointing slightly inwards.

For more on drawing legs see:

How to Draw Female Anime Legs Tutorial

Step 4 – Draw the Feet

Just like the knees draw the feet pointing inwards inwards as well. This is fairly common for anime characters and again will help achieve the “cute look”.

Add a simplified outline of each foot without any of the toes as the girl will be wearing shoes. Also, keep in mind what was mentioned earlier. The length of the legs (with the feet) down to the heels should be about the same (a little less) as the height of the body plus half the head. The entire height of the girl should be about 4 1/3 heads.

For a tutorial on drawing a foot see:

How to Draw Toes & Toenails on a Foot in 4 Steps

Step 5 – Draw the Arms

There is nothing particularly different about the way the arms are drawn. They are small in comparison to the head but have relatively realistic proportions in relation to the body.

The length of each arm is bout the same as the length of the upper body. Draw them held out slightly to the sides.

For more on drawing arms:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Arms Tutorial

Step 6 – Draw the Hands

Draw the hands held out to the sides as well but a lot more so than the arms. This helps create a somewhat happy, carefree and cute pose.

For drawing different kinds of poses see:

How to Draw Anime Poses Step by Step

Make the hands reasonably realistic in their overall proportions in relation to the body but with thicker fingers. It should also be noted that small hands generally tend to appear cuter. Drawing hands that are too large will create a more “cartoon-like” look.

For tutorials on drawing hands see:

Step 7 – Draw the Face

You can see the placement of the facial features in the illustration above. Draw and position them as follows:

Drawing the Eyes

Place the eyes below the horizontal halfway point of the head. You can define the shape of each eye with the eyelashes (as shown in the example).

To make the character look cuter draw the eyes with a slightly excited look. To achieve this leave a bit of space between the upper eyelashes/eyelids and the irises to show that they are open wider than normal.

For a friendlier/cuter appearance make the irises quite large. As this is a simplified style you can just add one oval shaped reflection to each of them without any other details.

For drawing different kinds of expressions look at the following tutorials:

Drawing the Eyebrows

Position the eyebrows well above the eyes. Draw them with their inner ends raised (to again show an excited look).

For example of different kinds of eyebrows check:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Eyebrows

Drawing a Nose

Add the nose between the top of the eyes and the bottom of the chin.

Draw it as a tiny outline in the middle of the head (small noses generally look cute).

For different ways to draw noses see:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Noses

Drawing a Mouth

Place the mouth slightly above the halfway point between the nose and the bottom of the chin.

Draw the mouth as a small curve with a little break in the middle. The curve will make it look like the girl has a light smile which will again, give her a cute and friendly look.

For different kinds of mouth expressions check:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Mouth Expressions

Drawing the Ears

Draw the ears with their upper ends below the eyes and their bottom ends below the nose.

Don’t add any of their inner details as for the most part they will be covered by the hair.

For different ways to draw ears see the following:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Ears (3 Different Ways)

Step 8 – Draw the Hair

In this case the girl has long hair. Draw it over top of the outline of the head starting with the part along the forehead (shown in red in the example). Next, draw the part shown in green for the sides/top part of the hair and finally the the bottom/background part shown in blue.

Draw the forehead section with a large clump in the middle (split on it’s end) and the rest swept to the sides.

Cute girl hair along side of head drawing

Draw the next section (green) starting with a split at the top of the head. It should then go down somewhat following the shape of the head and fan out as it gets to the shoulders ending in a pair of splits on each side.

Finally draw the background part of the hair as series of little clumps as the very bottom and some folds around the neck.

Once you have all parts of the hair outlined erase the parts of the head that it covers.

For drawing different kinds of anime hair styles see:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Hair – Female

Step 9 – Draw the Clothes

In this case the girl is draw with the types of clothes that an anime character might be shown wearing when going out on the weekend (to again help make her look cuter). They consist of the following:

Blouse
Skirt
Stockings
Shoes

Drawing the Blouse

Draw the blouse with some some folds around the chest (sides and middle) and make it a little baggy at the bottom.

Drawing the Skirt

Draw the skit with a bell-like shape and with folds running from top to bottom as shown in the example.

For more on drawing skirts see:

How to Draw Anime Skirts Step by Step

Drawing the Stockings

The shapes of the stockings are pretty much defined by the shapes of the legs. In this case they are fairly long going almost all the way up to the skirt with a stripe on each of their tops.

For more on drawing stockings check:

How to Draw Anime Socks, Stockings & Tights

Drawing the Shoes

Similar to the stockings the shoes are pretty much defined by the outlines of the feet added earlier. Simply outline the upper opening of each shoe to show that they are being worn.

For more on drawing shoes see:

How to Draw Anime Shoes Step by Step

Step 10 – Add Color & Shading

The main colors used for this particular character are red, yellow and blue. These are the three primary colors (all other colors are a mix of these) and go well together.

Fill in each part of the drawing with the corresponding color as follows:

Yellow hair/eyebrows
Blue eyes/skirts
Pink/red blouse/stripes on stockings
Dark grey stockings
Dark blue shoes

To make the shoes look shiny leave a little highlight/reflection inside each of them and color it with a lighter blue.

Leave the reflections inside the eyes completely white. Also be sure not to color the whites of the eyes.

You can of course use a different color combination if you prefer.

For a guide on colors see the following:

Beginner Guide to Picking Colors When Drawing Anime & Manga

As this character is stylized the shading is very simple (even by anime/manga standards).

Add shadows in the following areas:

Upper parts of the irises
Visible parts of the ears
Inner part of the hair
On the neck (below the head)
One the legs (below the skirt)

Shading the eyes in such a way will help make the character have less of a “stare”.

The rest of the shadows are based on the girl being in a fairly well lit environment where the light is generally coming from above her and the shadows are cast downwards.

For shading a face in different kinds of lighting see:

How to Shade an Anime Face in Different Lighting

Conclusion

The chibi anime sub-style can be great for creating cute looking characters. This tutorials provides the proportions of the body and face and examples of what type of a pose, facial expression, clothes and colors you can use for drawing a girl in such a style.

In addition to simply showing how to draw the girl this tutorial also teaches good overall drawing practices such as using basic guide lines, being aware of proportions and drawing things in a logical order.

For more generic drawing tips see:

Beginner Guide to Drawing Anime & Manga

If you enjoy these kinds of easy to follow step by step guide also be sure to try the following: