Many beginners choose anime / manga as their first design style because it looks very simple and appealing. However, if you want to draw a manga character from scratch, you need to understand the proportions and structure of the body. And if you want to draw an anime body from your imagination, you also need to know human anatomy. Drawing anime characters is easier than realistic drawing, but not easy!

In this tutorial I’ll show you the basics of drawing the bodies of anime characters. I’ll show you how to start a manga drawing, how to define a pose for your character and make sure the proportions are correct. Then I’ll show you how to turn this “skeleton” into a 3D structure and add muscle.

Anime characters do not have very strict proportions – every creator has his own style and it is impossible to create correct leaf proportions for a Manga body. Even if there are no right and wrong proportions, there are intentional and unintentional proportions.

To take a deliberate look at your proportions, you must keep them consistent. Therefore, during the drawing you should follow certain rules. The most common rules for drawing a proportional anime body would be: