How To Draw Innocent Looking Manga Girl

Kawaiiii! In Japanese anime and manga, cute girls are an everyday joy to look at. Big eyes, big smile, joyful spirit. But there's another form of cute too. Sad, that tear shining in the eye, fragile. That's cute too. But only because the eyes are big and begging for acceptance and forgiveness.

Cute anime girls are a joy to look at. The happiness they ooze is breathtaking and easy to get immersed in.

In this guide, we will take a close look into how you can draw a cute anime girl yourself. At the end of the guide, I will be providing you some resources to get you a quick start to draw your own cute anime girl in no time.

Or, well, it might take a bit of time (and it should actually), but nevertheless. It's easier to start when you have a good base to work on.

What makes anime girls cute?

As mentioned before, big eyes, innocent look in the eyes, big smiles in their face. All around happy as a character. However, the thing that makes anime character cute is the emotion the eyes give you.

You see, anime girl can be cute by being sad, and not just happy. They also look cute when they look you innocently or when they are looking to the horizon with a longing look in their faces.

how_to_draw_cute_anime_girl_longing_gaze — Looking to the horizon, waiting for an answer…Cute and sad at the same time.

While the majority of the cuteness comes from facial expression, also clothes do make a significant proportion of the cuteness factor. Having a cute looking outfit, cute looking colors, and cute accessories (like teddy bears or others) also emphasize the cuteness of an anime girl.

So when you are drawing your own cute anime girl, think about the facial expression, size of eyes, accessories, clothing, and color choices. Using pink, lavender, soft-colors, in general, tend to work the best. Using dark colors like black, dark blue, or such, might not be the best choice.

However, we always have to leave room for an artist to bloom, so take the above advice with a small pinch of salt and have fun with your anime character.

Drawing cute anime face and head

I started my character by thinking about what type of girl she would be. I settled on a girl wearing a school uniform. This is a super typical anime character outfit.

School uniforms already give that hint of cuteness to a character. Innocence if we may add, and this applies to anime world very heavily.

The next thing was to find a pose that would suit my idea of a cute anime girl. In classical anime art, hand facing forward or reaching out is a very typical pose to have. So I went with that.

The very best resource for finding inspiration for poses and such is Pinterest. I use that site plenty when I'm searching for inspiration for my next drawing.

So when I had settled with the pose, I began drawing the face and head.

Now, when we are drawing a cute anime girl, you have to think about what kind of facial expression you want to give to your anime character?

Sad, happy, longing, or something between? What is the facial expression suitable for your character?

I almost always start the face by drawing eyes first. When you are drawing cute eyes, remember that the eyes need to be drawn in a non-continuous way. Meaning that the eye-lids do not touch. This is not a rule, but a preference.

how_to_draw_cute_anime_girl_face_head — Notice the non-continuous eye

I also decided to draw a huge and wide-open mouth for my cute anime girl. I think it gives the character that joyful feeling, and truly emphasize that child-like happiness. Which I think gives that cute feeling for the character.

Drawing that cute anime girl body

Even though we already drew the pose before, we should delve a bit deeper into the pose.

When you pick a pose, think about the motion that poses is having. Drawing a girl in a fighting position might not be the most cutest, though, in anime art, even that is possible to do.

However, for your first cute anime girl (or your second or so), the pose also has this special effect on cuteness. Having hands crossed in front of the character usually gives this cute effect. The pose tells about this, "sorry for being a trouble senpai."

In anime art, it's somewhat easy to draw cute anime girls, all you need is the right facial expression and pose, and you are pretty far with your drawing.

With the pose I chose, I wanted to give this happy feeling for the character. There's this one thing that the character wants to go after, and she goes after it with a happy face all-around.

Drawing clothing, accessories and making the girl look cute

As I drew an anime schoolgirl, I could have drawn a school bag or something, but I settled to drawing a ribbon, jacket, pockets, and buttons. Of course, a flowing skirt is something every anime schoolgirl needs.

I think buttons, and pockets create this easy-going feeling and something that creates interest for the character.

The more the viewer has to look at, the more interesting the image becomes. Though this is not always the case, I just like to think that the more details an image has, the more the viewer has the interest to study and look at the image.

I also added a hat for the character as I think hats bring that cute feeling to a character. Making them look sweet and joyful. First, the hat was too big (which could definitely work in the anime world). However, I decided to reduce the size of the hat a bit and make it more of a cool thing than something that dominates the image.

Choosing the right "cute" colors

As mentioned briefly in the beginning, there are cute colors, and then there are not so cute colors. However, with colors, there's always this thing called emotion.

What kind of emotions do colors give you and to the viewer?

Cute colors are usually colors that are soft, and suitable for babies and for small kids and such. Colors that are easy to the eye and also colors that give pleasant feelings. Shades of pastels, mudded colors, colors that are not too saturated.

Then again, you can create very saturated images that have this cute anime girl in it. Though I would argue that the girl would look cuter if you would use soft colors and not too saturated ones.

how_to_draw_cute_anime_girl_color_choices

Conclusion

As with anything art, and especially in anime art. Drawing cure anime girl is something that is not restricted to cute colors like pink and baby blue, or restricted to big innocent eyes. A girl can be sweet and cute by just having smiley eyes and begging eye contact with the viewer.

Do not place too much pressure on yourself by wanting to draw the cutest anime girl ever. Focus on big eyes, facial expression, and the overall mood of the image.

Using soft colors already creates this cute vibe to an image. So colors do play a big part in the overall feeling of the image.

I would say that the biggest thing for you to focus on is the eyes, so concentrate on those. In anime art, eyes tell so much, as does the hair. So focusing on those things, you will do fine.