If you aspire to create a comic or work as an animator someday, eventually, you’ll have to get to grips with drawing child characters. In the real world, boys and girls couldn’t look any more different physically. However, at certain ages, both genders share some similar traits (such as height and cuteness) before the transformative effects of puberty kick in.
Depending on the age you’re going for, you can use the same basic shapes as a base before making modifications that set the two genders apart. Keep reading for a step-by-step guide on how to draw a boy.
Drawing Concepts to Keep In Mind
Before drawing a boy, let’s look at some concepts you should be familiar with to make the process easier.
Gesture Line
Gesture lines are the starting point for all drawings. You use them to represent the most apparent action your subject is making. They can be straight verticals or flowing, curved lines.
Guide Lines
You use guide lines when drawing for various reasons, including plotting where things should go on our drawing. These lines should be drawn lightly as they won’t make it to the final artwork (they’ll be erased).
Head Measurement
When drawing people, we use heads to measure their height. For example, you can draw a person who’s six heads tall. Six heads tall will mean how tall the person would be if six heads were stacked on top of one another.
Proportion
Proportion is the size of one element of a drawing concerning another. For example, a human head is proportionally larger than a hand, while a torso is proportionally larger than a head.
If you get the proportions wrong, your drawing will appear wonky. Therefore, the proportion is a crucial concept you’ll need to consider when drawing your boy character.
Tools You’ll Need
You’ll need the following tools when drawing:
- An HB Pencil
- A blank piece of paper
- An eraser
How to Draw a Boy – Step By Step
Now that we’re aware of some of the art concepts we need to understand to make a decent drawing, let’s get to the fun stuff of actually drawing our boy.
Step 1 – Measure the Boy’s Height
Here, let’s use the head measurement to determine the boy’s height. Depending on how old you want your boy character to be, you can make him three, four, or five heads tall. Let’s draw a young boy that’s three heads tall.
Using the HB pencil, draw three circles stacked on top of each other. These circles don’t have to be perfect. Also, ensure you draw them in lightly, as you’ll erase them later.
Step 2 – Draw the Gesture Line
Lightly draw a vertical line perpendicular to the three stacked circles, making sure it’s as tall as the stacked circles. Once again, the line doesn’t have to be perfectly straight. Also, refrain from using a straight edge when making the line. Doing it by hand will let you practice drawing straight vertical lines unassisted.
The purpose of this vertical gesture line is two-fold: first, you’ll use it to determine your boy character’s height, and second, you’ll build on the line when fleshing out the boy.
Step 3 – Add Guide Lines
Using the three stacked circles as a guide, make three horizontal lines across the vertical gesture line you made in the step above. The first horizontal line should be drawn at the same level as the bottom of the topmost circle; the middle line should correspond to the bottom of the center circle, and so on.
To accurately put down these lines, start drawing them from underneath each circle to appear as though the circles are sitting on the lines. For example, the top horizontal line will represent the boy’s shoulders, the middle line will represent the boy’s waistline, and the bottom-most line will represent where the boy’s feet touch the ground.
Step 4 – Build on Top of the Gesture Line
Draw a large circle over the gesture line. This circle should sit on the highest horizontal line on your gesture line and will represent the boy’s head.
Next, draw two squares over the gesture line. The first square should be wide and stout and sit under the topmost horizontal guideline, while the second square should be narrow and tall and should sit below the first square.
Try to draw the three shapes (circle and two squares) so that the gesture line cuts right through the middle of them. The higher, wider square will represent the boy’s torso, while the lower, narrower one will represent the boy’s feet.
Step 5 – Add the Joints and Arms
Add two small circles on either side of the higher square. Then, draw a rectangle underneath each small circle to represent the boy’s arms.
Make sure each rectangle reaches the boy’s waistline (represented by the middle horizontal guideline). Also, remember not to press too hard.
Step 6 – Give the Boy Hands and Feet
Draw in the boy’s hands and feet. The feet don’t have to be too fancy. Two oblong circles lying on their side will do just fine.
As for the hands, you can make each one a square and then add smaller, narrower rectangles to them to represent the boy’s fingers and thumbs.
Step 7 – Draw His Facial Features
Draw a horizontal guideline through the middle of the circle representing the boy’s head. You’ll use this line to position the boy’s eyes. On a related note, two dots will do. You can space them close together or farther apart.
Move your pencil below the eyes and make a small half circle. However, don’t close the shape. This curved line represents the boy’s nose. Again, move your pencil a little lower and make another half circle wider than the one for the boy’s nose. This second curved line will represent the boy’s smiling mouth. Finally, add ears on either side of the boy’s head (two circles).
Step 8 – Adjust the Contours
Now go over the outline of the boy’s entire body, making a darker line around his head, ears, arms, and feet. Next, darken the lines for his eyes, mouth, nose, and hands.
Step 9 – Add Hair
Give the boy some hair. You can give him spiky or shaggy hair using curved (shaggy) or straight (spiky) lines. Make sure to darken the outlines.
Step 10 – Erase the Guide Lines
Get rid of all the lighter lines using your eraser. Once you’re done, you should be left with only the outline of the boy’s body, hair, and facial features. Finally, give the boy some clothes to finish up the drawing.
See also: How to Draw a Family
Final Thoughts
By keeping art concepts like gesture line, proportion, head measurement, and guidelines in mind, you can draw a cartoon boy quickly using basic shapes.
Now, prepare your tools and use our step-by-step guide to draw your next masterpiece!