Hey everyone! So I've been thinking about all the times people ask me how I draw and figured, maybe I should try showing you all. So yesterday I did a quick little doodle since I couldn't sleep and took some screenshots to show you all a bit of the process.

The drawing is in the style I use when I do freebs, so it has simple coloring/linework. To make it I used MediBang, a free to download app, and my phone/stylus. So here you all go!

To start, you draw a simple outline (I use the pencil brush for this because I like the softer lines). First draw a circle, then a cross to center the face and then mark off where the facial features should be and shape the face/shoulders.

Next, lower the opacity on the outline, open a new layer and sketch out your character. It doesn't have to be perfect so don't worry about erasing odd lines. Just make sure it's clear.

Now open a new layer and outline your drawing with whatever brush you like best. I use the pen brush because I like my outlines to be sharp. This one you want to be cleaner, but you can always go back and fix stuff last. (Sorry mine isn't that clean, but it's just for this tutorial thingy, lol.)

Next, lay down your base colors. I did each in a different layer to make it easier. Set your color layers to "protect alpha" at the top of the layers menu.

Now we're gonna do a bit of light shading on the face. I'm showing you some of the tones I use (not all because I forgot, hehe). That reddish tone is what I'm using to shade because warmer tones usually look better than dark browns/black which can look a bit muddy, but you can use almost anything depending on the look you want. (In the past I've used magenta, teal, burgundy, lavender, and orange.)

For shading I use the pencil tool and lower the opacity to make it easier to blend, then go over each spot a couple times until it looks right. Just make sure you're clear on where your "light source" is, so where would the light hit your character.

Here's what it looks like once it's done.

Here is a marked off guide of where the shadinw was done. Each stroke of the brush starts att he point where it should be darkest.

Now, using a darker tone (this time a dark red) I keep the opacity down and go over the spots where it should be darker. Any corner, crease or spot where the "light" wouldn't hit the face.

You can see the tones I used for the face on thsi picture. Now, to color the hair I used a couple different tones and the airbrush tool. I lowered the opacity on it and just stacked the colors. (Unless you're doing some multi colored hair like this you won't have to worry about this.)

To shade the hair I used the pencil brush, with lowered opacity, and picked a color a couple tones darker than the hair. Like with the face, just follow the "light source" to shade the hair. You can change the thickness of the brush to give it a more layered/detailed look.

After that, just add a bit of highlights to the hair.

For the eyes, just lay your base tone down.

Then add a mid tone and a darker tone.

Color the pupil.

Now just add some details, like the shine on the eye, and some highlights to the skin (again, with the pencil tool on low opacity, using a color a couple shades lighter than the base skin tone.)

And done!

So I may have half-assed this and didn't color the rest, but the face and hair are what matters, right? :'D But yeah, that's how I do my simpler drawings, sorry it's kinda messy and I didn't really go into detail, but I really suck at explaining things, haha.

If you all liked this, want to see other stuff like this, or have any questions just post below. In the meantime, you can check out today's other updates on Tales From a Teenage Henchman and Vigilante!