How to Draw an Anime Teenager

Here, we will show you how to draw an anime teenager and how to convey the character’s age through proportions, clothing, and other characteristic details.

This tutorial follows our basic anime character drawing tutorial, but here we will focus specifically on the characteristic appearance of an anime teenager.

You can often see characters like this in different anime and manga. We will also briefly show how to convey a teenage appearance that differs from that of a child or an adult.

How to draw an anime teenager step by step

Step 1: Sketch the teenager’s pose

Mark the head as an oval, then indicate the spine, arms, chest, pelvis, and legs with simple lines. Since we are drawing a teenager, make the shoulders relatively narrow and avoid giving the figure the wide, heavy torso of an adult man. At the same time, the figure should already be more elongated than that of a child.

Step 2: Shape the torso

Let’s work with the head and torso. Draw a pair of crossed guidelines on the anime teenager’s face. The lines should cross at right angles. The horizontal line should be located slightly below the center. These lines will help us draw the facial features in the next steps. After that, connect the chest and pelvis with smooth lines. Make the torso relatively slender. Don’t make the shoulders too wide or the chest too massive. 

Step 3: Outline the teenager’s legs

Using light cylindrical forms, outline the arms and legs over the skeleton sketched earlier. Mark the joints with simple circles. The forms of the arms should be smaller than those of the legs. Keep the limbs relatively slender to convey the characteristic figure of an anime teenager. The limbs of a teenager are already close to adult proportions, but they should look less massive than those of an adult anime man.

Step 4: Sketch the anime teenager’s face

Now start drawing the anime face. Using the guidelines from the second step, outline the large eyes below the middle of the head. Then indicate the nose and mouth with very simple lines. After that, outline the hairstyle. Make the jaw relatively smooth and slightly rounded, to convey the anime teenager’s characteristic appearance.

Step 5: Add the teenager’s clothes

Now outline the anime clothes over the basic construction of the body. In our example, he wears a fitted pullover over a collared shirt. This type of clothing is very common among anime teenagers and can also help convey the character’s age. First, draw the general contours of the pullover around the torso and arms, then indicate the shirt collar near the neck. Move lower and outline the pants around the legs.

Step 6: Refine the anime face

First, erase the extra lines from his face and head. Draw the anime eyes in detail, trace the large irises and pupils. Refine the bangs with large, contrasting jagged lines. It is important to position the pupils correctly. If they are placed as shown here, the character will appear to be looking directly at you. Do not make the eyes too large or add wrinkles to the face. This will help prevent the character from looking too young or too old.

Step 7: Refine the upper clothing

Now move down to the torso and start detailing the clothing with darker and cleaner lines. Erase the unnecessary construction lines from the body and trace the final outer contours of the pullover. Then carefully draw the shirt collar visible around the neck. Add several short lines to indicate folds in the fabric.

Step 8: Finish the sleeves and hands

Follow the construction lines created in the previous steps, trace the details, and gradually erase all unnecessary guidelines underneath. Then draw the anime hands in detail. First, outline their general shapes and then draw the fingers with clean lines. After finishing the fingers, erase the remaining construction lines.

Step 9: Refine the lower body

Now use the same method to finish the lower part of the anime teenager. Trace the final contours of the pants with clean lines. Gradually the construction of the legs underneath. Add several small fabric folds around the knees and near the bottom of the pants. Then refine the sneakers, drawing their main contours and visible details. Erase all the remaining guidelines from the lower body.

Step 10: Add light anime shading

The anime teenager drawing is almost complete, and now we only need to add some simple shadows. First, determine the general direction of the light. Then add light shadows. Use light, single-layer hatching with minimal pressure on the pencil. Do not make the shading too dark or complex.

Further practice in drawing anime teenagers

Anime teenagers can look very different in various anime and manga, and of course, we could not show the entire range of possible appearances in a single tutorial.

But using the basic principles shown here, you will be able to draw your own anime teenager character.

You already know the characteristic facial features and proportions. The main differences will be in the details of the face and clothing, as well as the hairstyle.

Anime is a style in which you can see a huge number of very different-looking characters drawn according to fairly similar principles.

Therefore, further practice should be quite simple. Slightly change the hairstyles, clothing, and body types. Use references from your favorite anime and manga to draw exactly the anime teenager you want.

If you want to draw a slightly younger character, be sure to visit our tutorial on how to draw an anime boy. If you want to depict an older character, our tutorial on how to draw an anime man is specifically for you.

You can also draw an anime student if you want to convey this characteristic appearance that can also often be seen in different anime and manga.