How to Draw Ashitaka

Finished Ashitaka drawing with bow, quiver, layered clothing, boots, and hatched shadows.

Many characters, while following the basic principles of anime drawing, have their own unique features that make them memorable to the viewer, and Ashitaka has many of them. In this tutorial, we will show you how to draw Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke in his characteristic clothing, holding a bow and with a quiver of arrows on his back. We will also show you how to add basic shadows to create volume in your drawing.

How to draw Ashitaka step by step

Step 1: Sketch Ashitaka’s figure guidelines

First, draw a stick figure (essentially the character’s skeleton). Here we have the stick figure of a teenage boy. There are no signs of anime style at this stage, even though Ashitaka is an anime character. So we will use the same basic rules as in our tutorial on drawing an anime boy.

Sketching Ashitaka’s basic figure with head, torso, pelvis, and limb guides.

Step 2: Build Ashitaka’s body shapes

Sketch the intersecting guidelines on Ashitaka’s face. Next, draw the neck as a cylinder. Move to the torso, which narrows slightly toward the pelvis. Then sketch the limbs. Mark the shoulder and knee joints with circles, and draw the arms and legs as cylindrical forms. Add simple shapes for the hands and feet.

Building Ashitaka’s torso, cylindrical limbs, hands, feet, and facial guidelines.

Step 3: Sketch the bow, quiver, and clothing

This will be the last step of working with the basic contours. Using simple shapes and short lines, sketch the anime facial features. Mark the hair with a rounded outline. Also sketch the approximate contours of his clothing, bow, and quiver. Place the quiver behind his shoulder, and draw the long bow diagonally across the lower part of the figure, with its grip positioned in Ashitaka’s hand.

Adding Ashitaka’s facial features, hair, clothing, bow, and quiver.

Step 4: Draw Ashitaka’s face and hair

From this step, we start working with the final details. Begin with the head, carefully drawing the anime eyes, nose, and mouth. Next, draw the outline of the face, which narrows toward the chin, then add the ears and hair. You should get a classic anime-style face. Erase all the unnecessary guidelines from Ashitaka’s head.

Refining Ashitaka’s anime-style face, ears, and short hair.

Step 5: Draw the tunic, quiver, and arrows

With clear, dark lines, draw the outlines of the torso and tunic. Refine the collar, straps, quiver, and arrows, then add the necessary folds. Next, draw the arrows and the quiver behind his back. The quiver remains mostly behind Ashitaka’s shoulder and torso. The individual arrow shafts and fletching rise above his shoulder. Erase the unnecessary guidelines from these parts of Ashitaka’s figure.

Refining Ashitaka’s tunic, collar, straps, quiver, arrows, and upper body.

Step 6: Draw the arms, hands, and bow grip

Refine the shoulders and sleeves, then carefully draw the anime hands in detail. Draw one hand hanging freely at his side and wrap the fingers of the other around the bow grip. Also refine the pouch and lower part of Ashitaka’s tunic. Erase the guidelines from the anime arms and hands.

Drawing Ashitaka’s sleeves, arms, hands, pouch, and lower tunic.

Step 7: Draw the pants, boots, and bow

Draw folds on the loose pants and boots. The pant legs should gather above the narrower tops of the boots. Refine the bow and its string as well. The bow should have a smooth, symmetrical curve, and the bowstring should be straight. Don’t forget to erase all the remaining guidelines from the previous steps.

Refining Ashitaka’s pants, boots, bow, and remaining lower-body contours.

Step 8: Add shadows to Ashitaka

Determine the light source, then add shadows to the least illuminated areas. Draw the shadows with dense hatching. In our example, deepen the shadow under the chin, along the shoulder and forearm beside the bow, beneath the pouch and lower edge of the tunic, and on the shaded sides of the pants and boots. Despite the simple anime-style result, the shadows should follow the forms of the body and clothing.

Adding hatched shadows across Ashitaka’s clothing, arms, legs, and neck.

The fundamentals of drawing anime characters, along with the fundamentals of anatomy, are extremely important to keep in mind when creating this and other similar characters.

That is, you have a basic framework and drawing process that you can repeat. Based on this, you follow the entire construction process, establishing the necessary proportions at each step, then trying to convey the required facial features as well as the details of the costume.