Chibi Month: Tell a Chibi Story

This week’s Chibi is by Karen Luk of Karen Luk Illustration. She’s joined us before in print, in web, and at conventions! Want to try one of your own? Check out our Chibi worksheets in the Resource Library.

Karen shows us how she tells a story while drawing. Little bits of character and dialogue make the drawing more lively!

In the first step, I decided to draw a chibi pirate, so I thought about
what kind of pose a pirate would have. I start with a basic stick figure.

I adjusted the gesture sketch and drew in 3D shapes to fill out the
sketch. I added a guideline on the side to indicate the 2.5 head tall
proportion. I sketched in a cutlass because a pirate should be armed!

I added more details, like the face and hair, and refined the shapes.

I drew in the clothes and tightened up the face and cutlass. Notice that I
drew the clothes through the figure, instead of starting and stopping at
each arm and leg. Pirates are found on ships, so I indicated the salty
wind with a sweeping coat and hair pulled to the side. Look lively, sea
dogs!

I cleaned up all the stray pencil marks in order to ink the drawing.

I inked the drawing using 005 and 05 Micron Pigma pens. Once done I
scanned in the linework and I cleaned it up for digital coloring.

I filled the flat colors using Photoshop CS4. The linework and colors were
on different layers.

I made a new layer to color in the shadows to make the drawing more three
dimensional and that finished the pirate chibi! Arr!

Chibi Month continues next week. See you then!