How to Draw Izaya from Durarara

Step 1

Step 01: All of the blue lines you see in this tutorial are only construction lines and we’ll be erasing them later on. So, it’s important not to press too hard on your pencil when drawing these lines. You’ll see our final lines in black towards the end of the tutorial.

We’ll start by drawing a fairly large circle in the middle of our paper. Pro Tip: As it can be quite difficult to draw a perfect circle I recommend going around with your pencil a few times very lightly to get an outline of a circle and then draw your actual circle on top of that. It always helps to have a guide ^_^. As you can see in the image above, it took me a couple times going around to get a nice head circle.

Step 2

Step 02: Here, we’ll add our center and eye lines. Given the way we have Izaya posed, with his head turned and titled slightly, we’ll have to adjust our lines. So our center line will be to the left of center and it is titled slightly at an angle to the right. It extends both above and below the head circle. I’ve made a mark on the center line below the head circle at a distance of about half a head circle from the bottom. This mark is for the chin which we’ll draw in the next step. The eye line starts on the left of the head circle about a quarter of the way up. It’s titled upwards slightly so it ends higher on the head circle on the right.

Step 3

Step 03: Time for the jaw and some basic facial features. Let’s start with the jaw and we’ll begin on the left. We need to draw a kind of soft “s” line from the head circle on the left where it meets the eye line down to the chin mark we made on the center line in the last step. Then, we’ll draw a smooth curving line (no “S”) back up to touch the head circle on the right at the eye line. The chin should come out looking pointy. Next, let’s move up to the eye line and we’ll draw the tops of the eyes. We’ll draw a short diagonal line on each side of the center line, the end of which touches the eye line. You’ll notice that the line for the top of the eye on the left is shorter than the one on the right. This is because the right side of the face is ‘closer’ to us in the image so the features on the left side of the face will appear to be smaller. This is our 3D size principle in action. We’ll continue by moving down to draw the “^” shape for the nose to the left of the center line. The lower leg of the “^” shape will be shorter than the top leg. Lastly, let’s draw the line for the mouth which starts just to the left of the center line and curves up slightly at the end on the right giving Izaya a grin. Once you’ve got all that, we’ll move on.

Step 4

Step 04: We’ll kick off this step by working on the eyes. We’ve drawn the top line for the eyes so now we need to draw the rest. Izaya has irregularly shaped eyes so do your best to copy the image you see above. From the outer corner of the eye we’ll draw a line curving down below the eye line, it then comes to a point and cuts back up to touch the inner corner of the eye. Above each eye we’ll draw a long slashing diagonal line for his eyebrows. On the left the eyebrow is straight and just crosses the eye line, while on the right the eyebrow curves up slightly at the end and doesn’t cross the eye line. Next, let’s draw the large “c” shape on the right side of the head for the ear. After you’ve got that we’ll move down to draw the neck. Starting on the left on the jaw line, we’ll draw a vertical line straight down that starts just where the “s” begins to turn on the jaw. Then, draw the slight diagonal to suggest the neck muscle. On the right, we’ll start our vertical neck line much higher on the jaw line, just below the ear. It’s actually about the same length as the line on the left but because it starts higher on the jaw it looks shorter. Last, we’ll add the diagonal for the neck muscle. It should almost touch the end of the neck line, while on the left they intersect much higher.

Step 5

Step 05: As all of our returning mangakas will already know, hair can make or break a manga drawing. It can be the hardest part of any drawing, but practicing hair is essential to get good and come up with your own character designs. We’ve got a couple steps of hair to draw, so let’s get ready. We’ll start with the outline for the major hair shapes and then in step 07 we’ll return to draw some more details. The easiest way to draw this step is to start with the second hair spike on the left, the one that begins on the head circle, we can add the lower spike later on. So, we’ll start on the head circle on the left above the eye line, draw the spike and then continue drawing all the way around the head like a halo. When you get to the ear on the right side we’ll finish off the hair piece with the small hair spike at about the middle of the ear. Then, we can add the second hair spike on the right at the bottom of the ear, the line connecting the hair ‘halo’ to the head circle at the top-right for the part in his hair, and the lower hair spike on the left. Lastly, we need to draw the bang line across the head. It’s kind of a big upside down “u” shape but flatter. It should start on the left just below the eye line on the head circle, it’ll overlap the corner of the eye on the left, it flattens out just to the right of the center line, and comes back down diagonally to touch the head circle well below the eye line. Whew!! Great work, everyone!

Step 6

Step 06: Before we finish off the hair, let’s zoom in on the face and add some details as well as some lines for shading. Let’s begin inside the eyes where we’ll draw the iris and pupils. In each eye we’ll draw a “u” shape based on the top of the eye, inside of which we’ll add a flat line near the top, and a tiny half circle on the bottom of that small line. Although they look very similar, placement is crucial here. The iris/pupil will be close to the inner corner of the eye in the eye on the left, while in the eye on the right, it’s more right in the center of the eye. Sticking with the eye on the left for a sec, we’ll draw the small dash above the line for the lid and the small curving line just under the outer corner of the eye. For the eye on the right, we need to do a bit more. We’ll draw the small dash over the eye and the curving line under the outer corner of the eye. We’ll then also add a small check mark above the inner corner of the eye and a small apostrophe mark just to the left of the eyebrow. With the eyes all done, we can draw the large backward “c” shape inside the ear and then add the two smaller “c”s to finish off the ear. Lastly, we’ll do the nose. To begin, we’ll draw a line connecting the eyebrow on the left to the top of the nose line. Then we’ll draw a kind of parallel nose line that should look very similar to the first nose line, just to the left a little. This will mark the area that we will shade in the final steps and it’s really helpful to have.

Step 7

Step 07: Back to the hair! Izaya is like a lot of other manga characters with lots of hair spikes. And that’s what we’re going to be doing here. It’s really too difficult to describe each spike so do your best to follow the image above and I’ll give you some guidance. The idea is just to make his hair look more dense by adding some more spikes and not leaving a lot of smooth round lines. So starting on the top of the hair halo where the part in his hair his and moving to the LEFT, we can add a couple of spikes waving to the left. I’ve also added four more spikes on the left and then a small “w” shape hair spike at the very bottom near the jaw. Then, I started on the bang line across the forehead and added the long spikes there, with some of them just overlapping the eyebrows. Continuing on the right side of the bang line, we’ll add a few more spikes and then we should draw the sideburn spikes on the right near the ear. Here, we’ll start to follow not the bang line but the head circle. We also don’t want to completely cover the ear but just a little bit of it. Then, after taking a look, I added three small hair spikes on the right side of the hair halo. And finished the whole step with the “z” line at the neck on the right for the last piece of hair.

Step 8

Step 08: That does it for our construction lines. Take out your eraser and lighten all of the blue construction lines. Then using your finishing pen trace your final lines. Here are few tips for you: firstly, we don’t want to trace the hair part line or the shadow line for the nose including the line connecting the eyebrow to the nose; secondly, the inner corners of Izaya’s eyes are left empty and untraced; and thirdly, a point about line quality — although we want the facial features like the nose, eyes and mouth to be thin the outer lines for the hair and chin should be thicker so be sure to give them the proper thickness. Lastly, you can fill in the tiny half circles in the eyes in black for the pupils.

Step 9

Step 09: When your ink is dry just use your eraser to completely erase any remaining construction lines that you can see except for the line we drew for the shadow of the nose.

Step 10

Step 10: In step 11 we’re going to be doing some filling in black and some shading in grey marker or pencil, so in this step we’ll use our pencil to draw some construction lines for the parts we want to shade. So, I’ve drawn some spike outlines on the forehead just to the right of the originals and I’ve added a line and some spike outlines on the left side of the hair. Everything to the right of this line will be grey but to the left will be filled in in black. We’ll leave our nose shadow line. And, moving down, we’ll add two curving lines to the neck, one that stops about halfway down the neck line on the left and the second one stops at the bottom of the same neck line. Then, back in the hair at the top and right I want to leave just a sliver of hair empty and white, so I’ve drawn a blue construction line near the edge of the hair at the top-right.

Step 11

Step 11: So, using the major line across the top left of the hair, we’ll shade the hair in grey marker or pencil to the right of the line, and in black pen to the left. But we’ll leave the small sliver of hair on the top and right unshaded and white. We’ll also shade the forehead spikes in grey. Then, shade the nose shadow and the area between the eyebrow and the eye on the left, go ahead and fill in both irises in grey too. Then, for the neck we’ll shade the top part under the chin in black and the lower part in grey. Lastly, the hair just below the ear on the right, I’ve filled in in black. And, even one more last thing, inside the ear I’ve shaded part of the inner ear in grey.

Taking a minute to allow all the marker and ink to dry, and erasing any remaining construction lines I can see, I see that I’ve just drawn the mischievous Izaya from Durarara! If your goal is to become a great mangaka make sure to draw Roy again from memory. Then compare the final drawing with the original and correct any mistakes you might have made. Try once again from memory. This is the best way to build a huge library of shapes that you can use in the future for your own manga characters.

Draw with passion! -_^

Hiroshiv