How to Draw Shanks from One Piece

Step 1

Step 01: You might want to have your paper in the landscape position instead of the standard portrait position because his hat is really quite wide. Also, Just a reminder to all of our mangakas that all of the blue lines and green dashes you see in this tutorial are only construction lines and will be erased later on, so don’t press too hard on your pencil when drawing these lines. Our final lines you’ll see in black at the end of the tutorial.

We’ll begin by drawing our head circle, center and eye lines.

Pro tip 1: Start with a large circle for the head in the upper center of your paper. Go around a few times to get a nice outline of a circle, as it can be quite hard to draw a circle free hand. Then trace your head circle over the outline you have made.

Next we’ll draw the center and eye lines. Our center line is quite far to the left and is titled slightly to the right. The center line should extend below the head circle. Next, draw the eye line which titled upwards. It should begin about 1/7 of the way up the head circle and on the right about half way up the head circle.

Now, before moving on, we should add a dash on the center line below the head circle to mark where the chin will be. The distance between the dash and the intersection of the center and eye lines is equal to half a head circle. That’ll give you some good proportions.

Step 2

Step 02: In the next few steps I’ve labelled the lines and areas with numbers in the order they should be drawn. So, in this step we’ll begin with the long curving line for the brim of Shanks’ hat. When you’ve got that, let’s move to area 2 and draw the two eyebrows. On the left the eyebrow curves down to almost touch the intersection point, while on the right the eyebrow is longer, flatter and ends in a little upturned hook. Now down where we marked the chin with a dash (#3), we’ll draw a small upturned curving line for the chin. Lastly, for line #4 we’ll draw the irregular cup handle shape for the top of the ear on the right.

Step 3

Step 03: Here start with the vertical jaw line on the left (line #1) down to the chin, then (line #2) draw the straight line back up to touch the head circle where the ear begins. Line #3 is the irregularly curving line for the bottom of the ear. Then we’ll move up to the top of the center line where it touches the head circle and we’ll draw the “M” like shape for the hair line. Once you have all these major lines in place, let’s add the line for the bottom of the eye on the right that’s under the eye line and the rhombus shape for the mouth that’s mostly to the right of the center line. 

Step 4

Step 04: Shanks is really starting to come together! In this step, we actually want to begin with the nose first (line #1) by drawing the checkmark line for the nose. Once you’ve got that we can add the vertical line #2 to the left of the nose. Next, we’ll draw the outline of Shanks’ goatee with line #3, the top of the goatee will be flat for now. In area #4 there are two lines to draw for the neck. The one under the chin curves slightly, while the neck line under the ear is straight. For line #5 we’ll draw the top lid of the eye. And then, for #6 we’ll go into the inner ear and draw that.

PRO TIP: the detail in the inner ear is made up of three lines. Draw the longer “S” shaped line first, then add the larger half circle to it and finally above that add the smaller half circle.

To finish up this step we’ll draw the back of Shanks’ hair (line #7).

Step 5

Step 05: Hat, hair and collar here, mangakas. Let’s begin up at the top with the hat (#1). Here we need to draw two lines. The longer one is for the top of the hat, a simple half circle should do. Then we need to draw the shorter line for the band across the front of the hat. #2, #3 and #4 are all hair segments to draw. Once you’ve got the hair segments in place move down to the neck area and we’ll draw the collar on the right for line #5. When we’ve got that we can finish the outline of the back of Shanks’ hair with line #6. Before finishing up, make sure to ad the short line on the left of the neck for the other side of the collar of his shirt.

Step 6

Step 06: Pretty easy step here, everyone. In area #1 we need to ad the two hair segments. Area #2 there’s another hair segment to add. Then in area #3, both above and below the ear, we should just add some lines to suggest pieces and layers to the hair. I’ve drawn four above the ear and two below. Lastly, line #4 is to finish off the collar of his shirt on the right. That’s it!

Step 7

Step 07: The really important thing in this step is to finish the brim of the hat. Now that we’ve got the outline of the hair segments in place we can continue the curve of the brim of the hat all the way to the hair on the left and on the right. Once you’ve got that you should do your best to emulate what you see in the image above as it’s not possible to describe all of the lines. Simply put, we need to add more lines between the segments and hair lines we drew in the previous two steps. This will add more layers and strands of hair to give it a nice 3D feel. Also, don’t forget about the three little lines under the arch of the “M” shaped hair outline.

Step 8

Step 08: Before we begin tracing our final lines, it’s a good idea to do any last minute detail work with your construction lines first. You might want to round out the jaw line at the ear and the chin a little first here. You can add the dashes for the goatee in pencil if you want, or leave it to do just in black. Once your all done with your construction lines we’ll start with our final lines. But keep your pencil handy as we’ll be needing it again soon to draw Shanks’ scar. Lighten all of the construction lines we’ve made so far. Then take out your pen and trace your final lines.

PRO TIP 1: At first don’t worry about line quality, shading or filling anything in. Just get a nice thin outline of your final drawing first. Then we’ll go back and work on those details.

PRO TIP 2: When you’re tracing your final lines pay particular attention to the hat. It should look like it’s made from straw so in some places we don’t want a nice smooth curving line but rather a little squiggle or zig zag line. Use the image above as a guide for your drawing.

PRO TIP 3: Don’t trace the goatee line. Just leave it in pencil for the moment, we will use it later on to draw the gaotee.

Now that you’ve got a nice basic Shanks in black, let’s go back and work on the details.

Filling: There are a few areas that we want to fill completely in black. They are the band on the hat, the left side of the face (as it is completely hidden in shadow), just under the lower lid of the eye, a little spot in the bottom of the ear, and lastly a few areas of the hair.

Line quality: Now that we’ve got those areas filled in, we also want to go back and thicken some lines so they are nice and bold and stand out more than some of the others. So I’ve thickened the brim of the hat slightly (not the bucket of the hat, but just the brim). Then the line that separates the hair from the hat (the “M” line from step 2). We also want the eyebrow to be nice and thick. Move down to the mouth and we want to thicken the lines for the mouth on the left leaving the right side of the mouth thinner. Then, we’ll thicken the jaw line and finally the line on the collar of his shirt.

Dashes: This is for Shanks’ goatee. Using the construction line as a guide go around the mouth and chin area making little dash marks. In the end, you should have a good looking goatee.

Step 9

Step 09: Give your ink a minute or two to dry and then completely erase any remaining construction lines that you can see.

Step 10

Step 10: Here in step 10 we want to use our pencil to draw the construction lines for Shanks’ trademark scar and we’ll also draw a line on the neck for filling in the next step. Let’s start with the scar. Under the eye we want to draw three icicle like shapes and one above the eyebrow. Then in the eyebrow area there are 3 more little lines to draw. Move down to the neck and we’ll draw a diagonal line to mark the area that we want to fill in in the next step.

Step 11

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Step 11: Begin this step by using your black pen to trace the scar. When you’ve done that, we’ll move down to the neck and fill in in black the area under the chin down to the line we drew in the previous step. Next, still using your pen we want to add the shading lines to the collar of his shirt. They shouldn’t be perfectly straight as it’s a shirt. Lastly, if you plan on shading the hair in grey marker I would recommend using your pencil to mark the areas you want to shade and then shade them in in marker. If you’re using a pencil you can just shade and erase anything you don’t like. Make sure your ink is dry and then erase any of the scar construction lines that you can see.

Step back and take a look. You’ve just drawn the courageous Shanks from One Piece. If your goal is to become a great mangaka make sure to draw Shanks 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! -_^

Hiroshi