Okay, so I’ve been meaning to mess around with drawing Dragon Ball characters for a while, and today I finally decided to give Tien a shot. I mean, the guy’s got three eyes – how cool is that?
Getting Started
>
First, I grabbed a bunch of reference images online. I just googled “Tien Shinhan” and looked for some good poses and close-ups of his face. You gotta get those three eyes right, you know?
I started with a super rough sketch, just basic shapes to get the proportions down. Don’t worry about details at this point, just get the general idea on paper. It’s more important to construct the shapes of the body and make it look like a real human at first.
The Head and Those Eyes
- I started by sketching out a circle for his head and then added the jawline. He’s got a pretty strong jaw, so I made sure to make it look like he clenches his jaw often.
- Then, I drew a simple lines to find where the eye level is.
- Then I drew the two normal eyes and that’s where you want to draw the third eye, directly in the center, and higher up on the forehead.
- I kept it simple at first, just a basic oval shape.
The Body
Tien’s pretty ripped, so I tried to make his muscles defined but not overly exaggerated. I’ve seen some fan art where he looks like he’s about to burst, and that’s not what I was going for.
- Drew some basic shapes, squares for his upper body, and a trapezoid shape down to his waist.
- Drew the basic stick like shapes for the arms, remember it’s okay to not have it looking defined yet.
Adding Details
This is where things started to get fun. I worked on refining his facial features, making his eyes more almond-shaped and adding some detail to that third eye. I gave him that signature serious, almost angry expression. It’s cool!
I also started adding in the details of his outfit – that classic martial arts uniform he wears. I messed up a few times on the folds of the fabric, but that’s what erasers are for, right?
Inking and Shading
After I was happy with the pencil sketch, I started doing the line-art. I used a fine-liner pen, taking my time to get those lines clean and crisp. This part always makes me nervous, because one slip-up and you can ruin the whole thing. But, it’s the fun part of finishing up!
Finally, I did to shade it. I’m not a great master at coloring, but I used some basic cross-hatching to add some depth and make the muscles pop. I focused on the areas where shadows would naturally fall, like under his chin and around his muscles.
My thought after
It took a few hours, and it’s definitely not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It’s always cool to see a character come to life on paper, especially one you’ve watched on TV for years. I can’t wait to do some more!
