Drawing different body types as chibis?

[chocoberrie]

Hello! ^_^

I am working on designing characters for a VN (idea post here), and I want to make chibi character sprites. I am interested in drawing each character in a unique way, other than hair and clothes. To match the appearance and dimensions of the chibi sprites, I'll also be "chibi-fying" the backgrounds.

Which brings me to my question: how can I draw chibis with different body types? Does anyone have some examples they can show me?

Thanks very much! ^_^

[SexBomb]

I won't pretend to know much about drawing in the chibi style, but I imagine one of the biggest aspects in really capturing a chibi character is in the pose. Just like in traditional character illustration, using a pose to bring out the essence of a character is extremely important, and perhaps even more so when you're working with chibis.

That said, though the most noticeable aspect of chibis is their relatively large head, that does not mean you can't draw a variety of body types and outfits. A chibi could have an hourglass figure, plenty of muscle definition, or even a little extra weight, depending on the type of character. You will need to be careful not to go overboard with this, but I definitely recommend playing around with it.

Also don't forget that there are varying levels of chibi. You might want to consider drawing "half-chibis," which will allow for more variation than the standard "head-on-a-bean" you often see with highly stylized chibis.

Lastly, I found this on dA. It has a variety of chibi-esque characters that really illustrate the amount of variety you can capture, even with an all chibi cast:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Com ... 0-66275260
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Com ... 0-96730071
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Com ... -112243167

Good luck!

[chocoberrie]

I won't pretend to know much about drawing in the chibi style, but I imagine one of the biggest aspects in really capturing a chibi character is in the pose. Just like in traditional character illustration, using a pose to bring out the essence of a character is extremely important, and perhaps even more so when you're working with a chibis.

That said, though the most noticeable aspect of chibis is their relatively large head, that does not mean you can't draw a variety of body types and outfits. A chibi could have an hourglass figure, plenty of muscle definition, or even a little extra weight, depending on the type of character. You will need to be careful not to go overboard with this, but I definitely recommend playing around with it.

Also don't forget that there are varying levels of chibi. You might want to consider drawing "half-chibis," which will allow for more variation than the standard "head-on-a-bean" you often see with highly stylized chibis.

Lastly, I found this on dA. It has a variety of chibi-esque characters that really illustrate the amount of variety you can capture, even with an all chibi cast:

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Com ... 0-66275260
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Com ... 0-96730071
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Chibi-Com ... -112243167

Good luck!

Thanks so much for your advice! I'll definitely keep these things in mind! I've saved those artworks as reference/inspiration - that's what I was looking for in terms of variety! Awesome~

I've made sketches of "half chibis" with different body styles, and I think they're not too bad:

I'm awful at drawing hands (as a good number of starting artists are) - but I'm working on it! XD