Alphonse Elric, How to Draw

I have not so recently gotten into this anime series called Fullmetal Alchemist. It is an amazing show about these two little boys who loose their mother to a disease and try to bring her back to life using alchemy. Which is the ultimate taboo for alchemists. "Alchemy is the art of deconstructing and reconstructing matter, in order to obtain something something of equal value must be lost. Therefore human transmutation is a taboo among all alchemists. For what could equal the value of a human soul." as said in the intro episode. Needless to say they failed and created this monster and in doing so the older brother Edward (Ed) lost his leg, and the younger brother Alphonse (Al) lost his entire body. In trying to bring his brother back Ed bonded Al's soul to a suit of armor costing him his arm. After this tragedy Ed gets automail for an arm and leg so he can walk again. His plan is to join the military in order to get restricted information in hopes of getting their original bodies back.



Now I feel like Al doesn't get enough credit in this show at points so I'm only going to do the tutorial on him. This is a picture of them before they lost their bodies. Here is the picture I drew.




So as always I start with the eye's shape, but what I did differently this time was add the mouth before I added the face outline. I did this because his face is just easier to draw if you can relate it distance wise to something else. Later on if you think the face looks too long, bring up the mouth and nose and then re draw the chin.



Now I added the eyebrows, teeth and tung. Notice the eyebrows and eyes have lines next to them. Those are meant to help create emotion. Like in this picture he is scared/shocked because his brother is about to get him in a choke hold. Naturally.



Now I add the face line, ears, and the hairline. Notice how his hair is spiky and goes off to one side. BE CAREFUL!!! His hair is VERY hard to draw! It took me like 4 tries till it didn't look like he was being electrocuted!!!! So don't beat yourself up if it doesn't look perfect the first time.



At this point I'm going to do the clothing in pieces so it's not so overwhelming. Here I drew just the top of the arm sleeve. Here it is very important that you look at the picture to help you with drawing the clothing.

Now I'm drawing the collar and the side of his shirt and a little of the bottom. Remember that the shirt is blowing in the wind all dramatic like, so if it looks a little strange to you just let it be till you finish the outline. If it still looks weird then go back a fix it.



Next I'm drawing the rest of his shirt, his other arm, and his brothers arm.



Time for Al's close up! I zoomed in so you could see the shading I did in his eyes. You do not outline the entire iris because of the shine, so just leave it white.



Now for the final steps, I will shade in his shirt and undershirt one solid color, then I will add in the shading. I know its hard when the picture is not black and white to shade, but a tip is to see if one color is darker than the other so that they don't look like they are part of the same thing.



Finally, the rest of the shading. Usually the darker parts of the cloth occur around the crease lines, just remember that. Also I added the shine in Al's hair. All I did was erase a little on the top and sides. (Sorry, it's kinda hard to see in this picture).



Now since this picture was all about Alphonse I decided only to do the tutorial on him. But since the drawing looked strange with a random arm around him, I decided to do Ed as well. I hope this helped! And if you want to see one of your favorite characters as a drawing, feel free to leave a comment below :D :P
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