Where Can I Get Step References For How To Draw An Anime Girl?

I've collected a stack of go-to step references over the years that make drawing anime girls so much less mysterious than it looks at first. For step-by-step video guides, I keep returning to channels like Mark Crilley and MikeyMegaMega for clear, progressive breakdowns: they show you head construction, facial placement, eye shapes, hair flow, and how to simplify anatomy into manageable shapes. For fundamentals, Proko's lessons on gesture and proportion fill the gaps anime tutorials sometimes skip. I also use pose sites like line-of-action.com and QuickPoses for timed practice so my proportions don't stay static.

If you prefer books, I actually recommend a mix: 'Mastering Manga' by Mark Crilley and 'Manga for the Beginner' by Christopher Hart for stylized techniques, alongside classics like 'Figure Drawing for All It's Worth' for understanding anatomy under the style. For step references in book form, the 'How to Draw Manga' series is full of panel-by-panel examples—great for studying clothing folds, expressions, and panel composition. On the digital side, tutorials inside Clip Studio Paint and Procreate communities often come with layered files you can step through, which is huge for learning how pros build a piece from sketch to final linework.

My routine? Start with gesture and a simple stick-figure skeleton, block in volumes with spheres and cylinders, place facial guidelines, rough in eyes/hair/clothes, refine linework, ink, then shade or color. I copy step-by-step pages from tutorials for practice, redraw them without tracing, and then try my own poses. If you want structured learning, Skillshare and Udemy have progressive courses; if you like community feedback, post studies on Reddit's learning groups or Pixiv. Honestly, getting those step references into a daily practice routine was the thing that changed my art the most—it's addictive once you see steady improvement.

I keep a short, practical stack of step references that I use when I want to draw anime girls fast: a few YouTube playlists (Mark Crilley, MikeyMegaMega), a couple of books like 'Mastering Manga' and 'Manga for the Beginner', and pose/gesture sites such as line-of-action.com. My favorite trick is to combine a step-by-step tutorial image sequence with timed gesture drills—so I’ll follow the same tutorial five times but use different pose references each time. That forces me to internalize the construction steps rather than copy them mechanically. I also save layered files from Clip Studio or Procreate when artists share their PSD/CSP files; toggling layers is like having a step-by-step cheat sheet.

If you're learning, make a small checklist: gesture → basic volumes → facial guidelines → eyes → hair → clothing → refine → ink → color. Use reference photos for real folds and weight, but study stylized examples to understand how proportions shift in anime styles. Putting those step references into tiny daily habits—ten-minute gestures, a 30-minute copy of a step tutorial—made a huge difference in how quickly I improved, and it kept practice enjoyable.

Lately I've been building mini-curriculums for friends who want step-by-step help drawing anime girls, and it always starts simple: find one solid reference set, then repeat the steps until they stick. For starters I point people to step-by-step tutorials on YouTube that pause and redraw each stage—Mark Crilley and MikeyMegaMega are reliable for clear stages, while smaller creators often publish multi-image breakdowns on Pinterest and DeviantArt. I like to print a sequence of images (gesture → construction → features → hair → clothes → shading) and tape them near my desk so each stage becomes muscle memory.

Next, I layer in anatomy and pose practice. Quick gesture drills from line-of-action and timed studies on QuickPoses build the underlying shapes mentioned in those step references; Proko lessons help if you want to deepen anatomical accuracy beyond stylization. For books I suggest 'Mastering Manga' for stylistic steps and borrowing proportion tips from 'Figure Drawing for All It's Worth' to make poses believable. Digital learners should grab downloadable PSD or CSP step files from artists on Gumroad or Patreon—being able to toggle layers teaches sequencing quickly.

Finally, put the references into challenges: redraw a single tutorial 30 times with small variations, then pick one part to master per week (eyes one week, hands the next). I find that turning step references into repeatable drills removes the overwhelm and gives visible progress—plus it's way more fun than endless theory.