Let’s learn how to draw Elaina from The Journey of Elaina today!
Elaina (イレイナ, Ireina) is the main protagonist of Majo no Tabitabi from the Wandering Witch series. After reading stories about the adventures of a witch named Niké, Elaina decided to become a witch like her so she could travel the world. On her broom she flies from country to country with her long, black robes adorning the lengths of her arms and trailing behind her with every weave and turn. Her purple-blue eyes peer out from beneath a black tricorn hat to reveal beautiful and silky ashen hair that flows down her back like clouds flowing through summer skies. She graduated from her witch academy at just 14 years old, and became a full-fledged witch over a year later, known as the “Ashen Witch.” Ashen hair is the source of her witch name. On her chest is pinned a star-shaped brooch—signifying her status as a witch. Her diary entries serve as the main story. Elaina became a witch at the age of fifteen, three years before the main story begins. Prior to the main story, she was a sheltered child who was greatly proficient in magic, innocent, and “not knowing what failure is.” This personality was changed after her lessons, and she eventually became a more kind and understanding person at the start of the main story. After passing the Magic Exams, Elaina tries to seek a witch that would take her as an apprentice, however none accept. Taking notice to this, Elaina’s parents suggest finding the “Stardust Witch.”
Step 1
As always all the blue and green lines are just construction lines and will be erased later so do not push on your pencil too much ^_^ I will try to be super efficient with the text so will only describe steps that require some explanation.
Make sure to leave enough free space on paper for next steps. You can see how much space you will need from the size of the paper on this picture.
Step 2
Step 3
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Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Step 8
Step 9
Lighten all the construction lines by “stamping” the kneaded eraser on the paper. Make sure to refer to the picture bellow as you need to ink only some parts of the construction lines.
Step 10
Wait till the ink is nice and dry and erase all the construction lines.
Step 11
To add colors, make sure to sketch the color outlines with the right color or pencil first.
If your goal is to become a real Mangaka and design your own manga characters make sure to try to draw Elaina from memory several times. Always compare the drawing to the original and correct any mistakes you see. Do this till you are happy with the result. It doesn’t have to look exactly the same, don’t sweat the details. The point is that you get the main shapes right and that it looks good. This is the best way to build a huge library of manga shapes in your memory that you can use to draw and design your own manga characters ^-^.
Draw with passion! ^_^
Hiroshi (drawing by Bianchi)
