Let’s learn how to draw Raiden from Metal Gear today!
Raiden (雷電) is one of the protagonists of Konami’s Metal Gear series of action-adventure stealth video games. Raiden was introduced in the series as the main player character of the 2001 game Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In this game, he appears to be a member of the U.S. special operations unit FOXHOUND and is participating in his first mission against terrorists. In his first appearances he is a rookie agent who is inexperienced as a result of training only in virtual reality. However, he later reveals, that he was a child soldier who killed several enemies in a civil war and is ashamed of his past. He also appears in the 2008 game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and the 2013 game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
Raiden was born in Liberia and adopted by Solidus Snake, who named him Jack and became his godfather. He was subsequently raised as a child soldier, became a killing machine and later fought in the country’s Civil War in 1989. Because of his childhood, as well as his PTSD, he also occasionally pushed away people he cared about. Because of this, he was outwardly cold and distant even to people he personally knew. Throughout his missions, he also began to suspect that he enjoyed killing. At one point, he begins to believe he is only useful in the battlefield. Despite becoming a cyborg, Raiden still acts like a human. He always find himself taking part in battles despite his desire for a peaceful resolution. He also follows the concept of katsujinken in which samurai kills in order to protect the weak.
Raiden has long white-blond hair. Because of his first cyborg ninja conversion, he also bore several scars near his mouth, giving his mouth an appearance similar to that of a Glasgow grin both in his human cyborg form and in his second cyborg ninja body. Raiden’s reconstructive surgery also included the implementation of an optical implant in Raiden’s right eye. His normally blue eye occasionally glowed red. After becoming a Cyborg Ninja, his overall strength, speed, agility, and endurance had increased to superhuman levels. Also it appears that his cyborg body conduct electricity or he seems to be highly resistant to it.
Thanks a lot to Nova LZ for request. ^_^
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
Step 4
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 Raiden 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)
