1) ALL of my characters start out as stick figures. I don't care who it is; without a stick figure as a base, I'm absolutely lost. This is the point to check your proportions and such before you begin filling out the figure; these are off a bit but I'm going to skip adjusting them here because I don't have much time.

One tip I learned while drawing a rather difficult picture a few months back is to block the feet out like 3D triangles. It makes positioning them a lot easier for me for some reason. (ETA: I grabbed that hint from the bottom of this horribly useful tutorial- [-redacted because it's NSFW-] )


2) Now you add muscle and skin to your scrawny stick figure. I like to add pupils here just so I can remember what my character's focusing on. Circles are useful when you're trying to block off joints (like elbows, shoulders, and knees). I like to draw my norns with arms and legs that narrow towards the elbows/knees and widen at the shoulder, ankle, and wrist joints, because that's how I've always seen their limbs in-game. The tail's hard to see because of the character's position, but a bit of it manages to stick out from behind since it's of decent length (on something with a shorter tail, like a Fox norn, you probably couldn't show the tail from this angle).

The ears will differ from species to species, but since this is a C3/DS norn, it has very long, thin ears. I use vertical lines on either side of the head to mark where the ears should be placed before I actually draw them in; then I can check and see if they're going to be properly placed or if they need to be moved.


3) I've defined the overall body a bit more and erased the sketch marks. I've also made the face more expressive by adjusting the eyelids and mouth. The ears were also straightened and pulled back a touch to suggest anger. I've also blocked off the hands and made separate "boxes" for each joint segment.


4) This is the fun part: customizing your norn! This probably isn't obvious because I did a rather poor job of drawing him, but this is supposed to be Abel from my Lone Shee story... right before he was... y'know. ANYWAY, because he's a Siamese/Hardman cross, I've added markings from both species. He has Siamese hair, but he has the extra tufts of fur on his limbs like his Hardman mother. He also has dark Siamese markings on his limbs, face, and ears. Study the breeds your norn is based off of to see what makes them so distinct, and try to incorporate those details into your own norn. OR, if it's an original creation, go nuts!

Even now that I'm "finished" with the sketch, I can still see errors (most glaring being that his left fist should be behind his leg, not in front of it >_< ), so make sure you're absolutely happy with your drawing before you go ahead and ink/color it.