#ann's tutorial

Hi Anon! I actually have difficulty answering this because Leon is one of the hardest characters to draw, especially his face (as it is perfect lol). I do a lot of getting it wrong before I get it remotely right. If you can see my earlier drawings of him, you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm still not consistent with Leon's face and it does take a while to get a hang. I do a lot of early sketches before I get it to have resemblance.

But this is one major advice that I can give and it can be applied to any character that you want to draw: learn how to observe the character visually and answer the question "what makes a Leon look like Leon?" I posted similar tips for a couple of characters in the past: Link 1, Link 2. So basically, the more you observe, the more you will get it right.

Here's my usual process:

I got this photo from the game and tried to determine the major stuff about his face and the minor stuff that I can add. Do take note that you don't have to add every detail to get the sketch looking like Leon:

And then, I try my best to translate whatever I observed into messy sketching before I go for the final sketch:

(If anyone's curious, this example is from this.)

I usually have my reference open on my phone on one hand or on my laptop, and then I draw on my tablet, it's better for me to have the reference at some distance and not on the same screen. Having it on the phone is handy because I can zoom into some details if I need to.

Notice that I don't apply everything I observed. I try not to sketch a carbon copy, I just try to emphasize the major characterstics in there. It's not a guarrantee that you will get it the first time, it takes time and a lot of practice (and obsessing over the features lol). I didn't get it right in my earlier sketches because I haven't had that amount of time observing and listing down more of his features.

Also, always observe other references, not just one even though you're just gonna use one mainly.