Ever wanted to draw Star Wars characters and vehicles just like the professional comic book artists? In this step-by-step series, Star Wars artists and illustrators show you how to draw some of the most beloved characters in the saga.
Star Wars illustrator Brent Woodside explains with these easy-to-follow steps on how to draw EG-05 droid from the Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels game.
Step One:
Use a good reference of the character like the one above, which will prove invaluable later. For this particular piece the awesome Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels game for the Wii would be great reference.
Step Two:
Professional artists often draw a few thumbnail sketches, or little drawings (as small as a thumbnail), to work out ideas of how they want a character or a scene to look. Sketch out any ideas you have.
Step Three:
Select your favorite thumbnail and create a refined sketch of it. I have the benefit of working digitally so I can enlarge my thumbnail and sketch right in top of it. If you are not working on a computer then you can get the same result from making a copy of your thumbnail at an increased size. Then tape the print and a similarly sized piece of lead transfer paper to another piece of paper or card stock. Do your refined drawing in red pen (so you can easily see your lines) directly on the copy, and as long as you have the lead paper facing the right way you will have a cleaned up version that still retains the fluidity of your thumbnail.
Step Four:
The cleaned up version should look like this. At this stage you want to make sure the anatomy of the figures makes sense in three dimensions. You can see the geometrical shapes I have broken the chests, legs, arms and heads into. Later we will have to get rid of some of these lines, but at this stage they are important.
Step Five:
Now that we have the structure of the characters lets get the unnecessary lines out of there so we are not confused by them.
Step Six:
Start bringing in some of the details you see in the reference pictures.
Step Seven:
Continue to bring more details in. It will help to be able to view your characters from multiple angles, thus it is a good time to take a break and play Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels. I am acquiring reference, really, I promise!
Step Eight:
Pry yourself from the Wii to continue drawing. Put any extra details in and clear out any lines that are no longer required. If you are working without a computer then skip steps 9-12 for right now and do steps 13-16.
Step Nine:
The coloring begins. On the computer I can paint the details in behind the lines layer. It is similar to a coloring book. You can easily get a similar effect using markers or water colors over your pencil lines. Look to the reference to see what colors go where.
