If you have some interest in the Marvel franchise, you must have come across the figure of the infamous and hilarious Deadpool. His known as probably one of the best mercenaries in the Marvel universe. So, if you have ever been in awe of Marvel Superheroes, then in this drawing tutorial you are in for a fun ride.
We will be showing you how to draw a perfect image of Deadpool from start to finish and we would be doing this in 8 easy steps. The drawing would capture his outfit and weapons. How amazing is that?!. You should also note that the more familiar you are with each step, the more likely your final draft would be flawless and the more likely it would appeal to an audience.
That said, we would start up by drawing a dummy. The manikin would serve as a foundation for our final sketch. Ready?. Let’s rock and roll!.
STEP 1: DRAWING THE TORSO
Using the above picture as a guide, Deadpool´s torso should be drawn using a 3/4 perspective. This just means that the left side which faces the viewers would be drawn bigger in size than the left side.
Going on, the torso should be started off by drawing two curved horizontal lines. The upper line should have a deeper arc than the bottom line, which is almost straight. Then you should draw two curved out vertical lines that connect the earlier drawn horizontal lines at their extremes. Having done that, divide the rib with a vertical line using the 3/4 perspective. This would serve to highlight the underarm area. Having drawn it, go on to highlight where the head will be by drawing a small circle at the top of the torso. Flowing from that, draw another circle at the top left side of the torso. This would be where the left arm would emerge from.
STEP 2: DRAWING THE HIPS AND LEGS
For the hips, you should draw them to take the form of a man’s underpants as depicted in the image. This is where the legs of our character would emerge from.
Our character would be drawn standing with his legs a little bit separated and the feet aligned with the shoulders. Each leg should be started off as a big tube and then you should gradually reduce them as you get to the knees. To highlight the knees, draw two horizontal lines on each knee and then draw a circle in between them as seen in the above picture. When you’ve done that, the continuation of the leg should then extend out a little and should narrow down as you get to the ankles. Then draw the feet as seen.
STEP 3: DRAWING THE ARMS
The arms of our character should be sketched slightly extended from the body and they should be drawn using a 3/4 perspective. This entails the right arm is more visible than the left arm because the right side faces the viewers.
Having laid that out, the upper arms should be started off in the form of big tubes and should reduce in size as they get to the elbows. Then they should extend out at the point of drawing the lower arms and should further reduce as you get to the wrist. The right arm will be drawn partially because it will emerge from behind the torso. Having drawn that, draw the hands as seen in the picture. When drawing the right hand, draw only the thumb and 2 fingers below, the rest of the hand will be covered by the handgun he will be carrying on this hand.
The fingers on the left hand should be clenched because our character will be holding in this hand the other handgun. Finally, draw the arms biceps, and triceps by drawing the horizontal lines seen in the image.
If you are interested in developing your anatomy drawing skills and learning how to draw characters digitally, you should check my drawing video course. You can find more information by clicking the image below:
STEP 4: DRAWING THE HEAD
For the head, first, draw a medium-sized oval shape with and straight bottom and a “T” shaped line in the middle. The eyes will be placed along the T´s horizontal arms.
STEP 5: DRAWING THE WEAPONS
Deadpool´s swords are one of the most iconic weapons of this Mercenary arsenal and according to what’s depicted in the above picture, the swords should be drawn as long tubes attached to Deadpool´s back.
The handguns on both hands will be drawn as two rectangles.
Also, we should draw the belt and bags hanging from it.
STEP 6: : DRAWING THE FINAL LINE ART
For this stage, you would need to fade out the dummy already drawn. This is to prevent the manikin´s sketch from interfering with your final sketch. Using traces lefts of the original manikin´s sketch, you would then go on to draw the final lines. It should comprise of well-detailed features, a well-drawn suit, details, and weapons.
Deadpool´s suit has some reinforcements covering the shoulders, ribs, and gloves.
We would include the knee pads, and shin protections into our character’s drawing by sketching all the lines as shown in the image.
Regarding the back, we will draw the swords, with the handles sticking out.
On both hips, our character will be carrying 2 holsters for his handguns.
STEP 7: PAINTING THE BASE COLORS
With the line art done, you should then add colors to your drawing.
Here’s where our drawing gets exciting and colorful as we would be introducing the base color to our character. So pull out your red and paint the base color for the suit. Once the suit is colored, continue with the reinforcements and use a dark grey-blue tone.
Another color you should use is light grey, for the handguns and the metal parts on the belt and knee pads.
Wrinkles in clothing come from tension areas, like the armpit and the crotch.
STEP 8: PAINTING THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS
For the lights, we should do the reverse process that we did before. Use a brighter tone of each base color and brighten the areas that will be directly exposed to the main light source.
For the shadows, we will paint some parts using a darker blue for the reinforcements shadowed areas. You should do a similar thing for the other parts of the character. Dark red for the suit´s shadows, a darker tone for the belt shadows.
The main light source will come from the top right side. The shadows will be painted on the left side of the character.
CONCLUSION
At this point, your drawing should be impressive. However, don’t call it done just yet. Practice is vital for mastery. So go over the above tutorial a couple of times more. In due time you would be able to draw any character of your choice without the need for a tutorial.
If you are interested in more free step-by-step drawing tutorials similar to this one, feel free to visit the Drawing Tutorials section.
Writing and art by Toni Justamante Jacobs, Concept artist and illustrator.
