I Draw Street Fighter Ryu: Process - Learn to Draw With Friends

Drawing Ryu from Street Fighter (with time-lapse gif and pictures). Ryu is a wise young fighter with strong ethic and sportsmanship, so let's dedicate this post to the sporting wisdom of Ryu!

 In my previous process posts I started by working from a grid. While this is usually faster and reduces the number of errors I wanted to give myself the challenge of drawing the picture fully freehand.

"Your strength is equal to that of your will to win!" - Ryu

 I began by very roughly sketching out the upper section of Ryu's body, trying to keep everything the proper size and placement.

 Then I roughed in the bottom half. There are lots of errors already but the important part is just keeping going and getting it basically the right shape.

"Sometimes the most important battle, is the battle within..." - Ryu

 I added in his headband and added some more muscle lumps on his arms where it didn't look like the proper shape.

 Still working with a number 2 pencil I started doing some basic rough shading on his arms, gi, gloves and face.

"Don't fight for victory--fight to improve yourself. Victory will come." - Ryu

 Once I was more or less happy with the muscles on his arms I lightly shaded them in with a darker 4B pencil.

"You must love competition before you can achieve victory." - Ryu

 Then a smudge stick to soften the shading and mute the white highlights.

 and more shading... Now I'm taking more note of the very specific placements of muscles and how all the parts line up and come together. I did some more shading with a number 2 pencil on his gi and redrew his nose, eyes and brow since it was slightly out of position.

"The only way a true fighter can suffer, is by not fighting!" - Ryu

 When using soft pencils like 4B or 6B I like to place a piece of paper partially over the picture I'm drawing to help prevent unwanted smudges from my hand while I draw.

 At this point I took my 6B pencil which is the darkest pencil used on this picture and started filling in some details on Ryu's face, arms, gloves and all over.

"Blind pride can only hold you back. There are fighters out there stronger than the both of us!" -Ryu

 Finally I shaded in his hair with the 6B pencil and gave the whole picture a once over for any missed detail I might want to include.

"Whatever you find worthwhile in life, is worth fighting for!" - Ryu

Thanks for having a look and I hope you enjoyed it.  This drawing and process was done for the Learn to Draw With Friends contest by @tonyR. Thanks Tony for setting it up. #ltdwf

@ckurtish