How to Draw Anime Kitsune

This tutorial shows how to draw an anime fox girl. It provides tips on how to make the character more fox like while maintain an anime look.

The fox girl or "kitsune" as they are often called are a fairly common and popular character in many genres of anime and manga that have a fantasy element to them.

The focus of this tutorial is on drawing such a character by giving an anime girl some fox like features. The most obvious of these is of course the animal ears but there are also a few more subtle things you can ad as well.

Please note that you will need to erase parts of the drawing in some of the steps. So unless you are drawing digitally it's highly recommended that you start this tutorial in pencil and keep your lines light. This will also make it easier to correct any potential mistakes. You can trace over your drawing once you feel that everything looks right.

For more on good drawing practices you can also see:

Beginner Guide to Drawing Anime & Manga
Common Mistakes When Drawing Anime & Manga
Beginner Guide to Picking Colors When Drawing Anime & Manga

Step 1 – Draw the Fox Girl's Head

Begin by making a vertical line through the middle of your drawing area. This line is to help you see if both sides of the head/face are relatively even i width.

Next as shown i the example draw a circle to represent the top of the head leaving enough space above it to fit in the ears.

Going down from the circle draw the bottom portion of the head. It should get narrower as it goes down beginning with a pair of angled straight lines that transition into a pair of curves around the cheek ares. These should then change into a pair of straight lines again that go towards the bottom middle of the head and are finally joined by the small curve of the chin.

For more on drawing heads see:

How to Draw Anime Heads & Faces in Different Styles

Step 2 – Draw the Neck & Shoulders

Anime fox girl neck and shoulders drawing

Going down from the bottom portion of the head draw the neck. As this is a somewhat stylized anime character the neck should be fairly thin in relation to the head.

The neck should then transition into the shoulder muscles and then the shoulders themselves.

For more on drawing anime neck see:

How to Draw Anime Neck & Shoulders

Step 3- Position the Eyes

To place the eyes divine the head in half vertically by drawing a straight line and place them just a tiny bit below it.

At this stage avoid drawing any of the inner details, those will be added in later steps.

In this case the character will have a very light smile so the eyes will be drawn a tiny bit narrower than for a normal expression. You can also draw the bottom eyelids/eyelashes curved slightly upwards to further emphasize this.

When spacing the eyes you want to have them just far enough apart that you can fit a third one in between them as shown above.

Step 4 – Draw the Eyebrows

In this case the eyebrows will be fairly thick, especially towards their inner ends. Draw them slightly above the eyes. The distance between them and the top of the eyelashes (for this particular character) should be slightly less than the height of the eyes.

Step 5 – Position the Nose

Draw the nose halfway between the horizontal middle point of the head and the bottom of the chin. Unlike the eyes you do not necessarily need to draw another horizontal line for placing it but you can if you want to.

In this case the nose will pretty much just be a dot or tiny vertical dash.

For more examples of drawing anime style noses see:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Noses

Step 6 – Position the Mouth

Position the mouth slightly above the halfway point between the bottom of the nose and the bottom of the chin (as shown in the example).

In this case the fox girl will have a light smile. To make the mouth look a little more animal like draw the smile with show curves that are broken up in the middle.

For more on drawing anime mouths see:

How to Draw Anime Mouths Tutorial
How to Draw Anime and Manga Mouth Expressions

Step 7 – Draw the Fox Ears

Of course the defining feature of the fox girl are the ears. They could be draw right into the hair but it's a good idea to have at least some sense of how they would attach to the head. For this reason we will add the fox ears before the hair.

Begin by outlining the silhouette of each ear then add the parts where the ears curve to show their outer sides.

To give the impression of fur you can draw some small splits at the tip of each ear.

Step 8 – Draw the Hair in the Front

For drawn the hair it will be split into the front, sides, and back sections. You can see more on this approach in the following tutorials:

How to Draw Anime and Manga Hair – Female
How to Draw Anime Hair in 3/4 View Step by Step

Begin the drawing the hair in the front of the head. In this case it will be shown in red. For this particular character the hair will be drawn in large clumps that somewhat resemble for tails.

Draw the clumps right over top of the outline of the ears and head. You can then erase the bottom parts of the ears (ares where they are covered up) but leave the outline of the head to help you place the rest of the hair.

Step 9 – Draw the Hair on the Sides

Next add the side sections (shown in green). In this case it will be just two large clumps of hair, again shaped very much like fox tails.

Draw these clumps with a bit of a curve so that they appear to be slightly "hugging" the face.

Step 10 – Draw the Hair at the Back

Finally add the hair in the background (shown in blue). You can draw this section with some smaller clumps towards the bottom that stick out a little towards the sides.

Once done drawing the hair you can go ahead and erase the parts of the head/face covered by it.

Step 11 – Draw the Ear Fur/Fluff

As is common for animal ears you can show some fur/fluff sticking out of them. Draw it similar to the hair in a few large clumps as shown in the example.

Step 12 – Draw the Clothes

While for this drawing you can only see a bit of the body you can still show some of the clothes.

In this case the fox girl will be wearing traditional Japanese clothes. A shrine maiden or "miko" outfit.

You can draw the collar that is so characteristic of such an outfit as shown in the example.

Step 13 – Draw the Details of the Eyes

Now that all of the major parts of the character are outlined you can add some of the smaller details such as those of the eyes.

Inside each eye draw the pupil with a pair of highlights. You can also show a bit of the eyelids by drawing a small curved line just little bit above (closer to the inner end) each eye. Next fill in the eyelashes with black or pencil shading and add some hints of individual lashes.

For a step by step tutorial on drawing female anime eyes see:

How to Draw Female Anime Eyes Tutorial

While the eyes are not exactly the same the steps for drawing them are very similar.

When done with this step you can trace over your lines with a darker pencil stroke. If you feeling confident in your tracing ability you can also use a black pen or marker.

Step 14 – Apply Color

In this case to make the character more fox like she will have yellow/orange hair and ears. Leave the fluff of the ears white and keep some white areas for highlights inside the hair.

Please note that if drawing digitally it may be easier to add all of the white areas over top of the color instead of coloring around them.

For more options on drawing anime style hair highlights see:

Different Ways to Draw Anime Hair Highlights

You can also leave a pair of white ends on the side clumps of the hair to again make them look like the tail of a fox (yellow/orange with a white tip).

Next you can color the face/neck area and optionally give the fox girl a bit of a blush. Draw the blush as two sets of red lines just below each of the eyes right over top of the face color.

For more on drawing anime style blush see:

How to Draw Anime & Manga Blush in Different Ways

Finally you can make the eyes green and the inner part of the dress collar red (very typical of a "miko" dress).

If you want the eyes to be more like those of a real fox you can make them orange or brown instead of green.

Step 15 – Add Shading & Finish the Fox Girl Drawing

To finish the drawing you can add bit of shading and a bit of gradient around the blush lines.

For the blush simply blend in some red around the lines drawn in the previous step.

The shadows in this case (as in most similar tutorials here on AnimeOutline) will be added into areas where shadow are most likely to occur in common lighting conditions such as a well lit room or daytime outdoors.

Place the shadows as follows:

Fully darken the inner parts of the ears (less light generally reach here)
Some shading inside each clump of ear fluff with the tips of the shadows shaped similar to the hair/fur clumps
Below the hair on the forehead and sides of face (cast by the hair)
Around the eyelids (as these areas are indented less light reaches here)
On the upper parts of the whites of the eyes and irises (cast by eyelashes and also reflections of the eyelashes in the irises)
To one side of the nose (from the nose itself)
A bit below the mouth (creates a hint of the bottom lip)
On the neck in the shape of the chin (cast by the head)
Along the bottom portions of the hair clumps

For more on shading anime hair see:

How to Shade Anime Hair Step by Step

Once done adding the shading you should have a finished drawing of the fox girl.

Conclusion

Fox girls or "kitsune's" are a quite popular in anime and manga. Similar to other character with animal features one of their defining characteristic are the ears. In addition to these there are also other smaller and less obvious details you can add that can make a character appear more fox like (as shown in this tutorial).

Generally you want to add enough features to give a hint of what animal you want the character to represent while at the same time maintaining the anime look.

If you would like to try drawing more fantasy type character also see:

How to Draw Anime Wolf Girl Step by Step
How to Draw an Anime Elf Girl Step by Step
How to Draw an Anime Vampire Girl Step by Step
How to Draw an Anime Panda Girl Step by Step
How to Draw Anime Cat Girl Ears Step by Step

How to Draw Anime Kitsune

Source: https://www.animeoutline.com/how-to-draw-an-anime-fox-girl-step-by-step/