How to Draw Anime Muscular Male Body Step by Step
This tutorial shows how to draw a muscular male body in the anime and manga or comic book style with a step by step breakdown of the various muscle groups.
If you are looking for a guide on how to draw a muscular male body this tutorial can definitely help. It provides a straightforward overview of basic muscle anatomy with breakdown of the various muscle groups (in an easy to see and understand manner).
The focus of the tutorial is on drawing the muscles of the upper body (including the arms). It’s important to note this as sometimes anime characters can be drawn with very exaggerated proportions and muscles that look absolutely huge. However, this guide gives an example of a physique that can belong to a very muscular but still a fairly realistic looking male character.
Because of the realistic proportions this guide can also work well for more traditional art styles. One of it’s major advantages over many other tutorials out there is that the muscles are clearly defined and precisely placed so you don’t have to guess as to how you should draw them.
If drawing on paper it’s recommended that you make light lines until you are almost done with the tutorial. This will make it easier to erase any potential mistakes. You can darken your lines after you’ve added the last group of muscles.
For more general drawing tips also see:
Beginner Guide to Drawing Anime & Manga
Above is a video that show the drawing process for the muscular body line by line. You can watch it for a more detailed breakdown of adding the various muscles but also be sure to read below for additional instructions.
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Step 1 – Draw the Outline of the Body to Look Muscular
To start the drawing outlining the overall shape of the body (similar to a silhouette). The goal is to create an appearance that is characteristic of a muscular physique even before adding the details of the individual muscles. This is the most important step of the tutorial because if it’s not done right the drawing will seem off no matter how much effort you put into the details.
Generally, very muscular bodies will be wider at the shoulders and will get narrower towards the waist. Also, big muscles tend to look like they are “popping out” from the body as though they’ve been inflated. To show this you will want to define almost all parts of the body with curved lines.
Draw the Lower Part of the Head
Begin by making a straight vertical line. This will act as a guide that can help keep the drawing from getting skewed to one side. It can also help you see if both halves of the body are relatively symmetrical.
To the upper end of the guide line you can draw the lower part of the head (or the entire head if you prefer). As the focus of this tutorial is on the muscles it will not go into the details of it’s shape
For an in depth tutorial on drawing a male anime head see:
How to Draw Anime and Manga Male Head and Face
Draw a Thick Neck
As this is a muscular body make the neck quite thick (almost as thick as the head). Draw it going down from the bottom of the ears. You can also make the neck slightly thicker as it goes down.
Draw Broad Shoulders
Add the shoulders starting with the trapezius muscles. Make these curved and draw them running down from a little bit above the bottom of the neck. This placement is important as you want the neck to “cut” into the shoulders. This will help create a bulky look (like that of a bodybuilder).
The trapezius muscles should then transition into the curves of the shoulders. You want the combined outline of the shoulders to be quite wide in relation to the head.
Draw a Wide Chest
Draw the body some distance below the shoulders to leave room for the arms. First, make it narrower as it goes down and then wider again ending with a “V” like shape at the bottom.
Draw Thick Arms
Make the upper parts of the arms very thick (almost as thick as the neck) and draw them pointing away form the body.
Draw the lower parts of the arms in a way as to make the arms slightly bent. Make them thinner at the base, thicker towards their upper middle and then thinner again towards the wrists.
As the focus of this guide is on muscles the hands are not shown. However, you can see the following tutorials for different ways to draw them:
Add the Upper Area of the Legs
Show a bit of the legs as in the example to finish the basic outline drawing of the body.
You can see the general flow of the body’s outer shape showed with the red lines in the example above. Check that your drawing roughly matches this before moving on to the next step.
Step 2 – Draw Wide Chest Muscles
Make the chest muscles (pectoral muscles) fairly wide so that they somewhat cut into the inner ends of the shoulders. Draw their overall shapes slightly narrower towards the center of the body and wider towards the arms. You can think of these as consisting of four sides each. The first one facing towards the shoulders, the next one at the top angled down towards the center of the body, the third running vertically (roughly) along the center of the chest and the last side curving downwards from the shoulders and then going back up again towards the center of the body (or vise versa).
Step 3 – Draw Clearly Visible Collar Bones & Neck Muscles
Above the chest muscles add the collar bones. Draw these angled downwards towards the center of the chest. Make these slightly curved with sharper downwards curves on their inner ends.
Going up from the middle of the collar bones add the neck muscles (the “sternocleidomastoid muscles). Draw these running all the way up the neck to the base of the ears.
For a more on drawing the collar bones and neck muscles see:
How to Draw Anime Neck & Shoulders
Step 4 – Draw the Stomach Muscles With Eight Pack Abs
Draw the stomach/abdominal muscles (abs) going top to bottom. In this case the person has an “eight pack”. To show this add a set of muscles just below the chest that are significantly wider than the rest. Define all of the stomach muscles starting with their outer curves drawing top to bottom.
Afterwards, erase the vertical guide line drawn in step one (so that it does not get in the way) and draw the inner curves and splits between them.
When drawing the inner sides of these muscles leave little gaps in the outlines as was done in the example. This will help make these muscles look less defined as compared to the bigger ones and will also help prevent the drawing from looking like a wire frame.
Step 5 – Draw Large Arm Muscles
First, define the inner ends of the deltoid muscles (the large muscles at the top of each arm). Next, outline the Biceps running down to the bends in each arm.
As the muscles along the lower parts (below the elbows) of the arms are generally not as well define as those around their upper parts you can simply hint at some of them as shown in the example.
For drawing less muscular arms in different positions see:
How to Draw Anime & Manga Arms Tutorial
Step 6 – Draw Well-Defined Oblique Muscles
Finally, draw the muscles along sides of the body. These will basically be two sets that sort of “weave” together. You can define these with one curve each.
Once you’ve added this last muscle groups you can trace over your drawing with darker lines to finish. You should hopefully have something similar to the above example once done.
Conclusion
Drawing bodies can be quite complicated. Muscular bodies can be an even bigger challenge as you have to show the individual details of all of the muscles. To help this tutorial shows clean and details examples where it’s easy to see how to place the different muscles and muscle groups.
Although the focus of the guide is somewhat on a style that is well suited to anime, manga and comic books it can be applied to more realistic drawings as well. Anime and manga characters can sometimes have exaggerated proportions but generally their bodies are still based on the anatomy of real people.
This tutorial should give you a good idea of how to draw the upper part of a muscular male body from the front view. If you want to have a more slender or an even more muscular character you can experiment by adjusting the size of the torso and different muscle sets accordingly and making them more or less defined. Also, if you want to draw a character in more complex to first draw them in the front view for reference.
For other guides on drawing male anime characters see:
For drawing a female bodies see:
For tutorials on drawing other things try:
