To start off, let's lay down some basic guide lines. Draw a round shape for the chest, and a kite shape for the pelvis. We're going to tilt the hips and shoulders to get a bit of personality out of her pose. Draw in guide lines for the arms and legs, and indicate the positions of the hands and feet. Finally, add the head up top. Though her head is tilted, she'll be facing the viewer.
Step 2.
The first major detail is going to be the face, so let's outline the cheeks and chin, and draw the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. Draw the sides of the neck, and from there we're going to draw a series of jagged V-shapes running all the way down her torso.
Step 3.
Here the scales on Kerrigan's body start to take shape. The covering is almost like what you'd see on a trilobite. With the upper chest and sternum drawn in, go ahead and add the breasts.
Step 4.
There are a lot of interesting design elements on the Queen of Blades design. Beneath the breasts, there are four pairs of crab-like legs wrapped around her ribcage. Her right shoulder has some large spikey armor, so we'll outline that along with both upper arms. We can also start to draw in the shape of the stomach and hips.
Step 5.
More interesting shapes here. Kerrigan's basically covered in organic armor. There are spiky protrusions coming off her hips and the outer edge of the legs by and below the knees. The muscles of the thighs are still defined, so use smooth curves for those parts to maintain the character's feminine quality.
Step 6.
The shins are covered with scales, sort of like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Her feet are fairly normal, except for a pair of spikes growing out of her heel bones to mimic high heel shoes.
Step 7.
Kerrigan's arms are slender and feminine, although she has claws and a row of spikes running down each forearm. Indicate the area where the bicep meets the forearm.
Step 8.
Medusa time! Sort of. Instead of actual hair, Kerrigan's head is covered in segmented tendrils -- again, almost like crab legs or insect legs. Pretty gross, right? Think about the placement of the "knuckle" joints that will break up each tendril. Don't just make them smooth like snakes. Add bumps to indicate those segments. Also, try to vary the direction of the tendrils to mimic real hair. Have some of them cross in front of one another or wrap around each other. The idea is to keep it fluid and organic.
Step 9.
If you don't want to go nuts with detail, feel free to skip ahead to the wing steps. If you're up for it, though, let's scratch some paper... or tablet... Anyway, here we're going to attack the small details of the torso. Kerrigan's skin has a bunch of strange textures, especially on the neck area and around the breasts. The U-curves indicate stretched or mutated skin. You know, a lot of these details remind me of the Xenomorph design. Add some more U-curves to the armored stomach panels to give them a wavy surface. The panels that run down the center of the chest are almost like vertebrae. Add knuckles and plenty of wrinkles to the crab legs on the ribcage. Add some rocky texture on the upper chest, and some spots to the outer edges of the breasts.
Step 10.
More U-curve action. For this step, we're using those shapes to detail the bone-like parts of the armor. The opposing curves on the shoulder spikes really define those shapes. Below that, the U-curves fade into the strands of muscle on her upper arm. The forearms get a heavy treatment of wavy wrinkles. The bony hip spikes are similar to the shoulder spikes, so use U-curves to define those edges. One interesting detail here is the shapes above the knees. It's almost like roots growing underneath the skin in a fern-like pattern.
Step 11.
Detail the shin panels in a similar style as the stomach panels. Draw in some light detail defining the kneecaps. Then take a look at the feet. We basically have the tendons of the foot defined on top of the skin. These lines begin at or even above the ankle, and each tendon travels to the end of a toe.
Step 12.
This is a fun step. After adding some wrinkles and other details to the face, we're mainly going to be drawing in the knuckles and texture of the tendril-hair. You should have one position where it's easiest for you to draw a C-shaped curve. Just turn your image to make it easier for your hand to do those little curves. You're basically just drawing the same curves over and over again, and just moving the paper between sections. This wraps up the main body portion of the drawing.
Step 13.
The Queen of Blade's wings are pretty darn weird. They're not just bat wings. They're definitely alien. It's like a mix between crab legs and bones. In any case, sometimes I find it easier and faster to work in silhouette. When you're trying to find the right shape for something, it can be easier to do it this way, rather than outline the entire thing only to find you don't like the result.
Step 14.
Now we'll jump into the line drawing. Take your time with these and add detail as you go along. This will give the "bones" a more gnarled look than if you outlined the shape first and added details later. Try to imagine the limbs of an old tree when you draw this.
Step 15.
These really are just like finger bones. Make sure all the "fingers" connect to the same place on the wing. It's tempting to attach them at the highest spike/knuckle, but that's not how this design works. Keep the shapes rounded at the connection point, to resemble real knuckle bones.
Step 16.
Finally we'll add some extra detail within the line art to dirty the wings up a bit. In some areas I "split" the bones down the middle to add a little more dimension and fill up any blank space that might stand out in the finished drawing.
Step 17.
Here's the line art for the wing. I'll be reversing this to have a perfectly matching pair of wings. If you're doing this on paper, you can photocopy the wing, flip it and lightbox the drawing to have perfectly symmetrical wings.
Step 18.
The fully-constructed image. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I put a lot into the drawing. Let me know what you think, and be sure to post your work if you give the Queen of Blades a go. Thanks for viewing!
Step 19.
The full colored image. Thanks again for viewing :D
Description:
Hey guys. For this tutorial we're going to draw Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, from Starcraft. There's a lot of detail in this one, so I hope you enjoy.
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