The heavy black fill on Kikyo’s hair is the main challenge in this drawing, since getting that flat ink weight right while keeping the strands readable takes some careful line control. This guide walks through how to draw Kikyo from the Inuyasha series, covering her upper body in a three-quarter view with her signature miko look.
What the Tutorial Covers and Where the Work Is
The walkthrough runs 10 steps total and ends on clean line art without color, so every step is focused on getting the shapes and line weight right. The cropped framing keeps things tight around the upper body, but the blunt bangs and wide collar require some attention to symmetry and proportion. Since the result is black and white, the hair fill is where most of the decision-making happens.
Kikyo’s Key Visual Features
- Long straight hair with solid blunt bangs
- Serious, slightly downcast expression
- Traditional miko outfit, wide collar
- Bow or ribbon detail at the chest
- Upper body, three-quarter view crop
If you enjoy drawing anime characters with traditional Japanese aesthetics, a few other tutorials on the site are worth checking out. Yuuki Asuna from Sword Art Online also involves long hair and layered clothing detail, and Leafa is another good practice piece for braided and flowing hair. For portrait-focused practice, the Kirito portrait guide focuses on facial structure and framing in a similar cropped format.
Reading the Step Colors
Each step image uses a three-color system to show what is new, what is done, and what is structural:
- Red Color: lines added in the current step.
- Black Color: lines completed earlier.
- Gray Color: base sketch for structure.
How to Draw Kikyo: Step-by-Step Tutorial
Finished Your Kikyo Sketch? Share It
Once the drawing is done, drop your finished version in the comments. It is always good to see how others handle the hair fill and collar lines. New tutorials get posted to Facebook and Telegram as soon as they go live, a new YouTube video based on existing guides goes up every day, and Pinterest stays regularly updated too. If you want to keep the how to draw Kikyo guide and others like it going, supporting the project on Patreon gives you access to unique hand-drawn coloring pages as well. In the meantime, Kirito from Sword Art Online and the Obeiron tutorial are solid next steps if you want to keep practicing anime figure drawing.