How to draw a Viking woman – An easy guide
“How to draw a Viking” woman, this article will guide you steps through steps so you can get the best result at the end.
However, in this article, we do not study about that. But a little background is necessary for you, Viking female warrior is not fictional, they did exist and look badass. If you fond of the Viking culture but are tired of seeing Viking men warrior. And in your free time you pick up drawing, I believe you have stumbled in the right place. I am content to show you easy, short steps about “how to draw a Viking”, but a Viking woman warrior.
First, you might think I put the wrong title, because it is always believed that only Viking men fight in the battles. But it is a false assumption. The researchers at Stockholm and Uppsala Universities had evidence to show that in the past Viking women were fighters. They found a woman older 30 years old who was 5 feet 6 inches tall in a landmark. After analyzing the DNA, it led to a result that the woman was a Viking warrior. Several weapons such as a sword, armor-piercing arrows, a battle knife, an axe, a spear and shields were buried alongside her body.
An outline to draw a Viking woman warrior
To start with, there are a few things I recommend you note down before we go to specific instructions. For the illustration, I am going to use this picture:
Some tips for amateur
So I gathered some useful tips for you in case you could mess things up at the first step:
- Tip 1: Don’t skip the sketch, even if it becomes chaotic. Just don’t go straight into drawing the details. This is significant advice, especially if you want to get better at drawing.
- Tip 2: Don’t buy expensive pencils. It’s really unnecessary to have one if you still have a long way to work with drawing. And there are many affordable, effective pencils that work as good as the expensive ones.
- Tip 3: Don’t get panic if your paper gets wrinkle and black shade because of eraser. Try to finish the sketch, from head to toe, and then get another paper and this time, do the sketch more carefully. There is no short cut, all you need is perseverance.
Specific guidelines
It was difficult for me to find a full-body pic in which the character does not wear lots of accessories, and the pose is also not challenging to draw. But here we come the guideline “How to draw a Viking” woman:
- Step 1: Gather references you can use as model and inspiration (if you are an amateur like me, I recommend you try to find a full-body pic with the simple pose so that the process will not be an arduous task).
- Step 2: Drawing the torso, including rib cage and abdomen. The whole positioning depends on this, so be careful in this step. Muscles are the thing you should put aside, focus on general shape and form. Then draw simple hips. Try to make a clear form as close as much as the character’s form. Don’t worry about the ratio. As long as the size is fitting, shouldn’t be skeptical about that. Imagine you draw short underwear for this part.
- Step 3: Draw the legs, Use tube shapes for thighs and shins, triangle for the feet.
- Step 4: Draw the arms. Simple shape like ellipses works for shoulders, tubes for the arms and squares for the hands (just realize they rhyme, hope this helps you remember easier).
- Step 5: Draw the head, with face details and the hair (it is your choice to just draw a head shape and leave the rest to finish later).
- Step 6: Draw the pants (still, it is your choice which part you would like to draw next. After step 4, you are free to choose).
- Step 7: Draw details of the armor and the axe.
- Step 8: Add shades and finish the details.
Step 1 “the torso” and “hips
Picture 3. The torso
There are differences between female torso compared to men. First thing first, we draw the neck, the line connects neck and shoulders should be soft and small, more curve. The upper part of the torso will be rib cage areas, then breast, then lower ribs. You should draw a round ellipse when the shoulders and arms connected to the body.
Afterward, you draw the hips. Remember to keep the torso and the waist separated from each other. The space between them will be the abdominal area.
Step 2 “the legs” and “feet”
For the legs, remember that female’s legs have more curves than male’s legs, therefore, don’t draw straight lines. The size is important, don’t draw the legs too big, things need to be delicate, soft curves. The character has long calves, so from the knees going down, you should draw the line long, as I said, don’t worry about the ratio. Yet her legs need to be longer than her torso, not the opposite case.
The feet are always the hard part to draw, as well as the hands. First, you draw a triangle shape, a small round as later we can draw ankles. Normally, this part is going to be erased a lot, because the toes are troublesome here. But we are lucky because the character wears boosts. So, we finish the drawing at the first step.
Step 3 “the arms”
Now, we will move to the arms. Her leg arm is relaxing, so it is easy to draw, also her fingers are not detailed, so I think it is quick to finish the leg arm first. She grabs an axe in her right arm, the forearm is simple to draw, but the hand is quite tricky because in the picture, it is also not going into details. Nonetheless, here is an illustration for you to refer:
Step 4 “head”, “face” and “hair”
The head shape is simple to draw so I will skip that instruction. Just imagine you draw an upside- down egg, done. Her face is kinda round, we will stick to that shape. She has freckles, and blood or eyeliners running down her cheeks, so we will add them later. The expression is the hardest part, well I personally couldn’t draw exact expression so maybe we will stay with our own expression, showing fierce attitude is the goal.
Step 5 “the axe” and “the armor”
Starting with the shaft, short and straight, a little slanted towards the right. The axe’s blade turns inside, it has patterns. Yet, again, we can’t draw exactly the same. Therefore, use your creativity to draw new patterns or if the axe is not the weapon you want, you prefer sword to it, then change.
The armor is a “scale” type armor. Basically, a succession of little metal plates. The “scales” of the armor are placed side by side like a stripe of plates that surrounds the body. Stripes are placed one below the other, starting from the shoulders and going to the thighs. The scales of stripe above will cover in part the scales of the stripe below. The armor will cover the shoulders and part of the biceps.
She has protected pads on her left shoulder, so don’t forget that. She also wears top shorts made by animal fur, we will cover that part. Two lower cannons made by leather from her elbows to her wrists. The belt, I think we will skip that part because it is hard to describe what type of belt she wears. I suggest you draw something simpler. Finally, you draw her boosts, made from animal fur, with ropes tied around.
Step 6 “shading”
This is the final step of “how to draw a Viking” woman. Here you focus on detailing certain parts of the clothing, the face, and the armor. But, more importantly, you add some shadows to the character so it will become less flat and more three dimensional. We use shading techniques like hatching and cross-hatching, as a recommendation from the professional artists. But my simple advice is straightforwardly using your eyes.
You can see that her right body part is more behind than her left body part, which is more upfront. Therefore, we add shade mostly on her right part.
Last words
Have you finished your drawing yet? I know some steps will take more time to finish than the others. But I hope you find this guideline useful and at the end happy with the result. If you are not satisfied, take another paper and start read my guideline “how to draw a Viking” woman again and draw the second.
This time you can use your own creativity or use other pictures as model for your drawing. You are free to produce more badass armor design ideas and new weapons such as bow. Thank you for reading my article!
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