Wings come in several varieties. There are wings that are covered with nothing but skin, as usually are drawn on dragons. Then there are the wings that are covered with either scales (think space creatures or demons) or feathers (think angels or griffins).
All three types of wings are drawn in a similar way. First, the artist starts with a basic frame and then moves on to adding the details.
Drawing the Frame
Each set of wings has a “frame” of bone that the skin underneath attaches to. To draw wings, the artist must start by drawing this simple frame.
To do this, the artist draws an M-shape on the back of their character. This M-shape can be as wide or as narrow as needed to create the look the artist is going for.
See Illustration 1, below. (Click on the illustration to make it larger.) Notice how the center of the M is in the middle of the back and the legs of the M arch out, away from the body.
Drawing Guidelines
Before drawing the scales or feathers the artist should draw a guide to help place the scales or feathers in the right spot. To do this, a circle is drawn around the tip of the wing, then three guidelines are drawn down from the circle in an arch, trisecting the wing.
The artist can use more or less guidelines, depending on how many feathers or scales they want on the wing. The fewer the lines, the bigger the feathers or scales and vice versa.
If the artist is just drawing skin wings, like for a dragon, then the guidelines can be used as the cartilage ridges for under the skin.
Drawing Scales or Feathers
Once the frame and the guidelines drawn, then the artist can move on to the fun part: the scales or feathers.
See Illustration 2, below. Each scale or feather is an oval shape that overlaps and becomes increasingly bigger. Each oval is centered over a guideline. The oval below it is centered over the same guideline. Here's how each line is drawn:
- Starting at the top of the wing, the artist draws two scales or feathers. These are centered on the two center guidelines.
- The next line of three scales or feathers is larger because the wing gets larger, but they are still centered on three guidelines.
- The next line contains four scales or feathers and so on and so forth.
To learn more about drawing feathers see: How to Draw Feathers.
Drawing Details
Now that the wing coverings are sketched out and properly placed, the artist can add detail to the wings.
The M frame should be drawn to look more like bone or cartilage. To do this, the artist can add joints or simple ridges under the wing’s skin.
See Illustration 3. Here, the artist created joints by drawing half circles onto the frame and making the simple line of the M into a tube-like structure by drawing another M-shape below the first. Then, shading was added to add a three-dimensional feel.
Using this simple strategy, an artist can create wings for anime, fantasy, manga, sci fi and cartoon art.
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