How to Draw Son Goku – An Easy Comic Drawing Tutorial

Goku has been one of the most prominent and beloved anime characters for the past three decades. Akira Toriyama’s Dragonball series struck gold in manga and anime with a top-rated animated series from the 90s into the 2000s. The creation of Son Goku, the main protagonist of the show and popular manga, made its way into Western mainstream television in the 2000s and became a pop culture icon. Son Goku became an iconic character that inspired and intrigued the imagination of many children and adults. Son Goku has been cemented as one of the most identifiable and popular anime characters to date with his iconic appearance and overpowered abilities as a super saiyan.

Step-by-Step Guide on How to Draw Son Goku

In this tutorial on how to draw Son Goku, we will start with a simple sketch that defines the form and unique pose of the character. We will then proceed by refining the character with linework, making sure we define all the unique features from hair to face to attire. From there, we will start working on our colors to establish the character design in its unique color combination. Now that we know what we will be doing in this Son Goku drawing tutorial, let’s go through the different steps.

Step 1: Shaping the Son Goku Character

We start by lightly sketching the character with the aim of trying to establish the basic shape and proportions of Son Goku’s drawing.

We can work our way down from the head of the character, where we establish Son Goku’s iconic hairstyle and his triangular facial structure. As we work our way down the character, we can start defining his unique combat attire. Goku sports a shirt underneath an orange vest, which causes this V-shape in his chest. We can also make sure that his upper torso is significantly larger than the head structure.

We also want to establish his muscular neckline and reveal his upper chest as the shirt covers the bottom half.

Goku also has very muscular arms, which we can lightly sketch and connect to the sleeves of the shirt. we can also keep his hands in a closed-fist pose for a classic representation of our Son Goku drawing.

Goku’s wearing something called a Gi, which is like a karate jumpsuit. His belt is quite high-waisted, with pants that flare out at the bottom.

Goku also sports basic boots that are quite triangular and narrow near the toe box and are slightly covered by the Gi at the top of the shoes.

Step 2: Enhancing the Sketch

Once we have all the basic shapes and proportions of the character established, we can start going over these different features with refined linework. This is where we start to use the guidelines of the shapes to help us better define the details of the features. Working our way down from the head, we can start defining details from the face, to the hands and down to the boots.

Take your time working through the character design, slowly defining the linework in the various features.

Step 3: Adding detail to the Profile of Goku

We can now start working with bolder linework, slowly going through the facial details. We can now start defining the shape of the hair structure, the eyes, eyebrows, and ears. Try spending some time on the facial features, taking your time to capture the sharp raised eyebrow shapes. We can also refine the pupils and especially the structure of the hairstyle.

From here, we can fill in the hair structure with black, keeping the classical appearance of Goku without the Super Saiyan appearance.

Goku is an extraterrestrial character with a Caucasian complexion, meaning he has a very subtle and fair brown appearance. However, we still want to work with a variety of tonal values to define highlights, shadows, and midtones in the character’s aesthetic. We can do this by adding some highlights and shadows on either side of his face.

We want to continue this visual quality into the neck profile of the character, maintaining these various tonal values of complexion. try to maintain the shadows on one side of the character.

Step 4: Adding Details to the Torso of Goku

We can start working our way into the gi, starting with the undershirt. We can fill in the undershirt with a variety of blues, working with lighter tonal values at first.

From there, we can work in these mid-tone blue lines that zig-zag through the chest. As we work with these different tonal values we are defining the form of the fold in the garment. Try to work with three layers, where you build up these shapes that flow from either side of the undershirt into the center of the shirt.

We can follow the same process for the top section of the gi that sits on top of the undershirt. we can start defining the fold with various layers of orange.

You can start by filling in the garment with a lighter tone of orange, and slowly start building up these layers of mid-tone to darker oranges that define the folds in the garment. We want to work with the flow of the vest and keep the lines of orange marks flowing in a vertical direction, through the upper section of the gi. As we do this, we can add in smaller fold marks where it would tuck into the belt.

Step 5: Enhancing the Pants Details

We can follow the same process with the pants, where we start to build up the folds with different tonal values of orange hues. We want to make sure we build up these colored details from light layers of orange and work darker hues into the shape of the folds. We also want to make sure that the darkest colors of orange remain on one single side for both pant legs, to remain consistent with the light source. We can allow for the shadows to flow down the legs in rows of striations that become thicker near the bottom of the legs.

We can make these folds that curve into the larger surface of the pants in rows.

On the opposite side of each pant leg, we can do the same for the highlights and create these rows that flow into the larger surface area of the pants. Near the hips of the legs, the rows become less as the pants become tighter, which means we can make larger sections of highlights in these areas.

Continue this process of adding highlights into the pants, keeping these highlight [patterns larger in the upper section of the pants and smaller in the lower sections of the pants.

Step 6: Defining the Shadows in The Accessories

We can continue with this process of building up layers of color for the accessories as well. we can proceed by adding lighter layers of blue color into the belt, and slowly add in darker lines of blue.

We want to make sure we are following the form of the belt lapels as they fall down along each side of the pants.

This means we can also make sure the shadows flow in a vertical direction for the parts of the belt that fall onto the pants.

The shoes can also follow suit, where we first fill in the shoes with a light layer of blue. From there, we can strategically integrate shadows into the correct sides of the shoes.

As we continue to add details to the shoes, we can start drawing in the platform and soles that form along the bottom of the shoe. we can also add in the string around the shoes. As we build up these details, we can keep in mind that the highlights and shadows should always stay consistent in the entire character design.

We can then refine the shoes and pants with bolder linework, making sure to add black detailing in the areas where the shadows would be greatest. We can also add black detailing to the features of the shoes.

Step 7: Adding details to the Arms

To complete the drawing, we can now focus on the arms as a feature, which we can start by defining with black linework. We want to make sure we define the muscles and hand formations.

We can then proceed to fill in the arms with the corresponding color scheme to that of the facial features. We also want to make sure that we follow the same process of building up highlights and shadows with the right soft brown colors. Naturally, we want to maintain the highlight placement in the same areas as the shadows and highlights throughout the character design.

We can proceed by filling in the blue wristbands, and once again, building up the form through different tonal layers of blue.

Step 8: Adding the Last Detailed Lines To the Entire Goku Drawing

As we continue, we can start adding border black line work throughout the entire Son Goku drawing. This is where we can enhance the outline and liner that define different features.

As we work our way through the entire character, we can also enhance the details in the different features with smaller gestural lines that give some texture to the Son Goku drawing.

We can continue this process throughout the Son Goku drawing, making sure we define the lines to keep the classical representation of the character design from the early anime.

Take your time with this process, and there you have it, how to draw Son Goku through a few simple steps.

Tips and Tricks to Remember

• Lightly sketch the character. As you learn how to draw Son Goku, start with a simple sketch to establish the proportions and shape of the character.
• Refine the lines and details. Once you have the general shape and proportions of the character, you can then refine the lines with bolder line work.
• Work with layers of color. From there, start refining all the details of the character with layers of color.
• Go over your lines. As a last step, make sure to go over all the lines with bold black lines to refine your Son Goku drawing.

A Son Goku drawing is really fun and teaches us how to work strategically to define a unique animated style in a drawing process. We learn a lot about shape, line style, and how to build up colors for shape and depth. A Son Goku drawing comes with a variety of introductory information about the anime drawing genre.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to Draw the Hair of Son Goku?

Son Goku’s hair is specific and unique to the character, so representing it as accurately as possible is important for the character’s design. Luckily, the process of drawing Son Goku’s hair is quite simple, where we first establish the unique set of spikes that form around the head. There is also a break in the spikes, which can be described as a simple arc that suggests the crown of the head. From there, depending on whether he is in super saiyan mode, we can fill in the hair accordingly, being either blonde or remaining black. In the case of a classical Son Goku drawing, we can color the hair black with one or two highlights that define the shape of the spikes.

How to Draw the Clothes of Son Goku?

Goku wears something called a Gi, which is like a jumpsuit that you wear to represent the unique school or dojo you come from. The aesthetic of the Gi is quite heavy, appearing with a variety of thick folds. We first establish the structure with a sketch by defining these folds that bunch in the boots. We can then start defining the shadows by building up the color values with different tones. We can incorporate a mid-tone orange, on top of which, we can add darker and lighter tones of orange. As we continue, we can add lighter tonal values of orange on the opposite sides of the legs to define highlights. We define these different tonal values in the folds with geometric shapes, which get smaller as they move toward the bottom of the pants. 

Matthew Matthysen( Drawing and Painting Artist )

Matthew Matthysen is an educated multidisciplinary artist and illustrator. He successfully completed his art degree at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, majoring in art history and contemporary drawing. The focus of his thesis was to explore the philosophical implications of the macro and micro-universe on the human experience. Matthew uses diverse media, such as written and hands-on components, to explore various approaches that are on the border between philosophy and science.

Matthew organized various exhibitions before and during his years as a student and is still passionate about doing so today. He currently works as a freelance artist and writer in various fields. He also has a permanent position at a renowned online gallery (ArtGazette) where he produces various works on commission. As a freelance artist, he creates several series and successfully sells them to galleries and collectors. He loves to use his work and skills in various fields of interest.

Matthew has been creating drawing and painting tutorials since the relaunch in 2020. Through his involvement with artincontext.org, he has been able to deepen his knowledge of various painting mediums. For example, watercolor techniques, calligraphy and lately digital drawing, which is becoming more and more popular.

Learn more about Matthew Matthysen and the Art in Context Team.