Draw a Rose – This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to draw a rose. Focus on anime and manga style, but most of the tips and examples of drawing can also be applied to traditional art.

Roses are a common flower in anime and manga. They can be used for the background, as part of the costumes cast, and for various love scenes and effects. However, due to its complexity and the unusual shape of its petals, the roses can be very difficult to draw.

This tutorial provides a drawing technique that starts with a simple shape and then creates a complex rose shape.

Please note that unless you are a digital artist, you have to make very simple pencil lines until the final stages of instruction. (Draw a Rose)

Step 1 – Make a Flower Design Architecture

If you look at the shape of a flower that does not fully open, it often resembles a glass of wine. You will want to make a clear line drawing of this shape, but draw a pair of guidelines before you do that. First, make a straight line in the middle of your drawing area to help ensure that both halves of the “glass” are evenly spaced. Next, draw a horizontal line to help you place the oval on top.

Make a “glass” shape with a narrow bottom at the top and bend outward from the centerline. Next, add an oval shape that will be a glass opening.

Usually, the “height” of this egg will be determined by the “eye-level.” If, for example, you wanted to draw a rose directly at the level of the spectators, it would be a straight line, and if you looked at the rose from the top to the top, the oval would be closer to the circle in shape.

In this case, we will be painting a rose slightly below that level.

Step 2 – Draw Stem and Leaves

After making a flower design drawing add stem and leaves. Since these are simple situations, you can draw their outline as they will appear in the final drawing.

Usually, the stems of roses bend to the parts where the leaves come from. There is only one cluster of leaves, in this case, so there is only one bend. The stem will also appear very thick near the flower, and this part is called the receptacle. Be sure also to add that to your drawing.

After finishing the stem add the leaves to the third group (how the rose leaves usually grow). You can draw each leaf with just two curved lines.

Also, please note that if you want to paint only a section of rose flowers, you can leave most of the stems and leaves.

Step 3 – Add Front Petals and Sepals

The example shows the black lines of the leaves so that it is easy for you to distinguish them from the building lines. It would help if you continued to make simple lines using pencil and paper.

Start drawing the rose petals by adding their “front sides” (look towards the viewer). Draw these from the large leaves at the bottom to the smaller ones at the top.

It may also be helpful to remember that the leaves are compacted inside each other and often interchangeable as braid.

Leave out any bends and small curves that rose flowers usually have at this stage. These will be added to the latest steps.

You can see a great example of the front leaves drawing above.

Draw a “front” set of sepals (small leaves at the base of the flower) with straight edges that bend slightly downward. You can draw two of them facing the other side pointing sharply at the viewer.

Step 4 – Draw Back Petals & Sepals

Now add the next set of leaves. Draw these first with small leaves in the middle and work outside. Try and draw the perfect shape of the leaves to plan to wrap the shape of a “wine glass.” Use an oval to help you.

You can see a great example of a drawing with all the leaves above.

Draw two more sepals behind each between the front and side sepals.

Step 5 – Draw Outline Leaves

Put another pair of leaves on the sides of the rose. This will help make the rose look natural instead of sticking to the building lines. Draw this kind of trace of the outside of the “wine glass” but lean away from it as it turns upside down.

Step 6 – Add “Frills”

The most striking feature of the rose petals is that they often have small “wave” curves at their edges. The same type of frills can be found on the edges of some old clothes.

Step 7 – Complete the Floral Line Drawing

To make the rose look natural add small curves and curves at the edges of the leaves.

If you want to draw only a flower, then at this point, you can override your drawing with black lines. When drawing on paper, you can use a black pen or marker but be careful not to make mistakes if you are worried; blackout the lines with a pencil.

If you want to draw the remaining rose and darken the frame after finishing the drawing.

Step 8 – Draw Leaf Details

Please note that if you color a rose, you will want to paint these quickly or make a very simple drawing that will not be visible when you color. You can see the colored leaves in the last step of the lesson.

Same as petioles, paint the veins instantly if you want to color the rose or make them very simple.

Step 9 – Complete the Full Drawing of the Rose Line

As mentioned, skip your drawing in black lines to complete the drawing line drawing lesson. Also, please note that if you are going to color the rose, do not make a dark outline of the inner details of the leaves.

Step 10 – Color

In this step, fill the rose flower with red and the stem green.

Make part of the petiole and veins inside the leaves as green as the stem—color all the leaves in dark green.

You can see the color scheme of the leaves above for reference.

Step 11 – Install Shading

If you want to search for a rose in anime style, you can use what is known as “Cel” shading. You may already know it if you have seen any of the lessons here on EasyAnimeDrawings.

To create a rose shade in such a way, use dark red in shady areas. Apply shading without gradients, just a solid line between light and dark areas.

Blurring History

Areas where shading is used will be based on the rose’s lighting. In this case, we will hide it as if the light came from the upper left corner of the painting.

This means that the shadows will usually be at the bottom and right sides of the flower and on the left side of the inner side of the leaves.

Decorating Sepals

Shrink the back sepal and one sepal to the right dark green applied to the leaves. Shade the middle / front part, and the shadow is cast on the leaves.

At the top of the stem, there will be a large shadow cast by the flower/sepals followed by the shadow on the right (as that faces away from the light).

Blurring Leaves

You can keep the leaves from the previous step as they claim to be light and should be dark green.

Conclusion

Roses can be a very difficult flower to draw, even with a simplified anime/manga style. Starting with a building drawing and building a rose around in a few steps can help bring order to what may seem like a confusing pile of leaves.