How to draw a Traditional Chinese Clothing

In East Asia, there are a lot of traditional clothing that each nation has. Such as Japan, India or even China. One of the most well-known traditional clothing in China for male are “Changshan”. It’s a traditional Chinese dress (or robe, long jacket or tunic) worn by men. As for the function, it is equivalent of the women’s cheongsam. It is worn for formal pictures, wedding, and other formal Chinese events. Therefore, if you want to portray a traditional Chinese Clothing, you can follow my instructions. Prepare a paper, a pencil, and an eraser. Now we’re ready to draw!

Steps:

Step 1: First of all, we’ll start by drawing the guidelines. The purpose of guidelines is to help you estimate the size of the bag and to guide you in drawing the rest. Therefore, we’re going to draw from top to bottom. Therefore, we need to start drawing a circle at first with two straight lines that crossed each other inside the circle. This will be the head guideline. Don’t forget to leave a space below it for the rest of the body.

Step 2: Moving on to the next step. To make the cheeks and the chin, you can start from the right-hand side of the head guideline to create a curved line and end it with another smaller curve line to create an ear (See picture to better understand). Then add two short straight lines (See picture) to give a depth inside the ear.

Step 3: After the previous step, we’ll continue drawing the detail of the face. Now create its eyes by adding two arches above the horizontal line of the guideline. Lastly, add two ovals below the arches for the cornea. Add a curved line below the center of the eyes for its nose. Don’t forget to add his grin face by creating an uneven rectangle-like with two short straight lines inside. Lastly, add two curvy triangles above the eyes to make its eyebrows for the final touch of making the boy’s face (see picture to better understand).

Step 4: Therefore, we’ll continue to draw the guideline of the fringe by adding several curve lines that resemble spikes and add several short straight lines (see picture).

Step 5: Then, finish the hair by creating a big curve with short spikes below it (see pictures to better understand). Then we start to draw the clothing by creating several straight lines for the collar (see picture).

Step 6: Moving on for the sleeves, add several curve lines until the wrists (see picture to better understand).

Step 7: Since the previous one ends on the wrist, continue the arms by creating the hands that consist of curve lines. After that, add a straight line below the collar (see picture) and add two small ovals in the middle of the line (see picture to better understand). Then, continue the dress by creating a long rectangle below the arm without the top.

Step 8: Next, we can move on to continue adding detail to the dress. Draw several long straight lines to create the back part of the dress and for the pants that is seen.

Step 9: Then, we can finish the clothing by adding the shoes. Therefore, you can draw two parallelograms below the previous step (see picture).

Step 10: Now we can finish it by erasing the guidelines and Voila! The Traditional Japanese Clothing is done!

When drawing a traditional Chinese clothing or Changshan, the most important part is to look at the reference. How’s the actual shape of the Changshan, the detail, each part, etc. This is important because most of the form won’t be smooth or symmetrical. Even if it’s symmetrical, the form will still be uneven. Therefore, it’s important especially drawing the guideline. You’ll need keen eyes and a lot of practice so you can make your drawing perfect. Good luck!