How to Draw the Snake From Metal Gear Solid

The Metal Gear video game series has provided gamers with compelling characters for many years. But there is one character that has remained the most mysterious and dangerous: Snake. This elite covert operative specializes in stealth and has an uncanny ability to survive almost any situation. Drawing Snake is a great way to honor such a classic character.

Things You'll Need

• Paper Pencil Black ink pen Kneaded eraser

Instructions

1. 

   Draw the head for Snake with a large oval near the center of your page. Make the bottom of the oval slightly flat to give the character a strong and tough chin shape later. Draw the neck guidelines with two diagonal lines that come off the side of the chin. Draw a cross shape in the center of the face. Add a small dash for the nose guideline. Place this on the vertical section of the cross. Below this add a slightly larger line for the mouth guideline.

2. 

   Draw Snake's headband with a wide band across the forehead that reaches to just above the horizontal line of the cross guideline. Add Snake's eyes underneath the headband with two small, thin, upside-down triangle shapes. Add two diagonal lines coming up off of the ends of the nose line to create the sides of Snake's nose. Add a bottom lip with a small curved line under the mouth.

3. Create the ears with two small curved lines attached to the side of Snakes face. Place these just below the headband. Add the hair with jagged triangle shapes that come off the top and sides of the head. Create Snake's characteristic mullet with a cluster of hair to the left and right of Snake's upper neck. Do this by drawing a group of several curved triangular shapes to create the appearance of unkempt hair. Draw a curved line across the neck to show his collar.

4. 

   Add two curved rectangles to the base of his neck to create shoulder straps. Add the chest armor with a curved line just below the shoulder straps. Add the leftover fabric from the headband coming off the back of his head with two upside down L-shaped bands on the left side of Snake's face. Add Snake's goatee with two diagonal bands that extend under the nose and across the face to the bottom left and right corners of the face. Add a curved "w" shape under the bottom lip to create the place where the goatee stops at the lips.

5. 

   Ink all of the lines you wish to keep. Let the ink dry and erase the pencil lines. Add extra strokes of ink under the headband, to the bottom of the eyes and under the chin. This will add shadows.

Tips & Warnings

• Once you have mastered this drawing, try placing Snake in different stealth poses.

• Be sure to let the ink dry completely before you erase the pencil.

References

• K1Bond007.com
• How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, Stan Lee, John Buscema, 1984

Resources

• Check out the character database at the Metal Gear Wikia page.