Drawing Mace Windu

Steps 1-4 are drawn lightly with pencil. No pen, no dark lines. Finished lines and details will come at the end.

Step One:
Lightly sketch (in pencil) Mace's skeleton in the pose that you want him to have. The line that goes down the middle of his chest represents "the line of action" (kind of like a spine), which is responsible for setting the tone and personality of the character that you are drawing. In this case, it's Mace Windu, so I drew the line of action to show off the Jedi Master's bold stance and leadership. For the lightsaber, draw a very light line to remind you where to put his infamous blade of purple energy.

Step Two:
Use your pencil to loosely fill in the areas to define the shape of Mace's figure.

Step Three:
In this step (still in pencil) sketch in all of the details in his face, clothing and lightsaber hilt.

Step Four:
Now on to inking. Before you start, use a pen that is both "archival" (meaning it doesn't fade over time) and "waterproof" (in case you want to use something like watercolors to color your masterpiece). For this particular drawing, I used a Faber-Castell Pitt pen with a brush tip which lets me draw both thick and thin lines with the same pen.
Use your pen to carefully go over your pencil drawing. Ink everything except the area where the lightsaber blade will be. This is very important for the last step. Take your time, and make sure it's as clean as you can possibly make it. Once you're happy with it, wait a few minutes or so for the ink to dry (usually 5 to 10 minutes). Once it is dry, take your eraser and carefully erase all of your leftover pencil markings except for the line for the lightsaber blade.

Step Five:
On to coloring. I color my drawing on my computer using Adobe Photoshop. However, you can pretty much use anything you want for this, like watercolors, markers, colored pencils, or crayons.
Remember that light pencil line that I told you to leave for the lightsaber? Color that last. Use the purple color to make a glowing outline of the blade, leaving white space in the middle -- simulating the awesome energy core of the lightsaber! Once you're finished with the blade, erase the pencil line. You're finished!