Hirohiko Araki is a madman. I mean that in the best way possible. If you look at a volume of Phantom Blood from 1987 and place it next to a chapter of The JOJOLands from 2024, you aren't just looking at a technical upgrade. You're looking at a complete DNA transplant. Most manga artists find a "style" and cling to it like a life raft for thirty years. Araki? He treats Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing like a living, breathing organism that needs to shed its skin every few years to survive.
It’s jarring. It’s weird. It’s arguably the most influential evolution in the history of Shonen Jump.
If you're trying to figure out how to draw like Araki, you first have to realize that there is no single "Jojo style." There are about eight of them. Maybe nine, depending on how you feel about the transition period in Stone Ocean. You've got the fist-fighting giants of the 80s, the fashion-model lean of the 2000s, and the eerie, statuesque realism of the modern Seinen era.
The Muscle Bound Roots of the 80s
When Araki started, he was heavily influenced by the "macho" aesthetic of the time. Think Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star). In those early days, a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing was all about deltoids the size of watermelons and necks thicker than the characters' heads. Jonathan Joestar is basically a tank made of meat.
The anatomy here isn't realistic. Not even close.
Araki was playing with hyper-masculinity, but even then, you could see the cracks of his future obsession with Western art. Look at the way Jonathan poses. It’s not just a fighting stance; it’s theatrical. He’s already pulling from the classical sculptures he saw in Italian art books. The hatching was heavy. Shadows were thick, almost oppressive. It felt like a horror manga masquerading as a battle shonen, which, honestly, is exactly what Part 1 was.
The Shift to "Fashion Illustration"
By the time we hit Diamond is Unbreakable, something shifted. The muscles started to deflate. Characters like Josuke Higashikata still had presence, but they weren't hulking monsters anymore. This is where the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing style really found its identity.
Araki started looking at Vogue. He started looking at Versace ads.
The "Jojo Pose" became a cultural phenomenon during this era. It’s all about the "S-curve." If you want to draw in this style, you have to understand contrapposto—a classical Italian term where the weight of the body is shifted onto one leg, causing the hips and shoulders to tilt in opposite directions. It creates tension. It makes a static drawing look like it’s vibrating with energy.
- Part 4 brought in more rounded features and expressive faces.
- Part 5 (Vento Aureo) pushed it further into androgyny and high-fashion aesthetics.
- The lines became thinner, more elegant.
I’ve spent hours looking at the original color spreads from Golden Wind. The way he uses color is purely emotional, not logical. If he feels like the sky should be yellow and the grass should be purple to convey dread, he just does it. There are no rules. This "color defiance" is a huge part of the Jojo draw.
Anatomy as a Suggestion, Not a Law
One thing people get wrong when trying to replicate a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing is trying to make the anatomy "correct." Araki doesn't care about your medical textbook. He cares about silhouettes.
In Stone Ocean and Steel Ball Run, the faces became much more realistic, particularly the noses and lips. He moved away from the "manga nose" (a simple dot or wedge) and started drawing full philtrums and detailed lip creases. But the bodies? They do things human spines shouldn't do. He uses "forced perspective" constantly. A fist in the foreground might be five times larger than the character's head to create a sense of three-dimensional impact.
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It’s "Bizarre" for a reason.
Why Steel Ball Run Changed Everything
Around 2004, the series moved from Weekly Shonen Jump to Ultra Jump. This was huge. He went from a weekly schedule to a monthly one.
Suddenly, Araki had time.
The detail in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing exploded during Steel Ball Run. Look at the horses. Look at the texture of the denim and the dirt on the characters' skin. This is where he fully embraced a Seinen (adult) art style. The characters became slimmer, more grounded in reality, but their faces took on a haunting, doll-like quality.
He started using "line weight" to tell the story. A thin, shaky line for a moment of vulnerability. A thick, bold stroke for a Stand attack. If you’re practicing this, stop using a uniform digital brush. You need something with "tooth"—something that mimics the feel of a G-pen on rough paper.
Mastering the "Araki Line"
If you want to produce a high-quality Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing, you have to master the hatching. Araki rarely uses gray screentones in the traditional sense. Instead, he uses thousands of tiny, directional lines to create depth.
- Use cross-hatching to define the hollows of the cheeks.
- Use vertical hatching on the lips to give them volume.
- Never leave a large area of skin completely "flat"—there's always a hint of muscle or bone beneath.
The eyes are the most important part. In the modern style, the eyes are often heavy-lidded. They look tired, or maybe just bored with existence. There’s a specific way he draws the lower eyelid with a slight thickness that makes the gaze feel piercing.
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Actionable Steps for Aspiring Jojo Artists
Don't just trace. Tracing teaches you nothing about the why behind the lines. If you're serious about capturing the essence of the series, you need a specific workflow.
First, go buy a book on Michelangelo or Bernini. Araki has stated in multiple interviews, including his book Manga in Theory and Practice, that the Renaissance is his primary blueprint. Study how those sculptors handled cloth and muscle tension.
Second, experiment with "unnatural" palettes. Take a character sketch and color it using only three colors that shouldn't work together—like neon pink, olive green, and navy blue. Force yourself to make it look good through shading and contrast. This is the "Jojo way."
Third, focus on the "Stand" design separately from the human. Stands are where Araki lets his surrealist side run wild. They often look like mechanical insects or geometric fever dreams. The contrast between a highly detailed, realistic human and a flat, robotic Stand is what creates that signature visual friction.
Finally, practice the "heavy" brow. Almost every Jojo character has a prominent brow bone that casts a shadow over the eyes. This is a carryover from his 80s roots that he never truly gave up. It gives the characters a permanent look of intense determination.
To truly get the hang of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure drawing, you have to be willing to look "ugly." Araki isn't afraid of drawing a character with a distorted face if they are screaming in pain or laughing maniacally. He prioritizes expression over "moe" or "kawaii" aesthetics every single time.
Stop trying to make your drawings "pretty." Make them striking. Make them weird. Make them bizarre. That is the only way to actually pay homage to the style. Start with the "S-curve" in your next character pose and see how much more life it has compared to a standard standing pose. Move your light source to a weird angle—like from directly below the chin—to create those dramatic, villainous shadows Araki loves. The more you break the traditional "rules" of manga, the closer you get to the heart of Jojo.