How to Draw Human Body Figures

Draw the homo body from sight

(Image credit: Phillip Tyler)

You'd think learning how to depict the human body from sight would exist simple – afterwards all, nosotros all take one, right? Only as we all call up nosotros know what the body looks like, when we bring in that prior noesis and end up cartoon that rather than the exactitude of the arm or leg that's in front of us.

This post will teach you how to get round that mental block, focusing on different techniques and approaches in a stride-past-step format. Desire to extend your drawing in other areas? Come across our roundup of how to draw tutorials. And remember to get yourself the all-time pencils to depict with, too.

Draw the human body from sight: how to arroyo it

At that place are a number different approaches to help you overcome focusing on your prior knowledge and to describe the human being trunk from sight. Most of them focus on the aforementioned idea: shape drawing rather than object cartoon. You lot demand to divorce yourself from the idea that yous are drawing a figure as much as possible, and instead actually concentrate on the shape information technology makes. Spend longer looking at your figure and much less time looking at your paper. Describe the effigy similar a jigsaw, working from the centre outward until y'all find its edges, and if you are going to focus on the outline, describe the space that the figure makes with is surrounding, rather than the figure. Small-scale shapes connected together will find the big shapes and will generally ameliorate your proportions.

By combining all of these techniques, you will feel confident enough to be able to tackle any effigy, regardless of age, build or gender. However, children are one of the most hard things that you tin can describe, largely considering of their subtlety, and information technology's often what you leave out rather than what you put into the drawing that makes information technology work.

Now, read on for the step-by-step approach to drawing the homo torso from sight.

Draw the human body from sight: Step 1 — (Paradigm credit: Phillip Tyler)

Imagine that you are an ant crawling across the figure and your heart is following its journey with your hand slowly tracing the path, travelling at the same speed. Describe across the creases and folds of underlying muscle, shadows and internal structures, then avoid your attention away from the object being fatigued.

02. Sneek a partial peek

Draw the human body from sight: Step 2 — (Image credit: Phillip Tyler)

Once you lot take mastered bullheaded drawing, you can await a little flake at the drawing you are making. To make sure you depict the human body from sight and not your mind's middle, you demand to slow down and take time to look much more advisedly, spending longer looking at the model. Call up about the nature of the form you're drawing – do you alter the pressure level of your hand when in that location is a hard structure in the body, where bone comes closest to the surface of the pare? Do you employ your line to draw the difference between a muscle under tension, or is there a more relaxed line for a soft course? If you lot wait at the drawings of Howard Tangye or Egon Schiele, you tin can see how lines are can be used to articulate these differences.

03. Grade the bones shape

Step a

Cut a square discontinuity cutting out of card. Marker the centre and the quarter points on the frame nearest the discontinuity. Hold this upwards to the model and try to get information technology to impact as many of the outer edges as you tin can. Where does the figure touch the sides?

Step b

Cutting a foursquare discontinuity cut out of card. Mark the middle and the quarter points on the frame nearest the aperture. Agree this up to the model and endeavor to become it to affect as many of the outer edges equally y'all can. Where does the effigy touch the sides?

Step c

In one case these lines are in position, y'all tin can start to find the smaller shapes that lie within the larger ones.

Footstep d

Focus on the negative space, gradually narrowing downwardly the refinement to find the edges and the interrelationship between the whole figure. Don't be scared to brand changes to your drawing as you become.

Pace e

One time you outset to map out the figure, see which parts correspond to a vertical running through it. Transfer this information to the drawing, and and so do the same with a horizontal. Charcoal is an splendid medium for this equally it is and so easy to build up a delicate series of reference lines. Your eye is much better at perceiving the difference between ii triangles, the height, bending, proportion and and then on, so by focusing wholly on the myriad shapes backside the figure you can draw the figure almost accidentally as a issue of not thinking about it at all.

Pace f

Euan Uglow would place his model next to a radiator and employ its vertical divisions to aid locate the figure. The more yous measure, the more you see a grid in front of you every bit you draw.

04. Take measurements

Draw the human body from sight: Step 4 — (Image credit: Phillip Tyler)

Make sure to position yourself and so that you tin can meet both your model and your cartoon without moving your caput. This will hateful that y'all tin can minimise the distance that your eye has to travel between the subject area and the paper. Y'all can have vertical heights direct across from the figure to the drawing. Agree the pencil to the angle you lot are measuring and move this across to your drawing. Whatever turning action of the arm can be felt in the forearm muscles, which volition tell you that the angle has changed. Start a measured drawing with the complicated parts of the figure, where there are lots of dissimilar things going on, rather than at the extremities.