Drawing the Body Lesson

[Sayara]

Ever have trouble drawing figures, your PSU characters because you cannot understand how to draw bodies? Or just feel stumped about it?

Well, just remember that everything you see is developed by SHAPES on a PLANE.
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad298/Nokoopa/Traditional%20Works/gles.jpg

This idea is a method taught to anyone trying to grasp the ideas of realism drawing but the concepts surely work for anyone who wishes to just draw for comics, animes, or whatever your case may be. Everything around you is developed by shapes.

In this very basic example, an apple. I can visually (or in this case use photoshop) to paint lines to see what shapes i see...
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad298/Nokoopa/apples.jpg
img: cs.iusb.edu
The mainframe of the apple i can see it as rectangluar boxlike form with the edges being eggshape circles. Now keep in mind, these are crude, quick understanding sketches.
The main advantage to seeing things as shapes isntead of objects, you DO NOT draw what you THINK you see. Instead you draw what you see in front of you. No 2 apples look the same so they shouldn't be drawn that way.

The human figure is just the same concept as the apple... but more complex. Remember, shapes.
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad298/Nokoopa/Traditional%20Works/nolinegirl.jpg
model: Aerie.com Snowflake Boybrief Girl unknown

This girl, i can see quite a few quick shapes coming to mind.
1. The girls body type is rectangular. It has 3 dimensions slightly since her breasts do not point directly at us.

2. Her arms and legs can be seen as cyllanders, they have the same ideal shape as that. That helps with forshadowing and anatomy studies in that regard however for the sake of simplicity i will exclude that.

3 Her chin to neck is a triangle. There COULD be a triangle shape in her crotch area too. Pelvis to the crotch.

http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad298/Nokoopa/Traditional%20Works/linegirl.jpg



This works for hands too.
http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad298/Nokoopa/hands.jpg
hand image; predictfuture.in


Shapes should be the basis of getting the figure together, usually it isn't the conclusion. Use them to GET to your final figure drawing design.
Most importantly, just keep going and try try try!

[BIG OLAF]

I'm having a very hard time drawing head shapes, and an equally frustrating time drawing hair, as well. I have trouble "drawing what's in front of me". I'm not too sure how to just let my mind go and stop trying to over-visualize everything.

NOTE: I just started to attempt to seriously draw for the first time in my life about 30 minutes ago, so I'm pretty much a scrub. So be gentle.

[Sayara]

Its something you need to acquire. It took me 10 years to get to what i can do now. Its all about practice and whatnot.

[BIG OLAF]

Its something you need to acquire. It took me 10 years to get to what i can do now. Its all about practice and whatnot.

Oh boy. That's discouraging, as I'm not a patient person, and tend to give up if I can't do something right the first few tries. Ugh.

[Sayara]

I did come from anime style-> this so thats what took me.

I mean, if you just keep going you can get to a position YOU like and appreciate yourself.

[BIG OLAF]

Hopefully, but I just don't want it to look like complete crap. It's just that drawing (and art in general) take a few metric shit-tons of know-how and technique, and I can't even begin to understand any of it at this point.

I know I just started, but it's all a little overwhelming to me right now.

[Sayara]

Well, if you can write, you can draw. So its not a matter of you CANT draw...
you just don't like what you can do. That can be tweaked away with progressive practice

[qoxolg]

Great tutorial.

I've been working like that for almost a year now, and like that i've been able to draw anything without using reference. When I draw my comic, the first thing I do is drawing sloppy panels and blocks for every object/character.

It works because it's quit easy to draw perspective of simple shapes. It also makes it easier to balance the proportions. I encourage anyone to follow this tutorial :-)

[Mimo]

Nice tutorial, never seen so many little details within the frame. I always draw free hand, I only use those wires if I'm being extremely lazy in designing a pose. n.n; This gives me a new perception on the hands. Thanks!

[Sayara]

Well, i guess doing it enough you can pullback from the obvious blockdrawing but its still a good idea to keep a hold of.

[Roger Triton]

Of all the skills a man or woman could learn in their lifetime, there is no greater good than from being an artist, musician, or poet/writer. I would rather someone try, and fail, to be an artist rather than not try at all. Personally, I have zero skills in art but I pack a mean punch with Photoshop. So that doesn't make me any better than the clowns you make up penis art on E.D., so mehhhh.

Excellent tutorial. Any good library should have atleast a few books on manga drawing.

[Sayara]

personally i have a small vendetta from How to Manga books. Since usually they do not teach how to DO techniques rather they just do a step by step guide on what to do. There are however other books that teach anatomy and other things much better than how to manga books.

[qoxolg]

by the way: Even some of the best artists use this method to draw poses.

For me it simply eases my mind, cause when I do the detailed sketch, I can focus on drawing what I want, without having to worry about proportions and perspective.

I agree about the "How to draw manga" books. They seem more some kind of poison for starting artists. One of the most important thing about drawing is actually understanding what you are doing and why you draw things in a certain way. By drawing 'Manga' you only learn how to copy someone else's perception of reality (their art style).

[Broken_L_button]

I agree about the "How to draw manga" books. They seem more some kind of poison for starting artists. One of the most important thing about drawing is actually understanding what you are doing and why you draw things in a certain way. By drawing 'Manga' you only learn how to copy someone else's perception of reality (their art style).

Aye. That makes three of us. Imposing a style on someone = big no-no.

Been a while since I used shapes to fraw my stuff; tried it out again today while I was bored in epidemiology class. It made for quite a refreshing change of pace while drawing ^^. That method of drawing is such a huge help when you're not used to anatomy and such when drawing humanoids for the first few times.