Tips on drawing people?

[cathedralcolors]

Does anyone have tips on drawing people? I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm more of an animal drawer, but I would like to get better at drawing figures. Please let me know your tips and trips.

[Katt]

@cathedralcolors There is a fantastic YT channel called Love Life Drawing. So helpful, and generally fun to watch.

[StudioHannah]

@cathedralcolors SVS has some great classes on that if you have the money for a subscription. If not, the channel Katt recommended is good, and there are other YouTubers you can search for who will teach this subject.

If you want to know "what you're doing wrong" then showing us some examples of how you draw humans would be useful for us to see. Could you share a few? I'm happy to give some specific-to-you tips based on drawings you've made.

What I'll say here is that human bodies are just different animals. We have the same basic joints and limbs as other land-based mammals, just with somewhat different proportions. Use references. Find photos of people and draw them. All drawing is just learning what lines make what forms, so if you can draw animals, you can learn to draw humans. Good luck on your drawing journey!

[ArtistErin]

Hello!! This is my jam so I will weigh in! People are my favorite subject. I have found the easiest thing when drawing anything really, including animals, is to break things down in basic shapes- circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. Then from there, establish how they are in 3D: ball, cube, long box, and cone. fitting these shapes on an s curve or a "flour sack" within a perspective grid makes drawing any character, super fun. And to add to this, taking the time to practice drawing simple shapes seems ridiculous, but I'm telling you it's worth it, because the muscle memory trains your brain connected to your hand, and it does translate. I used to be a "draw what you think you see" artist, and I have learned since that the brain will trick you. Funny what the brain does!

I learned the basics here through SVS Learn, Proko (on YouTube) and other various excellent instructors. I love watching pros like Aaron Blaise or Marco Bucci explain anatomy for animals, and it's true, the skeletal structures are similar, so when thinking about bones and then form over the bones, you see how all of this helps inform your shape language.

Also sketching constantly, to find how shapes sit on a frame, from life or reference can be so informative. And from this point you can pretty much draw anything, from imagination.

[jvartandillustration]

Doing lots of studies can be helpful. I would usually start with individual body parts, then moving on to other things like facial expressions and whole body studies.

Proportions are often the most challenging, but I will typically use lassoing (if you’re drawing digitally), and play around with it until the proportions are correct.

[cathedralcolors]

@StudioHannah Here is what my drawings of people usually turn out as. Its not terrible but it doesn't feel right.

[cathedralcolors]

@ArtistErin I should be drawing more people for practice, but I keep shying away from it because it disappoints me when it doesn't turn out. I even avoid working on the SVS figure drawing class sometimes. Do you have any easy exercises that I could try starting with?

[ArtistErin]

@cathedralcolors First thing I go back to to help myself is remembering everyone begins somewhere. Usually our disappointment and thoughts that we don't like something is the very thing that stops our growth and prevents the evolution... try to push through that feeling, and know there is so much goodness on the other side. Self criticism and negativity is common and easy to do, however self kindness and patience are harder, until it is practiced. So giving yourself permission to be where you are, and don't compare your journey with others, will be soooooo rewarding. I have been a much happier person just by knowing learning takes time and we all start somewhere, and we're always somewhere, so why not just have fun along the way? That one has been a biggie!

Next, I literally envision shapes within a perspective grid. If you note in the SVS classes, the fundamentals address the cube and ball in space, drawing those will allow you to create the form in which the cube inhabits within the composition.

I invite studying reference all the time. The mistakes I see often times is using reference too much and it ends up looking weird and out of place, which I have done. So now I am trying the practice of only using reference to verify correct details, then I apply it to the composition in my style. In this case, I needed to make sure the accordion was accurate, the piano matched my vision, and the velour chair fit. Then, the people in the scene in the space inhabit the chair, etc.

However, learning how to draw anything from imagination begins with knowing perspective, shapes within the perspective (observe how the nose and eyes "sit" on the skull, or how the trunk of a body is generally a polygon bending on a wireframe) and then noting how objects from reference and life inform those sorts of spaces. It dawned on me after seeing Will Terry do a draw-over of an old lady in a rocking chair who has mice friends. He demonstrated this method and it finally connected for me. I am super hungry to create these perspective grids which I still find challenging. Yet, I had to put the judge and jury on the back shelf, give myself room to learn, and now I feel much more confident in where I stand. I also love this forum, there are some pretty awesome folks here that are more than willing to help you along.

One thing I am going to try for my next book is to make a maquette of the characters. This way, I can see from the top down view, bending the arm and looking at it from a worm's eye view. This I haven't yet done however, I have heard exceptional artists (Jim Madsen for example) do this. This will greatly help in understanding how looking at a body from lots of different angles. In my previous two books it would have saved me alot of time had I done that. Anyway, always excited to try new things. I learned this from Cuddlefish Academy, run by a group of working illustrators here in Colorado. Love them!!

So I did a render of your sketch, and to show you how I see shapes. Basically, breaking up the sphere, cylinders, cubes, and cones, and connecting them like hinges. The legs are cylinders, the backpack, boxes, etc. From there it's just finding the more refined face, hair laying over the top of the crown. Putting a hat on is the half- sphere sitting on the top. I love watching Proko on YouTube demonstrate figures. And Jake's class on the figures helps a ton, finding the bean or potato sack.
Essentially the spine is the S or C curve. What's really interesting is thinking about the skeleton, its placement and directions of the bones and you have great understandings of those shapes to form the general animal. I love Aaron Blaise, also on YouTube, for this, he's so good at explaining (more animals than humans) but they are pretty much the same.

So I hope this helps! I loved doing this for you, I am still learning and yet I'm having alot more fun, because I needed to relax and trust the process.

[StudioHannah]

@ArtistErin This was a WONDERFUL breakdown and I'm just seconding everything you suggested lol

[cathedralcolors]

@ArtistErin This was soooo helpful! Thank you so much for making this for me! I did a rough redo of the character and it's not perfect and needs some work but it is a lot better than before.