drawing the human body

Drawing the Human BodyBrian Elliott

One of the most difficult and intricate pieces of art for new artist’s to accurately convey is the human body. Professional artists seem to be able to replicate each feature from muscle memory in their portraits as they have many times before.

Despite being one the most common recurring visual images in our lives, the hand is still incredibly difficult to accurately capture on paper. Artists typically focus on getting that squishy, flesh-like feel to the hands and overcompensate for the softness of the hand with their shading, making it look too cartoonish with overly rounded features.

For a good base on a flat-facing hand, you want to draw somewhat of a semi-oval with the flat end of the oval facing upwards. This creates the base of the artist’s skeletal structure for the hand. Then, for each finger, use rectangular boxes to approximate each bone and muscular structure in the individual fingers.

As the example shows, you create a cylinder that almost resembles a slab of steak to become the base of your hand along with three adjacent cylinders for the individual moving parts in each finger, and two adjacent cylinders for the moving parts in your thumb.

When you start drawing your body, begin with a detailed stick figure that has different segments for each bending appendage on the body or up to your discretion based on the pose that your character is placed in.

Also, you must be aware of your character’s center of gravity that is based at the human waste line right just above the crotch. There two points of balance that the center of gravity lies between for a stable human being, and whenever the center of gravity is placed outside these two points of balance, then your character is falling or the graphical weight must be shifted to one side or the other.