Drawing Tips For Beginners: Human Figures

Below are the 3 steps to get you all prepared for drawing human figures.

1. Pencil Pressure: Foundational Step For Allowing Corrections

Pencil is the foundation of drawing and deserves more time and practice than any other art medium. The first mistake when starting out with graphite drawing is pressing the pencil too hard against the paper, it leaves an impression on the paper and these lines will be extremely hard to blend in when you begin shading.

ALWAYS draw lighter to start with. Once you're used to controlling pencil pressure, it'll become much easier to draw a basic stucture to work on further. The next tip is for drawing figures from imagination or from a photo reference.

2. Gesture Lines and Armatures

Gesture lines as the name suggests are the lines that show movement in human figures. These lines are drawn as simple as possible to convey the posture of the subject. There are 3 ways gestures can be drawn - S-Curves, C-Curves, and Straight Lines. These lines illustrate gestures really well. See some examples of S curve, and C curve below. 

After learning application of gesture lines, you can use armature drawings to build understanding of anatomy. Below are examples of gesture lines (left of the image) and on the right is an example of a simplified armature drawing. Armature drawings can be practiced from artist mannequins (easily available at art stores). 

When drawing objects, these are referred to as lines of symmetry. Let’s move onto the next step.

2. Using relative proportions for Accuracy

Relative proportions? Sounds strange…..most artists are familiar with this concept and use it very effectively. Relative proportions help artists draw an armature (a basic skeleton) of the subject more accurately and even better when you have a reference image.

Let’s take an example of this girl (see image below). Draw gesture lines (as few as possible) to explain the main movement. You can download the full size image from here.

Armature is drawn as the next layer on top of the gesture lines. To draw with accuracy, you'll need some cross references. Begin by just placing a generic sphere shape for showing the subject's full head or you can use an oval/elliptical shape as well. Next thing you want to do is approximately measure the distance (you do not need a ruler, just use your pencil for measuring) and determine an approximate angle from her head to her left arm’s elbow or her hand.

Draw two cylindrical shapes to show placement of her right arm; you can also show her hand using an oval shape.

Here’s a visual example:

Using the same technique and the armature reference, draw the rest of the armature. This step requires patience so don’t give up! This is called “Mannequinization”, its a process of drawing a mannequin of your subject like this image. You dont need to draw all the joints in detail but just to help you simplify movement and posture in the subject you are trying to draw.

Simplification:

Similar to Mannequinization, the simplification technique makes it easier to draw the contours of an object. This process essentially breaks down the object into 2d shapes first and then adding dimension using 3d shapes: cone, cube/cuboid and cylinder. This is relevant when you are drawing human figures and complementing the composition with an object. 

Drawing something like a glass will be as simple as just one cylinder. In a more complex object drawing, simplifying would make the drawing process less intimidating. See illustration below. This isn't a pretty looking car but once you have this type of drawing ready, adding details to make it pretty and realistic is much easier and faster. Back to human figure drawings.

3. Adding volume, depth, and details:

At this point, you should have a good layout of the posture of the subject. Now, you can add muscle/volume and more details with contour lines and start drawing the form. Remember to draw lighter and then darken strokes where necessary. Draw confident lines that follow the muscle form nicely. You can also use strokes that vary in thickness to exaggerate the muscle curves. Once you are all done, you can proceed to adding your highlights, midtones, and shadows.

Bonus Tip: Try to imagine everything you want to draw in 3dimensions. Even something as thin as paper has thickness, even if it is a very small unit.