do you need help with proportion?

[nish]

A common problem with most designers or artist is that learning the proportion of human figure.

There are a few ways to learn how to do proportion properly ie tutorial books or life drawing.

Personally i say if your a keen artist then i recommend life drawing as it is by far the best and most effecient way of learning proportion.

Although i doubt every ones up for drawing naked people for ages so i thought id give a few tips on how to develop your proportion.


When i draw i start with lines to determine the the pose i want them in.
Now when drawing, i found drawing poses with out refrences is hard, very hard so i found this site which i use now to help with poses.

http://posemaniacs.com/ <highly recommended >

Now i dont really have to think bout proportion to much because it comes more naturally to me now as i spent ages doing life drawing etc, but when thinking of proportion the first rule i follow is that <for a standing pose>

1.The body is about 7 anf a half heads long

2.The body is 3 heads wide

3.Total arm length is the torso + 1 head <thats with hands relaxed >

4.Torso is about 3 and a half heads long

5.Legs are equal to the length of the head + torso

6.Hands are 1 head long

7.Pecks / breast goes down the cheast by 1 head length

8.Feet can be deciving i usally stick to 3/4 of a head length for that.

Once you have plotted that all out you can start doing more details such as muscle lines or curves or as others may say fleshing it out.

When doing this it is okay to use more jagged straight lines for males but for females use flowing curves, to get a more realistic female body that is proportionate its better if you use circular lines.

For this tutorial / tips thread i am only covering overall proportion of the human body but if you would like any advice on how to do any other parts of the body i will be happy to help.


hope this helps
nish
x

[Sunsa]

I usually just go by feel.

When sketching (as that's all I can do atm without a GFX Tablet) I have an image in my head of how the pose should go and what type of mood s/he is in. I then shape the body around that. :3

[nish]

drawing takes time u wount get amazing over night unless ya epic or somthing but have a crack at it will help it helped me quite a bit

// yep i do too now when you learn them to be your second nature it just comes nturally and for soem reason i get better proportion if i dont think about it and let it flow lol

although i do drawings in more traditional methods i prefer the lines i can get when i want to express a certain emotion straight away.

i have a gfx tablet my self and it is amazing but still prefer paper and pencil by a mile hehe.

[Sunsa]

I've only been drawing for like, 6 months hehehe, ever scince I started this I.C.T course and had access to an image editing software.

Suppose I could be called a noob

I've only ever done something like 6 pencil drawings in my life, like, seriously sat down and drew something, not just doodling in class or doing something for a class. Only two of these being free-hand.

I'm really inexperienced.

[xLeD]

this is a pretty good tutorial!
hmm another thing that I used to do when I wasn't sure how it should have looked was, put up the camera annd set a timer on like 3 sec and then go infront of it and just take a picture of me doing the pose etc that I wanted to draw, then I just drew the sketch-skeleton based on the picture on my computer

but your way works aswell! I've never done life drawing to be honest xD I usualy just focus on how I want the outlines to look and then I can see the character on the screen or paper and I just draw around it's shapes, sometimes with better and sometimes with worse results
~Tim

[Yagyu]

it is a good tutorial, but I think anyone who really wants to draw should go to a few life drawing classes. It's easier to get an eye for the proportions when you have drawn real people and it makes it easier to do made up figures.

[nish]

Originally Posted by Yagyu

it is a good tutorial, but I think anyone who really wants to draw should go to a few life drawing classes. It's easier to get an eye for the proportions when you have drawn real people and it makes it easier to do made up figures.

very well said and i completely agree i go usually every wednsesday at uni