Drawing People: Learn How to Draw Realistic Figures, Expressive Poses, and Lifelike Portraits

GETTING STARTED

One of the first things children try to draw is often a person. So, why does it seem so difficult to do as an adult? What are your goals in drawing people?

When you first begin drawing, it’s easy to overlook details such as line thickness, volume, and flexibility. Depending on what you’re drawing, these things might not even matter. But if you’re drawing a human figure, without these elements, your sketch will turn out one-dimensional and stiff—resulting in a very unsatisfying drawing. Be careful not to get too caught up in all the small details, however, or you’ll forget to see the whole picture.

The body is made up of many eye-catching details. While some artists may tend toward a universal ideal, the only real rule for drawing a human figure is observation. Ask yourself a few questions before beginning: How big is the head in relation to the width of the shoulders? What about the length of the arms in relation to the rest of the body? During each step of your drawing, observe, question yourself, and compare one part of the body to another. Just because your characters might not have standard proportions, it doesn’t mean they’re not beautiful, lively, and expressive!

As complicated as the human body seems, it is actually made up of the same basic shapes that are all around us: circles, ovals, straight lines, and angles. The only variables are the number of shapes you need to assemble your character and the correct ratio between them. So before getting started, make sure to carefully observe the models. Try to envision all the different proportions coming together in order to avoid drawing, for example, legs that look like sticks. Likewise, starting your drawing with just a simple outline would risk losing the important details along the way.

Perhaps the most difficult part of drawing a human figure is perspective. Simply put, you create perspective by making all horizontal lines run toward