The foundation to drawing people is discussed here. You will find why these core principles are important to master to be able to effectively draw people.

Learn to Draw the Human Figure

Human figures are a fascinating thing to draw. Either it is a figure of an average person or an action hero you will always find it entertaining to draw a human figure. For those of you who want to learn drawing the human figures this is an excellent educational opportunity.

If you want to master the art of drawing human figures, then you should have a proper understanding about proportions. In case you want your drawing to be really impressive then you must include these proportions:

An average person is normally 7-and-a-half heads tall, including the head.

An ideal figure portraying a personification of greatness and nobility is 8 heads tall.

The heroic figure that depicts an action hero, god or goddesses is eight and a half heads tall.

If your model is sitting, leaning or standing in a certain unique pose then you should try to measure him up for making his or her figure drawing. However in all the other cases the proportions mentioned above are very helpful in making figure drawings that are pleasing to human eye. Generally these proportions are recommended to be used for standing figures.

I case if the standard measurements do not apply to your model then you should to measure him yourself. For doing that, you should be holding your pencil with your thumb aligned vertically with the pencil and fist closed. The top of the model's head should be aligned with the top of your pencil, slide your thumb until it reaches the model's chin. Now you have made one measurement. To make another measurement, bend a little bit and align the top of the pencil with the chin of the model and slide your thumb again up till the middle of the chest. Now you have made a measurement of two heads.

You will draw a better figure if you study the body closely and examine the axis. Try thinking up of an imaginary line passing from the knees and feet to give you a better sense of alignment. Another thing that you can do is that you should divide the human body into various sections like the head, the upper torso and the lower torso. You can work on each part at a time that can make drawing easier. On the other hand you can picture the body as a whole and try working on it in that sense. These practices will further improve your drawing skills.

Learn to draw people

Being able to draw people is an outstanding achievement. It requires mastery over drawing the complete body. You should be able to draw all the features of the body very well before you try to draw people. It is recommended that you read all the tutorials before you attempt drawing people.

The first step would be to draw a circle as perfect as possible. This circle represents the head of the body. It will also help you in placement of the head on the paper. Now you should aim at slicing a circle with a curved horizontal line. This line represents the eye line that will guide you in placing the person's eyes. The eye line can be placed according to the appearance of your subject. You can place it approximately three quarters down the circle. As a rule, a lower eye line is for younger people.

Now you should draw a vertical center-line dividing the face into two symmetrical areas. This is important if you want to keep the features perfectly aligned. The ears and the nose can be drawn next. The eyes and the mouth can be drawn after that. Draw the hair, keeping in mind the regions that have lighter and heavier volume. Try drawing with random strokes so that the hairs look natural and neat.

When joining the head with the body you should be careful about the proportions. The width of the neck is equal to the head. You should visualize the neck as a cylinder with wider base that merges into the shoulders. Draw diagonal lines to show the muscles that connects the inside of the collarbone to the behind of the ear. Usually they are not shown in the drawings but its up to you to show them. Now you should draw the shoulders to connect the neck with the torso. If you character is slim and not wearing a shirt you can include his rib cage in the drawing. It may be bit difficult to draw hands at first but if you imagine the fingers to be like rectangles and the palm like a square drawing hands will become easier for you. You should understand how the spine is placed inside our body to make the torso more attractive. While drawing the torso you must differentiate between the men and women. Men have wider shoulders and narrower hips while the women have sloping narrower shoulders and wider hips.

While making the lower torso you should keep in mind that the upper leg is longer then the lower portion and is more massive. The muscles of the calf should be drawn lower from the inside when compared with the outside. One effective way of understanding the linking of lower torso with the upper is by visualizing a person naked. Finally, you can draw feet of the person to complete the picture.

See, drawing people can be both easy and fun. Especially if you can simplify them into basic shapes, such as squares, circles and ovals. It requires a lot of practice and patience to make a perfect figure as you have to get all the proportions right but with these guidelines you will have no problems.