Building up a male figure REALLY FAST!
Darth Mongoose at 12:04PM, Sept. 2, 2007
Construct a figure in a matter of seconds
Okay, as a disclaimer, you may notice none of the art in this tutorial is up to my usual standard. That's because the focus here is on SPEED. This is a tutorial to help you build up a fairly anatomically sound figure with as little time and fuss as possible.Why do you want to learn to draw really fast? Well, first off it can save time, but the real reason is that once you can draw a really basic figure quickly, you can go from there to draw really good figures without it taking forever, plus you'll start to place the proportions in the right places instinctively with this easy method! (I hope).
Okay, so to start off, you need a skeleton!
Here's our basic skeleton. He has a head, spine, collar bones, arms, hips, legs and a ribcage.
If you have a good skeleton, practically the whole of the figure falls into place on top! the big sphere for the shoulder joint serves as a good guide for the position of the shoulder muscle, the bottom of the ribcage is where the waist needs to go. Imagine the neck as a three-dimensional tube coming out from between the collar bones you drew.
Just to show you how you can use this in practice… Let's draw a fight scene. Just a simple one. None of my beloved cute boyish girls kicking monsters in the face or anything, but here's a nice punch!
See how the ribcage and the rest of the skeletal figure can be rotated around?
Now we build the muscles and skin over the top, quickly as before, and we can edit any little mistakes out, like the really long arm! See how the buttocks form across the back of the hips here when we rotate the body. Drawing in a line for the eye level is generally a good idea for knowing where to put the eye, ear, nose and hairline. It can also be drawn in a curve like on the punched figure to show which way to draw the face pointing.
Refine down the lines a bit, and take note of where stuff like the solar plexus (the triangle in the front of your ribcage) the pectoral muscles fall, and put in basic facial detail and it starts to look pretty nice!
…but they're still in need of clothes and hair. That's why at this stage, it's a good idea to note the direction of movement!
Hair and clothes are soft and light…well, generally anyway. Clothing will twist around the body and crease when twisted, it will also billow out when pushed, like the sleeve of the punching guy. Hair behaves in a very similar way. It can be pushed by a breeze or force, or will flow behind due to movement.
….And there you have it. See how quickly you can draw a guy! I guess next time I'll do one on girls? Good luck, and have fun!
Julien Brightside at 3:51AM, Jan. 25, 2012
This one is pretty useful.