Orphie's Art School! - Lesson 2: Bodies! (and bewbz)

[Orphie]

Welcome to Orphie's Art School!

Introduction:

Here you can find lessons taught and drawn by me. Caramel suggested that I make it, since I was giving some art advice in the Spam Can. And I agree with her. Where better to share what I know than in my own thread? Honestly, I don't know a thing about teaching, or a thing about art... Erm... well... maybe a little. This thread is for me to spread my knowledge with you guys, and to help all of you become better artists. We'll start with the basics, and get progressively more advanced. And the best part is... It's all free! Yay free things!

I'm can't stress this enough, this is just MY way of drawing. As we progress, you will eventually find your own way that works for you. I'm just giving you a starting point. I don't want you to follow my drawing techniques exactly if you find something different. In fact, most of the beginning techniques that I will show you I don't even use anymore. Eventually, you will probably be able to draw without doing any beginning sketching.

The style I will be using is my typical anime style. Later on, I'll show different types of styles within and slightly outside the anime genre. But right now, we'll start with only one style.

I am using Photoshop to make these tutorials, as I can make them cleaner and faster than drawing them by hand. For your own practice, please don't use computerized means. That would just be silly. I suggest drawing by hand first, using an old fashioned paper and pencil.

Also, I want you to post your progress, especially if you need help with something. These lessons are designed for beginners, and as a beginner, you shouldn't feel afraid to ask for help if you need it. I am self-taught in the anime style, but it is much easier to become better if you have a teacher of some sort. Especially if you don't have such a shitty art book like I did. (Seriously, I can't tell you how horrible the art book I learned from is. It looks awful, but it did the job.)

Without further ado, let us begin with our lesson!

 

[Orphie]

Lesson 1: Drawing Heads (3/4 view, front view, and side view)

The first rule. The only rule that I have. This rule you MUST follow or I will hit you. Hard.

DO. NOT. DRAW. SHORT. LINES.



See the lines on the left? That is the correct way to draw a line. The lines on the right, however, are wrong. Do NOT do that. Ever. You'll hinder your ability to grow as an artist. Believe me. Use long flowing lines. They don't have to be super long or anything, but don't use the tiny half-inch/centimeter lines. First and only rule (so far).

First, to draw a head, make a circle.



See? Simple. Make sure to sketch it light enough so you can erase it later, or you can cover it up with other pencil marks.

Next, draw slightly curved line from the top of the circle to where the chin will be. This is the middle of the face and the line that the nose rests on. You should also draw a line crossing your newest line, resting along the bottom of the first circle. This is the line that will help you align your eyes and ears.



Now you start shaping the face. Have the bottom of the cross that you just drew be the point of the chin and connect it to the circle on both sides.



Notice how the jaw doesn't form a nice curve. Jaws are at least slightly pointed.

The next step is to shape the face. This is similar to the last step, but to help you, you should make two lines slightly above and below the line in the middle of the face. (Because of my own personal drawing habit, I switched these two steps around while making the pictures.) The top line will be the top of the ear and eyes, and the bottom line will be the bottom of the nose and ear.




As you can see, the face indents slightly. The indent starts and stops approximately at the top line and the bottom line.

Now you can add facial features. The top of the eye should be aligned with the top of the ear. The tip of the nose should be aligned with the bottom of the ear. The top eyelid thing should land on the middle line we drew in the beginning. Take note of how the bridge of the nose arches up to the eyebrows.



The hairline was added just for a visual reference. You don't need to add that. Unless your character has a shaved head, it's unnecessary.

Now, erase all the lines we don't need.



The last step is to add hair and finishing touches. Please don't just copy that hair. Try your own hair.



I fixed some proportions with the face; you can do the same if something looks strange.

Below is a front view, which follows the same steps, just at a different angle.








And a side view, which actually turned out really bad but expresses what needs to be expressed.

 

[Orphie]

Lesson 2: Drawing Bodies

This lesson has more writing, as I will be talking more about the techniques with drawing bodies than the actual body drawing part. There are many different tutorials on how to draw anime bodies, and I know many of them will be much better than mine. I will just explain to you the basics and basic anatomy that you should remember. One you learn the rules, you can break them, but please wait until you learn the rules before trying to break them.

First, remember the 8 head rule. This basically means that humans are generally 8 heads tall, with a bit of leeway one way or another. The head is, obviously, one head in height. From the neck to the bust line is the second head, and from the bust line to the hips/crotch is another head length, for a total of three heads in the upper body. The hips to 1/3 of the way down the thigh is another head, then from that position to the knee is the fifth head. The knee to mid calf is the sixth head, mid calf to the ankle is the seventh head, and the foot is the eighth head. Manga style of drawing allows for a bit of leeway, as it is not an accurate portrayal of the human body. I use anywhere from 7 1/2 heads to 8 1/2 heads.

Proportions is all about knowing how big is compared to something else. For example, the base of the hand to the tip of the fingers is the same size as your face. Go ahead, try it out. Your foot is approximately the same length as from your elbow to your wrist, and your hands land approximately mid-thigh when your arms are down. On a normal human head, the width is five eyes wide. These are just some basic proportions. There are many of these, but these are the basic ones I can think of off of the top of my head, and the ones that are the most important to me.

Step one to drawing the human figure is to draw a stick figure. Yes, you heard me, a stick figure. This isn't your normal stick figure, though. This will help you figure out your pose and how long to make different parts of the body. A beginning stick figure should not lean towards one gender or another.

As you can see below, my stick figure is approximately 7 heads tall.



Now, depending on what gender your character is, we'll have to alter the figure.

For a male, your character's torso should form a slight Y shape, meaning that from the shoulders to the hips the figure goes in slightly. The shoulders are broader and neck is thicker than a female. There's the obvious lack of hips, and males are slightly taller. Mine's probably exaggerated a bit, since drawing males is NOT my strong point. For drawing males, you may have to look in a different spot for a better tutorial.

Females are obviously curvier, and the typical female anime character has a nice hourglass figure. A girl will have wider hips than a male, and obviously more of a transition from the bust to the waist and back to the hips. Females are generally shorter than males. When drawing a girl, don't go TOO curvy right away. Like I said, learn the rules before you break them.



We'll start with the guy first, since I'm worse at them. Guys are much more boxy than girls. To create the actual body, try using simple shapes to form the figure, much like how we did with the head. Remember that everything you draw can be broken down into circles, squares, and other simple shapes.

NOTE: There are more proportion things that pertain to men later in the lesson, so you might have to read deeper into the female section.



To show from beginning to finished product, I decided to do a different pose... mostly because poses straight on like that give me trouble sometimes. My guy is a bit long in the torso or too short in the legs, but that should give you the basic gist of things. Take note of how poses change the mood of the picture.



Now for gurlies. Use the same technique as before, but for a different figure. Like I said before, girls are curvier and have bigger hips. That doesn't mean that you should use different shapes to make up the body, but just to use different angles.

As you can see by the diagram on the left, you shouldn't draw necks coming out of the torso at a right angle. There are muscles that arch up into the neck to make it a smoother curve. This is true for males, too.

The thick lines on the collar bone and the hips mean that these lines are related. When a girl has her hand on her hip (or when a guy does), the hip's angle rises upwards toward the hand, while the angle of the shoulders are opposite of the hips. You will be able to see this better in one of the lower pictures.

REMEMBER: Breasts are NOT shaped like basketballs. They act like water balloons. Gravity affects them like anything else. The only circular part of the breast is the bottom half.



I drew the female figure in a different pose, like the male figure. I could not make the female figure look right at all. If you're having trouble with a pose, try changing something in the pose. Maybe it's a foot or an arm that is giving you trouble, so change the angle of that.

This pose is also to help you see the relationship between the angle of the shoulders and the angle of the hips. As you can see, those angles are exact opposites of each other.



Now that you have the tools, go out and practice! Please practice hard, and post your results here for critique. Bodies are much harder than heads, so please ask for help. Even if you don't realize it, there is always something that can be changed to make your drawing better. (Don't I know it. Ahhh, I gotta work on my poses.)

 

[Orphie]

And just for good measure... cool

Aw you ********. xD  

[Orphie]

You can post now. wink  

[Ennokni]

Talking to the voices there, Orphie-fi-fo-fum?

Please go with hair next, that stuff is freakin' elusive.  

[Tonberry Crunch]

Wooo, I'm probably going to use this, Thanks Orphie!  

[l-Kathulu-l]

I'll try it I guess. Now show us how to draw bewbz  

[Tonberry Crunch]

Well, first thing helped me, because I usually draw with the short lines... XD  

[l-Kathulu-l]

Tonberry Crunch

Well, first thing helped me, because I usually draw with the short lines... XD

 

[l-Kriel-l]

wtfiflyomg

This could be so useful, holy hell. biggrin
Thank you!  

[Tonberry Crunch]

I really need to work on drawing bodies. I hope this will help that later.