Stick People?

[II MiU II]

Well, I've seen often in tutorials and other such guides that one should start off with a "stick figure," then shapes, and then details. Thus suggesting that the body should be drawn before anything else.
So far, I've been drawing "freehand:" that is, drawing the eye first and the body around it. I've found that the stick person thing doesn't work for me-- or have I just not tried hard enough? It's hard to apply proportions and features to an already-drawn body, I find.
So, is it worth it for me to just practice with this method, and hopefully get better as I go along? Is there another way, such as just drawing out the general idea of the body before anything? Or is freehand okay, as long as I master it?
So many questions... gonk

(Oh, by the way, I'm not so much a new member, but a member who joined a loong time ago, and finally decides to post now. xd sweatdrop So that's why you haven't seen me around)  

[xtoo many unicornsx]

You know, I have the same problem. I always need to start with the eyes or I can't seem to draw anything! I desperately hope freehand can be mastered. D:
I guess this doesn't actually answer any of your questions, eheh. n_n;  

[Tsuyumi Riko]

I think the word for this would be perception. According to your poll, I guess I'd say I use silhouettes.

The whole idea is to help you get a better perspective of what's the finished picture going to look like. Then you can sketch/draw/colour/paint/"art" it until what you've imagined materializes. It helps with proportions too... so you won't have problems with that while you sketch details.

If you start with details first, unless you've got a pretty strong imagination and impression of what your finished art will look like, I suppose it's not wrong.

I'm still learning the whole anatomy and body proportion thing. Stick figures or silhouettes (whichever I use at the time) helps me remember what I want to draw. So that I get a picture like this: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/46500793/ .  

[CooCoo For CoCo Puffs]

I agree with you it's easy for me to do it that way too.  

[Sie Shee]

yeah me to  

[menen]

I draw free hand some time when im too lazy to measure the proportions, but its always good to draw the stick first then you go from there. But if you wana be proportionet while free hand remember:
1! the eyes are spaces by the length of the eye
2" the nose is roughly the same lenth as the eye you cangive it a bit more or less
3· male head must fit in the torso; female in the chest
4$ thighs (from the end onf the hipsto the star of the knee) are roughly the same size as the calve all the way to the heel, but youcan style it if you want
5% the arms should be long enough so that the palm can touch the end of the hip( around the middle of the hand)
6& feet are like a triangle rectangle(90 degrees) with the 90 degrees touching the calves
7/ what else? eeehhh yea the but is round so dont be afraid the put a nice round but( unless you want no but try doing a small rounded but)

so yea If you already knew that sorry to fill in like that if not i cant promise enything...cus its what i can remember at 11:30 so yea whatever...  

[r a i n- C R U S H E D]

I just start with the basic shape of the head then go from there  

[cleody]

I usually just start with a head and then a general line of motion for the body. Like if the person is jumping then I draw a line from the head and do a sort of swooping curvy line... I dunno... basic line of motion.
then I do a gesture drawing for the rest and fill in details later. So it's a sort of halfassed stick figure.  

[GB_Lady]

I used to do that, but now I just make little thumbnails with stick figures to get the over all composition. I know that my stick figures sometimes look weird when I add in the eyes. So I modify the stick figure to match the eyes afterwards while keeping the original pose.

I hope that helps you. ^^;  

[Tantika]

Well, stick figure doesn't work for me either....so I draw the head shape first, then off on the side, I draw a stick figure as a reminder...^^;;  

[PinkGhost]

I also draw the general curve of the body first...Then, especially if I'm doing fullbody on a limited amount of paper, I estimate how big the head should be: usually about 1/6 of the entire body, although I'm probably not very accurate. I just make it fit later on.. ^ ^;;
Anyways, after drawing the head (in a sort of curved rectangular shape), and the direction, I draw a line representing the shoulders and their direction. Then comes the waist, about 1.5 head sizes down. Then...half-assed arms and legs that don't really matter, and I have a stick figure. biggrin
What I always have to be careful about, however, is when I add details to the face. If I freehand a head, the proportions are usually correct, but when I draw the outside of the head first, I have to make sure I don't make the details too small or my re-outline of the head to small either. Somehow I almost always end up with a tiny head and have to redraw it. >__<

Eh. I just felt like typing all that...even if no one will read it... biggrin