Hey guys! Now for anatomy in general.
When you are drawing the base for your character’s head, the chin usually varies if it’s a female or male you’re drawing. For men, you want to make more like a “square” jawline and chin, this will give him a more mature and rough face. On the other hand, for women and young people, these two aspects are much softer and smoother. The jawline is not that straight but “curvier” and the chin is rounder. Also, you can make your character look younger or older by drawing the mouth closer to the chin. I usually do that when drawing men and older people.
Now for the neck and thorax. If you are curious, the adam’s apple is actually the thyroid cartilage, which is more prominent on the male sex. This aspect is not really that visible in front view, but it is in other perspectives. Another thing you want to keep in mind, is that women tend to have a shorter, curvier and slender neck than men. The trapezious muscle is less prominent in women (because men are more muscular hahaha) but the clavicles are quite noticeable in females. This applies to shoulders too- men have broader shoulders than women.
The waist as many of you know is more slender and thinner in woman, but you can make a man look (hot) good with this kind of waist (just look at Tom Hiddleston he’s so beautiful). Of course, the female sex tends to have wider hips (because of the bone structure) and usually their buttocks are more prominent too.
Finally, for the face and hair. First things first: EYES
Hahahaha, so eyes can change a lot on your characters face because of age or sex. Let me explain- personally I draw rounder eyes for younger woman (for example my human version of Chica) but for men and older woman I prefer to give them narrowed eyes and small pupils. Also, remember that big eyes are for younger people and/or children and smaller are for older ones.
Now with noses. As always, a pointy sharp nose can make your character look feminine and older, while a rounder and smaller nose gives an image of youth. When I want to draw a mature male character, I tend to draw the bridge of the nose straight and with the nostrils and nasal wings more visible. As for girls, I draw a pointy and small nose to make them look younger and delicate.
Finally, for mouths I think it’s more with the bottom lip. Rounder and smaller bottom lips are for younger people, while thinner and smaller lips are for older. Strong men are usually depicted with bigger lips.
Finally, the hair. Short hair for both sexes is associated with a younger look, while longer one may give your character an older look. But as you can see, it’s the many combinations of all these factors I mentioned above that can make your characters look more masculine or feminine or even of a certain age.
So I guess that’s all I can share with you. I really tried to teach you everything I know, but if you have questions or something like that, leave it in the comments section and I’ll try to answer as soon as I can. 😊 My main interest here is for you to learn something new- even if it’s just a little- so you can improve on your art!
Proportions
HA! U thought I was done? Welp I can’t say I’m an expert at proportions, but I can show you some tips for this!
First, I think you might be familiar with the “7 and a half heads” rule to make a “well proportioned dude or girl”. But honestly, that really doesn’t matter if your character looks like an homuncule. When you see people with problems with the pituitary gland, you’ll see that they are really tall, or really short. BUT you must notice that even if that happens they still look proportionated! So instead of all that, I want to show you something else.
Children:
When designing a child character, you may notice that it isn’t just about “squishing” a full adult figure into something much smaller. There a few things you want to consider when drawing children.
Usually, the head of a child is a little bigger than the rest of the body. The bigger the head, the younger and “babier” it looks. So, for the face, you want to make big and round eyes along with a small nose and mouth. This last one DOES NOT has to be closer to the chin, which must be chubby and rounded as well as the jawline. Don’t forget to make a slender and short neck too! :D
Now, for the rest of the body, the hands are feet are a little bigger and chubbier. Just look up in google images a pic of baby hands- you’ll see what I’m talking about!
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Adults:
Now, I Skipped the puberty phase mainly because it’s a transition from child to adult. Therefore, you may just apply the tips I explained to you in the anatomy section. Now for adult proportions this time.
Adults have smaller heads than the thorax. Which means that to make your character older, the head size is an aspect you want to pay attention to. Anyways, the eyes should be aligned with the upper tip of the ear and the earlobe must be aligned with the nose. This applies to any age! You can see this in real life lol
Now, when drawing the neck, you can use the ear to mark the begining of it. As you can see, it usually begins right “behind” the ear. But, in a profile view, you can see very well why; the occipital region of the head is exactly where the neck starts. That way, you won’t have to worry about making the neck too thin or too tHICC. (Again, this applies to children too.)
Torso and abdomen are longer in male sex than female, so I guess that was supposed to be in the previous section lol. Anywho, the fingertips should reach the middle of the hip and the elbow should be placed right in the middle of the abdomen (just a little above of the belly button 😉) Hands should be the same size as the face!
Remember at school when your teachers told you that the femur was the longest bone in the body? Well, that may be helpful for this next part. When drawing legs, you gotta make sure that your character’s thighs are a little longer than the rest of the leg.
Ummm well, those are the few tips I can give your right now. Honestly, I am no expert at proportions but I kind of learned how to draw human figure by practicing and playing around with my draws. As a matter of fact, I want to show you my very first attempts at making the human figure so you can see that it doesn’t have to be perfect the first times, and of course, it takes time and persistence (and a little bit of copying huehuehue) to get better results. (I guess I'll show you in the next update xp)
So don’t worry- make sure to practice more and practice better! You may say that everyone says the same s***, but I think what everyone means is that you must know how to practice. (I’m still learning how to practice better lol)
But what I meant is that for now you should try to research easy photos from real life for reference, if not, then look for anime pics! I advise you this because usually in anime, things get simplified, so it’s much easier to spot basic shapes. But you can get reference from anywhere! (Hahahaha I remember I learned to draw bowties based on a Christmas presentation of egg nogg XD) Also, it’s good to have a drawing-book with you to draw whenever you like and can, and make sure to listen to some GOOD music that actually inspires you to create. And as a last advice, grab whatever you like from your favorite artist’s style. (For example, I used to follow sophie-chan and liked how she drew eyes, therefore I started to practice eyes with her style. Then I changed my likes and moved into something less cute I guess hahahahaha)
Remember, “a good artist copies, but a great artist steals”.
(Guess Imma shitty artist then lol jk) To end this post, I want to tell you to not worry if your drawings don’t look good to you- you’re still learning! I’m pretty sure that everyone, no matter the “level” of experience, still has something new to learn. So yeah, I guess that’s it for this post. Hope you like it, and hopefully you learned at least a little something new from this.
“You don’t have to be an expert, to become a great artist!”
-Rui Torres, Art Attack
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