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Introduction
Greetings! My name is Athey, and I'm the one who wrote all the tutorials on www.bakaneko.com. I first started writing anime-style drawing tutorials for the site over four or five years ago. Many of the tutorials on the site are still VERY VERY old. The most recent tutorial before this one, was written over 6 months prior, and it wasn't even a drawing tutorial (it's the 3D maya modeling tutorial). Needless to say, over the past five years, my ability to draw has changed and improved, and I currently find most all of these drawing tutorials very embarrasing... honestly, they make me cringe, and I try to avoid looking at them. ^ ^;;;; However, many people tell me that they find them useful, and whenever I suggest that I might take some/all of them down, many people yell at me and tell me to leave them up... so I do. This "tutorial" will be more of a lecture, than a step-by-step instruction. I'll try to explain things, show examples, detail some theory and some important concepts, and hope that the information I lay out will be helpful to those who come to read it. The advice that follows will mostly likely be far more advanced than the advice in the older tutorials simply because I know a whole lot more than I did back then, and my techniques are FAR improved, over those that I used earlier.
So you want to draw anime, huh? Did you know that learning to draw "anime" isn't really any different from just "learning to draw"? A lot of kids (myself included, way-back-when) think of drawing "anime" and drawing "realistic" as two completely different things. In their mind, the two are seperated so much, that they feel that the techniques used to learn them are different, but they're not. If you want to draw a person, you need to learn how to draw a person. You can change the proportions, or the "style" of the facial features all you want, but the skeleton underneath is still the same. The same basic rules apply to anime "style" as to "realistic" art. It's all human figure drawing to begin with, so that's what you really need to learn.
Here are some "basic" concepts that one has to accept in order to advance in their ability to draw:
- A human body has a skeleton in it that is solid and doesn't deform. Your bones don't bend in half, and they remain a constant length (they don't grow longer or shorter from one picture to the next, unless the character has actually aged). The best way to learn to draw people is to actually look at them. Life-Drawing is the absolute best option, but most kids don't have access to that sort of thing (which is quite unfortunate). Studying anatomical anatomy, bones, muscles, and actually observing and drawing from a live nude model, are truely the best ways to learn to draw a person. If you are still in junior or senior high, and truely have an interest in persuing drawing, I highly recommend you talk to your parents about enrolling you in a life drawing class somewhere. Some art stores actually have weekly life drawing sessions where everyone who shows up chips in $8 to help pay for the model, and everyone just draws for a few hours. If you can find a local art store, like a Dick Blick Art Materials, or a Daniel Smith, etc. go in and ask them if they know of any life drawing classes or meetings. For those of you who are unable, or unwilling to attend any life drawing classes, I highly recommend you get an art anatomy book. Anatomy for Artists is a good reference. I will say that it is useful to know about the human skeleton. It's useful to know what and where the large bone areas are, and it's interesting to understand how some of it works (I always found the forearm bones - ulna and radius - really facinating... maybe I'm just weird...) but I wouldn't say that it is EVER nessecary to draw a skeleton before drawing your figure. It would simply be a waste of time and effort. Putting a lot of effort into drawing something that you'll just end up erasing, is a waste of your time.
For this reason we use guides. Below is an example of the basic guide system that I use most often. Notice how the lines are NOT STRAIGHT. They're curved because our bones are curved, and our muscles create curves. There is no part on the human body that ever looks straight. The lines that we draw to represent the human form are always curved in some way. The direction those lines are curved plays a large role in the way we preceive the depth of the form.
When I use lines as guides, they serve several purposes. First - Length & Proportion. With guides we can get the figure laid out with simple lines that aren't so difficult to redo, if we realize we've made a mistake. Catching yourself at this early point in the process can help greatly in the end. Another use for guides is defining depth. While the lines of the arms and legs don't show an aweful lot of depth to them, they do a little. In the profile view of the above example, you can see from the curves in the legs that the back of the calf comes back. You can already see some of the flow that the upper-leg will have, even though all we have here is a single curved line.
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The pelvis guide, and the rib-cage guide play a very large role in getting depth to the figure. Good guides for the ribs and pelvis can also GREATLY assist in getting a relaxed or realistic pose.
An important concept to understand about the human body when posing the figure is that both the rib cage, and the pelvis are solid mases that do not deform. HOWEVER, the spaces between them can contort, twist and bend a lot.
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It can often be helpful (when dealing with complicated poses, perspective, etc.) to draw boxes where the pelvis and rib cage are, since a box can be much simplier to draw in perspective, than a spheroid mass, or the very oddly shaped pelvis.
The boxes themselves are solid, but the body deforms between them. It can bend and twist, and it is deformations like these that make the form appear more dynamic and lifelike.
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 The Pelvis The human pelvis is an incredably odd-shaped form. In fact, just about all pelvis's are shaped odd. If you ever take the time to study various animal anatomy, you'll see over and over again how bizarrely diverse the mamalian pelvis can truely be. But we're talking humans here, so lets get back on track. The rib cage is actually pretty simple to simplify into a guide. It's ovoid, and somewhat eggshaped (it's larger at the base than it is at the top), it's slimmer from the side, and wider from the front. Generally it's round, and that's pretty easy to draw. The pelvis on the other hand is not something that is easily simplified into a roundish shape. The pelvis has two crests along the side (called the illium / illiac crests) that are often simplified as "hip bones". These crests are where the hips really begin, and the seperation between the waist the the hips will be visible.
 The crests are important, so the guides I use for the pelvis curve up along the top of the crests, and dip down towards the front of the crotch area. If you think of the pelvis as a box, the crests are along the side of the box, and the line going down towards the crotch form the front. Thinking of it in this 3-dimentional way, will help you to create the illusion of depth and thickness to the body, and avoid letting the body appear flat. Just like everything else in the body, it is important to think of the pelvis in three-dimentions, and take perspective into consideration. In this example you can see how the two sides of the crest go back in perspective (compare it to the blue cube that's been overlayed over the guides).
Notice how the waist curves outward and forms visible bumps over the crests, but the curves down to the legs are not perfectly smooth. The leg bones (femur) don't just come straight down from the pelvis, there is actually a knob that protrudes out of the top of the tibia that connects into the pelvis. Because of this protrusion, the leg bone actually pushes out on the form, creating an outward curve in the surface of the leg. This convex line will help add to the accurate feel of the form. Convex curves, Concave curves, and T-Junctions There are many useful techniques that you can use to help draw the human form in line. As I said before, the human body doesn't really have any straight lines. Lines are always curved in some way, and the direction of those curves can greatly change the feel of that form.
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A concave curve is when the line is curving inward toward the body mass. Like it's 'caving in' on itself (concave). A convex line is one that curves outward.
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Using this arm as an example, I'll try to expalin some of the different illusions that are generated by using convex versus concave lines.
With most of the human form, convex lines are ideal. Concave lines can be prefered under certain circumstances, but they can often have an undesirable effect on the appearance of mass. For example, on the arm where the top of the shoulder (a convex line), meets with the top of the bicept, the two don't smooth into each other with a concave line, instead they meet at a point (and overlap each other) If a concave line was used to connect the two, it would create the appearance of a more flabby arm, or it would look like they weren't connected properly. As another example, if concave lines were used around the bicept, instead of convex lines, it would look like the whole arm was sinking in on itself. It would also likely look flat and loose the illusion of depth.
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On the inner edge, a concave line is used where the inner arm bends. This small curve at the end creates the illusion of a smooth transition. If this convex line simply ended with a point, it wouldn't look nearly as lifelike.
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Another very useful tool in drawing is what's called a T-Junction. The concept may seem rather "duh" to some of us, but I'll bring it up anyways. When one line comes to a stop in the center of another line, forming a T-like shape, it creates a depth illusion. It creates the appearance that the top of the T is in the foreground, and the line that runs into it, is in the background.
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In this example with an arm, foreshortening is demonstrated using layers of mass. Each part of the arm is seperated into sections, and the depth illusion is achieved because of the t-junctions used. | ||||
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Guides from Head to Toe
Lets return to the guides for a bit. There is an ideal order for starting a drawing, even when working with something as simple as guides. First you should always start with the line-of-action. Usually it's easiest to think of this as the spine, but it won't always nessecarily be going down the center of the back, so it's not always the "spine" as much of just a line going down the center of the body. Line-of-Action's are always either C-Curves or S-Curves. If you find yourself putting in more curves than you'd get in an S, you're putting in too many.
After the Line-of-Action, draw in the pelvise and rig-cage. Use the box-method above if it helps you to create a depth illusion, or simply helps you with a complex pose. For simple standing poses like this one, I rarely need the assistance of boxes, but they can often come in handy when trying something a bit more complicated, or something that has a lot of foreshortening.
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From that point on, I simply add the arms and legs as nessecary. When drawing in the arms, it is easy to make them too long or too short. A good thing to keep in mind is that when the arm is stretched straight down your side, it is about even with the bottom of your crotch, or the middle of your upper-leg.
It's important that you don't skimp too much on the guides process and try to jump ahead to clothing and accessories without fully exploring the basics of the form. When you've been drawing a lot longer and have more experience under your belt, you may feel comfortable skipping certain steps now and then, but when you're just learning, it's important to take it slow. If the foundation is shakey, all the paint, siding, and fancy landscaping can't save it from tumbling over. An art teacher I had used a far less youth-friendly saying. Saying that if your base drawing is crap, adding sprinkles and glitter on top won't save it from smelling like shit. Basically what this means is that you can add all the accessories, clothing, hair, etc. to the figure in the world, but if the form underneath is anatomically wrong, and messed up, it can't save the drawing. It'll still look wrong. So don't skimp on the early steps.
Well, I hope this wasn't too broad and vague to do anyone any good. Before I end this, I wanted to drop out one more bit of advice about figures, perspectives, and drawing groups. When you draw a figure, the best way to give the feeling that the person has mass to it, is to take perspective into account. If you know where your horizon line is, it makes it much easier to do that. (below are some cubes in a one-point perspective example)
 Just like how some planes of the cubes seem wider or longer than others, the body will change with perspective in the same way. When trying an extreme perspective on a person, it can often be useful to draw a set of boxes
And finally, I also wanted to bring up crowds. The point of view is the "camera angle" that is looking at your scene. The eyes of the viewer looking at the character, or the group of characters. In most cases, the point of view is equal to that of the eye-level of your average adult. It's what feels most natural since it's the view point that we all see every day. Because of this, on average, most characters in a scene will all have their eyes level with the horizon line. The horizon line is always level with your eyes - that's how we see. So if you're standing, and everyone else who is standing is about the same height as you are, their eyes will also be level with the horizon line. Someone who is a little shorter than you will have their eyes a bit lower than the horizon, and someone who is taller will be a little above it. When drawing groups of people in perspective, this is an important concept to understand. For example, if you wanted the point of view to be from someone who is sitting, the horizon line would be a lot lower, since the eye level of the view is much lower than the eye level of everyone who is standing.
 Well, it's late and I can't seem to think of much more.. well, actually as I re-read certain parts I feel like I've left out a lot, but at the same time I don't feel that I can really delve as deep into each and every aspect of these concepts in a single tutorial, as I'd like. I hope that things were too vague, and that you're able to take the words I've written here and absorb them into your own understanding of art to help you improve in your journey. Thanks for bothering to read it, and I hope I didn't make too many typos. I write these things up in windows notpad and I'm never really motivated enough to copy any of these into a program that has spellcheck. | |||||
This is an example of what I'm talking about, however I would really only use something like this if I was doing a real perspective drawing. This kind of box-around-the-whole-figure technique can be extremly helpful when trying to an extreme camera angle of the figure, like from almost directly above or from an extreme low angle. Drawing in the boxes first and then fitting the figure inside the boxes can help in creating the depth and foreshortening illustions a lot.