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Female Figure Drawing Tutorial Vs. 2.0

First of all, when you are going to start a drawing, you have to ask youself a few questions. Do you have an idea for the pose? The character? Is it fanart or original? If original, then do you know what kind of hair? What kind of clothing? Although I must admit that I rarely know what kind of hair or clothing I'm going to put on a character if it's the first time I'm drawing them. But before you start anything, you should at least decide what kind of pose you want the person situated in. With this drawing I decided on a basic standing pose. I decided that I wanted her to be standing a bit to one side, with her feet close together and her hands on her hips. There are a few basic guides that I always put in first. Those are :: a circle for the head, a line for the shoulders, a basic rib-cage, and another line for the hips. The line for the hips should be shorter then the shoulders, especially with females. Believe me when I say that these guidlines are IMPORTANT! They will help, and in the end, make the drawing better. Don't go skiping this step just because you think that it's a waste of time. These guides are to help you get all of the proportions right, before you start getting detailed. Like for instance, have you ever started a drawing to get half-way done to realize that you don't have enough room on your paper for the feet or something? Well this will save you the effort! So don't skip this! ^_^ The line I drew over the circle was to help me identify what direction the face would be facing. That line defines the center of where the face will be.

These are the next two steps that I took. After I have the basic guides done, I begin to draw in the shape of the body around them. I began with the breasts since they play a big role in the female shape. I realize that a lot of people are actually embarased to ask questions like - well how do I draw female breasts to make them look alright. But you've just got to put yourself in a state of mind where you realize that it is just art. It's not some weird perverted thing ..unless your drawing hentai, but that's another topic entirely. It's just art, and there is nothing wrong with drawing breasts. People I've talked to have said that you should just think of brests as two cups, and that they come out from the body at a 90º angle (this is if you were looking from directly above), the vertex being on the spine. Really, I don't think that much detail of it. I just sort of draw them. Anyways, if you'll look at the green arrow (arn't I organized?), you'll notice some simple lines. Those are to show the coller bone (sp?). By the purple arrow you'll notice that the right hand is hidden mostly. Some people have a lot of trouble getting hands to look good in different positions like this. Hands can be a real pain in the butt sometimes, it just takes a lot of practice and visulization to get it right. If you come across a difficult position try looking in a mirror to get a better mental picture. The blue arrows show how I indented the shape of the legs where the knee is. The calf sticks out a lot wider then the knee, and so does the hip. Some people make the knee to large and round, when it's not really like that. Try looking at your own legs (although none of really have legs shaped like an anime characters... but who cares? right?) The last arrow, the red one, points the the foot. I wanted to point this out because of the foreshortening I used on it. You've got to remember that a foot looks different when it's facing you, then when it's sticking to the side. A lot of people have trouble drawing a foot facing you. Look! It's a row of feet! (see how much trouble I'm going to for you people! ^_^) These are wire-frame feet from a 3d programe I use (Poser). I thought that this may help give you a different perspective.

After I was happy with the body structure, I went through with a white soft eraser and got rid of all of my guide lines. I Highly suggest against using one of those read erasers that you find on the end of wooden pencils! Those leave way to many smudge marks and arn't very precise. They just make a mess. I also went over the face, and put in a basic guide line to show the shape. I use a very simple cross shape to show the center of the face, and a horizontal line to show where the eyes will go. Ears (when they show, they didn't in this picture) should usually be place just under (slightly aligned with it, but not quite) with this line. The next thing I did, was begin working on the head/face. There are a few things that you should think about when you are designing an original characters face/hair. Sometimes it can just come to you, or you may already have an idea in your mind - but there are other times when you can just sit in front of a drawing for an hour trying to think of a hair style. Here is a small check-list you can go down to help you organize your ideas. Short Long How long? shoulders waist feet Strait Wavy Bangs? strait and connected bouncy thin & really pointy large clumps

Next I began with the clothing. Here are some basic questions to help you get ideas for designing the clothing for your characters. Question 1. Is the character's clothing based off of real clothing (i.e. t-shirt, jeans; a suit; ect.), or is it original? Question 2. If Original - where do you want to get influences from? You can't avoid influences, everything is influenced by something else, but you can make a mental decision of what type of things you want to influence. If you do this, it will help you come up with more organized ideas, and will quicken the brain-storming process. Possible Influences: Modern - 90's Misc. From 20th centurary ; 80's? 70's? 60? ect. Renisance Asian / Indian (from India - not Native Americans) Native American Oriental Furturistic Barbarian With my drawing, I decided to go with a modern looking outfit. I wanted to show her shape without having a skin-tight shirt, so I decided to go with a really short, yet fiarly loose blouce. And ended up sticking a pair of jean shorts on her. Since her stomach is showing, I had to add some more details to that area. I put in the belly button, and a light line to show the basic shape of the stomach. Sure most of us 'real' people don't have wash-board stomachs, but this is an anime girl! So I put in some details to show that. However, unless your girl is some sort of muscle chick, I don't suggest you get too excessive with these details, or else she'll look too butch. Ah, yes. And I mussent forget to mention clothing folds. Many people find it really difficult to get decent looking cloth wrinkles when they draw clothing on a person. To make fairly realistic clothing folds, you've got to understand where the folds should come from. I've put blue circles over all of the stress points on this drawing. It's from these points that the folds should come. If you make too many fold lines, in places where they don't belong you will end up with a rather off looking piece of clothing.

After I was happy with the clothing, I went over and made sure I had gotten everything I wanted in the picture, darkened and cleaned up my lines, and then scanned it. But that is just something that I choose to do. The cleaner, finished, version to the right is actually a trace of the original pencil drawing. I did the line art for the picture entirely with adobe photoshop, and the line tool. It takes forever the first time you trace a penciled drawing that way, but after you get the hang of it, it doesn't take as long. However many of you will probably choose not to do this. I do it because it is the step I take before coloring a picture. You may choose to color your original drawing using water colors, or colored pencils. Or perhaps you'll just pencil shade it. Who knows! You may just leave it the way it is. But in any case, I suggest you clean it up first. ^_^ I hope you found this tutorial useful! If you have any questions feel free to contact me: