Hi I'm nate, im new to this website, i've been drawing alot again lately, after a too long hiatus, im new to measuring and more realistic drawing, and I've been learning alot online about the human body and the muscles and proportion and so far I've really understood alot of the basics, but I learned last week online that the female body is actually a little smaller than a man's body, and that you still have to take that into account when you set up the body in 8 heads length, and right now my male and female figures end up the same size, with different proportion of course but I was wondering how do you make the female 8 heads on the chart and have her still be a realistic size? I don't get how you make the head a smaller size and allow it to translate through the rest of the body, nobody's gone through this enough for me..I just need a little clarification...if anyone can give me some advice on this I would really appreciate it, I'm desperate to get over this bump, thank you so much. Here's my male and female figures if you need to see it.

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I don't know the answer to your question, I have never gotten that technical with my drawings and paintings, I just try to paint what I see, I just do it for fun.

There are some excellent artists here that I am sure will be answering your question. The first one member that comes to mind is Lashdown91, he does a lot of bodies. But there are many others.

I do want to welcome you to the forum and I hope you enjoy our little community. We are an easy going bunch.

Thanks Terry for the welcome and sharing yeah I can tell it's a cool community already, its my first time joining one for art.

Glad you have joined us!

There are many techniques out there to accomplish the same results and while I try to master each one I have learned, I discovered sometimes if I get bogged down on one particular lesson, it can be helpful to try other methods and sometimes a new style will help me understand better the lesson that I am having difficulty with. Hope I explained that clearly. :/

What do you want to draw exactly?

If you're looking to draw the human figure from your head, in a realistic way, then my advice would be to study basic anatomy, as you've been doing, and just draw as many figures from life as possible. There's a youtube channel called croquis cafe that have life model videos, and they are timed 1,2,5 and 10 minute poses. Speed drawing the figure is an excellent way for your subconscious to learn the body, so you will be finding that flow and rhythm in your drawings. Also, find images of the human form and copy. These can be from real models, paintings or sculpture. I recommend studying some Rubens paintings and Michelangelo sculptures for the male form, and Titian or Correggio for the female. Also, it would be worth looking back to the Ancient Greek sculptors like Polykleitos, Pheidias and Praxiteles, because they were obsessed with proportion and symmetry in the human body.

Eventually it will become almost natural drawing the figure. But it will take a lot of repetition. Doodle as much as you can and keep the drawings. That way you can go back to them months after and see how much you've improved, (and it's also fun correcting old doodles, as if you were teaching your younger self). I've attached some doodles of Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, to show you how they rendered the body from their imagination. Most of the time they drew from sitting models.

I've been doing this for a few months now, and I'm definitely getting better.

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Nate, do not get caught up in proportion charts. The idea that women or men are exactly 8 heads high is not necessary realistic. Their also are low, mid and high waisted people. If you are trying for realism, then I would suggest that you start with comic book covers. It sounds ludicrous at first but it will teach you concepts for motion and ideas such as forshortening. Get comfortable with drawing hands and feet. Start with portraits after that. When you are getting good drawing faces you are ready to go for realism. Learn to draw what you see and then look deeper. Pay attention to the lighting and the shading. I hope that helps.

I agree with Just.. draw people.. fat.. skinny.. short.. tall.. Learn from drawing!

D

Here's a link to some Andrew Loomis books. If you go to and art school such as AI, these are required for your library. They can be quite pricey but this webs sight gives you the PDF's for free. I've look at them and they are pretty good.

http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

Well, I also started drawing with the idea of good proportion and all that, but then I realized that was killing my draw, I focussed so much on proportion that I couldnt enjoy while I was drawing and all my draws ended up looking rought and hard and mega-ugly.

I'm not such a great artist as Bushcraft or Terry, but i think that the most important thing on drawing must be enjoying it first, and good results will come alone and easily.

I also read while I was looking some books about drawing, that in order to achieve an important improvement when you are starting to draw (as I :P ) you must learn how to use your brain, with a kind of "theory" about the sides of the brain and how to "activate" the one is better for arts and drawing and etc.
I found it really interesting, as i talk spanish as native lenguaje i'm sorry that the book was in spanish, but i'm sure there is a lot of information around the internet to look for if you are interested.

Sorry I cant help with your basic idea anyway :/

Saludos! ^^

No I'm not good drawer at all. I think I can paint pretty good but the portraits I do I actually trace from a photo onto the canvas, I don't draw them free hand. You want and example of someone that can draw really good check out Chanda95 or Jeff or cjm1972 and lots others, but not me.