how to draw human body

When doing the figure, it is useful to sketch in a quick "dummy" so that you can get the basic proportions and pose, without having to spend a lot of time on it. If the pose or the drawing doesn't work out, then you havn't put loads of effort into the drawing and you can try again without regrets. The dummy on the left is done with bubbles. I do not recommend this method because it is difficult to tell which way the bubbles face, and they really do not define the head, upperbody, and hips well. The dummy on the right uses boxes. Boxes allow you to see how the figure is bending because you can see the front, back, sides, top, and bottom.

Pose your figure however you want. The boxes will give you a good idea of how the final drawing will look. Even though the figures here are simple, you can tell exactly how they are posed, and you have a good idea of what they're doing. Draw your box figures until you find a composition that really appeals to you. Once you find a composition that you like, it's time to take that doodle to the next stage!

The human figure is anywhere between 6-8 heads tall, depending on the individual. The shoulders are 1 1/2 - 2 heads wide. The torso and head are as long as the legs. The hands fall halfway down the thighs.

Figures come in all shapes and sizes. Taller people will typically have longer legs and bigger feet. The thigh and calf of a leg are equal in lenth, but not in thickness. The calf of a female will have a shapely curve. The upper and lower arm are also equal in length, but not in thickness. When standing still, a person will put one leg under their center of gravity and let the majority of their weight fall on that leg. It is very rare to see a person standing still resting the weight of their body equally upon both of their legs.

Here is an example of a quick dummy that I am going to take through the steps to a more finished drawing. I get my basic pose at this stage. You will want to draw this in VERY lightly so that it is easy to go on top with more detail later. I drew this dark so that it could be seen for the tutorial.

I then go back in and fill out the figure. The box-like head becomes oval shaped, but bulges out in the back to allow room for the skull. Arms and legs are filled out, with the upper parts being thicker and more muscular then the lower parts. The torso keeps the bend where the connecting ball was in my dummy, but I allow the organic lines of the human torso to override the boxes, but I still keep the general direction the boxes were facing.

NOW it's finally time to worry about the facial features and clothing. Because I had a good sketch, the final drawing looks smooth and natural instead of the awkward angles drawing it all-at-once will often give.

how to drawing a human eyes

Well we will start by drawing the outline, this can be a fast sketch, but enough detail to show the shape. I used 2b 0.5mm mechanical pencil. Make sure you don’t make the outline too dark or else you will have an outline in the end. The three round circles close to the pupil will be light source reflections.

Start by filling in the pupil using the 6b progresso pencil. Make sure not to press too hard or else you will not be able to erase it easily if you need to. One good way to get really darks is to layer it. Start off by lightly going over with with the progresso pencil and then use the the color blender to blend it. Add another layer of pencil with progresso and do the same with blender. Keep on doing this until you are satisfied with it.

Take your 4b progresso pencil and put down some graphite on a separate piece of paper. Get it as dark as possible, then with your color blender lightly rub that area. Now if you look at the tip of blender you will see that it has some graphite. Now rub the area around the the wobbly circle. If you don’t a have a color blender you can use a tortillon/shading stump. I would recommend that you have both of these tools, they can be helpful in achieving different effects.

Using your mechanical pencil draw the lines that you see around the area that was shaded previously, try to make them quick and light. If they are random, it would be much better. These lines will serve as a guide of highlights and shadows that the iris has. From the reference picture of the eye above, you can see that the iris is full of highlights and shadows.

Using your mechanical pencil lightly fill in the area around the pupil. Then with with the blender blend from the center of the pupil out. This will also pull some darks from the center of the pupil, giving that area some shadows.

The area outside of the iris layered under the rest of the iris, adding these shadows gives the iris much more depth. Lightly draw them under and blend them with the rest of the dark area. You don’t have to put shadows all the way around, just on random areas.

Using your blender pull from the edge of the inner area outside. This will give a nice pattern and will be a guide for the highlights and shadows on the outer area. Make sure you don’t shade the highlights or else you will lose them. You can always erase those areas after so they wont be as bright. You can now begin to see the eye come to life, layering is a big part of pencil drawing and learning what goes on top and bottom is very important. It might take a while to go through all these steps, but the time pays off in the end. After practicing, it will become much easier with each one.

Draw around the whole iris with the 4b progresso pencil, don’t press too hard. This will outline the whole iris. Take your kneaded eraser between your index finger and your thumb then squeeze. This will give the kneaded eraser a fine edge. You will use this to pull some highlight from the area outside of the pupil. Make the highlights going around the area, don’t add too many, just enough that they stand out. If you pull too much graphite, just add more with the pencil, blend it with blender and use kneaded eraser again. You will probably need to make new edge on eraser after each time you pull graphite because it will stick to the edge. If you don’t, next time you try to make a highlight it will not pull as much graphite. These little erasers are amazing and all pencil artists should have them in their tools.

Now blend the area that you outlined on the previous step. If its not dark enough just put down more pencil and blend it, it should look like the image above. On the previous step we pulled out some highlights with the kneaded eraser. Now randomly darken between some of those highlights using your mechanical pencil. This will bring out some of the highlights much more and will also add some shadows. Outline the edges of that area, this will make it stand out. Using your blender blend the edge of the pupil with the area outside. Don’t blend it too much, just enough so the end of the highlights blend out nicely.

Using your progresso pencil draw out that shape that you see on the image above, it doesn’t have to look exactly, but it should be random. Don’t draw the outline too dark, just enough for you to see it. Darken the area below that outline, don’t make it too dark that it will stand out too much from the rest of the iris. Blend it just a bit in some areas so that it blends a bit into the rest of the iris.

Using your kneaded eraser add some highlights around the outer iris. These highlights will be larger than the ones in the center. You can also make some that start from the outer edge of the pupil to the end of the iris, but don’t make too many of these.

On the previous step we added highlights going straight down, here you will add highlights with kneaded eraser in an angle. You’ll be making “W” shaped highlights, just make enough that it will give the iris some texture. After making these highlights, you will add shadows, under some of these highlights. In the image above you can see a very clear “W”, below that you can see a darker area, this will be the shadow for this highlight. Add these shadows to some of the highlights around the iris, not all of them, make it as random as possible. Using your color blender, blend the ends of the these highlights so they don’t look like white lines. In this step we will also start working on the sclera, which is the white part of the eye. The tip of the color blender should still have some graphite, so use that to put down some graphite around the sclera like the image above. The two circles that you see on the right side will be highlights that will suggest wetness.

Taking your mechanical pencil, darken the shadows around the edge of the iris. Add some dark lines in between some of the highlights for so the highlights can jump out more. In this step you can also experiment with highlights, add more or take away. We now have the basic design for the iris, from here on we can start to darken the whole iris by adding light layers of graphite using 2h pencil. If you’re drawing and eye that is blue, green or light in color, you would leave it like this. We also shaded the fold thats under the eyebrow and above the eyelash. Using your kneaded eraser you can erase between the glare spots to blend them together.

Here we will darken the iris. Before we do that we will add some eyelash reflections, you don’t have to add this to all your drawings, but if the drawing is big enough you can. Over the 3 glare spots you can draw some eyelash reflections. The reflection from eyelashes would be reflected on the surface of the eye, since the glare spots are at the top and are white you can draw over them the tips of the eyelashes. Once you have done this, you lightly put down a layer with the 2h pencil over the whole iris. This will darken the highlights, darken the top section of the iris a bit more because this part will be a bit more darker because of shadows of the top of the eye and eyelashes. I added some other details like the reflections on the corner of the eyes. With the 2h pencil i also added some light blood vessels that run out from the corners of the eye. These little details make a big difference in drawing a realistic eye. Look at the reference photo at the beginning so you can see those blood vessels. Darken the sclera, the white part of the eye a bit with the blender, especially the corners. This will give the eye more depth and realism with the subtle blood vessels.

The eyelashes are added, take a look at the angle that they are drawn, they are not drawn straight down,except for the ones in the center. These are drawn last because they are on top of the of the other features. Using your kneaded eraser you can add some highlights,which would be some hairs reflecting some light. You can play around with them to get a much realism. Just make sure you make sure to curve them, they are not straight. The ones in the center don’t have much of a curve because you’re looking straight at them.

We will add now the lower eyelashes, these should be a bit lighter so you can use a 2h pencil to draw them or use the mechanical pencil and then use an edged kneaded eraser to tap along the hair to remove some graphite. Like the top eyelashes, the center ones curve down and you go either left or right so you start to see the curve on the hair.

how to draw leather wings

First we start out with the basic skeleton of a wing. Notice how simple it is. It can be bent at several different angles and rotated in space for different postions. After drawing the skeleton, add some muscle to the "arm". There will be more muscle where the wing connects to the body because this would be the area that does the most work if your creature would actually be in flight ^_~ A "thumb" may also be added, but this is not nessesary; you could do a spike, a double thumb, or any variety of things! Next sketch out where the "fingers" of the wing will be. There can be as little as one finger, or as many as 20, perhaps. It all depends on how you want your wing to look. Typically, the more fingers there are, the less muscle each of them will have. Remember that most fingers have to bend at some point. For a more complex wing, a knuckle joint will always help to give structure. Now it's time to add flesh to your fingers. They can be as thick of as skeletal as you desire. Near the knuckle joint, there will typically be a widening because two bones are meeting and need room to move past eachother. What you have now are really enlongated hands. To turn these guys into wings, there will be a skin membrane stretching between each of the digits like webbing. The curve of the webbing can be as rounded and severe as you like. Here are some tiny additions you can add to your wing. For a more rugged look, you can add tears where your creature has gotten into a fight or two. If you want your creature in top condition, then don't add them. Veins will show where blood flows. It's all a matter of what you think would look best for you! The skeleton of the wing can stetch out very far, or it can fold up. Here is in example of how you could go about doing a loosely folded wing. Notice how you have slack membrane in between the fingers. Wings can also curve around in space. When building this skeleton, I put the last digit (3) in front of the other two. When webbing and shading are added, the wing makes sense again.

how to draw a dragon

We're going to build the dragon head with 4 basic parts; the cheek/jaw, the eyeridge, the snout, and the neck. Start by bubbling in these basic shapes for a side view, the easiest view to pull off.

Building on top of the shapes I fill in the lower jaw and split the mouth open with a beak-like finish. I add in an eye, build up the eyeridge, and add a nostril so that our little dragon can breath!

Now I start going in for more details. I give the eye a pupil and sink it farther into the head. I add an extra flap of skin around the nose and the end of the mouth to give it a 3-dimensional look. Teeth can be shown coming over the lower lip or they can be hidden until the dragon actually opens it's mouth; it's a personal choice, I designed this dragon with the teeth overlapping. Fleshing out the neck is a good idea before you finish off the head so that the connection to it does not look awkward.

Finally we add in all of the little details that make the dragon unique; a crest along the back, several horns, and a plated belly.

Now that we've mastered the side view we shall try a 3/4 view of a dragon curling it's head around. Start with the same bubbles (the structure of the head does not change!)

Once again we fill out the form of the dragon by giving it a lower jaw and splitting it's mouth open. The eye, a defined eyeridge and nostril are added.

The neck is built up and the face takes on a more definate form with the addition of a pupil, skin flaps, and by sinking the eye into the skull.

Last come the details (you'll notice a pattern!). This dragon has curling rams horns, 2 ears, and scales running along the ridge of the belly. Isn't he absolutely adorable? Don't you just want to hug him and squeeze him and take him home with you? No? Ok, never mind.... onto the next section...