Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm talking about the circles and lines. Last year I couldn't do it for nothing, then it hit me: STOP READING "HOW TO DRAW MANGA." I just started taking pics of me and circling the joints and using curved lins for my chest, stomach, and groin area. I found it a lot easier but now I can't draw girls all the time. I either draw the breast too high or too low. Advice please.

Do you use any kind of layout and ifso can you post it here or describe it?

pfft! don't be embarrased to look at those anatomy books that display the details of a male gential (did I spell that right?). its not like you're looking at pr0n, your looking at references for drawing 3nodding

or if its a real guy, just jab him with a pencil and say "TIS AN ARTIST AT WORK!! NYAR!"





Dun dun dun!
The key is: Remember your "S" curves!

If its a person, draw a 'line of movement' first. Find out how the person is bending/twisting their body. Females especially have dynamic S-curves (most of the time). From there I just see how the legs would be placed to make the character look like it has gravity: make sure it looks like they're planted firmly on the ground (or if they are jumping, trippng, make it look like they are. Get some pictures from Google of martial artists. Or go to an elementary school playground and do some sketches)

Exaggerate the pose! If you're sketching someone runninig away from the neighbours dog, make them look like they're running for their goddamn life and anything they run into will be roadkill.

As for the circles: There is no circle!!! Bwahahaha! (teehee, j/k) I guess for the really basic stuff you just simplify the human figure into flat shapes. In most cases, circles are the best choise (some people use boxes or even triangles)
Then they detail the figure from there.

Just to note, a lot of people forget to put in certain anomilies when drawing figures (unless its anime or toony, but even those still have distortions). What makes the person look old? young? female? juvenile? There's more to making a character look old than putting a few wrinkle lines in the face. There's the posture and the way the picture portrays the movement of the old fart. The same goes for a neighbourhood brat: the way he/she acts, interacts with people and objects, their size, etc. The proportions will come when the idea of the character is set.

lol, and for breasts; if you rest your arm at the base of your neck, the breasts will approximatley start underneath that arm (unless ya have thick arms, haha!)


*whew!* I think I put too much useless stuff in there. What was the question again? xd

EDIT: oh, and of course, check out http://www.conceptart.org/forums


Stuff, incase you have no idea what I'm talking about sweatdrop or this might just confuse you more, I dunno




Bending Figures. sorry for the crap-scans

NP 3nodding

Thanks

No! I'm accustom to drawing the form first then adding the details to it. It's more complicated to do it that way, but its how I learned to draw. However I may use a frame if I'm drawing a difficult pose, and I need to make sure that the proportions are correct.

=) you mean stick figures. ^^
I always use stick figures, then build on blocks on top of them. They are very helpful.

and like Hansyuan mentioned, always remember that the spine is curved, not straight. Keep that in mind when you do the sketch, it'll help your character to look a lot more relaxed. =)