Here’s where beginners get stuck: they’re trying to draw “a person”. And, honestly, that’s not the most helpful goal. Don’t begin from the standpoint of trying to draw a whole person.
What you’re really trying to capture is some energy, some shape, and some balance. The person starts to come together when you start to get these elements right and put them together.
In studio classes, we work through a process in steps: First, get the gesture down. This is the feel of the pose, then you build up some simple shapes to give it some weight and structure. Then, you check the proportions for balance. Only after you’ve got that sorted can you start in on drawing the bits of the anatomy. This is a time-tested method being taught to artists for generations. It’s even the foundation of programs like the New Masters Academy which build their whole curriculum around gesture and construction as the two key pillars that make a figure look real.
What You’re Learning
When you actually put in the time to do figure drawing, you’re really developing these four key skills:
Gesture : that’s the buzzing energy and directional flow of the pose. This is where the movement lives.
Construction : just simple 3D forms (like spheres, boxes, cylinders) that give the figure a bit of presence within space.
Proportion : it’s not a rigid set of rules to memorize, it’s a measuring system that you use to make adjustments as you go along.
Balance : where the weight sits, and how the body counterbalances to stay upright.
If you’re a photographer or an artist. All this can help with posing too. The next time you’re working with a subject, start paying attention to where they put their weight and how their body is actually lined up. You’ll quickly see why some poses just look stiffer and unnatural, while others flow much more smoothly.
Step 1: Get the Feel First – Don’t Get Bogged Down in Details
When it comes to capturing the essence of a pose, the first thing to focus on is the gesture. This is the bit where the drawing finally starts to feel alive. Just give the general feel of the pose with a couple of lines if you can – don’t worry about drawing every single bit of anatomy. Just try to get a sense of the energy in the pose.
The simplest way to kick things off is to find that line of action. The main direction that the pose is moving in. Proko calls this the longer line in the pose, and just tries to get the general idea with a couple of light marks. It’s just one big line that tells you what’s going on.
Studio Exercise: Getting Those Gestures Just Right – 10 Minutes
Set a timer. That’s the key to keeping yourself from getting sidetracked by details. You need a bit of time pressure to remind you to keep things simple.
30 to 60 seconds per pose
For each one, draw
One line of action.
A simple head tilt.
The direction of the ribcage.
The direction of the pelvis.
Limb directions. Skip hands and feet for now. They’re not that important in this exercise.
You can practice this at home using timed reference tools like Quickposes or Line of Action. These are built to help you practice rapid gesture work, so you don’t overthink it.
Step 2: Bringing Some Real Depth to Your Figure
Alright, now that you’ve got the gesture right, it’s time to start adding some real meat to your figure. And, this is when the fun begins. Your drawing should start to look like a drawing, and move beyond a flat 2D picture that looks like it was drawn by an elementary school student. No offense is intended!
We follow the same principles that New Masters Academy teaches. We want to break down the construction to its simplest elements, and make it as painless as possible. The place to start is by getting a handle on the basics. Think about drawing spheres, boxes, and cylinders. The more you practice these simple forms, the more you’ll be able to give your figures some real depth, and before long your drawings will start to look like they’re actually 3D, not just 2D doodles that are lacking some serious weight and character.
Construction Map – Let’s Start with the Basics
The head should be a sphere or an egg shape.
The ribcage is basically a chunky egg or a box with a taper to it.
The pelvis is usually the shape of a bowl or a nice fat wedge.
Limbs are just a simple cylinder with a few joints to make them look like they’re actually attached to your figure’s body.
All of these shapes should become familiar and more intuitive after you’ve practice them for a bit.
Make your drawing marks light and gentle here. You’re basically building a mannequin over the top of your gesture that you drew in Step 1. It’s important that you do not totally obliterate the drawing and starting again from scratch. There should still be some kind of energy from step one that is showing through underneath your shapes.
Step 3: Getting the Proportion Right, And Not Guessing
Now, lots of people get spooked when we start discussing proportion because they think they have to memorize all these ‘perfect’ ratios. But in reality, proportion is just a matter of measurement, and its not guesswork. You can check where you’ve written it down.
In proper figure drawing courses, proportion is taught as a thing you learn to check and will adjust as you build or draw, not as a mystical secret that you need to unlock from the beginning.
Practical Proportion Checks
Here’s a trick I get students to do:
Mark down the total height of your figure.
Then you compare it:
How big is the head compared to the majority of the torso?
Where does the pelvis sit in relation to the ribcage?
How long are the legs are compared to your figure’s overall height?
You will want to address the big relationships first, and then you can worry about the smaller detailed shapes. If the head is too big, or the legs are too short, no amount of careful rendering is going to fix these issues. You’ve got to get the big stuff right first. Then, you can move on.
Step 4: Figuring out Where Your Figure is Actually Standing
Before you get too bogged down in all the little details, stop and think for a second. What’s actually keeping your figure upright?
More often than not, a pose that looks off to you is probably because the weight is murky or distributed all wrong. You’ll see it in a drawing that looks like the pelvis is hovering in mid air, or the whole thing is stiff and awkwardly symmetrical, or the torso just looks like its sitting on top of the hips rather than actually connected.
A Quick Balance Test
Take a look at which foot or hip is shouldering the most weight.
Then, take a good hard look at your counterbalance. Do the shoulders lean in the opposite direction of the hips?
Just be careful not to get so carried away trying to get every little thing perfect that you lose sight of the overall pose, its gesture and flow.
And for all you photographers out there, this is a crucial thing to pay attention to: posing people for photos works on the exact same principle. It’s the shift of weight and counterbalance that makes your pose look believable to the viewer. If you leave those bits out, your subject looks like it’s waiting for the bus.
Step 5: Adding in Some Anatomy – But Not Too Much
Now that you’ve got a sense of where your figure is standing, you can start adding in some anatomy. But only add what really helps you get a clearer picture of your figure, no more.
Anatomy can be a lifesaver when it comes to drawing, but it’s easy to get sidetracked and end up wasting a bunch of time dredging up every last bit of muscle name and forgetting the big picture. Use anatomy to sort out one or two key things like:
The general mass of the shoulder blade.
How the ribcage actually connects to the pelvis.
Knees and elbows as key landmarks to get straight in your head.
If you really want to go deep into anatomy study, just keep it focused on one area at a time. Pick one spot, one session, and then get back to drawing whole figures. Don’t use it as an excuse to put off the harder work of capturing the figure’s movement and dynamics.
Step 6: Timed Practice That Actually Works
Short timed sessions can help train your decision-making skills, while longer poses will help you get accuracy right. But, you may want to start slowly at first. Most people tend to neglect short timed work because it doesn’t feel anywhere near as serious as the longer time commitments.
Line of Action suggests kicking off each practice day with short gesture sessions after you’ve initially gotten them down. And also, their tools are all designed with that kind of timed rotation in mind. Quickposes does the same thing: images on a timer, forcing you to distill the essence of the pose before time runs out.
A Simple Weekly Plan (Thirty minutes, 3 times a week)
10 minutes: 30-60 second gestures (fire off as many as you can without worrying about them being any good)
10 minutes: 2-3 minute drawings (adding on to those initial gestures with a bit more construction)
10 minutes: one longer 10-minute pose (clean up, check proportions, maybe add a bit more detail)
This adds up to an hour and a half a week, which is just about enough to see some real improvement, over time, if you stick with it.
About working from references: some of the figure drawing tools around include nude models, depending on your settings. Just pick whatever filters you’re comfortable with, and that matches your intended audience.
Common Beginner Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
Drawing lines on your figure first, then expecting it to magically come to life. You’ll likely end up with a flat shape instead of a three-dimensional figure. Start with the line of action and the big forms. Proko’s gesture lessons hammer this point home, and it’s one he really drives home.
Staying too symmetrical in your poses – real people aren’t symmetrical. Find the weight-bearing leg and let the counterbalance do its job.
Getting too caught up in detail too early on. For example, working too long on hands, faces, and small anatomy and so on. Spend time on this at the last. If you’re trying to render fingernails before you’ve even got the torso looking right, then you’re getting way ahead of yourself and you are way off track.
Erasing over and over. This kills the flow of your drawing. Draw lightly, add some new lines, keep moving forward. If you need to clean up later, do it then, that’s okay.
