How To Sketch People And The Human Figure
The Foundation Of How To Sketch People
Learning how to sketch people and the human form can be somewhat challenging but the techniques remain the same as with regular sketching.
To sketch a person, first you should pay attention to the main lines and the direction of movements. At first, try to disregard the details.
Just take a quick look at the figure and sketch out the overall shape. Then fill in the angles where they fit into the shape.
At this stage of learning how to sketch people, you are more interested in the proportion of the figure and getting that right than you are with all the extra details. You can practice this by making quick sketches of poses.
Don’t be embarrassed if your quick sketches doesn’t come out perfect. We all have to start from somewhere. We all are beginners who didn’t have a clue about how to sketch people at some point and mistakes help us get better.
How To Sketch People Using Templates
As you continue to practice doing these sketches, you’ll find that you develop a template for the different body types: man, woman, child.
This is good. It means that you are developing a feel for drawing the human figure. Use these templates to help you draw the outline of your sketches of people and then fill the details.
Here are some quick things to notice about the human figure that you should include in your sketches of people: as we age, our body begins to droops. Our head and arms will also sag a little.
As a beginner, try to avoid making your sketches too small. Smaller sketches are more difficult to draw as you have to make very fine details.
But in addition, you won’t learn as much with smaller sketches because it will be harder for you to spot your weak points. For this reason, larger sketches tends to be better.
Sketching Hair
Many people find it hard to sketch hair. The good news is that sketching hair is a lot easier than drawing hair. The key to sketching hair is to do it with delicacy and to look for stray hairs to break up the mass of hair.
Remember to make your pencil stroke in the direction of the hair flow. To sketch long and straight hair, use swinging strokes that are close together.
Also, if the people that you are sketching are in motion be sure to ruffle up the hair to make it look like it’s moving.
Hair also changes with age. Younger hair tends to be thicker and will thin out as you age. Be sure to depict this in your sketches.
How to sketch people is a complex subject and it is impossible to cover everything in one short article. I’ve done my best to lay out some important points that you should keep in mind when sketching people.
Keep these drawing tips in mind and you should find that sketching people will become a much easier task.