Drawing outline of human body part 3: Advanced stick figures drawing

from tom tom – The gaze into the sun ( i love inu )

In this hub we are going to discuss about advanced stick figures drawing, and it is moving closer to our actual drawing to manga comic characters.

Let us assume that many readers have gone through the previous drawing outline of human body sessions. If any reader needs to know what is happening, start from part 1, part 2a and part 2b.

Advanced stick figures drawing example

I will begin by sharing some advanced stick figure drawing, and we will compare and contrast between the previous stick figure drawings with today's advanced stick figure drawings.

For a start, lets discuss about the stick figure above.

It is much different from the previous stick figure drawings that I have suggested before; this stick figure drawing is much more life like than the previous versions.

The stick figure has a pose, and the skeletal outline are nicely drawn curves, not straight lines.

This is important because the human body is not made up of strictly straight lines. By drawing straight lines we get robots, not humans.

By comparing with the above stick figure, one would guess that I use the stick figure as a skeletal blueprint to reproduce the doodle art above.

And in between drawing the stick figure and producing the doodle art on my right, there is an intermediate step that is necessary.

However for this hub we will be focusing on drawing advanced stick figures, so the intermediate step of adding flesh and muscles to our stick figure will have to wait for future hubs.

How do I reproduce the exact same pose? By tracing the stick figure out on to a fresh piece of paper, and subsequently add details to the fresh piece of paper.

It is a difficult process, but a necessary drill to help our sense adapt to good measurements of human anatomy.

How to draw advanced stick figures?

1. Pay attention to the curves in a human skeletal figure as shown in my stick figure.
2. The spinal cord bends forward, hence the top half of the body is arcing towards the front.
3. Take note of the two triangles of the top half of the body; notice where the two triangles intersect. When we are required to add flesh and muscle, the intersection will be used as a guide to pinpoint the shortest width of a male's upper body.
4. Take note where the character is facing; every part of the body must be aligned towards the same direction.

Final words for this post

It is possible to copy the above stick figure and practice this current post for the male's anatomy. I recommend you to do that.

This is also how I started out, by drawing out stick figures in different poses first. There are differences between the male and female stick figures, as their anatomy is different.

Without practizing on stick figures, it will be very much difficult to proceed on to adding flesh and muscles to stick figures, because it forms the backbone and foundation for the entire character to look right.

Want to find out more on female poses and other details? Visit this post in my blog for additional details.

This hub is edited and taken from my blog at http://manga-journey.com/, where I blog about my experiences and learning curve of becoming a semi-professional manga comic artist.