Learning to Draw Figures/People

To be able to successfully draw comic style images I'm going to need to learn to draw people. Not just a one-off sketch but multiple images of the same person in a variety of poses and situations. There are a couple of methods that are used for drawing people and artists pick the one they prefer.



I have bought a number books over the years on drawing fantasy figures but I have not yet put in the practice required to achieve consistent results. I have used the methods and have been able to produce a successful image but I never kept up the practice.

The first book I will use is How To Draw: Wizards, Warriors, Orcs and Elves by Steve Beaumont.

For obvious copyright reasons I cannot show you exactly how he shows you to draw figures but I can provide you with an example picture or two using some scanned pictures.

So here we have some pictures, directly from the book itself, the first of which shows you to start off with a basic stick figure, the second picture goes on to use shapes to turn the stick into something more solid.

The next two pictures are the artists final images of an evil wizard and a female elf.

Next we have my attempts at using this method.

The first one was a bit of a disaster I tried to do it far too small, the second isn't as bad but is still a bit small.

The above picture and the one below were far better attempts and turned out well.

The book is capable of showing you how to successfully create a character as the pictures I have done have proved. I have yet to test this method out on one of my own creations (I will update this post when I do) but if you make the image big enough you shouldn't have any problems.

If you are interested in using the  book yourself you may be able to find it at your local book shop or you can always get a copy from Amazon (see below).

There are other methods but this one seems the simplest, using basic shapes to create the main image and then adding to that image to add clothes etc. There isn't a lot in the way of writing, it is focussed on using images and getting you to do the images yourself which is the only way you will ever be able to draw a figure.

Come back soon for more methods/ways of learning to draw people.