How to Draw Humans Pt. 2

Introduction:

Greetings and welcome. The first part of this is called How to Draw Humans part 1 and not a lot of this will make sense without that prelude. I am going to preface this tutorial by assuring you that we will be considering a myriad of phenotypical discrepancies within the human species. Please remember that nature is diverse, and your art should be too.

In part 1, we looked at how the body is 1o units long (I’m using centimeters) like this. You might have noticed that not all people look like this. You might have noticed that no people look like this. Well observed. Now we expand.

 People have significant physical differences based on whether they are biologically male or female, besides reproductive organs. This is because of a thing called sexual dimorphism. On our 10-unit dummy, these are the physical differences between the binary sexes, color-coded.

• Bone is in blue and manipulates the underlying structure of a form.

• Fat is in orange and is associated with the roundness of a body.

• Muscle is in pink and is associated with angularity, but muscles are obviously also round.

Female bodies often have a relatively shorter stature with narrow shoulders, wide-set hips, and breasts. Fat tends to stay in the lower body around the hips, thighs, bottocks and lower abdomen. Male bodies are relatively taller with broad shoulders, a muscular upper body, and narrow hips. Males’ fat is stored more in the trunk of the body in the middle-forward region of the abdomen, the chest,t and the neck. For now, just draw them at the same stature because I haven’t shown you how to adjust for height yet. Also, mixing and matching these kinds of shapes is not unruly or unrealistic by any means.

This is how fat is distributed across people, accentuated differently by sex. The way fat is stored and burned is directed by the endocrine system,m which is also the system that hormones like testosterone and estrogen are controlled by. Fat is stored everywhere in the body, but it’s not stored evenly in everyone’s body. There are lots of body types,s and people store fat very differently depending on their genetics. 

Everybody’s muscles basically look like this under the fat and can be recognized under the fat and skin. Muscle can be built on top of joints, while fat does not store on joints. This difference is a useful way to show what parts of a form are more muscular and which are more fatty. A fat person with less musculature’s arms and legs will notably dip inward at the elbows and knees. 

  Using the 10-unit figure, you can break up the body into

• The Chest,

• Hips,

• The Abdomen. 

• Arms and

• Legs

• (the head, neck, hands, and feet are vaguely separate entities that vary with fat and muscle as well)

Changing the ratios of fat and muscle stored in these sections shows different body types. Combinations you might recognize are shown above. This organization of the body also makes it easier to think about it three-dimensionally versus the 10-unit-tall A-pose I’m showing you. Have fun experimenting and practicing! Remember that “fat” isn’t a bad word and that beauty is not something to be trademarked to conventional standards. Beauty is a human experience,e and fat bodies are just that—beautiful.

When it comes to height, it’s important to understand that it isn’t scaling a whole person up like you would a giant. Height comes from the spine and the legs. The proportions are not exact from person to person,n so even when people are the same height, they can be in different ways. I myself am only 5’ 9” when standing, ng but I’m taller than most people when we are seated because of how long my spine is. Of course, you’d never know because of my love for slouching. Use the basic 10 unit principle and just add increments to the spine and/or legs—and while you’re at it, the arms too. Always keep the arms a fair amount shorter than the legs. This also applies to shortening a person—do so from the spine, legs,s and arms.

Age is the last full-body difference I am going to talk about today. Undergrown humans have different proportions than fully grown ones. Starting with babies: they have short limbs, a smaller body compared to their height, ad and some puffy fatty tissues around their limbs and neck. Their heads are about ¼ of their total length, and their body grows from there.

During toddlerhood, they still have shorter limbs than their torso, but their head is now ⅕ of their height,t and they will have a prominent belly. 

Kids’ body type is usually stable by age 6. As children get closer to the 10-or-so-unit-size, they grow by height and width alternately in growth spurts until eventually they stop at 18-ish.

As people age past the 10-or-so unit figure (upwards of 40 years old), their hormones change again. As female people age into menopause, less estrogen is circulating, and the way fat is stored in their bodies can change. Similarly, aging male people usually experience a decrease in muscle mass due to reduced testosterone. 

Because we are so blessed in this society to have the abundance to maintain our eating habits, many aging people experience increased weight gain, helped by the hormone changes (the body doesn’t need as much fuel, but we still eat the same amount). Conversely, some people find it more tiring to eat and cook as they age (doing so less because they don’t actually need to and they get very thin. Height reduction is also common as people age. This shrinkage is only by about 3 inches or so and is reduced from a person’s vertebrae settling closer together and from flattening foot arches. Additional perceived height lost could also be due to a solidified posture (also spinal).

Now that you know roughly where things go, you can practice until you don’t really need the ruler anymore. The ruler will always be there for yyouou though, so don’t sweat it. What’s great about not needing the ruler is that you can feel free to screw around with proportions and ratios and find some styles that you like. Also,o think about how the body is made o3-dimensionalal shapes! Look at how shapes kind of look like bodies and experiment with poses.

The next lessons are going to be:

• How to Draw Humans Pt 3. - everything (that I possibly can) about the face!

• The Foundations of Conceptual Art - decision making and appeal.

• I do not expect that I will be getting much else out.