Human Illustration Tutorials

Hello everyone. As we’ve almost finish to overview drawing human face, next thing I wanna share with you is drawing human body. Generally I prefer to break everything into parts instead of trying to ’swallow entirely everything’. But this time I’ve decided to make an a little experiment and explain you how to draw human figure generally at least with sketches. And to clarify questionable elements in next tutorials. And of course I’ll answer your questions if you have any.

Okay, take your pencils and let’s start!

Drawing the human body can sometimes seem like a huge challenge for the beginner artist.

To tackle figure drawing - sometimes called ‘life drawing’ - we will take an overview of drawing the whole figure, and sometimes look at drawing parts of the body. Learning to draw a human in a life drawing class is the ideal, but if this isn’t possible for now – maybe your friends or family would be happy to model. Nude model would be excellent, but I’ll repeat - for observation, foreshortening, proportion a model wearing close-fitting sportswear will be enough. It can equally be explored drawing arms and legs.

Remember, you won’t learn to draw by just reading about it! You have to put it into practice. So make notes in your notebook/sketchbook when reading this tutorial to remind what to work on later.

Human figure proportions

First, let’s look at the basic proportions of the head and body, and practice sketching them. A common problem in figure drawing is getting everything in proportion. In figure drawing, the basic unit of measurement is the ‘head’, which is the distance from the top of the head to the chin. This handy unit of measurement is reasonably standard, and has long been used by artists to establish the proportions of the human figure.

For most figures, the standard proportions are a safe bet, and lightly placing your seven horizontals at the very outset can be a helpful way to ensure your figure will fit on the page. Then more careful measurements can be taken according to your individual subject.

Your top division will be the head. As you begin to draw the rest of the figure, check the placement of key points against your head measurements. The armpit begins just above the second head line, the hips at the third, for example. The head unit can also be used to check the size and relative placement of other parts of the body. Don’t be afraid if it will vary from one model to another, ‘cos it’s naturally depending on the body shape and pose of the model.

Now try to sketch human with simple oval shapes using your knowledges of proportions without intricate details, such as a face, fingers, or toes. Begin your sketch with very light lines to simply establish the figure on the drawing paper. Make your final lines a little darker so they stand out more.
But don’t erase the initial sketch lines - they will be your guiding lines and help you orientate on next sketches until you practice enough in proportions and lines.

It’s all for today, in the next post we’ll continue studying how to draw a human figure. For now - practice in all these areas will come together and you’ll find yourself able to tackle simple poses with confidence. For best results - work consistently, practicing drawing daily. See ya soon!

Hello everyone! Pardon me that I left you without new illustrations tutorials for some time. So now I’m here again and had prepare new tutorial just for you!

The purpose of this tutorial is to learn basics how to draw human mouth using simple techniques. We will be using a combination of different techniques to give a more realistic look to your drawing in next tutorials. My goal is for you to understand the techniques. The mouth and lips are a fascinating part of the face. So first off, an little overview of the mouth:

First off, notice the “contour lines” are over the mouth. The contours of the thin lines gives you an idea of how the mouth is constructed in a more dimensional way.

Heed that the upper lip “dips in” and how the lower lip comes out, which makes it lighter (more light on it). And note how the corners of the mouth have more shadow as a general rule, all of the upper lip is darker (compared to the lower lip).

Also, please notice that there are 5 basic “sections” at the lips. Depending on how much is a “cupid’s bow” the person you drawing has, you will emphasize these “sections” a little(or a lot :)) When you draw the mouth, be looking for these “sections” to the lips. Just try to put them there

Well here we go. Well this is the outline that we will be working on.

Don’t make the outline too dark, just enough for you to be able to see the pencil. I darkened the image a bit so you could see the outline.

I mentioned that most people haven’t paid any attention to the details of mouth illustrations. We know the shape of our lips but we don’t know what it actually looks like. First of all they are not smooth. Lips are full of texture and one simple way to test this is to run one finger over them. You will feel the textures and contours. If you look at them close you will notice they are bumpy, especially the lower lip. You will also notice that when moist they reflect light and you can see these reflections. If you’re a woman you will notice these reflections much more if you are wearing glossy lipstick. These little things give the lips such unique characteristics and why not try to capture them on paper to give your pencil drawings much more realism.

The highlighted area with dark shows a shadowed area around the mouth that should not be forgotten. This shading indicates the structure of the face around the mouth. The mouth isn’t just plopped on the face, it is a three-dimensional thing, with surrounding muscles and structure. Usually, there will be some shading (subtle, but there) at under the lower lip, and around the corners of the mouth.

The highlighted area all around the lips is another often overlooked detail in portrait art. If you look closely at any person, you will see that we all have this area (ridge, whatever) around our lips. It is especially obvious right at the corners of the mouth.

So in the end something like summary:

• Sketch the outline of the lips.
• “Block in” the shading of the lips, putting more shading on the top lip, and leaving a highlighted area in the middle of the bottom lip, and some highlighted areas on the upper rim of the top lip.
• Add more shading and rendering. Don’t forget the “ridge” around the lips, and the shading around the mouth that suggests its structure. Add the darkest accents of tone to the corners of the mouth.

I hope you enjoy this tutorial and you learn a bit from it. Next time I’ll be more detailed with drawing mouth. Now you should practice with basics. Maybe your first mouth might not look as you want it, but you probably get used to this during reading this blog and you already know that with time you will see results, its all about wanting to improve and practice.

Ears, like so many human features, are easy after you know the trick, but confusing and difficult until you know how to draw them. Some artists trying to avoid drawing ears just cover the character’s ears with long hair, because short haired character will need ears drawn in details. Drawing a human ear accurately is important in most portraits. In fact, they come in many different shapes and bends that they’re pretty difficult to mess up. In this tutorial I’ll give you a step by step look at how to draw ears.

First off, look in the image. At the very least you should be able to draw this shape. I recommend this like an example if you’re going for a realistic ear.

Ear Diagram Hand copy this line drawing of the ear seen directly from the side. The parts of the ear are labeled with their medical names, just for amusement and so that we can discuss them later. Notice how basic the two are when you break them down into their most important components? Ears must have: an outer edge, an inner edge and a hole leading to the ear drum. At the very least remember these basic lines when you draw ears. The lines are very similar to each other in shape and location, so this shouldn’t be difficult.

One thing that is difficult to remember in drawing the ear is that the shapes within the ear are always going to follow this pattern. The y-shaped bulge of the antihelix may be higher or lower, but it will be there. The little bulge of the antitragus will be there. These details are the same on all ears, but the exact placement and shape varies a lot from individual to individual.

The very first thing I start with is the outline. You’ll want to fit this onto your characters head in the best way possible, while remembering that the upper tip will generally align with the top of the eyes or bottom of the eyebrows.

Next draw the inner curve. Not much to say hear except that the lower edge of this arch sorta disappears into the center of the ear, and the top of this line shouldn’t connect with the outline.

In a realistic drawing instead of the outer line outline, there would be hair behind the ear to contrast texture and value. The shading at the edge of the ears and its internal shading is as soft as the shading on the nose, with some dark areas depending on lighting — but it will be gradual and tonal, not a hard outline. Because the ear casts a shadow on the hair, though, it is a place where outlines are less jarring than they are around a nose.

This is an ear seen from the side on a short haired person with squared off sideburns, but how it looks from in front is different. Not all of these detailed features are evident, and in some ways it’s simplified. In a 3/4 view portrait it will be angled but still closer to this side view ear than to the forward view.

The line you’re drawing here can take on any number of shapes, but I opted for something thinner. This horseshoe shape will form the outer ridge of the ear as well as the inner ridge of the center.

And that’s it! We’ve colored the drawing to help illustrate what all of the lines and ridges formed. So now you can see what a basic human ear looks like, complete with lobe, canal, and a lot of bump-y shapes running through the center forming peaks and valleys.

Notes: Small children’s ears are sometimes out of proportion, large because they can grow faster than the child’s head. Often small children’s ears stick straight out to the sides too, although some adults’ ears do this as well. How flat ears are to the side of the head will vary with the individual, but older people’s ears are usually flatter to the head than children’s.

When looking at the detailed diagram and drawing the detailed ear, keep in mind that the lines represent very soft lines of different values, shaded areas that move forward into highlight. Making ears more detailed than the expressive features of the face, mouth and eyes, will draw too much attention away from them and make the subject look funny. On the other hand, in a caricature, enlarging ears and exaggerating their shape and structures is a good way to give a laugh.

One of the best ways to deemphasize ears in any portrait is to pay attention to the value differences of the shading. If the darkest shadows in the ear are only one or two steps darker than the light parts of the ear, that is closer to accurate than if those shadows are exaggerated. Hair sets off the shape of the ear as a whole, so one value of highlighting and one value of shadowing are all that’s needed to make ears look good in a portrait.

As I promised in previous tutorial(as you remember we’ve learned how to draw eyes) today we are going to learn drawing noses. I put everything together quickly, so if you have any suggestions or improvements – please comment and I’ll improve this tutorial.

The nose as well as all human features varies greatly in shape and form, both between different nationalities and individuals. By changing the shape of the nose you can give some special features to your character.

So how to draw a nose? As I noticed - everybody has problems with drawing the nose in the beginning. But actually the basics of drawing a nose aren’t that hard, and in this tutorial I’ll prove that there is nothing to be afraid of.

But get ready to fill your sketchbook with many different noses The nose is really a tough thing to draw, it looks different from different angles. It can mostly be seen by the shadows it casts. So the first step in drawing a nose properly is noticing the shape and characteristics that make it original. Notice how the tips of the nose can curve up, curve down, become extra round, or go straight.

When drawing a nose in profile, you see the curves are everything. When you draw it head-on, the shape and size of the nostrils, edges and proportion to the rest of the face are more important.

What else? Yeah.. nostrils. Nostrils are a much overlooked part of the nose. They are not simple black holes on the nose, but separate, definite shapes with their own shading. Many nostrils look like elongated commas, while others look like ovals. Some have sharp edges; others are more rounded. Make sure to draw the shape accurately and then shade it. The edges are usually darker that the inner area.

So now you know that the nose is simply a mix of curves and lines that can be drawn by the artist just like any other part of the face. With a little practice and these tips anyone can draw a nose. Good luck!

Now you know general idea of drawing human face. So let’s be more specific and learn how to draw each part of face in details.

It would be better to start with eyes as it is the most complicated part. There are many different methods of drawing, so we will discuss them in our illustration tutorials. In this tutorial I’ll show you the most simple part of the process.

Before getting started, you should know and understand the basic anatomy of the human eye.

Eye Anatomy

The eyeball itself is roughly spherical, with a bulge over the pupil due to it’s lense. This bulge is the reason highlights often fall on theiris and pupil area of the eye - it sticks out further and catches the light.

The eye is suspended in the eye socket by muscles and soft tissues. The hard bones create highlights around the perimeter of the eye socket. Soft skin folds over the sphere of the eye, and eyelids wrap around its surface. Notice that you can see the upper edge of the bottom eyelid, as it curves under the form of the eyeball. It’s essential to visualize the 3D structure of the eye anytime you are drawing one.

Highlights on the eye are often bright and sharp, due to the moistness of the eye itself. These highlights should reflect the intensity, direction and shape of the light source in your drawing.

Ideally, you have to read this article on Wikipedia. It’s long and sometimes complicated, thought worth it for your future drawing illustrations experience.

Getting started

First we draw an oval shape which define the whole eye. If you look at an eye and the shapes around it you can see an oval shape from the bony protuberance of the eyebrow and coming around to the upper part of the cheek. Now we have a rough oval shape.

Then draw the main shape of the eye itself, going over the basic oval shape we already made. Observe carefully the outline shape of the eye, it has subtle little curves and shapes on the top and bottom lids, the top lid is very different in shape than the bottom one. Draw in the crease above the top eye lid and note that this line doesn’t exactly follow the shape of the top lid so good observation is needed here, lastly put in the little nodule at the left corner of the eye observing its shape. Drawing the eyes as with anything else is all to do with shapes and once you get into the habit of observing what’s going on in whatever you are drawing you will be well on your way in your art.

Drawing details

Then begin darkening a couple of the darkest places in the drawing. Don’t be afraid to go too dark in these areas. It won’t matter. In fact, it will probably help the drawing in the end because it will add contrast. Now we have the basic eye shape in we can then put in the lens of the eye which when looking straight at us is a perfect round shape. Observation is the key here so observe how far away the lens is from the left and right corners of the eye and observe the size and shape of the lens in relation to the whole eye shape. Keep in mind the relationships of the shapes and lines that you draw in and then draw in a little round shape for the pupil.

Look to see where your light source is coming from, it could be coming from above or below or to the right or left or more straight on, here it is coming from above and slightly from the right. Now we can block in some shading over the whole eye shape either with diagonal shading (from right to left) or if you are left handed (from left to right). The actual lens of the eye is quite a bit darker than the whites of the eye around it so good observation of tonal values is needed here, also try to keep a little area clear of shade for the small highlight which in this example is more or less in the centre of the lens.

We now need to draw in the little areas around the eye to set the eye off a little so observation is needed here, shade in these areas with a 2B pencil. Draw in the pupil of the eye which is more or less in the centre of the lens with a dark 4B pencil. The actual eyeball is round so draw in slightly darker shade in the left and right corners of the eyeball to indicate its roundness.

Everything is drawn in darker now building up shade as we go along and we also draw in the eyebrow to set the eye off a little. The top lid is usually darker than the bottom one so we need to observe this if we want to make the eye look like a real eye. There are darker lines around the outline of the lens of the eye which brings the lens out to us more from the eyeball.

Summary

We have finished the drawing. The eye appeared to be darker all around the actual eye shape, and necessary areas are drawn in dark accents. Also don’t forget to leave white paper for the highlight. If you cover up the lights and the highlights with your shading — don’t worry! You can use a putty rubber or bluetac to remove the shading. We used this very method in that case. After all the efforts you’ll get something like this:

Next time we will discuss how to draw a nose and many other interesting thing. Hope to see you soon.

Welcome back on “Human Illustration Tutorials” website! We are really glad to see you again here.

Drawing human head and face is the most important part of drawing human, but most complicated at the same time. These parts of the body contain many facets and huge number of small details, which are different in every individual and need to be taken into consideration. At the same time quality illustration, realism of your illustration and disposition of the future character(if you are making a cartoon) depend on the face.

Let’s see what you should know about drawing human face:

1. Shape: the first thing you need to do is to identify what shape the head has. To do this look at the jaw line and hairline. For example, Bruce Willis’s head has a square shape, whereas Al Pacino’s head could be described as a rounded triangle.
2. Proportions: stick to the right proportions! Each face has specific proportions. Sometimes they can be a bit different, but still they are very much alike. Thus during your work you will notice that proportions of a baby’s head are quite different from those of an adult.
3. Eyes: The eyes are always halfway down. They are placed between the top of the head and the bottom of the chin. They are also an eye-length apart. This means that, however long you decide to make the eyes, there will be that much space between the eyes as well.
4. Nose: The rest of the face underneath the eyes is divided into thirds. And the first third line will be the bottom of the nose.
5. Mouth: the next third(or two-thirds of the way from the eyes to the chin) should be the mouth. The mouth’s edges should be in line with the middle of each eye.

Now you know the basics of the individual uniqueness of a human face. And now you should notice if someone’s eyes are unusually far apart, or if their nose is a little longer than normal. This will help you to draw more realistic portraits.

We are glad to greet on our website everyone who wants to learn drawing a human professionally and create character illustrations. You will be able to create awesome character illustrations studying our tutorials!

I want to begin our tutorials with an advice: if you want your characters to be real - copy them from people! There are two possible ways of finding a model:

1. Ask someone to pose for you and practice

or

2. Find high resolution photos of people and learn to draw using those.

Note that you should study every little detail so, as if you walk around your model only a few feet away. It is not a problem to find a photo with the necessary poses and angles on the Internet.

First of all, take the photos of standing man or woman and try to learn differences in anatomy of human poses during daily activities, for excmple, eating, drinking, dressing up and walking. You will be impressed by the amount of differences you discover!

Find it out and come back to other Human Illustration Tutorials, where we will learn how to draw shockingly real human illustrations of highest quality!