Reddit reviews Drawing the Head and Figure: A How-To Handbook That Makes Drawing Easy

My biggest tip: take a figure drawing class, if you have the time and money. There's no substitute for a good teacher, and as a bonus you'll get the chance to draw from life (which can be very helpful). Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions!

If you're looking for theory, the best books I've seen are Jack Hamm and Andrew Loomis, both of whom offer intelligent simplifications of the figure along with breakdowns of specific anatomy if you want it.
This basic figure frame from Loomis is one of the best things you can learn (though don't place too much emphasis on meeting those measurements-- after all, they don't help for crap once you have to foreshorten).

Try this study tool. Set it to 30 second or 1 minute intervals with nude models and fill up the page with Loomis-style mannequin figures. Don't worry about getting each one perfect; move on once your time is up. Get a bunch of paper and do it for 20 minutes straight.

Think, especially about the shape of the ribcage, spine, and hips. Notice how the ribcage is kind of egg-shaped, how the spine curves, and how the hips are shaped like a wide V.

Anatomy and proportions are best learned, I think, through a combination of drawing (from life whenever possible) and study. There are a LOT of good references out there for the studying part! Figure Drawing For All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis is the perennial choice, for good reason. Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm is another that I really like, and is a bit more affordable if budget is an issue. Look also at Glen Vilppu, George Bridgman (although I think Bridgman is more of an intermediate-level course on the subject than a beginner one)... I've heard a lot of folks recommend Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention, though of all the folks I've listed that's one I don't have.

Middle school art teacher here! Good job! You'd get an A for sure! One thing that I like doing with my students portrait art works is see if it can fool a computer, I take a camera phone and see if the phone recognizes the picture as a human face. (Note, this doesn't work well with dark skinned or darker images, computer AI is dumb, but I guess if Skynet takes over dark skinned people will be able to move around undetected.) Anyways, your picture passes my camera test! So that's cool!


Constructive Criticism: Is this the reference? Overall, you placed major structures of the face well in relation to each other, but you drew them to big compared to the size of the head. This raised his eyes further from the center of the face upward and shortened his forehead. It's probably easier to fix the head shape vs shrinking the eyes, nose and mouth. To fix this next time, you could move his hair upward (expand the top of his head). If it ends up going a bit off page, that's ok. Proportions are very tough to get and until you've drawn a lot you're going to have a tough time visualizing where things are supposed to be on the page. I'm not sure your training, or past experience, but I would look into the term "eye-length", or if you're using google "eye-length drawing". In my class, I use some pages out of Drawing The Head & Figure by Jack Hamm and from other sources to help students. I'd look into those older books to help because they cover the same stuff as newer books (human anatomy hasn't changed much, lol) and the older books are often cheaper.


Keep this drawing. Keep practicing and try to draw the same image in a few years to challenge yourself to do better. ♥♥♥ : )

If you want my advice, I would almost always start with realism before stylized. I made the mistake of starting with an anime/manga style when I was young and it took me years to even come close to breaking the bad habit of pointy chins and broken proportions.


This is the book I used when I started out; https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-How-Handbook/dp/0399507914. It's very beginner friendly and I still use it for reference when I'm not sure about something.

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And yes, I did go to art school, but I would recommend against it, especially if it's a private one. I've seen a lot of friends go six figures into debt and never get the chance to put their skills to use. You can get just as much done through just hard work and practice (in my opinion).


Hope this helps!

> Antarctic Press :D my 3rd most frequently purchased comics publisher after Slave Labor Graphics and Dark Horse! mainly just the odd issue of Fred Perry's Gold Digger but mainly their How to Draw Manga books.

Didn't realize they were the How to Draw Manga book guys. Have a ton of them.

I remember back in the day the guy behind "Listening to 11.975Mhz" had a page up on them. He uh... wasn't a fan. He suggested instead an actual book on Figure Drawing / Anatomy -- Jack Hamm's was specifically suggested and a book by Stan Lee on how old school, pre-diversity hire retards Marvel did comicing -- How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.

I'm hoping someone with some experience will chime in. As a fellow beginner, I like the following:

Figure Drawing, Design and Invention

Jack Hamm, Drawing the Head and Figure

But, with that said, the one I've had the most success with is:

Vilppu Drawing Manual. If I could only have one book, that is probably the one I would pick.

Anatomy books are the real deal, but not always inspirational starting points. The important thing to practice when drawing people, is proportions...as in why are the figure's arms too short and legs too long. You might want to look at a book that doesn't obsess over where muscles go on huge naked men. For example, http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321976718&sr=8-2


But most importantly, don't burn out on this stuff. Remember to draw what you love and have fun once and a while. With the right mindset to improve, you can only get better.

Start with Figure Drawing For All Its Worth. It's worth its weight in gold. Those Loomis books are available in softcover at Amazon again, which is good.

Also pick up Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm.

Both those books are a fantastic way to get started! Not only do they show you anatomy, but also composition, perspective, and all the other fundamentals you'll need to get started.

Let's start with the basics, when you draw people, there are average ratios for a person's face and body. I would recommend picking up Jack Hamm's books: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-How-Handbook/dp/0399507914/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

it's great for beginners.

Here's an excerpt to give you an idea of what I'm talking about: People are around 7 1/2 heads, idealized people are around 8 heads (https://witness2fashion.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/8-head-figure-jack-hamm-drawing-the-head-and-figure.jpg)

Faces, notice the width of the nose, the angle between the eyes and the bottom of the nose, etc... this should give you an approximation of getting closer to a correct face (http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/jack-hamms-drawing-the-head-figure-eyes-sketchbook-pervy.jpg)

Once you've achieved satisfactory ratios for face and body, and you're quite close to getting it right every time. Then move onto doing Bargue plates.

All I want for X-mas is youuuuuu ... ♫

Wait. .it isn't X-mas yet? Um.. oops...
Well, maybe this would be a great help.
See, I know how to draw. Here are some examples of what I can do and while pretty I want to broaden my drawing skills.
Not everyone likes the japanese anime style and even some people go as bad as to frowning it and saying it's stupid due to it's popularity, the stereotypes, etc and I can't blame them, it is rather popular and it might work with what they want.
So as somebody who who wants to make epic stories, I want to draw epicly, this can also open me doors for better jobs (instead of the one I have which I barely get enough money to spend;; ) and simply raise the bar in my skill.

So, if you'd help me on this quest, I'd appreciate it very much.

Thats funny... BUT - that is some terrible proportional reference. What the heck?!

Please please please pick up Drawing the Head & Figure - By Jack Hamm. Thats an Amazon link, though this book is very common. Not only is this book dirt cheap, it's a great place to get started on simplified but correct proportion, basic anatomy and life drawing skills. Whatever reference you're using there is gonna seriously fuck you up in the long run (sorry).

Also: How to draw comics the Marvel Way is another great place to start drawing people (and even cheaper!).

whats your opinion, if any, on this?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0399507914/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

I learnt to draw fundamentals of anatomical structure in humans and animals from Jack Hamm http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914
But the best advice is to get a pad of paper. Don't make it some fancy, super expensive art-store stuff. Then you'll never want to draw on it for fear of 'ruining it' (or atleast thats my compulsion). Just a pad of paper. Draw everything. Notice everything. Look at light, look at shadows, look at the basics of shapes and curves and how basic structures work. And draw. It'll look like crap. But keep drawing. The more you draw, the more you train your draw for neuroplastic reorganization that will, eventually, allow you to accomplish better and better drawings.

And don't draw with a damned mechanical pencil either. One of my art teacher gave me that advice and it's liberating. You get too caught up in the details.

Drawing is like building a house, build a good solid foundation, then add the fine details.

Hi :) ... So, the anatomy is quite off. Specifically, his face looks concave, when it should be more convex. The placement of the facial features is off. His shoulder width is too small considering the volume of his neck. The arm sticking out is too thin and too short. His torso narrows too much at the waist. Men have a more | | shape going down. The leg on the left has the knee pointing toward us, but the foot pointing sideways. The thighs could also use more volume. Anatomy/figure drawing is definitely a really tricky subject. Youtube should have some good videos that can help you. Also, this book is extremely thorough and a great start to learning how to draw people. It's probably the best figure drawing book I have (and I have a lot :P)! amazon link

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Well drawing for me started out as a coping mechanism when I was a kid and still is for me today (especially these days). I had a lot of problems with depression and anxiety as a child coupled with a fairly ignorant father that didn't recognize these things as mental problems. I was forced to try to find a way to deal with hordes of feelings and emotions that as a mere child I was incapable of understanding and drawing helped me do that. Around the time I was about 13 or so some close friends of mine started drawing and where WAAAAY better than I was, so that pushed me to start working on things like technique and different styles. I really liked Dragonball Z at that age so I started drawing pictures I printed out from the internet regularly and started drawing in an anime style and eventually began coming up with my own characters, my friends were really good at drawing in anime styles so they taught me a lot about it.

When high school rolled around (I'll say sophomore year or so) I took basic art 1&2 but I never really did too much because the course material was SO rigid that it didn't interest me. Ms. Huelett (the art teacher) felt like I had a lot of talent and took me under her wing in a big way. She knew A LOT about art and helped me learn and meld multiple styles together in order for me to create my own. She taught me a lot about anatomy and how to draw people/characters in different poses, how to properly shadow characters and apply light sources to my pieces, creating expressions and applying drama through a characters poses, she poured as much knowledge into me as she could and I couldn't be more grateful for all she taught me.

I know it isn't much (you've also been given some great advice already I see, which is fantastic) but I'll give you a few links to some books that really helped me learn more about various styles and techniques (I still have most of these books and refer to them fairly often, even now)

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954561&sr=8-9&keywords=how+to+draw

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Urban-Sketching-Location/dp/1592537251/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954800&sr=8-19&keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti

http://www.amazon.com/Street-Art-Doodle-Book-Outside/dp/1856696820/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954800&sr=8-28&keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954902&sr=8-28&keywords=how+to+draw+books

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Manga-Mark-Crilley-drawing-ebook/dp/B006WUD10S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954990&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+draw+manga

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga-Bodies-Anatomy/dp/4766112385/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954990&sr=8-6&keywords=how+to+draw+manga

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Cutting-Edge-Anatomy-Reference-ebook/dp/B00G8ELT2K/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1404955084&sr=8-10&keywords=how+to+draw+comics

http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Comic-Book-Action-Garbett/dp/1440308136/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1404955084&sr=8-14&keywords=how+to+draw+comics

I think that's most of the books I've got, at the very least it'll give you some ideas to practice with and all of those books together isn't too bad of a price and it's a good way to get experience in the things you want to learn (I think) if you're not able to afford the classes you were suggested.

Good god this post is long as hell and I apologize for that, I'm just trying to be as helpful as I possibly can with what I know (call it a flaw)

I'll leave you with a few pieces of advice that help me out regularly and that I feel have gotten me to the level I'm at now (though I think I'm just ok at best truthfully)

1. Sketch whatever idea you have in your mind for something as fast as you can and just let your ideas flow through you. Don't give yourself time to say this part sucks I have to redo it, just go for it and you'll be surprised at what can come out of it.
   
   
2. Try to take inspiration from artists you admire but don't try to copy their style. What worked for me was incorporating my inspiration with various artists and merging them with my own ideas which eventually lead to me developing my own style(s)
   
   
3. Do your best to not look at your art as inferior to another persons artwork. Absolutely, have those people you look up to want to be like artistically and draw inspiration from, but do your best not to doubt yourself. It's YOUR artwork and YOUR ideas, the only person's opinions that matter are your own. If you're truly happy with what you've created and feel you've done the best you can then I promise SOMEONE out there WILL like your work as well, at least in my opinion.
   
   Sorry again for the book, I just hope I was at least a little bit helpful with the advice I was able to give and didn't come off as arrogant sounding or anything
   
   Best of luck and I can't wait to see what you do in the future :)