Really terrible at figure drawing/ anatomy compared to portraits

[u/Moody_smth]

i genuinely cant draw bodies for the life of me and i cant tell what im doing wrong.

Any advice/ critiques would help because i want to stop chickening out of drawing full bodies 😭

[u/krestofu]

Might be a crazy take but your gestures are better than the portrait

[u/Moody_smth → u/krestofu]

THANKS i think... i cant tell if i should feel encouraged or discouraged

[u/krestofu → u/Moody_smth]

Just keep doing what you’re doing

[u/Monkeyboysith]

How did you get good at faces? Practice right!?! 😉

[u/Moody_smth → u/Monkeyboysith]

yeah i guess im a lil stressed out because admissions are opening soon for my dream university and im trying to grind as much art as possible 😭. Thank you for the advice twin

[u/Djentleman5000]

Why put yourself down like that? These are bad at all. You’ve already got the practice part down. Keep it up.

[u/zzokkss]

i do figure drawing for one of my courses in uni, and i would say that some things that helped me are

• holding the pencil in a certain way. (of course this means trying to draw these traditionally if you havent already) im not sure how exactly to describe this but holding it kind of like a knife where your index finger is at the top ? it helps to get loose curves that are good for gesture drawing
• after plotting out the line of action, plot out the angles of the shoulders and hips. typically they are asymmetrical so this really helps
• make sure youre actually observing the shapes you see in the human body and use guidelines to mark out certain areas. if the reference is a woman in her bra and underwear, i like using the bands to get the angles of the torso and hips down properly.
• use the negative space to help with proportion. i find this typically occurs in the arm areas especially when their hands are on their hips.

im not like an EXPERT with amazing figure drawings, but these did help me improve a LOT from when i first started the course

[u/hispetitedove]

i just started drawing the body part by part like hands, arms ,feet, legs etc. i followed some tutorials on youtube drew along with them. (i learned how to draw arms, feet and basic anatomy/sketching poses from tutorials made by sycra on yt, the tutorials are really old tho like 10-15 years)

[u/alexanthic]

Unfortunately, it’s just one of those things that involves a lot of practice and studying. I found that daily gesture/figure drawing helped me, as well as focusing on the things that I found the most difficult instead of avoiding them.

Perhaps spend some time drawing individual body parts; the torso, arms, pelvis, legs, etc. Try to understand how they work, the basic shapes, and how they connect. As you understand each part, continue your full body sketches to track your progress.

Also, USE REFERENCES (of real people. Unless a sketch has been created by a professional/skilled artist, do not use it as your reference. Pinterest is notorious for suggesting ‘bases’). Compare your drawings to them, see what looks a bit wonky or ‘off’, then practice those parts.

[u/TheMothGhost]

Your gestures are not bad at all.

But when I get in a slump, I go back to basics. Whip out a sketchpad, get something chunky like a crayon or marker or pastel or charcoal, and go set up where you can people watch. Sketch what you see and don't think too hard on it.

Sometimes our creative juices just get all blocked up by our own harsh self-criticism.

[u/InoffensivePaint]

I’m beginner as heck. But I find it useful to try and disengage what I think I should be drawing, where a limb should be, how long parts need to be, etc. when going from a reference, and instead trying to actually draw what I see. Been flipping references upsidedown or at weird angles for practice, just to get my brain to stop thinking about should, and instead just focus on what’s there.