Camp Campbells Drawing Tips: Anatomy

Hello again guys and gals, it's time for what you've all been waiting for...

Episode 3

There's soooo much to go over when it comes to anatomy, so I'm positive I missed so many things. If there's something in particular that you wanted to know that I missed, please let me know and I will either make a part 2 or update this one.

Also, a lot of this is based off of style, so if you don't agree with something, that's totally fine. If I make a mistake, then you know, I'm not perfect. It might be obvious that I'm still improving myself. But here's how I learned what I have for you today.

Observation! Have you ever just... looked at yourself in the mirror before? Like seriously, sometimes that's all it takes to learn about anatomy. How long are arms supposed to be? How can you tell? Why do the hands look too big/too small? I'm gonna answer all those questions and any others you might have right here.

Thanks ya'll!

Alright, so this is how it'll work. I have a handy dandy list of overall tips, then I drew 2 diagrams and a full person (David and Gwen) and pointed out things I took notice, particularly things that help me. I numbered those things on the drawing, then I'll explain it in the post. I'll explain both Gwen (Female) and David (Male) separately simply because girls and boys are pretty different.

I know what this sounds like, but no, I'm not about to sit down and give you the talk XDD

Anyway, after that I'll go over face anatomy, not gender specific. Then I'll explain gender specific facial details in another diagram.

And lastly, the goodies! I used all of these thing I explained to make a drawing of Gwen!

Great! Let's get into it before something explodes.

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Small list of hints:

°Drawing the base first is really important so you know where to put the clothes. If you draw clothes before the body, it's almost impossible to put parts of the body in the right place. Just FYI :3

°Psst... I've found out an easy way to measure your drawing.... For example, if you want to see if the person's arms are the same length, grab your pencil and line the tip up with your drawing as a "starting point", then pinch the pencil with your fingers at the end point and bam, that's how long the arm is. Now don't let go, but compare the length between the pencils tip and your fingers to the other arm to see if it matches!

Gwen (Female)

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1. Elbows will always sit just below the ribs. The top arm part will always be from the shoulder to just below the ribs, even in real life.

2. The shoulders will never line up with the bottom of the neck in a relaxed position. When the character is tense, the shoulders will go up, but usually they fall in a downward slope.

3. When trying to figure out the length of the arms, its helpful to know that the finger tips will never touch the knees. This applies to real life too. If you dont know whether the characters arms are too long/short, just stand up and see where your fingers end.

4. The Forearm (bottom portion) is about the same size and the top. If you include the shoulder, it should be just a little shorter. However, they're so similar that sometimes you can just make them the same size. That measuring tip is very useful here.

5. This one applies to both the arms and legs. When drawing legs, they are wider at the top, and get thinner as you go down the leg. Just a little tip. How thin or thick you make the legs or arms is a stylistic choice, really.

*COUGH* thicc

6. If you're wondering why the characters hands are too small/big, well here's a helpful tip to you. The hand should be just about as a big as half the face. Complicated, I know. But that pencil trick will help. If you were to put one hand on your face, it should be able to cover about half of it.

Also, female hands are typically thinner and smaller than Male hands. Of course, that's not always the case, but you know. Typically.

7. On a woman, the waist is not the widest part of the body. Surprise! On the human body, your waist is right on to of your hip bones. Is actually the smaller part of your hips, (both guys and girls) and it gets bigger as you go down the leg. That's how pants stay on. Yay! This would probably be clearer if Gwen's legs were together, but I'm sure you get it.

8. (Placeholder for incase I need to answer questions)

David (Male)

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(Some repeat, sorry.)

1. The shoulders still hand down lower than the neck when relaxed. But Guys shoulders are much wider. To reword that, the characters shoulders go out further than a girls.

2. The hands should still match the size of half of the face. But, as you could imagine, a guys hands are bigger and a little thicker or bulkier than a womans.

3. Elbows will still line up with the ribs. Just... that doesn't change. Got it memorized?

4. Rather than making the character curvy like Gwen, boys are actually like... straight. They do have a little curve, but not nearly as much. For instance, on Gwen, her torso gets thinner (exceptions are very possible, of course),

But David's doesn't. Instead of going in, the lines just go straight until his waist.

5. A lot of the same rules apply to both genders and I'm not gonna list them again, but those are the major changes. Let me know if I missed something, please!

6. (Placeholder incase I need to answer questions)

Gender Neutral Facial Details

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1. Noses. I'm just gonna leave this here because this took me so long to learn and I hope its helpful.

It helps so much to start to with a diamond... upside down kite shape. It helps create guidelines that will accurately guide you.

1. Draw a symmetrical shape (I was told not to use circles, but I see no difference) to represent the bulb of the nose. It should be centered in the diamond, but on the lower portion of the diamond. The bulb of the nose is that round part that sticks out the most. Once you have the bulb, you can shape the rest of the nose around it.

2. The bottom of the nostril shouldn't hang past the bulb. They can be equal, or it ca even be a bit higher, but it gets weird of you go past the bulb.

3. The top of the bulb is where the bridge of the nose starts going in.

4. The outer part of the nostril shouldn't be round, but style is an exception to that. The nostrils should be like....

.... crooked rainbows.

Yeah, it's getting late. I dont know how else to explain that. But you know, rainbows start and end at the same height. Unless it's a normal rainbow.

I swear!

Back to the face

2. The mouth should be right in the middle of the space between the nose and the bottom of the chin. This is very dependent on style, but realistically, that's we here it should be.

3. The corners of the eyes should line up with the the top of the diamond shape you made for the nose. That way the eyes aren't too high or low, realistically speaking.

4. Eyebrows start only a little bit before the eye, and usually don't go too far past the other corner of the eye.

5. The neck is usually just as wide/thick as the face, but people usually draw thinner necks because of style.

6. For me, the head always ends up smaller than the original circle I make at the beginning, which is totally fine, so I just cut it down to a realistic size.

Now, the hairline should start about 3/4ths up the forehead. Its important because it'll make the art look really off the hairline is too high or low.

***If your characters hair is unintentionally covering their eyes and you don't know how to fix it, it's because the forehead is too small. Just add on a little and make the hair start higher.

7. Ears can differ between styles, but on the human body, the highest point where it connects to your head lines up with your eyes, and the lowest part of the ears line up with the mouth.

Facial Details (Male vs. Female)

Face shape

Womans heads are rounder, mens faces are flatter and more jagged.

Nose diamonds and eye placement

Mouth, hairline and eyebrows

In my style, men's mouths are a little wider.

Characteristic details

Using these rules to draw Gwen!

Sorry this won't be so detailed, but here it is!

Base drawing has all the necessary guidelines for us to start with detail.

Sorry, but I skipped showing the final sketch and moved on to the lineart, since this tutorial is really all about anatomy.

This drawing was inspired by this piece of artwork! :blue_heart:

Alright, I hope you guys liked this one, and please let me know if I can add anything! It's hard for me to get everything together since there is just so much and I have no idea what you guys want to know, specifically.

Thank you guys for taking the time to read all this and I hope it helped!

-Katlin