Exercise 09: Cylinders and Drawing People

You may be asking yourself: “If I learn how to draw cylinders, how does that help me draw the body?” The answer is: You can use contours around the arms, legs, and body to make the drawing look more rounded and 3d! And, it’s very simple to do actually!

Let’s take a look at this drawing and walk it through. I’ll start with measuring and proportions from how to draw the body, and then ink over the pencils.

( pencils —————- > inks —————> layered)

Now, in this first example, I’ve drawn straight lines across, where-ever the sleeves, tshirt, and pants end. It makes the character look really flat, like a poster on the wall:

Let me update the drawing a bit… Thinking about the contours that wrap around a cylinder… how’s this, Haneko?

Oh, that looks nice! Let’s look at the blue lines. In the upper body, they wrap around the wrist and the waist. In the shoes, the pants leg wraps up and over the shoes! It’s like a half cylinder sitting on the ground.

I’m glad you like it Haneko! I’m glad I tried it out. Maybe I’ll go back to some old drawings, and try adding these curves to see how it looks. You’re right, this little bit of information makes a big difference to my drawing! Let’s compare the straights against the curves one last time.

See you next week =D

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