Structures in drawing have a huge power; they help a lot setting the basics for our sketches. But sometimes we don’t want to “waste time” looking for a ruler, building perfectly symmetrical circles, perfect lines and stuff like that.
That’s why I tried to find another system, faster and easier, to build bodies; I’m going to explain how I do my structures without the use of precise and a little too rigid lines (and without any ruler or instrument at all!!)
It’s quite easy and doesn’t require a lot of time; it helps a lot while I fast-sketch something, and if I draw bodies that I want to look a little bit more “natural”, with some imperfections as well. Of course, you’ll get always better with practice!
So, how to go from this to this?
I’ll try my best to guide you in 3 easy steps I would use to build a female body today!
STEP 1: INTERNAL STRUCTURE
As they always said to me in art school “a building cannot resist without the foundations“; same for human bodies (our spinal column basically keeps our body up!).
Our body is graphycally made up of a series of circles and lines. To simplify and structure a body, let’s assume a shoulder is a circle. The bone connecting the shoulder and the elbow, is a line. This is the maximum simplification of human body I can give you, and it would be really useful to us.
Start by simplifying the body you want to portray as much as possible. AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!! The better you do this step, the better the drawing will be, because STEP 1 is the base on which we build our body.
STEP 2: EXTERNAL STRUCTURE
Obviously our internal structure is covered and protected by something. We now have to simplify that something, creating a protective armor for our fragile structure of circles and lines.
In this step it doesn’t matter to be realistic, we don’t have to recreate the softness of human body yet; we’ll think about it later. Just set a series of lines to recreate the external part of the body, which represents our skin.
That’s pretty rigid and unrealistic, I know, but that’s a perfect base on which we can work in the next step! We now start seeing the body building itself! 🙂
It’s now time to make it real!
STEP 3: ROUND AND SOFTNEN
To give life to our character we need to round a little bit these sharp edges. Soft bodies feel more natural and alive because, so check the points who need to be modified and add a little bit of round strokes to the external lines of the body. Remember this is a fundamental step to make our character natural, since we’re trying to add the effect of the muscles underneath the skin!
You see?? She’s coming to life! Her body now look warmer and softer.. we are doing a great job! 🙂
The last step requires a little bit of time, focus and practice. This is the step that requires the most attention and work, because it’s the step in which you, finally, have to DRAW!
Add details, shades, backrounds or anything; you can totally express yourself here, putting your style and personal interpretation! I went more “realistic” in a sort of way, but don’t feel limited at all to copy me.. go crazy and have fun with your body structure!
And.. TADAH! That’s my result:
The more you practice with this type of structures, the more they’ll become natural, faster and easier to you! Draw often, sketch a body a day for just a few minutes and you’ll become a master in drawing bodies with Giada’s structures! 😎
Okay.. I’m humbler than that!
Thank you so much for reading this article! I really hope that here you could find a useful tool, and that it can help you to become more comfortable in creating art and drawing bodies, faster and easier! 🙂
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