[Art Tutorial] Heads Up! The Biggest Part of Drawing Bodies

 This resource doesn't belong on this blog, but why not put it here?!

What are heads?

This sounds like a very silly question. Heads are heads! However, in art anatomy, heads are one of the most useful yardsticks.

The head can be used to divide a body up into parts. If you focus most on realism, then to should expect a body to be roughly seven and a half heads. However, there are many styles out there! 

Some characters are much taller than eight heads and some are smaller than four!

Let's look at three different characters and divide them up! 

Realism

While this is a stock model and not a character, it's a good idea to start here. For me, real people are the easiest to learn to draw. There's people everywhere! And even if there weren't, I can quickly guesstimate proportions seeing as my hand is almost vaguely the size of my head. 

For this example, I copy and pasted the model's head with some lines. If you are drawing traditionally, you can use a ruler!

Image from Pexels 

As you can see, the body actually divides quite nicely! While the model has her hands in her pocket and is wearing high heels that make her feet look to be one head length as opposed to two, this image demonstrates the proportions quite well.

These proportions are not the same proportions as in cartoons and anime. If you try to draw a cartoon character with these proportions, it may feel strange! 

At the first head line, we have the bust line. This is where the breasts go. The second head line is roughly where the hips are, though some sources say that the second line is where the bellybutton goes. In general, this is where the elbows hit. Both parts of your arm tend to be roughly the same length.

From there down, using heads to mark things off gets a little wonky. However, you can figure it out with the baseline you've already set!

When learning art, it's very helpful to simplify things. 

Here we can see that the crotch is roughly the halfway point of the entire body. This means that when drawing a person, the legs make up half of the body! 

You can test this next bit yourself by pulling your knees up to your chest. Your shin and your thigh are roughly the same length!

There is much more detail to go into, but let's try drawing a character with just the knowledge we went over here.

I added a line for the shoulders, but tried to keep the information I used limited to what I had already shown! I added little balls for feet and the knees. Let's add shapes to connect each line! For the arms, let's make it simple. Draw the circle for the shoulder, then draw a little circle for the elbow at the halfway point of the bust and the hips. Make a line between the shoulder and elbow, then make a line the same length downwards towards where the hand will go. The hands can just be squares for now!

Now, we can fix the feet a little and connect everything with tubes.

The proportions look a little awkward and blocky! This is okay - people are awkward and blocky. Let me fix it up a bit and give her clothes!

Now, for an anime fan, this feels a bit wrong! But when comparing to the original image, you'll see how close the two bodies are. Humans are just not the same shape as cartoons! 

Anime Style

There's not one anime style, of course. But let's try with Miku!

I think this is the official Miku box art pose

As you can see, Miku is only six heads tall, not counting the tips of her toes! Her proportions are much more simple. Because she's six heads tall, her halfway point is an even number of head lengths. Her legs take up three heads and the knees are at the halfway point of those heads. So her calves and thighs are both roughly 1.5 heads tall. 

As someone who learned traditional proportions, the bust line was what kept me away from making good looking anime art! Instead of the bust being at the first head length, the bust is instead at the center of that head length. The second head length hits her waist, which is roughly where her elbows go. It's a bit difficult to figure out if her elbows perfectly hit her waist because of her weird angle. However, you can assume that the two parts of her arm are roughly the same length! 

Princess Peach

I knew I wanted to include a Mario Princess here, but I was worried! The skirts obscure most of what is happening. However, Mario Odyssey includes a swim suit outfit for Peach! 

With the exception of her feet, Princess Peach is only four heads tall! The rules for arms and legs are the same as before. The pose makes it hard to see her elbows, but they are hitting her waist just like with the real person and with Miku. 

Any Style You Want!

Using art software or a ruler, you can find the head lengths and where those heads hit for almost any art! There's rules that seem to always stay the same, but there's also stuff that always seems to change.

Once you start to learn the rules, it gets easier and easier to follow them. 

I hope this was helpful :) !