How to Draw Children and Teens - Part 3 of 3

All right .

So now what I'm doing is a more practical approach .

I'm just gonna do some sketches .

And for the body here you'll notice it wasn't really that uh boxy shape but more like um a bean shape .

Uh This is a very animation friendly uh shape because it can stretch and squatch , squash very easily .

So here's a baby and again , for the arms , I made them more fat .

And really what I'm just thinking about when I do this is the proportion of the head to the body .

Like you have a bigger head , a smaller body and then um small legs and getting that down is what's really important .

So here when I start a new body , it's again , it's keeping that in mind like , OK , the head in relation to the body is gonna be much bigger .

Um And this is what gives that childlike uh proportion .

Um And I'm exaggerating the skinniness of the arms and the legs , but it's kind of ok to do that because you're exaggerating reality .

Um , kids do have pretty , you know , well , it's hard to say , you know , just kids because there's so many different kinds of kids but , but it's a proportion that works and you'll notice that the video is sped up .

I hope you notice that .

Um Not sure exactly by how much .

But um , in total , the whole thing was 50 minutes of drawing .

So , I don't know if you're good at math , you probably could figure it out .

I'm not .

So , ok .

So here again , it's the same thing .

Right .

So I start with the basic proportions .

Um I'm getting the pos in and I'm using the stick figures .

Um It's really helpful for me because it's so much easier to correct something when you have something down or to build on something when you have a foundation .

Um If you do this drawing method where you start with the eye and you move to the nose and then the mouth and then get the head shape and then you move to the shoulders and things .

It's not that it's wrong and it's not that it cannot be done well because I think it can , it's just a little more difficult , especially when you're starting out to get a , a grasp of the big picture .

Um when I draw more because I've been drawing more , I found that it's a bit easier to start to visualize the image on the page .

So I don't need to really rely on guidelines quite so much now , but it's still not something that's bad or harmful .

Um Because it's almost like later on the guidelines are still there , they're just invisible because you've got them in your brain .

So , here I'm doing some .

No , I just wanted to experiment a bit .

So using a bit uh different shapes and the reason I just rotated that is because I have this bias , um it doesn't show up so much in um when I'm drawing on a sketchbook anymore because I tend to have my paper at an angle .

Uh But it's the same thing as you'll have a handwriting bias where uh sometimes you're writing leans to the left or the right .

Um And so for me , my figures and my vertical axis in my brain kind of leans to one side .

So when I flip the image , uh then that's when I spot it , that oh my thing was leaning .

So then I just use uh just make a selection around it and hit control t to uh fix that .

And here I'm struggling quite a bit because uh I , I made the body a bit too big uh from what I wanted the feeling to be .

And also I wasn't sure at first if it was a front view or a back view .

And later on , I decided , OK , it's a back view .

Um So that's what I'm doing here .

Uh And you'll see that , yes , I start with those lines , but you can build on that , you can build the volumes and build the forms .

So those lines sort of become invisible at the end .

I mean , if you look at his legs , you can still see the original stick figure lines .

Um , but they're not that obvious .

And , yeah , this kid's pretty , pretty strong looking .

I wasn't sure what I was doing with him , but I think , you know , this is one of the best ways to incorporate learning something .

So let's say you want to do proportions , you wanna figure out proportions .

Well , there's two ways of really going about doing it .

One way is to um look at the reference and start measuring , you know , how many heads high is this and uh trying to get it all exact .

Uh Another way is to just do a lot of drawings and change the proportion each time .

Uh try bigger heads or smaller heads , uh bigger bodies , smaller bodies and , and then ask yourself questions like , you know , OK , how old does this person look so that you're , you're getting it in your head that OK , next time I wanna do this person looks like a four year old .

And the next time I want to do a four year old , maybe I can use that proportion because I've done it before and just drawing a lot will , will get you there .

Um And I don't know , I don't know .

The thing is when you draw something and you have a lot of drawings on the page , they start to or for me anyway , the , the different drawings almost interact or they need certain things .

So , uh , that's why the , the big head guy who was a skinny body and yeah , he's got those like noodle arms and , uh , I , I really like working that way .

I like to think of the arm from the shoulder to the wrist as one thing , uh , as opposed to thinking of it as , you know , made up of two sections that connect so shoulder to elbow and then elbow to wrist .

I would rather just make it one big noodle shape and then break it down because then I'm gonna have a better gesture .

The pose is gonna be there .

And in some cases , uh the arms almost do look like they bend like that .

Not always , especially with skinny people .

It's not really that way .

Uh with very heavy people .

Uh you can kind of see their arms sometimes take on this , um shape where , you know , if they , uh if they flex or they , they get their uh wrist towards their shoulder , it gets almost like a macaroni shape .

Um Anyway , hope I'm not being offensive .

I'm sometimes I'm pegged as being offensive where it's just , I don't know how to say it , but I know what I'm saying .

Like it's so much easier to just say it than to have to worry about political correctness .

But anyway , my , my intention is not bad .

I have nothing against uh heavy people or , or different um cultures or anything .

It's just no , it's , I don't know .

I like different though .

Um , so here I'm building more in terms of the gesture so I wanted to get the pose down and I thought , I don't know .

Yeah .

I'm not sure exactly what she's doing but I wanted that , that energy .

So it's , it's good to scribble and , or for me anyway , I really like scribbling and then you'll , you'll notice I use the eraser a lot and I don't think of it as a bad thing .

I view it like sculpture where , um , you can add clay and also remove clay .

Um , if you're doing uh clay sculpture .

So , so that's my uh thought process is that it's ok to erase because you're figuring it out .

And maybe it's just because I'm not very like , I'm very messy and I'm not really , uh , I don't know what the word is .

But , um , anyway , so II , I like to be messy and I like to give myself that uh opportunity or whatever .

So with this one , you'll notice I did the head , the body and then I did the hands .

I didn't do the arms connecting to the hands first because it's easier to get the hands in and he's holding this video game , whatever .

But it's like , OK , get the hands in , get that in and then connect it to uh , like get the arm in then because it's , yeah , it's just for me anyway , it's , it's a lot easier to do it that way .

To have your , uh , starting point and your destination and then work out the route on how to get from point A to point B .

Uh , then to , you know , you start at point A and then you just go and hope that you will end up at point B not knowing exactly where that is .

So , at this point , he's sort of looking like a , when he was bald anyway , he almost looked like an old man and , uh , he's getting , getting a bit younger .

Um , but yeah , I just wanted to do different , different types and , uh , try and get as many variations in as possible .

Um , I didn't do a good job on the , the kid holding the basketball .

Uh , I don't really like how it's not exactly , I don't know , it just doesn't look very good to me .

I feel like it could have been improved on .

Um , but I wanted to do a little bit older because a lot of these kids are looking quite young and I could imagine , uh , someone might be like , well , you didn't do any , uh , you know , teenagers and I don't know exactly how old that kid looks .

Maybe , maybe he's not even a teenager , maybe , you know , 10 to , to 13 maybe .

But , uh , yeah , my main point is just to show , um , the difference when you just draw and you just sketch compared to when you're really doing careful measuring .

Um , and I would encourage just , just sketching and being messy and being loose and , and not , not even being messy because you don't have to be , if , if you're not a messy drawer , you don't have to be , but it's just doing lots of drawings , right .

Um , getting a lot of ideas down .

Uh , and when you do it in a short time , then each drawing has a lot more energy .

Uh At least it does for me .

Um Yeah .

So here I'm just , when I flip it , I notice a lot of problems and you can see the guys on the uh I guess the left side of the screen now , uh they look like they're , they're slanted .

And that again is that uh bias that I have .

Um So here I'm just doing different poses and keeping it very simple .

And I'd really encourage this as a way of starting , you know , start with this basic stick figure .

Um Just the basics because then you're not worrying about making a pretty picture .

You're just getting the uh pose down the action , you know what's going on and you can do a lot more in terms of storytelling and building the character .

So that OK , now I have a character and I see the proportion I see where the top of their head is where the bottom of their feet is .

I see how big their body is .

Then it's just a matter of fleshing it out , just making it more detailed .

But if , if you have to do everything at once .

So , um you're starting at just the head and then you go down , it's like , well , OK , not only are you fleshing it out and making it detailed , but you have to get the gesture right ?

You have to get the proportion right .

You have to get everything right .

And you know , it's just a lot to deal with at once .

So anyway , I hope you try this uh , sketching and , uh , thanks for watching .