Intro

Drawing the human body well is no easy task, especially for beginners who often find it challenging. Beyond extensive sketching practice and reference images, is there a simpler way to approach it? In this article, I’ll share how to break down the human body into key components and guide you step by step to draw a strong figure drawing.

Stickman- Capturing a good figure posture

When starting a figure drawing, I always begin with a simple stick figure to capture a graceful pose.or any desired poses. Here’s my simplified approach:

-Head, upper torso (rib cage), and lower torso (pelvis) are represented as basic boxes.

-The collarbones consist 2 segments, drawn in straight line.

-Arms consist of 2 segments, drawn in straight line.

-The leg consists of 3 segments, take note the knee slightly angled for natural flow. You can think of the leg as a S shape.

-Hands, being the most complex and versatile part, are broken down into 3 key blocks: palm, finger group, and thumb.

I believe most people intuitively know their body’s movement limits—if you are unsure, you can test it yourself by simply moving your body. But here’s a key detail often overlooked: The two collarbones (clavicles) move independently: Each can elevate (rise) or slightly depress (lower), directly impacting shoulder and chest dynamics in your drawings.

Using stick figures, we can swiftly draft multiple dynamic poses in minutes. For example if my theme is to draw a female model, I can sketch several poses that match the character’s temperament within just a few minutes. If you're unfamiliar with feminine poses, it is recommended to search some reference online.

The key is to quickly capture the dynamic rhythm and the essence of the pose., not to strive for perfect details.

Contrapposto

Contrapposto (counterpose) is a classic technique to emphasize the elegant curves of a female torso by creating dynamic opposition between shoulders and hips. You could also think of it as twisting the torso and head into a dynamic C-curve or S-curve.

Center of Gravity

The center of gravity is the pivotal point where an object's weight balances evenly. A lot of times, beginners’ figure drawings look unstable—almost as if the figure is about to fall over. If we can identify the center of gravity, we can make our poses look more grounded and balanced.

The center of gravity varies depending on the object. For a human figure that's six heads tall or more, it's typically located around the abdomen. Once you've found the center of gravity, extend a straight line downward from that point.

Once we've marked a point on the ground, we can then place the feet on that point.

We can also place both feet away from the center of gravity, as long as both feet aren’t standing on the same side(left of right) from the center of gravity or one foot isn’t stretched much farther than the other.

This is the female model pose I drew. I intentionally made her stand in an unbalanced position because I plan to add notes or explanatory sketches beside her to help you understand better. I drew a straight line to represent a wall — both to separate the drawing from the notes and to give her something to lean on for balance.

In the first stage, I’ve already figured out the pose of the figure. Moving forward, I no longer need to worry about the pose.

Simple Form

At this stage, I’m focusing on capturing the overall form, shape and proportions.

At this stage, I use simple lines to construct the human form—essentially C-curves, S-curves, and I-lines rotated in any direction. I personally avoid using too many lines because it can make the drawing lose a clear sense of direction. The longer my lines are, the more confident I feel, and my drawing speed naturally increases as well.

My approach is fundamentally simple: I break down every body part into basic, easy-to-remember geometric forms. The process is much less complicated than it might appear.

For example, the head is basically an oval shape, similar to an egg.

 

The torso can be divided into three parts: the upper part is an oval shape representing the ribcage, the lower part is shaped like underwear, representing the pelvis, and the middle part is the flexible waist—it doesn’t have a fixed shape, so it just needs to connect the upper and lower parts smoothly.

 

The breast is shaped like teardrops.

 

The arms can be divided into three sections: the upper arm is like a slightly sliced oval shape, the middle arm is a tapered cylinder, and the forearm is something like a an oval plus cylinder.

 

The legs are also divided into three parts: the upper leg is like a tapered cylinder, the middle part (the knee) is a rectangular block, and the lower leg is also a tapered cylinder. Generally, the lower the leg goes, the narrower it becomes.

 

The feet have two parts: the upper part is a tapered rectangular shape, and the lower part is like an asymmetrical triangle

I’ve already established the pose of the figure in the first stage. Lower the opacity of the stick figure layer and create a new layer. Now, I just need to draw the form and shape of each body part based on the stick figure’s gesture underneath.

At second stage, I’ve finished defining the overall form, shape and proportions of the body. In the next stage, I don’t need to worry about these aspects anymore and can focus solely on drawing the muscles.

Visible underlying bone

Before drawing muscles, it's important to note that certain areas of the body lack muscle over the bones, making the underlying skeletal structure quite noticeable beneath the skin. There are seven areas in particular where this is very evident. If you touch these areas, you can clearly feel these bones beneath the skin.

These areas are:

-Clavicle (collar bone)

-Olecranon (elbow)

-Ulna (pinky side of wrist)

-ASIS (pelvic bone)

-Greater trochanter (hip joint)

-Patella(knee)

-Tibia (lower leg bone)

-Fibula (lower leg bone)

You don’t have to draw these bones; I’ve drawn them here just for clarity in this tutorial. You only need to remember these eight areas, and it’s perfectly fine if you don’t know the technical terms. Later, when I draw the line art, I will make these underlying bones protrude.

Muscle Form

There are many muscles in the human body, with outer and inner layers. Learning all of them could take many years, or perhaps even a lifetime. When it comes to drawing webtoons or manga, I personally believe it’s enough to focus on the key muscles.

To help you see each muscle more clearly, I’ve created a detailed key muscle diagram. You can download it and zoom in to take a closer look.

 

 

It is fine if you don’t want to memorize all the muscle names since we are not doctor—just remember how many key muscles and visible underlying bones there are in each body part. For example, the neck area has 4 muscles, the upper arm has 4 muscles, and the lower leg has 3 muscles along with 2 visible underlying bones.

If the technical terms are distracting, just refer to the diagram below and memorize the muscle shapes. I’ve already color-coded everything for clarity: pink is for the neck area, orange for the upper arms, yellow for the forearms, teal for the upper torso, cyan-blue for the mid and lower torso, violet-blue for the upper legs, blue-green for the lower legs, and black for the bones.

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Turn off the stick figure layer, lower the opacity of the simple form layer, and create a new layer to draw the important muscles and bones using a different color.

Sketch and Line art

After drawing the muscles, I lower the opacity of both the simple form and muscle form layers, and create a new layer for the line art. If you’re not very familiar with drawing faces or clothing, you can sketch them first and then create another new layer for the final line art. Since I’m already familiar with drawing faces and the sportswear is very simple to draw, I’ll go straight into the line art.

When drawing muscles, you don’t need to deliberately outline every single muscle—otherwise, it might look a bit strange, unless that’s the specific art style you’re going for. Personally, I think muscle lines can be drawn softer when drawing female characters, and more defined or rigid when drawing male characters.

Compared to the image above, doesn’t this look much softer? I prefer to subtly suggest the muscles with a few lines.

 

For example, if you look at the neck muscles, I only drew the beginning and end portions, leaving the middle part blank. On the arm—like the deltoid—I didn’t draw the starting point, but instead focused more on the middle and a little at the end. For the forearm, I only drew the beginning, leaving out the middle and end entirely.

As for the abs, I did outline the entire shape, including the start, middle, and end—but I still left some gaps in between, rather than connecting everything with one line.

Personally, when drawing female abs, I usually avoid fully defining all six packs because I feel that suits male characters more. For females, I personally think just suggesting the side abs and obliques are beautiful already.

It’s the same with the legs. For example, if you look at the thigh muscles, I only drew the ending portion. For the knee, I outlined the whole shape with a few small gap in between. As for the calf, I only drew the middle section.

Basically, as long as you don’t fully outline every muscle and leave some parts blank, the muscles will naturally appear softer.

Remember I mentioned earlier that there are 8 parts of the underlying bones that are especially prominent? When drawing the line art, I make those areas protrude slightly—meaning they appear as subtle bumps on the skin.

After finishing the line art, turn off all the previous layers leaving only the line art layer visible.

Proportion Adjustment

When I looked at the line art, I realized that the proportions were a bit off. Her right arm is a bit short and small, though the hand itself is the right size.

When I need to adjust a specific body part, I use the Lasso Tool to select the area I want to modify, and then I’ll use Free Transform or Mesh Transformation to adjust the proportions. In this case, I stretched and enlarged her right arm.

 

 

Her legs also seemed a bit short. Since she’s wearing high heels, her legs should appear longer, so I also stretched both her legs.

I also noticed that her left lower leg appeared slightly shorter than the right one, so I also stretched the left lower leg to match the right one.

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Before and After Adjustment.

Coloring (webtoon style)

Coloring in Webtoon style can also be referred to as graphic style coloring. In other words, you only need around 2 to 4 tones, as Webtoons or comics usually require many images to be drawn, so we can’t spend too much time on a single illustration.

As you can see in the image above, Webtoon or comic-style coloring has strong contrasts. There is only a few tones and the edges are sharp. Take note there is no middle tone.

My character is Asian, so the skin tone is a lighter color. I chose a light beige for the base. For the shadow color, I picked a slightly darker tone with a hint of red. In Webtoon style, the colors are usually quite vibrant and varied. On the other hand, for styles like thick painting or watercolor, which are more realistic, the colors tend to lean towards greys and dark in value

Fill in Base color

There are several methods for applying the base color. My method is to place the line art layer on top first, then set the line art layer as the reference layer. Then, I create multiple layers underneath for each subject to apply the color.

 

 

In the latest version of Clip Studio Paint 4.0, the Lasso Tool has a new 'Magnetic Lasso' feature. Select the Lasso Tool and activate 'Magnetic Lasso.' Set the Strength to 1 or 2; there's no need for a high strength since the line art is already clean and complete.

Use the magnetic tool to Select the area you want to color, for example here, I want to color her left arm.

After selecting the area, I choose the skin tone layer and fill it with a light beige color.

The benefit of this new feature is that the base color can be filled in completely. If you turn off the line art, there will almost be no gaps. If you use the Bucket Tool, there's a higher chance of missing areas, and you'll need to manually fill those gaps.

I divide the base color into three layers: one for the hair, one for the skin, and one for both the clothes and high heels.

Shadow and Highlight

Create a new layer, clip it to the base color layer below, and then use a hard-edged brush to draw the shapes of the shadows. I only use the G Pen for drawing the shadow shapes.

In Webtoon-style, lighting and shading don't require the same level of realism as in more realistic styles, like thick painting or watercolor. For example, in realistic styles, the shadow must reflect the direction of the light. However, in Webtoon style, the shadow doesn’t always have to perfectly follow the light source.

Basically in webtoon style, coloring can be more flexible and creative, as long as the overall color shape is visually pleasing and doesn’t stray too far from the general light and shadow logic. For instance, in my case, the light source is coming from the upper right, so the shadows mostly fall toward the lower left.

After finishing the skin shadows, I continued shading the sportswear.

For the hair, I personally like to use the Gradient Tool to subtly lighten the top and bottom section of the hair. This is just my taste.

Then I also added some color to the eyes and mouth.

After adding the shadows, I create a new layer and clip to the shadow layer below. Then I select white color to add some highlights on the chest, deltoids, and legs. As for the hair, I prefer to use a light red color.

Interweaving of hot and cool colors

One technique I like to use when painting my Webtoon character’s skin is to blend a slightly cooler color into the existing warm shadow. To find the cooler color, pick the skin shadow color and then move slightly to the left on the color wheel toward the grayish area. Alternatively, you can lower the saturation and value numbers on the color slider to achieve a slightly cooler tone.

Then I select back the skin shadow layer and lock the pixels.

To blend the cool color softly, I use the Soft Airbrush and gently blend the cool color into the warm shadow color. I usually pick both warm and cool colors to toggle between them easily and experiment with the shadow skin color.

Personally, I really like the subtle effect of interweaving warm and cool colors in the skin shadows.

This coloring technique can also be used in other areas, like the hair and clothing. Here, I’m only using it on the skin.

Coloured line art

After finishing the coloring, I like to change the line art to a different color. To do this, I lock the layer's pixels and fill it with a dark red tone.

Paint over

Sometimes I want to add new details to the line art or draw additional elements, but I don’t want to alter the existing layers. In such cases, I create a new layer at the very top (with the line art layer just below it), so I can draw freely without modifying the earlier layers.

I added some makeup to her, thickened her eyelashes, and applied lipstick to her lips. I also drew a few strands of hair over her face. I think she looks even more beautiful now.😍

All done! How do you feel about the result?

Conclusion

Muscles are actually the least important aspect when it comes to figure drawing. This doesn't mean they aren't important, but rather that they should be the final step to think about. If the basic foundation of the human body—such as the pose, shape, and proportions—isn't correct, no matter how well the muscles are drawn, the figure will still look odd.

 

Therefore, my personal approach to figure drawing is as follows:

Pose > Shape > Proportions > Muscles.

 

If you've been struggling with figure drawing for a while, I encourage you to try this approach, which is the entire process outlined in this tutorial.

 

Thank you for reading my article tutorial. I hope you've learned some useful knowledge. See you next time!😊