How To Draw Male Torsos

this video is all about drawing male torsos we'll start with very simple chest and pelvis forms and then break down some divisions and simple block in shapes and then take our blocked in anatomical forms and start to move them around in space in a wide variety of poses finally we'll do some simple shadowing and be sure to stay tuned to the end where i break down my very simple method for drawing stomach anatomy i'm david finch i've been a comic book artist for over 25 years if you enjoyed this video please hit like and subscribe and be sure to share with your friends if you have any comments or suggestions for future videos leave them below and check out the description below for a list of tools that i use be sure to visit my website at davidfinchart.com where you can find my drawing superhero heads course and some great free drawing resources all right in this first section we're going to draw some very simple examples of a chest and pelvis shape for a male torso for my chest i'm going much broader and shorter with it in proportion to the female chest that i drew in an earlier video and that's because a male chest is just broader it's not shorter but in practice it ends up being much shorter than the female torso just because it's broader drawing in my pelvis and drawing in my landmark bones for my my pelvic bones for where my legs attach and then attaching my legs below that drawing in balls for my shoulders just a very simple form just to get my placement and now i'm going to draw the same forms just from the side my vest shape and then my underwear shape essentially for my pelvis my landmark bone now the same shape from the back and i'm drawing through from the back you're actually seeing basically the spinal column drawn through and you can see that all the same shapes apply in drawing in the anatomy and enjoying any anatomy having a good understanding of these basic shapes is really vital to being able to draw solid figures that are consistent from figure to figure and note i'm drawing the spine up through the neck from the back view and just drawing the neck in from each view and i'm drawing again the spine up through on the side view and the back of the neck attaches through to the spine from the back now i'm just going to draw one more view and this is just going to be looking down at the torso from above and so you can see where the head attaches in the center of the the vest shape at the top my pelvis drawn underneath and drawing a center line down keeps everything well lined up and drawing my landmark bones is a really good way for me to get my legs attached properly drawing ball shapes in from my shoulders i'm drawing a tube from my neck extending up from where i've got the circle defined for the base of the neck now that we have that done i'm going to go ahead and draw a more detailed figure and so i've already drawn in basically the same thing that we saw just a moment ago and so i'm skipping ahead to where i start to actually define in my anatomical shapes and these are going to be very very simplified shapes i'm drawing in on top of my ball shape for the shoulder a more accurate representation of the deltoid muscle defining in the shape for my pectorals and my rib cage below that the arms attach underneath the deltoids and drawing my center line down through the stomach i'm drawing also i'm drawing also lines down the center of each pectoral down through the stomach it defines where my stomach goes and it's a great way to define the outlines of the stomach and make sure that everything lines up and you'll notice as i draw the line down the left side of the body that it's making it clear to me that my pectoral on that side of the body is not extending out far enough and it's why drawing in these kinds of guidelines can be so useful because it very quickly isolates any proportional problems that you have just cleaning things up a little bit making sure that it's all clear now i'm just redefining in my rib cage and getting my stomach actually defined in and i do it in a very mechanical kind of a way you can see that it's it's basically like broaden triangles attaching to each other attaching in my obliques to extending into the serratus and just giving a little bit of dimension to my pectoral muscles along the bottom there i generally keep my pectorals fairly flattened to the body and not extending too far out i just find that it looks aesthetically a little bit better so attaching my neck up to my ears and just quickly drawing it ahead and now with my head placed in i can finish out my shoulder construction connecting up to the head just redefining in my collarbone placement and getting everything and getting everything lined up well and now i'm just defining in a pelvic shape just underneath my bones attaching in my legs and you'll notice the legs always attach in the way that they're supposed to just based on the bones that i send out below the pelvis now that we have that defined in i'm going to go ahead and start to draw in a back drawing in my vest shape the hole for the neck actually really wouldn't be visible from this angle it's angled to the front but i'm drawing through just to make sure that it's clear that it's there drawing through my spine getting the head attached to the top of the neck cleaning it up a little bit making sure the ears placed properly drawing in my balls for my shoulders extending the spine down to the pelvis and drawing in my pelvic shape on my drawing female torso's video i actually used a doll as reference to help with drawing the pelvic shape and if that's something you find useful i'd definitely recommend doing it here too touching in my arms below the shoulders and now that i've got that defined in fairly well i'm going to go ahead and create some divisions for the back just to give me some good landmarks make sure that everything lines up properly lighten it down and i'm going to start to draw in my very very simplified back anatomy i find backs can be incredibly difficult to draw well and knowing the anatomy for the back is really kind of only step one just because there's so much movement in the back and so much and so much layering of muscle i find having a really simplified anatomy for the back just to get placement is the best way to go and then in all honesty i use reference to drawbacks but i use my simplified anatomical breakdown to make sure that what i'm drawing is all placed properly on the figure and everything makes sense so i don't get lost in in small details so i definitely recommend that you approach backs this way over my years of drawing i've gotten to the point where i can draw acts from a few angles in a few lighting situations that can be pretty convincing without reference but generally speaking i find reference to be very very helpful so i use a simplified form like this just to make sure that when i'm using reference i don't get lost in detail and i have something that works for the overall body and so now just quickly i'm drawing in my shoulder blades and you'll see that they actually extend underneath other muscles and they have quite a bit of influence over the final look of the anatomy and this is why a reference can be so incredibly helpful for drawing backs there's just so much interplay of muscles that it's very difficult to fake now in this next example i'm drawing an arm extended and you can see that i've got my chest lifted and extended up to the shoulder and then my lats actually extend and attach to the bottom of the arm and inside the bottom of the deltoid i'm drawing in my other arm also extended and i'm erasing out my pectoral there and then flattening it and extending it to my deltoid on that side when you lift your arms it really flattens out your pectoral muscles and that's something to be aware of they narrow and they flatten in this next example we're going to cover the deltoid and chest connection in a very very simplified way it can be very easy to kind of get lost in how all of those muscles connect together and make them work together and so what i found works for me is i connect my chest all the way from the bottom of my deltoid where it attaches to the arm and as i go down the chest there's a break point the muscles actually connect to the inside of the deltoid at the top of the arm right here and so the striations of the chest radiate out from that connection point out toward the center of the chest and then toward the bottom and now lifting the arm you can see i've got the arm defined as a simple tube with my deltoid drawn above it and then all of my pectoral muscles attach to the inside of that deltoid and my striations radiate out from that point and also my lat connects to the underside of that tube and so now that we have those simple forms defined i'm going to use those forms to draw a few figures in motion and for this first figure i've got the arms extended over the head and so i'm connecting up my chest to my arm and notice that i've got my arm lifted quite a bit when you lift your arms your whole shoulder girdle also lifts and so if you extend the arm out from where it would rest naturally if it's relaxed downward you'll end up with an arm that that's extending from too low in the chest so when you raise your arms you really need to raise that entire girdle and raise the level of your collarbone so your collarbone stays stationary in the center and it raises up toward the arm the entire arm assembly lifts quite a bit so i'm attaching in my stomach getting in my rib cage my and then attaching in my lats directly below that arm and you can see the underside of the deltoid just cleaning things up a little bit make it just a little bit more clear how everything's attaching in there getting in my serratus and just quickly defining in my other raised arm and now in this next example i'm going to extend the arm across the body in front and this is this is a very common pose to run into especially if you have a character punching and so defining in my chest my pelvis got the arm kind of defined in it's not really lifted that high in this example and so the arm is extending from just a little bit lower in the chest because i don't have the arm extended up above the body and drawing in my lats and my shoulder girdle my serratus and then using the landmark divisions that i drew down along the body i'm drawing in my stomach and my obliques defining in the other arm and when it comes to drawing dynamic figures in motion it's very important to understand how your lats actually attach under the arm because it's something that you'll run into all the time next i want to show an example that i've seen a few times and i think it's it can be very very helpful for turning and moving bodies in space that's essentially defining the body like a sack that you can twist and maneuver in space now that i've got that in i'm drawing in my formal shapes on top of it my pelvis my chest shape now that i've got that in i'm drawing in my formal divisions my chest shape my pelvis shape my landmark bones for the hips drawing in legs from that and you can see that i've got a twist in that i've got a twist from my chest shape down through my pelvic shape that i got very easily just by drawing a simple sock shape in that i just gave a bit of a twist to and then allowing my detail to follow that form in this next example i've got the sack almost like it's it's laying on the floor and propped up against a wall and so i can define my chest shape my pelvic shape on that get my landmark bone shapes for my hips drawing some balls from my shoulders and i'm just drawing in the same shapes that i was drawing earlier and just using that sack as a placement in space drawing in some legs some arms extended from it giving it a head i think proportionally my chest and pelvic area is a little small in this figure so it's just something to be aware of i find when i'm doing these kinds of examples i'm worrying so much about the finding the shape since that i sometimes lose proportion just a little bit but really i feel like it emphasizes why drawing these kinds of anatomical breakdowns can be so useful because it's very easy to see when things get a little bit out of proportion and you can fix them quickly before you start to draw in all of your detail i've got a center line and i've just drawn my stomach along that center line rounding around the form that i initially drew just with my simple sac shape you can see how quickly and easily i can get all of my anatomical forms blocked in on that very very simple sock shape this is a method i find incredibly useful for me this is a method i really enjoy using i find it really effective for me using volumetric shapes as opposed to a stick figure but obviously your results will vary i definitely recommend that you give this a try even if you are more comfortable drawing stick figures as your basis and so we're going to draw one more example using my simple stack shape in this one i've got it curved outward so the back is arched and i'm drawing my chest and pelvic shape on top of it getting them to find in holes for the shoulders drawing a line down through where my stomach goes my landmark bones it's very very quick to get everything defined on top of that shape which is why i like using it so much and just finishing out some legs quickly because leg placement in the pelvic girdle is so important you can see how easy it is to do when you have your landmarks defined properly drawing in my neck and my head i've got both arms extended well up above so now i'm going to go ahead and attach my pectorals to my deltoid muscles making sure that they extend upward and connect properly my chest is very flat to my rib cage because it's lifted and extended and defining in my stomach along my guidelines my lats inserted in under the arm and just quickly getting all of my basic shapes defined in you can see how quickly you can get everything defined in just using simple landmarks and connections now in this next example i wanted to cover some very simple lighting so i'm sketching in my figure moving ahead quickly here because we've done this a few times now in this video but now that i've got everything defined in i've got this lit basically from the right side i guess it would be the figure's left side and using my very simple volumetric forms it makes it really easy for me to just define in some simple lighting i'm keeping all my lighting shapes very very simple here just for the sake of clarity but just based on my guidelines you can see where things turn away in space from the light it makes it very easy to keep your shadows isolated to the parts that are away from the light drawing in some shadowing underneath my stomach anatomy along my oblique hopefully these very simple examples show just how easy it is to get lighting defined in on figures if you think about things in broad simple shapes you can define in smaller details and little striations and little connection points and you can go very very far with that kind of detail but it's really important to be able to break down your lighting into the most simple shapes possible to make sure that your overall pattern works and then just finishing out some lighting on the arm just to make the figure a little bit more consistent in this next figure the entire reason why i included this is because i have a real tendency to draw the upper portion of my stomach completely in shadow and i think it's a technique that really really works because it really defines the plane change from my ribcage and down through my stomach and so i wanted to draw this from the side you can see where the stomach inserts downward and away from the light and i've got it shattered all the way through there i'm going to draw a little shadow underneath my deltoid adjust my proportions a little bit where i came off in my initial drawing and really examples like this are why i really recommend that when you're learning lighting you stick with one light source because it's very easy to see what forms are pointing up toward the light and what forms are pointing away and then think of your lighting in terms of an overall broad form now in this next example we're going to do some lighting on the back and i just wanted to change that arm quickly and lift it just because it slightly changes the underlying anatomy and i thought it'd be more helpful to draw arms in a few different positions and so i'm defining in my anatomy i'm just blocking in my major shapes the way that i did earlier on drawing in my shoulder blade and defining in my deltoid and you can see how when i draw the center muscles of my back i've contoured in a way that it actually accommodates the other muscles that connect into it and the same thing with my deltoid the bottom of the deltoid is contoured so that it accepts the tricep underneath defining in the rest of my anatomy down through the pelvis and now i'm going to go ahead and start doing some lighting i'm actually using reference for this picture and this is why i really recommend that you use reference when you're drawing backs especially backs i think it can be very useful for drawing all of your anatomy i think it's a mistake to use reference to draw your figure initially but finding reference that fits with the figure that you've already got drawn in is a great way to make your lighting much more believable there's a subtlety to anatomical shapes and lighting that can be very very difficult to fake on your own and that's why i really recommend using reference especially for things like backs but notice how i'm making sure that while i'm using reference for this i'm also using my underlying anatomy and making sure that everything fits on the anatomy that i've initially defined when you're using reference without a good understructure it's really easy to get disjointed and just lost in all the little details the idea is to use your reference as an aid to make your anatomy and your lighting more believable but not to let it take over and override your underlying figure so just for the sake of clarity i wanted to draw a very simplified diagram of the lighting that i used for the back that i just drew and you can see that my vest shape curves under and my lighting's coming from the left just slightly and so i'm lighting the overall shape from that angle and even with no anatomical detail at all you can get something that has a certain amount of believability just by having a consistent overall lighting scheme now before we wrap this video up i wanted to show just a quick trick on the way that i draw my stomach muscles you can see that i'm drawing simple downward facing curves with diagonal lines coming up from them they're very very simple shapes and now just giving it a little bit of simple lighting even using those very simplified shapes gives me something that actually looks like a very believable stomach i'm just going to go ahead and define a little detail around them a shadow for my rib cage i'm going to connect some simple shapes for a serratus and an oblique on the other side and with very very simple shapes i've got something that looks very believable as the stomach and hopefully you can see how simple and effective that is as opposed to drawing the kinds of shapes that i've got here which i've seen quite a bit from artists that are learning anatomy and so once again really quickly a center line very very simple shapes on top of it connect them up just a little bit and that's all i need to do to define a stomach all right thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed this video it was a lot of work to define this one down into a few simple steps and i would definitely be covering male torsos in more detail later on be sure to tune in monday nights at eight o'clock eastern for our monday night draw live stream and i will see you in the next video

Channel: David Finch

Views: 409,018

Rating: 4.9757462 out of 5

Keywords: drawing tutorial, how to draw, comic art, inking

Id: KtPxn1yLy_U

Length: 19min 25sec (1165 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020