Drawing Side View of a Female 'Full-Figure' Character.

 

 

Step 1-2


    It recommended to go thru the tutorials on Front and Angled Views of Full-Figure  first before going for this tutorial, otherwise, you may not get an idea of what I'm talking (or typing) about. This tutorial deals with somewhat difficult drawing of a side view, Since I had learned to draw the side views the hard way,  I may not have something that can make it easy for you to handle the side views, but I'll do my best I can to show you the drawing basics. Let's start with sketching a vertical and horizontal lines that mark where the head is to be. They'll be there only to guide the drawing of a character by helping keeping it straight up (not leaning).

 


Step 3



   Sketch the basic outline of a face in respect to the "circle" outlining the head.
 Note how the top of an ear is on the same level as the eye.

 

 


Step 4



Like the previous tutorials, use a head as a measuring unit to lay out the rest of the body.
I'll go with seven "heads" tall which is typical of somewhat realistic human proportions (3 heads for a body, 3 for the legs)

 

 

Step 5


    Now the tricky part: drawing the curving back plus the butt. The neck is always leaning bit forward because of the weight of the head. The back is kind of shadow "W" that outlines the shoulder blades and butt. The center of the back should be just above the bellybutton as indicated by the red line in the diagram above. The dashed blue line represents where the shoulders are to be. It would take quite a while to learn to draw the back that well, another reason to keep practicing.

 

Step 6


   Normally, the entire front of the body is slightly curving like the red line shown in the diagram above. The athletic people tend to have flatter (or bumpier due to muscles), and it's common for the bellies to protrude bit further than the chest. It must be noted that skinny female characters tend to have thicker bellies than skinny male characters due to the fact that female bodies were structured for child-bearing purposes. But you can worry about that later and draw the chest and belly whatever you want.

 


Step 7


   If you observe how the people are standing on their legs, you'll note that the legs seem to be curved slightly away from the front due to the weight of the torso. I made a mistake of drawing the leg a little too close to the vertical line when it should be further away from the vertical line. That shows why it helps to lightly sketch the entire drawing, and fix any mistakes as you erase and re-draw the picture.
    So for now, just do the legs your way and note that the dashed blue line is an example of planning ahead before drawing the other leg. When you draw a picture, it helps to plan ahead so to avoid any possible mistakes that can be easily avoided.

 

Step 8


   Let's do the other leg that is slightly raised by the foot as if slowly walking and it is useful to draw an entire leg over the leg you already draw, and you can erase the overlapping lines later. Don't forget about how the foot should be raised ("standing on the toes").

 


Step 9


    Let's do an arm with a hand resting on the hip. Mark where the hand and shoulder joint are to be before drawing the arms.

 

Step 10


    Do your best as you can drawing the arm since it can take few tries to get the arm to look fine. You can use your own arm to get an idea of how a crooked arm should be positioned in respect to the body.

 


Step 11


    Let's say that we want her to hold something like a lollipop or an ice cream close to her face. Think about how your arm is positioned when you bring something close (ice cream) to your face and apply that to the drawing. Do the hand first before doing the arms. Note how the lower part of the arm is shaped due to muscles being compressed from the folding of the arm, and the female elbows tend to be sharper than those of male characters.

 


Step 12


    Lightly erase the entire drawing and start re-drawing it again. Start with the smoothly curved back and the butt is kind of shaped like a side of a teardrop. The bottom of the butt should be bit below the crotch.

 

Step 13


    Re-do the legs, and note how I fixed my mistake by moving the leg further away from the vertical line.

 

 


Step 14



Redo the arms and hands. Don't forget the fingers too.

 

 


Step 15


    It's not really necessary to worry about the female breasts when drawing loose clothing (just add the "bumps") but let's show how to draw a female character in tight clothing, bikini or something similar. I'm not really sure how the breasts should be shaped in such side view (due to lack of live models) but I know that they're sort of water balloons sticking out of the chest but bit more perky or something like that because of the nipples (both male and female). Don't worry about the perky thing since she would be wearing a padded bra that tend to round her breasts out. So for now, just add a "water balloon" to her chest and it's optional to add chest muscles.

 

 


Step 16



Redo the other arm and hand. You can study your own hand holding something and apply that to the drawing

 


Step 17


    Start working on the head. It's your choice how you want to do her face. You can give her an easy "Chibized" look or more realistic look. When drawing a realistic look, you want to take in account of how eyes, lips, nose and chin are shaped. Drawing the lips can be made easier by adding "lipstick" that can be erased later if desired.

 

Step 18


    Do the hair, and a nude drawing of female character is all done. All we need is get her dressed up.

 


Step 19


    Add some clothing and note that I added a depression to the front of her body to bring out her chest and belly. It's possible to add the clothing to the drawings without going thru the nude phase in some cases. There are times when it might be easier to draw a nude figure before adding the clothing since the various body poses can affect the clothing.

 


Step 20


    There, the drawing of Akosima is completed! It's not easy to do the side views, so don't worry if you didn't do well at first. All you do is keep practicing and eventually, you'll get better. Since it's rare to do the side views in many drawings, it would be more useful to do the comics that can provide some opportunities to practice on such side views.