sketching people from references: my process
(This is mainly a long-winded reply to @ace-catboy-ryuuzaki's request for constructive critique on their art, because I didn't want to reblog their post with all this junk. But anyone else is welcome to reblog as well!)
When trying to improve at anatomy, I always work from photos or from life instead of off other peoples' art. That way I can be sure all the problems with the art are mine and not the original artist's.
So step 1 is to find a photo. As an example for this post, I found this pose reference on google images.
First thing I do is hold my pen/pencil up to the image to get a sense of where the lines are. How steep an angle is that pole at? What about the lines of the arms and legs? Think about the bones, rather than the actual outlines of the form, for this part. I'll start my sketch with these lines, and then around them, draw some cylinders to get a sense for the three-dimensional shape of the figure.
Here's an example of this step. But wait! That top arm doesn't look right. What I'll do is just erase it until it looks plausible again, look back at the photo, and maybe hold up my pen again, and then re-draw it.
There, that's better.
I make sure to use curved lines at the joints, to show the perspective.
Since I do digital art these days, after I've got this sketch, I tend to make a new layer and turn the transparency on this one down. But back when I did traditional pen-and-paper art, I'd just do this first sketch really gently, with very light pencil strokes, so I could draw over it easily.
After that I can go through and add some detail. NOW I'm thinking about the actual shape of the muscles. I'll pretty much draw in everything except the hands, feet, and face.
(Note those guidelines, though, at the halfway point of the head vertically and horizontally: they'll come in handy later.)
My process for hands is to sort of block them in with rectangles and then define the details afterwards.
I've got two trapezoids to show where the fingers are, and some teardrop shapes for the knuckles. The first thumb-joint is pretty much a cylinder with a pointed end.
After that I'll put in the fingers...
Then round them off and erase the extraneous lines.
Feet are just rounded off triangles.
Eyes are halfway up the head, and ears are halfway around the sides. With that information I'll use the guidelines I made earlier to draw in the facial features.
Finally I'll put the hair in -- hair is kind of a tricky thing but most of the trick is just to use light strokes and not worry too much about where your pen's going.
So here we are, a finished sketch.
