Drawing outline of human body part 4: Adding muscles and flesh to stick figures

 In this hub we will be continuing with our series on "Drawing outline of human body", where we discuss about how to draw manga comic characters with proper anatomy and proportions.

If any reader wishes to know what has been going on, these are the previous posts concerning drawing outline of human body, about manga human anatomy: Part 1, Part 2a, Part 2b, and Part 3. It is a sequence by itself.

We will take the previous doodle art drawings from my previous hubs as examples, to illustrate today's topic of adding muscles and flesh to stick figures.

In part 3 of this series, we spoke about how important it is to draw advanced stick figures, as it gives a definite pose, anatomy and personality to our manga comic characters.

On the right is my stick figure which I drew for a male character.

Please go over to part 1 of my series in drawing outline of human body to know why we need to draw stick figures to train ourselves in manga human anatomy.

Next up, is today's topic on adding muscles and flesh on stick figure drawings.

On the right is my outline of human body for my manga comic character example. If you notice from the above stick figure, you will realize that I copied the above stick figure into another fresh piece of paper by tracing, and started to work on the fresh piece in adding flesh and muscles to the stick figure.

By enlarging the image on the right, you will be able to see the detailed markings and definitions of how I added flesh and muscles to my manga comic character.

Finally, we add details on the outline of my manga human body example, such as facial features, hair, clothes, and definition, to create our final masterpiece.

This is done again by tracing the outline of the manga character into another fresh piece of paper, and add details on the fresh piece of artwork.

So at the end of the practice, we will have a stick figure, an outline of human manga character, and the completed masterpiece.

As today's topic is not on details, we will not discuss much about it.

However, if anyone wants to practice, please do it in the sequence I have shown you. You will be able to identify your mistakes more accurately in human anatomy of your manga drawings, if you adopt the practices in the sequence.

If you enlarged the image on the right, you will notice that there are alot of markings, some of which are corrections and advices made by manga teacher. It will be good to pay attention to these details.

1. Take note of how I draw the limbs and joints, and the overall shape of the human body. The human anatomy is full of curves, and cannot be drawn in direct straight lines.
2. Notice the details such as the neck and collar bone, and draw them out. Take a good look at the human body outline on the right, or the completed picture above to indicate important details into your drawing.
3. Always note where your character is facing, and align them properly.
4. For males characters, chest muscles and rib cages should be defined to give a strong and lean look.
5. For female characters, instead of chest muscles and rib cages, their breasts and hips should be defined to give a hot and sexy look.
6. Refer to the previous "Drawing outline of human body series" on how to shape your characters accordingly to gender.

 I have not given the female examples for this hub, because it is directly similar to what I have discussed here on how to add flesh and muscles to stick figure drawings.

If you wish to find out more on female examples of adding flesh and muscles to stick figure drawings, visit my post at manga-journey.com.

As the images are good for references, it will be great visit my blog for female examples.

Anyway, that's all for this hub. Stay tuned for more updates!

This hub is edited and taken from my blog at http://manga-journey.com/, where I blog about my journey to become a semi-professional manga comic artist.

I will be venturing on a webcomic journey actually, and am planning to start my own webcomic. And hence I will be discussing about webcomics and my experiences on my blog too.