Day 39: Proportion type 2

I’m figuring out proportion using three different methods. Method 1 was using the techniques of drawing stick figures from life and pictures and then using my imagination to arrange them in poses without a visual aid. That was all well and good and a hell of a lot of fun but it’s didnt teach me the technicalities of it and that’s what I’d like to use as a basis for constructing human figures in drawings.

There are a lot of theories on proportion. Some hold with the idea that a human male body should be 7 heads high and some that it should be 7 and a half heads. Those that think the average male is 7 heads high also think that “heroic“ figures should ideally be drawn as 8 heads high whereas yet more people see 8 as average. Marvel - who specialise in heroes - inisist on a heroic proportion of 8.75 heads high! They use the 0.75 to account for the the neck and feet whereas the rest of the body maintains the 8 head measurement.

More about the Marvel way in a future blog. For now I’m going to be working on the Neil Fontaine method which uses 8 heads for the male figure. If you are in any doubt as to what that looks like here’s a handy illustration I drew just for you.

And here’s another.

And here’s a couple more...

You get my drift :)

I‘ll be practising these until I can draw them with the minimum of guidelines. Then I’ll be moving on from the stick figure to the “mannequin“ phase.