How to Emphasize Personality in Drawings

Drawing is a visual form of expression. Just like readers are expected to interpret words on a page, viewers of art are expected to interpret behaviors, body language and facial expressions of other characters. While traditional art relies only on images to communicate, comics can sometimes have words in the form of speech bubbles and monologue. But visual depiction still remains as one effective way to communicate different aspects of a story. Read on to learn how to emphasize personality in drawings.

Things You'll Need

• Drawing pencil
• Pencil eraser
• Drawing paper
• or
• Graphics tablet
• Graphics program

Instructions

1. 

   Understand how the tension of the body and positioning of different parts of the body communicate to the reader. Generally, bringing the limbs close to the body indicates that the character is feeling emotional bashful, or secretive, while having the limbs outward indicates confidence, aggression or power. When a character keeps his or her head up and body upright, the character is seen as positive, happy and thoughtful, while keeping the character's head tilted downward and the body slouched will indicate that the character is depressed, scheming or tired. You might be thinking that it is difficult to communicate anything when you have your character simply standing there doing nothing, but the tension of the body can also be used to communicate personality. If the character hangs his or her arms loosely, keeps the legs in a poorly balanced position, and seems to not hold the body carefully together, the character will appear seductive, carefree or relaxed. If the character keeps his or her arms tense and close together, keeps his or her legs straight, and the body perfectly symmetrical, the character will appear prepared, high-strung and cautious.

2. 

   This character was meant to appear lovestruck, but her eyes make her appear more shocked and bothered by what she sees. To make a character appear lovestruck, draw her head upright to convey happiness and positiveness. This way, she will seem happy about her newfound love. Keep her limbs inward to convey that she is full of emotion and maybe feeling a little bashful. Draw her tense. There might be a slight bit of fear or worry surrounding these new emotions. To consistently convey a character who frequently falls in love, keep her limbs mostly inward throughout the day and raise or lower her head depending on how she feels about her love. She will probably be tense except when she's happy with her object of affection.

3. 

   Draw an aggressive character by using outer limbs and a lowered head. By spreading out the legs and the arms, this character is feeling aggressive and wants to appear powerful. Keeping the head lowered shows that the character is scheming to do something to someone else. The tense body shows that the character is ready to fight. Usually violent characters always appear like this, but sometimes mean-spirited character will have his or her head up when taunting or ridiculing another character. This character might also appear relaxed if trying to appear arrogant.

4. 

   Draw a seductive or carefree character as if this character would fall over if something wasn't holding the character up. This character feels that there is no reason to use up energy by standing on her own weight. Her head shouldn't be held completely up or down because her emotions are neither positive or negative. The only time that her head should be completely upright is when she first sees the person whom she wants to seduce. Her limbs are also kept inward because she is full of sensuality (emotion) and might be secretive of her intentions. The seductive personality type usually never shows tension unless she is experiencing extreme negative emotion, and usually then she still tries to save face. Otherwise, she can express a wide range of other behaviors under the right circumstances. For instance, she might decide to appear mockingly confident by saluting a character.

5. 

   Draw a confident optimist with limbs that are outward. The more bent the arms are and the more spread out that the legs are, the more confident the character will appear. Since this character is so positive and thoughtful, keep this character's chin up at all times. The only time that the character should have her head lowered is during a rare time when dealt a crushing defeat or set back. This character is tense because the character is always ready to spring into action and do the right thing. This character is probably often helping her friends and giving positive advice.

Tips & Warnings

• Create an infinite number of personalities by placing the limbs in different positions, holding the body in different ways, and using different facial expressions.