How to Draw a Female Figure

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Jay French in Jayfrenchstudios.com and I'm going to show you how to draw the female figure. Okay, to draw the female figure we're going to start with the same proportions as we have in general. A head, inverted oval, six heads, one, two, three, four, five, six, approximate height of the whole body. Women generally have narrower shoulders and also a smaller barrel for the rib cage. Half way in between the top of the shoulders and the bottom we have the hips. Hips are wider, hips on a woman are going to be as wide as the shoulders, sometimes even wider. Now, for a lot of fun, cause this make for good women, female art, is to angle the hips and have the legs crossing over each other, half way for the knees. Now, let's do this woman with her arm up behind her head and this one on her hip. Okay, you want a oval for the deltoid, you want to make sure you notice the deltoid in a woman, even if their thin, it's the biceps and the other muscles are more minimized for our muscles, almost unnoticeable is just a narrowing mostly, maybe a slight curve on the outside. The raised arm you'll see almost nothing in the way of musculature although the raised are will flex the bicep more, and will definitely pronounce the deltoid, and separate it more from the shoulder. Much more, ah, almost, almost straight line to the trapezoids. Always want to draw the clavicle, get that curve in there for the forearm, and breast are about a third of the way down, you want to make a line like this from the point of the clavicle, go outward and an inverted V, and you'll get an approximate center point of the breast. Most of the time they will be just outside the line of the ribcage. Make a definition of the ribcage or it won't look human. You may want some definition of the inner ribcage and there's a sharper curve, of course, of the hip that is higher, subtle curve on the outside, have this curve going up because this leg is kind of upward and forward, you're oval the thigh, smooth this down, get smaller as it goes, very important there, knee is more, less pronounced, you want less bulging and less detailing then you have in a male figure. Put the wedge of a hand there, then elbow. You still want a slight curve on the front, up the lower leg and then a more pronounced curve on the calf, and there you have what the leg looks like. Let's give her some hair. And that's your basic pictorial on how to draw the female figure."