How do you draw people?

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Mostly looking at people, pictures in magazines, or I imagine one of those movable dolls.

I can't draw people by looking at them...

Memorizing the proportions, and then start with the head first, then put in the face shape, and then the features.

What ARE proportions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_proportions

Red,

There are some excellent anime drawing books, but I have to check the art store for their names. There's one that goes through many different styles, and I almost bought it for a young friend, only his mother (one of my best friends) beat me to it. I know you will get a lot out of it, and it goes through the process step by step, and refers back to some of the great films.

It's late at night, but I will be back on line in about twenty hours (8 pm, Pacific Standard Time). I'm not sure how far ahead you are in Australia--9 hours. Well, it'll be the wee hours of Sunday morning when my post will be on. Maybe someone will post it before me.

But it's a great reference book.

Metta, Rjaye.

A very hard thing if you are human. You are! So Sorry.

The hand often comes connected to the body on the end of an arm. It is that squid looking thing.

The primary use is putting food in the mouth.

Most people have developed this skill badly, the food getting on their face and clothes.

Above the mouth are the eyes, usually several, they are the shiny things, do not touch them with hand.

Behind the eyes, and hidden out of common decency, is the brain. Do not put hand in brain!

These three things have to work together to draw. Hand, Eye, Brain.

First you have to overcome bad programing, it is natural to put what in in the hand in the mouth,

Eat and Art do seem closly related, it is also know that artists do not eat well.

You should not put art in your mouth, there is no telling where it has been.

The squid looking thing is used very little by humans, as little as possible.

Not having much of a nervous system they mostly use the short thick tenacile on the end, and the longer one next to it. With this they grasp devices to place food in the mouth, and lessen the danger of biting off a tentacle. As they cannot see the mouth with the eyes. A design flaw.

The other use for this tentacle grip is grasping a small stick, one end of which makes marks.
The young of the species often gather in groups and all make very small marks on thin sheets of white stuff, moving only the tips of the tentacles. Then give them to an older member who makes more marks on them, often in color. These marks are not good, and too many can cause obvious mental anguish in the young.

As far as we can tell is a ritual object used for punishing the young, for the mature rarely use it. When they do, it is to make very crude marks on small pieces of paper during a ritual involving a plastic card.
Observation has shown these marks are not consistant, and are in fact sloppy.

The eye and brain do not seem to provide any function in this action.

Others have been observed a rare secondary use, mostly done by ungroomed loner types. They grasp a larger but shorter marker holding it between the thick tentacle and the three main smaller ones. They seem a rebelious lot, who does everything different, just to agravate. With their larger marker they use larger sheets of the thin stuff, and instead of using the tips of the tentacles, use the main branch all the way up to where it connects to the main body. They wave it about in a feeding motion.

A note, the smallest tentacle on the outside is only uses for cleaning the ears.

They do not get the desired small neat marks, but curves, shapes, which start looking like things in their natural habitat. This ritual seems to be an attempt by the brain to cast out images, which must be unpleasent, for the maker often takes the effort of hours, and rips it, then crumples it in a ball, then starts over.

They will often continue for many hours without feeding. The longer they continue the more the brain takes control of the tentiale, The output gains in fine detail. Becoming intently focused on the brain waving the tenticle while being watched intensely with the eyes, other uses of the body are forgotten. They do not eat, sleep, bathe, change clothes, seek food, or clean their habitat. They lose the ability to socialize. It is noted that the image generating ones were the least social to start with.

This brain, eye, tentacle behavior is learned, none are good to start with, and it takes many hours over a long term till their output seems to please the brain. Having reach the intended goal they become fixated and continue, often for the rest of their short and lonely lives.

It is of interest that some of the most extreem cases, the ones that general members of the population would cross the street to avoid, often have their output hanging in the best of habitats, where they would have never been invited while alive. It is possibly due to their short life spans, and that one of starvation, that the output is hung as a warning to the young, of the result of a wasted life.

Saving the young is highly valued, often things of great value are traded for marks on a sheet of white stuff. Should you touch one of these outputs you should promply was your tentacles, for I have seen the conditions under which they were produced.

I usually start with the head shape first, then use wire "limbs" to show placement. like a skeleton. With the wire limb sketch I include lines for Neck, shoulders, and hips as well. Then I go and work on the face of the person.
I then sketch over the skeleton the basic body outline. After that is general clothes shape, then details.

Work on the basic structure first, then put in more and more details. like to build a house, first you gotta put up the frame, then flooring,then carpeting, and then you can move in. ^^

i started copying drawings from comicbooks when i was a wee tiny lad. at one point, i was not content with that anymore and that was when i started actively learning to draw figures. basically, i read a lot of books (no internet for me back then) and each one had its own approach.
i stuck with something very systematic: starting with a stick figure and then using the newly learned anatomy knowledge to build the shape of the figure onto it. there is no real shortcut to knowing basic anatomy (no sense in learning all the latin names, but knowing the big masses that make up a human body is crucial) and a bit of perspective drawing, so you have the knowledge how to depict 3-dimensional things convincingly.

manga or other comics are a form of idealization - so it makes sense to know the base idea that is idealized. compare for example the body of hulk to a normal human body (okay, a bodybuilders, perhaps) - its an idealization that exaggerates all the elements of strength. or compare thze body of an adolescent girl that is in that skinny growth spurt phase to the body shapes of asuka and rei in neon genesis evangelion - they are made even skinnier and with flowing, smooth lines - to idealize upon that unique look girls at that age often have.

over the course of years, i had different phases and style ideals i went through: american comics, manga, realistic, you name it. but it all was based on basic anatomy. so, over the years, that knowledge, as well as basic perspective drawing, became second nature to me. nowadays, i dont need the stick figure anymore and i usually dont construct the figures anymore - all the knowledge and experience points i amassed allows me to freely draw the shapes i want. this is a really useful skill, but there is no shortcut to it, i fear.

a lot of people learn only to draw manga things (and there are lots of tutorials on that out on the web), but if they dont know the why behind these things, its almost impossible for them to evolve beyond the recipes they have read.
so, the best advice i can give you is to learn. soak up knowledge like a sponge. basic perspective (what foreshortening is, etcetera) basic figure drawing, a lot of different manga tutorials, if you feel like, delve into other forms of drawing, too - maybe you find something you find to be a useful tool for what you want to realize. all the knowledge is a tool to your end, just as the pencil.
beyond learning, you need to practise. so draw, draw, draw. copy figures you see on images, draw figures from imagination, make drawings inbetween those two kinds... as long as you draw regularly, you cant not improve.

posting artwork on the net and getting critique is a great opportunity our time offers. if you feel like, certainly use it. in the web, you will get a lot of nonsense critique (like: "i dont like his nose. draw him a different nose" or "hah, he sucks"), but also some real pointers and solutions on how to improve.

i look forward to seeing your first attempts and further progress. (if you decide to post them here, that is)

on a dedicated art forum (conceptart.org), i witnessed a member who absolutely could not draw grow through repeated practise and critique to produce absolutely convincing drawings (realistic ones) over the course of one year. so, the craft definitely can be learned...

Thanks guys... I still don't know how I'm going to draw people though. I guess I'm not cut out to draw them...

I can ONLY draw what I see.

Don't give up - if you really want to do it you'll find a way.

I highly recommend checking out http://conceptart.org , especially the forums. Its the best community I've seen for artists developing their character drawing and illustration skills. There are even many professionals on there who make a living drawing characters for games and movies - but also a wide range of people learning in every stage of development. People there can give lots of advice and feedback and they also have some guides and resources for learning the basics.

Another thing to try is simply to copy / study from the artists you admire to get a feel for how their drawing process works. Especially if you are having trouble visualizing your own ideas and need to draw what you see. Be sure to give credit for the original when you copy though. Over time as you gain confidence with it hopefully you'll be able draw from your head. If you want to draw characters for a living one day you'll need to be able to do this.