How do you draw full body characters in comic pages/vignettes?

[navyzerimar]

Hello everybody!

I´ve been around working on my series, Vlamirka and The Golden Wolf, quietly for a while; in all this time I have come to realize that my biggest struggles at the point of making the comic are:

1- Making new page from scratch
2- Drawing full body characters

The 2nd bullet point is what brings me here today, the reason why is because I´ve been struggling with this for a very long time and I can´t seem to get a grip on it; at times it drives me up the wall (yes, even more so than the 1st bullet point). I have this problem in general but when making vignettes in particular is when I struggle the most.

Basically I end up cutting legs off frame or the head... sometimes both; I try making it directly on paper before going digital and for me personally is difficult to draw immediately digitally on the first go... I am one of does that needs physical scanned reference to work over when in digital.

I come forward because I would like to have advice from you to know how you do it and what tips could you give me. Is there maybe a particular technical trick I am not aware off? Is it because I lack general experience overall?

Thank you

[feuersichel]

Practice, practice and again practice. It sounds hollow and lame but it all comes back to that. I kinda know how you feel, I started my series with a similar problem. But keep on it!
I don't know if my way helps you but here we go:

Problem 1: I struggled and still do with this problem ALOT. this is my main problem not getting pages done quickly. A way that helped me is to make some rough sketches on some scrap paper. Just building up the basics of the panels and only a few gestures to show where the characters should be. With this you basicly have at least SOMETHING on a peace of paper with almost no effort. And the cool thing: if you don't like it, change or toss it and draw again. Here an example (even the text is just basic):

And here the second draft on some nice paper. You see, I didn't even use all of the ideas of the first one. But it gave me the spark to start.

[punkarsenic]

set your measurements!!!

in a realistic proportion, the head is 1/7th of the body height, but in cartooning that can range from a 7th to half - know how many heads make your characters height, lightly sketch out your head, and then measure down as many head heights as you need, adjusting your actual head drawing if need be. or, like, just estimate it - jot a top and bottom line and feel out the proportions as you go - this is a little harder, and i dont recommend it at first.

also, what do you mean about making pages from scratch?

[SleepingPoppy]

Sketch out the general shape and pose of the person lightly and loosely. Practicing full body gesture drawings will help. You can also pull up a couple references that are close to the position you want and do some loose measuring if it helps.

[feuersichel]

For problem Nr. 2 I sence you feel very unconfortable drawing those parts so you use every method to avoid it. IF this is so, study the anatomy of legs and feet. I sugest you should get yourself a sketchbook to draw all those ugly but very usefull studies in. I used to have fear of drawing hands and always avoided drawing them. Then there was a challenge on one of a random drawing-group where I should draw 50 Hands in different poses. After that I knew so much more about hands and how they work it actually started to make fun. And now, I love to draw hands

Then you go to the next point that struggles you.

For fullbody practice, figurestuding is a pretty nice way. Don't focus too much on the details, just get the basic shapes down.

Here is a nice page I use for practicing poses:
https://www.quickposes.com/en/gestures/random

And here some ugly examples what I'm talking about xD (those are made without reference, so the anatomy might be a bit off)

[navyzerimar]

basically when the page is not even is a rough form; when the paper is completely in blank... working from zero with no reference but the idea in my head

[navyzerimar]

I've never tried doing that when making drafts; that's great!
I can't believe I never though of that
Thank you!

[punkarsenic]

oooh okay mate i can Help you with that, its smth ive struggled with a lot during my process

do you thumbnail? thumbnail. a lot. if you dont know what that is, its sketching out different trail designs and layouts and the rest, to see what you like. its trial and error, and its they key to getting something you like, and getting it fast and fun. its kinda like storyboarding for film, i guess? but like, really early storyboards.

first, note down things like:
- what you want to happen in this page
- any dialogue you know you want to include
- anything else too - you might have a particular image you really want, note it down
- other goals. maybe you really want to get some nice backgrounds on this page, or set up something for a future plot point, whatever it is, listing this out helps

then, sketch! i know some people start with pairing expressions and movements to their dialogue and characters - free of panelling and layout and the rest - to get a feel for the page. personally, i keep that stuff in my head and start with layouts - i diddle out three or four boxes and fill them with boxes and circles for speech bubbles, after listing out the four to six panels i wanna get in. but then im working from a really comprensive script, not everyone is.

sketch out each page at least three times - id say do three sketches of different layouts, pick your favourite, and then do three sketches of different visuals within the layout. sketch out your dark & light, do colour tests, all that.

then, when it comes to make the actual page... youre practically tracing, and you know every twist and turn.

it sounds like more work, but its actually all things youre doing anyway - deciding on layout, dialogue, poses, etc - but youre doing it with massive pressure on yourself. if you take the pressure off and just draw messy stuff, experiment with ideas that fail, youll get to an end product youre way more satisfied with, and youll get there easier, and itll be bloody fun. theres no steadfast rules for thumbnailing, so trial and error it and see what works for you

i hope this helps and i dont turn out to be stating the bleeding obvious

[navyzerimar]

I ones met a friend when I took animation classes, he actually suggested to me the same practice method to improve body shaping... I see how this can help me get a better grip on body shapes and proportions

Thank you

Btw; do you think that with the style I draw my characters in, can realistic proportions apply?
I mean: I often get intimidated by the measurements I use when drawing (especially when considering what many others can do), and feel the urge to tone down or "iron out" the shape with strong lines... I don't know if I'm making much sense :\

[navyzerimar]

I see thank you!
I do actually doodle pages before sketching but I think my problem is that I have issues coming up with the right ways of telling the story, positions, what dialogue goes where you know? All that stuff

I often how ever don't pay attention to the space for the dialogue and only realize this after I'm in the digital process at which point I'm all really way too deep then; I can tell when it happened to me doing my comic in chapter 1-35, the very last vignette; I drew the whole thing and when the time came I completely botched the scene for the dialogue then... I had to rescale the whole thing...

If I had done this your way I would have avoided myself a world of trouble.

Thank you again for your advice!

[punkarsenic]

oh i feeeeeel you, you gotta leave space for dialogue in your page sketches and think carefully abt the speech bubble flow, it makes a world of difference

getting started on a page is always daunting, but when youre starting from one lego brick rather than an entire castle, its a lot easier