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TheBryceKrispy
Oct '18

I cannot draw any character sitting down. How do you draw characters sitting down? Got any Do's and Don'ts?

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    Oct '18

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    Oct '18
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JonRoydon
Oct '18

I guess the trouble comes in the legs/pelvis area? Breaking the character down to simple shapes helps - imagine the character is made of balls and cylinders that are see through like Preston Blair on this page:

18

get that stuff in place, then its all about figuring out which parts are overlapping each other. A big DO for the list though, check reference photo's and other artists drawings! Learn from them.

If you post up a drawing of yours I can give some more specific tips. :slight_smile:

fischhead
Oct '18

My advice would be to practice from photo references. If you can't find the angle you want online, take a picture of yourself, or look at people around you. I do this all the time when I need to draw weird hand gestures.

Jenny-Toons
Oct '18

Often enough, I do a lot of leaning and gestures with my characters sitting down. Here's a quick example I made

image.png2759x2223 912 KB

That red line usually gives an indication of the spine, as well as what kind of pose I'm going for. Course, I rarely draw the red line, but knowing the gesture you want when a character is sitting really helps to show dynamics posing and feelings.

For me, it's all about the emotion for the character. Generally, someone who's defeated, tired, or upset often has a more slumped red line. Someone who's more chipper or excited would leaned in upper, like they're sharing a big secret (like the tiny doodle at the bottom).

These are just a few examples on how I do it, tho, but it helps to know how you're imagining the emotions :blush:

skicoak
Oct '18

It's all in clothing folds, in my opinion, all in the folds!

indigodrawing
Oct '18

Well first of all, I sit down, then I draw my characters :wink:

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Rhonder
Oct '18
1

If you don't do this already, one thing that can help a little bit is to draw the thing your character is sitting on before drawing the character sitting on it, as this will help orient them in space. Then I do similar to the example that @JonRoydon showed by starting my character sketch with basic shapes. A lot of the time if they character's just in space, I'll start with the head shape and work down. But with a character interacting with something, I find it easier to start with whatever body part is touching the thing and go from there.

In this case, I would start with a rounded rectangle for their butt/waist and go from there. You can then start making decisions based on what you know from the chair. If it's really tall maybe their feet dangle and wont reach the ground. If it's really short, maybe their knees will bend up towards their chest, etc. The same goes for the upper body: which way is their back leaning? forward/backward/straight? is it touching the back of the chair or lingering in front? Does the chair have arm rests? Is the character using them? What about their neck/head, same questions as the back kinda xD

edit: here's a super quick example, I kinda just highlighted my structure shapes in pink, but this is someone sitting in a chair with crossed legs leaning back into the chair and hands behind their head

20181023_112117.jpg1040x1857 650 KB