Let's make this a bit more organized. If I make some mistake or forget to point out something, please correct me.
According to what I've seen, there are 3 major points in studying figure drawing:
- learning to draw fluid, natural poses;
- learning to draw the human figure in correct proportion; and
- learning to draw human anatomy correcly (and I'm talking specially about muscles - and how they behave - and features of the body).
There are, then, two major approaches you can and must take: a) do quick drawings to get practice in getting the poses right and with good dynamics, and b) do longer drawings to get the muscles and features right as well as the body's form (regarding light and shadow).
I don't know how good you are at pose drawing and anatomy, so I'll recommend some materials that may prove useful for everyone, be them novice artists willing to learn or experienced artist willing to revist the basics (which we must always do). Just keep in mind that I'm not the experienced one and I'm still on the road to achieve an at least acceptable level to enter the market.
OK, if you want to try a relatively quick way of looking at the basics, go watch Proko's videos. They are great, as well as Sycra's, and you'll add that knowledge to the one you'll get from materials that theoretically constitue the slower, althought more complete way of learning. None of them excludes the other, all of them add more utility to themselves. Here, to avoid people from feeling confused, I'll only recommend videos from Proko.
- Start with this playlist: Anatomy of the Human Body for Artists
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtG4P3lq8RHFBeVaruf2JjyQmZJH4__Zv
- When you're done, watch this one: Figure Drawing - How to Draw People
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtG4P3lq8RHGuMuprDarMz_Y9Fbw_d2ws
Use pose drawing sites to practice it. I used to use Pixelovely but soon I started to notice many images were being repeated and that was upsetting me. I then switched to Quickposes and I'm liking their database so far. They even have timed poses for hands!
So, here is the purpose of using such sites: you'll use timed gestures of 20, 30, 60 seconds to draw poses and longer periods of time to draw the anatomy right. It's no use not knowing to draw fluid poses if you want to draw the muscles already. Your figures will look stiff and unnatural.
Here's what I've been doing:
- Every day I've been having a session of 20 poses for 60 seconds each at Quickposes.
- I'm also setting up 5 minutes for poses there to get used to drawing the basic muscles and shapes correctly.
Important note here: It's importante to get the form, not shape, as shape is a bidimensional structure and the form is tridimensional. When good artists draw, they're always thinking on the form, not shape, but I mentioned the opposite word above because I still haven't been able to apply the lightning on time (even in 5 mins). That's why longer sessions of 30 or 60 minutes are necessary. They also help you build the figure better and with more comfort and details, and it's on this matter that Pixelovely stands out, with sessions that include variable time limits to warm you up and leave your mind prepared to do longer, more detailed drawings. Which one should you use? For now go for it first and use Quickposes later. As the learning methods, they also don't exclude each other.
Now for the longer way, I recommend books. They're indispensable and you'll know why as soon as you read one. All of them I recommend are from master Andrew Loomis. For me, he teaches like no other.
- For getting all the basics of art, I recommend Successful Drawing. Loomis says that, in order to draw anatomy well, one needs to know light and shadow. To use light and shadow it's necessary to get to draw solids. And in order to draw solids, one needs to know perspective, for no solid is drawn out of perspective. You'll learn all those things in this book.
- For anatomy of the human body and poses, there is Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and, to complement it, there is Drawing Heads and Hands
You can find his books here in this Internet Library. It appears to be legal, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Final thought: DO. IT. EVERY. DAY. Professional athletes practice everyday, great musicians practice everyday, even writers write everyday. It doesn't matter if you're feeling on the mood to draw or not, just do it. After some weeks or months, when you look back at those drawings (or at those train sessions, music practice or at that writing), you won't remember if you were inspired or not to do that. Sure thing the first tries will look like shit, but you need to make those mistakes in order to learn. And don't stop, just keep going.
Also, regarding those wooden dolls, I also don't recommend them, unless you're already good at anatomy AND at drawing poses and you need references for specific poses to work. Sure, sometimes it's better to take a photo of yourself or a friend because it's difficult to find a very specific pose on the web, so this is when this doll (or you, or other people) is useful. But not for when you still haven't mastered the basics.
This is it. For any other thing one may need, I recommend two major sites:
- Ctrl+Paint, which has the best source of free, top level videos I've ever seen, all made by the same author.
- Sycra's site, that has a great listing of many many useful references on the web. Just click on "resources" and be happy.
