I've been working on mah arts more as of late (I get into long ruts of wanting to draw a lot and not wanting to draw at all; I'm in one of the wanting to draw ruts now) but I've started to notice something about all the people I draw.

They're oddly disproportionate, usually in that they're really short-waisted. Also their legs are always too short but that's a different problem where I suck at drawing a person small enough to fit on a page and since I start at the head, by the time I get to their legs, I run out of room so instead of just having their legs go off-page, I just make them real short and pretend its okay. Hopefully with practice I'll stop doing that.

But the short-waisted problem I just can't get myself to stop doing, probably because I, in person, am really short-waisted. Even if I get a picture of someone with a normal or long torso, and try to reproduce it, it starts looking totally freakish to me, but then if I finish it after making it not freakish, I realize I friggun made their waist too small. Sometimes I draw hands too small, too, but again I think that's just a practice problem.

Anyway do any of you guys have problems like that too? Or have you overcome your legs/torso/hands/the everything problems?

I find looking at references helps. I've also read that it's better to draw the head last, strangely enough especially with full body/pose type drawings. :)

Do the head last? Really? That is so weird to me. But maybe I'll try that! Thanks :D

Yeah, it sounds odd but some people advise to do it last. XD But I hope my advice helps! From what I recall, doing the toro/hip area is first, then legs, and then upper body. :3 Looking up things on deviantart helps too.

That might help me with getting the head the right size, too. I do so much chibi that when I go to do a regular person, oftentimes I make their head to big XD

^_^ Yeah, I'll start trying that.

Okay. :D I hope it works out for you.

I have the same problem about actually fitting drawings on the page. I always start too far down on the page and by the time I realize it, it's already too late and the calves and feet won't fit. ;_;

I also draw hands too small ALL the time. It's really annoying. I've been practicing really hard at hands lately. I've started taking photos of my own hands in the positions I want and it's been helping immensely.

My hand problem usually isn't too bad as I try to remember generally speaking, a hand is about as big as a person's face. If I remember that, I can usually draw the hands well...but when I draw them too small it's usually when the hand is interacting with something else more complex than a cylinder thing - like an instrument or scissors or something.

D: But yeah, the fitting thing is so hard! Even if I start high enough on the page, I wind up drawing it bigger thinking I have more space so I still get down to the legs and they're off the page XD It makes me feel better to know I'm not the only one who does that.

Hands have always been my weakness. For the longest time I couldn't even draw them, so I'd just find a way to hide them in the picture. I've gotten tons better in recent years though, but I'd still not at the level I'd like to be.

And you're definitely not the only one! I really need to work on fitting things correctly. When I make a conscious effort to fit things on the page, I end up drawing them too small. xD

Hands used to be pretty hard for me but what you're doing now is how I got better. I also used to grab my friends' hands and shape them the way I wanted, but after they stopped fighting me, they still wouldn't let me sketch their hand, as if it really mattered and the hand would be recognized as theirs or something XD

One thing that might help is starting off with a lightly sketched wire skeleton kind of thing of the whole body before you do any of the actual form of it - just like an oval for the head, straight line across the shoulders and one across the hips, curve of the spine and straight lines of basically where the arm and leg bones would go. Then you can form the actual shape of the body around these lines, and if you get the initial proportions right and stick to them it feels more structured and solid.

Also helps with legs-off-the-page problem, about which I FEEL YOUR PAIN. (I've been told the "head last" advice too, more specifically to start where the figure's weight rests and move up from there.)

I have tried the skeleton - I just apparently suck at it. I will still use it to try and get an idea of what the position might look like but when I flesh it out, the limbs always end up being too short or something, like it was only proportionate as a stick figure? I guess i"m just doing the skeleton wrong.

Maybe i will start from the waist...I just worry that'll screw up the shoulders and stuff when I get there, but that's probably because I haven't tried starting with the waist since I was a kid when I just sucked at drawing still in general XD

Apparently in fullbodies you want to draw the spine first. I'll be honest I start in different spots depending on the position. Sometimes I've started at the foot other times the hips or torso or head.

As for the height thing and short legs the thighs to just about the knee should be as long as the torso and the knee to the ankle should also be just as long as the torso if the legs are too short then it's because they aren't the same size as the torso and if they still look too short then it's really because you're probably right about the torso being too short.

I've tried to start drawing at the torso and that seems to help...I don't ever think I could pull off a drawing starting at the foot, though! Or maybe that'd be an interesting challenge...

I usually try to measure legs to torso but if I'm drawing a robed figure, that's when I usually fail to. I guess that's a lesson not to draw clothes until you have the figure drawn out, but I get so lazy sometimes...On the plus side, I was slightly worried maybe I had the wrong idea of how legs should measure up to the rest of the body (although my idea was I thought of when I stretched, and had to reach for my toes because with my body bent over itself, my head did not reach them. It will be way easier to just measure a thigh to a torso) so it's nice to know I wasn't too far off!

SO I haven't figured out what I really wanted to do with the face of that far hand but this is an example of where I started at the foot. The first sketch wasn't really in proportion but I wanted that still not quite right foot to be foreshadowed and it felt easiest to lay that out fitst.

Yeah working your way up is often the best/easiest for getting proportions right I'd definitely take the time to at least figure out where the knees and ankles would go in a robed figure. It's good that you had related it to something to try and figure it out though but yes anatomy books teach them about being the same sizes :)

^_^ Thanks for the advice! Also I guess it does make sense to start with the foot, if it's the main thing in the foreground.