Do I Have Good Proportions

How do I get the body proportions right in a drawing?

Like other answers have stated, the best way to do it is to study anatomy. However, it's also good to keep in mind that people have different proportion. The standard “artsy” proportion is where the body height is eight times the length of the head, like this:And this is a standard “artsy” face proportion:If you are drawing more than one characters, it's a good idea to make the proportions different. Taller or shorter, broader or narrower shoulders and hips, longer or shorter necks and limbs, etc. The same can be said for facial proportions. You can also take into account what these people do for a living. For example, swimmers tend to be tall and broad shouldered, and rock climbers might have longer arms. If everyone has the same proportionst, they'll all start to look the same.There are some “rules” which are generally true, such asPeople's fingertips not reaching the top of their kneesArms are shorter than legsThe middle finger is the longestThe best way to learn these is to pay attention to real life. You can use your own body as reference or look at other people and pictures.What you should be careful with is symettry. You can get away with playing with proportions as long as you do it symettrically. It's usually okay for a face to not be completely symettric. Most people don't have perfectlh symmetrical faces. However, the length or width of other body parts are usually symmetric.Don't stress about it too much. If it looks like it could be someone you can see in real life, it's right enough.

Can bad proportions ruin a drawing?

Most of the time, yes.Proportion is a very important. It’s what makes your art actually believable and realistic. However, no proportion in an artwork isn't all the bad either. As long as you do it right. It can bring a somewhat abstract and other worldly feel to it witch can really engage the viewer. With that in mind, it still can be bad even if you deliberately made it out of proportion. As I said previously the artist has to do it correctly.

How do I get better at proportions and poses in art?

I agree with Kathleen and Anastasia, practice is the best way but with real models is the best way. And yes, yes, yes, use tools, always use tools, that´s why they exists, it´s not cheating at all, it´s just a way to do a better work. As the other answers told you, learn about proportions, but also feel the object or the body you are drawing, feels it´s movement, learn how to see it, don´t prejudge what you see because you think you know how it should be, no, feel it, check with your tools the inclination of each part, the shadows, the length of each part, etc.And here i´m copying part of other answer because this exercise can help you. If you like, do it not with hands but with the full body (but start with hands, it helps a lot):Take a block of white pages, cheap ones. Take a pen, not a pencil. Put your hand in any position and WITHOUT seeing the paper, draw the hand. Also, do NOT raise the pen from the paper, do a continuous line. Very important, don't do just the outline, do the details you see inside the hand, any line, not just the border. And the most important part, do not worry if it goes out terrible, it should the first 20 times, but when you have done 100, 200, 500 drawings, you will see how you start to feel the hand, or any object you use to do this exercise. Oh, and change the position of the hand with each drawing.This exercise is important because it helps you establish the connection between you brain, your eyes and your drawing hand. This is like a muscle, it needs to be trained and workout. The more you do it, the more you will feel the proportions right, and you will learn how to do expressive works, you will see that. Do 5, 10 drawings of this each day. In one month you will be surprise with your advance, I'm sure of it.

How do artists learn to draw perfect body proportions?

It takes a lot of practice and you need to be critical about your results. Publish your drawings online on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. By doing this you trying every time to find the energy, inspiration to try make a better drawing next time. When you are alone at your desk you might by happy with a "sort-of" result. By publishing your mind switches into artist's mode .It also helps to go to an art class or comics convention. Often you might think it is just not possible to draw that perfect. Just by seeing other people do it you learn the moves, convince yourself with a lot of hard work this can be done. There is no better way to learn drawing a body then looking at a real , live model. In these sessions you are forced to draw fast, look at proportions and foreshortening. By doing this you want to learn more about anatomy. How does the skeleton work? Which muscles do exist? Play with computer programs like Photoshop. Load in a photo, set the transparance to 50%. Trace a part of the image, hide the image and try to guess where the next parts should be. Learn were you always make mistakes and learn to compensate. When drawing circles I just know that my left side of the circle should be much wider than my natural instinct tells me.Always carry a sketchbook with you. Draw on trains, busses, at school, in meetings. Drawing a lot helps. You might not notice this immediately, but do this for months, years will show progression.Plus, don't forget, in comics the body proportions are very often not perfect. Certainly in super hero comics the proportions are way off how real people look like. You will need to find the comics style you like to draw with its own rules of proportions. It is much more interesting as a comic artist to learn anatomy and the subtle art of gesture drawing. The latter you can only learn by observation.

How do I get the proportions accurately while drawing a portrait?

This is what somebody once told me and this helped me a lot while I kept observing and searching for the line which I wanted to Develop. The key to successful drawing is always looking for the Contour and the Negative Space of the given Object or the Figure. People always give importance to the positive space, but when you'll start observing the other half, things will get simple eventually. Practicing the negative space can automatically increase your sense of proportion and composition. Negative space is important for drawing any genres whether it be Portrait or Still Life or any other objects.