Strike a Pose
Got your characters worked out? Know what style you’re drawing them in? Excellent!
In your comics, your characters are going to be doing all sorts of actions. Maybe they’ll be eating a delicious sandwich, or diving into a pool, or relaxing on a beanbag playing some video games. But wait – how do we know how to draw them doing those things?!
We build up the drawing step-by-step!
Step 1: Gesture
With any action, it helps to start with a stick figure (or gesture) of that pose. Not sure how a pose looks? Get someone around you to pose for you and take a photo of them! You can also look up reference videos on Youtube if you’re not sure how to draw a certain movement (such as diving into a pool).
Remember: When you’re drawing your gesture, make sure to draw lightly so that you can erase it easily later on (or if you’re drawing digitally, draw on a different layer with lower opacity!).
Step 2: Structure
Once you have your gesture, it’s time to add the structure. These are the proportions of your character around the stick figure! How this looks will depend on your character design.
Again, you will want to draw this lightly, so that if you need to change anything you can do so easily.
BONUS TIP!
When designing your character, try drawing them from different angles. You can then use that as a reference when you’re adding structure to your gestures!
Step 3: It’s Alive!
Once you’re happy with your gesture and structure, you can finish off your drawing! Ink it, colour it, live your life, be free.
This may sound like a lot of work for just one drawing, and it is! Well done for going through all of these steps. As with most things, the more you practice, the easier it will get. We promise.
Dundee Comics Creative Space 