If you could give me a breakdown of how you approach drawing the human figure.

Let's say it's an entirely new character that you've never done before and you are still familiarizing yourself with their physique. What do you do? How do you start?

The face. Sizing of features on the face, how do you do it?

I guess I look at your characters and they all look "sleek and serious" And that's what I want in my drawings. But I end up with "bumbling and goofy" on the lesser side or I go too far and it becomes just "creepy."

Example of my problems.
When I draw a face i find that they all look alike. Also I draw 3/4 view and start with their chin line which winds up making the character look cartoony and I have a hard time doing a more serious looking drawing. Or if I don't do that, I start with the overall shape of the head, and the eyes, nose, mouth and hair don't ever mesh together into a single unified face. It winds up looking like Picasso's work.


When I'm drawing the whole figure, my characters never look "sleek" they are either imperfect realism, or cartoony goofballs.

The head to body ratio also gives me a lot of trouble. I prefer a character with a helmet because it's clear and defined, and easy to change when I need to, and it disguises the size of the head.

Also, your space marines have a bulky but tough look. When I try bulky-tough I wind up with bulky-fat or oddly shaped tough. When I draw metal I want smooth and pointed, but I end up with angular and pointed, or round and smooth. That's a lot of contradictions, but I hope that illustrates my problems.

Also, most of my "crap" work, I don't upload onto DA, so if you look at my stuff all you'll see is the best of my work, which still isn't that great.


Okay, hopefully that explains my dilemma, In too many words of course.