Drawing the male body tutorial

An user asked me for assistance on how to draw the male body. While i`m far from being an expert, i`ve figured out i should upload this.

The numbers on this paper correspond to different points to elaborate.

When drawing the male body, or the human body, you should always begin with a loose skeleton, which you can then build upon using basic geometric shapes, which can be sculpted to give form to an human being.

The main caracteristic of the male body is the "V" shape on it (See point 2). This shape contains mostly the important muscles of the body, chest and abs muscles. When drawn from the back, this shape will contain the important muscles of the back. (See point 6) This shape also reach the shoulders, since the male body has more defined ones.

The proportions of your skeleton simply depend on what kind of subject you want to draw. For this tutorial, i`ve established the proportions in mind for a superhero, always the head as the main measurement unit.(See point 1), but it can vary depending of your character.

Basic geometric shapes are used to build the body (See point 4), which is very useful for things like shadings, foreshortning and other subjects. Also, when you sculpt out the muscles using your pencil, it`s not required to draw every small parts of the anatomy. (See points 5) Instead, as long as you get the basic shapes of the various parts right, you`ve got an human being. To details other muscles, you can use shadings and the like to suggest them, as well as to make the drawing more solid (See point 4 again).

The same build up techniques applies to other parts like the head, the hands and the feet (See point 3). As they begin with loose shapes, they can be rendered as shapes just like the body (See point 5 and 6).

I`ve also added the basic shape of the female body (See point 7) so that you can compare the difference in builds. If you have any questions after that, feel free to ask me. I`ve done this tutorial in like 15 minutes or something, lol.