Drawing people really is a big venture, especially for people who are just beginning to practice their art form. It takes a long time from sketching to finishing pieces of people illustrations, some might even call it a frustrating amount of time. There are too many features to master, complexions and body types to practice, and a number of real-life inspirations that need to be perfected.
People illustrations from illustAC
Most artists complain that drawing a human hand perfectly is a big challenge, even for artists who have been drawing for a long time. Drawing people is also very intimidating because it is very easy to compare the art to real-life and unless your art form is majorly abstract, the subject in your paintings or sketches might disrupt the entire intention. While it is definitely not easy to draw the human shape in a realistic way, the skill can be perfected with time and effort.
Whether you are here to seriously learn the art of successfully drawing realistic people or you are simply browsing to look at further opportunities to enhance your artistic skills, we have curated a list that can help you draw the human shape perfectly. Keep reading to know-how.
Simple but Easy-to-follow Tips of People Illustrations
Start simple, adding features as you go
Drawing a full human face is intimidating. Drawing a human eye for starters is more attainable. Break down the different features that go into drawing a realistic human being. Eyes, nose, lips, hands, hair, etc. Draw each individual feature first and keep on practicing that feature till you have got it down to perfection. Eventually, you can combine all these components to create a perfect human face. Keep going and soon you will be able to draw the complete human body.
Hand gestures – People illustrations from illustAC
The art of being the master of any task is to break it down into more achievable parts. No skill can be perfected overnight and the same goes for drawing real people. Start with small and simple tasks and gradually add on to the features as you grow more confident in your artistic skills. Whether it’s sketching on paper or creating a digital illustration, you need to start with the most basics of a human figure drawing and keep growing eventually. Remember to be patient if you don’t get it right the first time or even on the fifteenth try. You will get there slowly and steadily.
Define your art style
As a beginner, it can be very tempting to copy from your reference exactly. There might be an artist whose work you find really inspiring. You might want to replicate their artistic style and be inspired by their creativity. However, it is one thing to be inspired by a piece of artwork and completely different to copy it point-blank. Find your own art style that will help you in developing your own unique art pieces.
You can do this while practicing the tip mentioned above. It is definitely the skill of an artist to keep their brushes and pencils in complete control. But sometimes, you need to let go of the control to figure out what your unique style is. Be open to experimentation, try different mediums, use a wide variety of equipment; do whatever you feel like while you are still a beginner so that you can figure out the methods that are most suitable to your art form.
Fashionable Creative People Illustrations – illustAC
Cute Creative People Illustrations – illustAC
Another trick that can help you determine your art style is by creating art in different environments. Take a walk to the local pub in the evening and have real human beings as your reference. Try to capture the emotions of a person sitting at a park bench emerged in their book. Step out of your house, and comfort zone, while developing a new art form to bring out your creative best.
Proportions and compositions are the key to a good drawing
Composition is the key to a great art piece, whether it’s sketching or photography. The right composition of elements in the painting helps guide the eyes of the viewer easily through the art. While drawing people illustrations, you have to be mindful of how you want to place your subjects. Would it be a solo portrait, avatar, or a scene from the daily routines?
These small decisions set the tone of your art and help you paint a clear image of your creative vision. You can start by mirroring the actions of the people whom you see in real life. Gradually you can bring them to life in your painting using sheer imagination. Observing how people act and react in real life can help bring realistic features to your drawings. You can play around with subjects and objects to create the perfect settings for different people drawing concepts.
Another thing that beginner artists need to be very mindful of while drawing people is to get the proportions right. This is a technique that will come gradually to you as you improve on your drawing skills. Often beginner artists make some features such as a person’s eyes or mouth bigger than the rest of their face. That makes the drawing look funny, if not completely disorienting. One thing that you can do while beginning to draw people realistically is to set down guiding lines for facial features, hands, and feet. This way you can get a bit more control over how to draw a fully-proportional human figure.
Play around with expressions and emotions
The facial expression, body language, and light-shadow combination on your human subject can make or break your painting. If you want to create thought-provoking, emotions-inducing people illustrations, then you need to practice bringing out the expressions of your subjects. This works best when you are painting portraits, but you can also apply this tip while painting scenes from daily life.
Adding a layer of sheen to the eyes makes them look glossy or teary while painting dents on the cheek makes your subject look like they are shyly smiling. Use various references to understand how to reflect real-life emotions on the drawings of people to make them appear realistic.
By mastering the technique of displaying human emotions through your people illustrations, you can create a whole story just by drawing realistic human beings. Great artists can capture conversations and emotions simply by the expressions of their subjects. You can do the same with a little practice and a lot of devotion.
Another thing that can make the subject in your painting pop is the use of background colors and textures. You can use contrasting background colors to make the painting appear dramatic or you can use subtle background textures to blend in the emotions of your subject seamlessly.
You can build framework for poses
Human beings rarely stand still in a position for a long time. Drawing people means capturing the real-life movements of a person. A woman reaching out for a cup of coffee, a child running towards their father, a person sitting on a park bench playing with their dog, etc.
Life is full of moments that are worthy of being translated through art. While drawing realistic people going about their usual daily functions, you can start with first setting a stick-figure framework of them in motion. Add in ovals, squares, and triangles to make the human shape without defining the features.
Stick people illustrations – illustAC
This tip can be really helpful when you are trying to take inspiration from real life as people won’t hold their poses for you when they are living their lives. Quickly create a framework that you can build upon when you have the time to get into the creative zone completely.
This is also a great tip for beginners who take references from other artists. Be prepared to erase a lot of your mistakes when you are starting out. Use a light hand on your pencil or brush while practicing drawing realistic people.
Master the game of light and shadow
A point of particular interest whilst drawing human beings is the play of light and shadows. For most images, shadows will define the drawing or sketch as realistic or referenced from real life. Using shadows correctly can define the tone of a drawing and make it look as realistic as possible. Unless and until a person holds a flashlight on your face at a perfect angle, you will have shadows on different parts of your face. To draw realistic people, you ought to recognize how lights influence the subject and take it from there.
Shadows are a superb device for bringing realism to any drawing. It shows your audience that you recognize how the person would look in reality. This is a fantastic way to assist your subject to interact with the audience or viewer. It may also assist you to feature greater depth to an image via implying there’s more than the conventional surface. That is a superb manner to practice a valuable drawing talent. Shadows are continually going to be a relevant part of something that you make a decision to create.
Do not stress about the hands and feet yet
For beginner artists, drawing hands and feet to perfection can be very daunting. Seasoned artists often recommend that while you are new at building the skills to draw people realistically, allow yourself a temporary pass on drawing hands and feet. Otherwise, it can get very frustrating and might result in you giving up trying to develop on the art form.
Even artists who have been around in this field for a long time often complain about having to draw human hands and feet. The detailing is just too much to master in one go. Rather, you can focus on learning how to draw the other features, practice different body poses and facial expressions, and come back to this later when you are feeling a bit more confident in your skills.
One trick that many artists employ to avoid being frustrated by bad-looking hands and feet in sketches is to willingly make them a bit cartoonish. This could be a different art form on its own where a perfect human being has funny-looking hands and feet. Give it a try and see if that works for your art aesthetics.
Have the patience to master your skill
When you are beginning out as an artist, drawing realistic people can be very intimidating and scary. You have to keep practicing, put in time and effort, and learn various new skills in order to prove that you are capable of creating life-like human figures for your art. Like any creative field, art takes a long time to hone and master. The first challenge that you will face while learning how to draw realistic people is to have the patience and determination to not give up. Learn from your mistakes and keep making new ones. That is the biggest tip behind the success of any artist.
Free people illustrations to download
Are you a beginner artist looking for a platform where you can find references when it comes to people drawing? Are you from the marketing team of an organization searching for free digital people illustrations for commercial projects? Bingo, you are in the right place. illustAC is a free digital art stock platform that features the people illustrations of talented digital artists from all over the globe.
Based in Japan, the company has more than 7 million users from all over the world browsing, downloading, and using illustrations for personal and commercial purposes. Give a boost to your creativity today by exploring the platform and checking out the work of some really talented digital artists.
Conclusion
There are no hard and fast rules for the practice of people illustrations. The best thing newbie artists can do is to start with the basic ideas of drawing through references or guidebooks and keep on building the skill until they can create people illustrations in their own unique art style. Focusing on each individual feature of a human being, eyes, hands, feet, hair, etc for particular amounts of time as practice will help you gain the patience to learn and master your talent of drawing realistic people.
Do not worry about the consequences; just move on to the next drawing. Do more and more. You can find a whole sketchbook of cheap papers for the purpose of making complex body language drawings and facial studies. Try different styles. Create characters. Don’t worry about getting 100 percent accurate information. “Mistakes” add to your artistic personality. Keep practicing! Enjoy and play with art!
