How To Draw A Person

On this page of our site we’ll tell you how to draw a full-length person with a simple pencil. This is a step-by-step instructions.

You can draw a person in different ways.

Let’s speak about several basic steps of how to draw a full-length portrait of a person. While drawing a person people very often distort the proportions of the figure. Arms and legs may be drawn too long or too short. The head may be too big etc. In order to avoid such mistakes it will be better if you divide the whole full-length portrait on separate areas. You can approximately divide the figure and the head of the person on 7 parts. All these parts are equal to 7 circles of the head together with the neck.

1. Let’s start drawing the portrait. We start by drawing a tetragon. The proportions are 3:4. In the center of the figure we need to draw a long, straight line. It needs to be a bit longer than the lengthwise side of the tetragon. Draw an oval line of shoulders above. Since the person you’re drawing will be dressed in summer clothes you need to draw an outline of the future clothes in the lower part of the rectangle.

2. We go on drawing the portrait. We need to do a marking for the shoulders, collarbones, knees, head and neck. At first, you need to draw an oval of the head. Then, you draw the ovals marking the shoulders and knees. It’s quite easy even for a child. It’s not necessary to draw geometrically even circles for everything except the head. You need to draw the head and the neck as exact as you can.

3. Let’s move on to the next step. At first, you may be a little bit puzzled as to what exactly you need to draw now. Have a closer look on what you have. You only need to draw 2 circles for elbows and feet and 2 curvy lines on the both sides of the person’s body. You need to connect the lines with the outline of the knees.

4. Draw the arms with the help of the circles for shoulders and elbows. On our picture the arms are present, but the hands are missing. If you want, you may draw them as well. Maybe your person will hold something in hands. The legs are also easy to draw. The only thing you need to pay attention to is the way the feet are drawn. The toes of the shoes look in opposing ways. On this stage you also need to check the proportions of arms, legs and body.

5. Start with carefully erasing all the outline lines that you drew before that. This step is the easiest and the most interesting. There’s practically nothing you need to draw on this step. You only need to draw 3 simple details. These are the line of the neck, sleeves of the T-shirt and the lower line of the pants.

6. Now following the outlines, you need to draw the clothes. Most importantly, you need to draw the face and the head of the person in a more detailed way. You also can find a different lesson on how to draw a face of a person on our website. When drawing the clothes, don’t forget that you also need to draw creases on them to make them look more close to life. It is also necessary to draw shadows on the clothes according to the way the light falls on them. If the light falls from the right side, you need to draw a shadow from the left.

7. This full-length portrait of a person is approximate. The main aim of it is for you to study the proportions of a standing up person and their location.