The Basics of Proportions
When drawing people, it’s tempting to dive straight into the details like the sparkle in the eyes or the texture of the hair. But before you add any finishing touches, you need a believable foundation of the body. This foundation is created by proportions, something that works as a blueprint for your drawings.
Think of proportions as how different parts of the body relate to each other in size. Instead of using a ruler to measure each part of the body individually, you’re instead checking how one part, like the head, compares to another, like how the head size compares to the width of the torso. This ensures that the limbs aren’t accidentally too big or too small.
While everyone has a unique body shape, most bodies still follow this standard structural ‘blueprint’. Learning these basics first allows you to customize features later without the drawing looking out of proportion.
1. The Box Method
To start, we’ll simplify the body into major shapes, commonly known as the box method.
In the first image shown, I’ve drawn a body only using rectangles and squares (and the odd wedges for the feet). To remove the complexity of drawing specific curves or muscles, we’ll keep this figure gender neutral.
Generally, the golden rule for a realistic adult body is 7 to 8 heads tall. We’ll use these head measurements to find 6 key markers on the body: the head, shoulders, waist, crotch, knees and feet. These body markers act as visual anchors to help keep proportions of our drawing consistent.
Even in a simple box version, there are rules that help the body look anatomically correct:
- Torso Width: The torso should be approximately two heads wide to keep the upper body balanced.
- The Elbows: These align with the waist section, sitting just below the “cut” of the torso.
- The Halfway Point: The crotch sits almost exactly in the middle of the entire figure. This splits the body, from the top of the head to the soles of the feet, into two equal halves.
- The Legs: They begin at the crotch line rather than the waist. This gives the torso the right length and keeps the legs from looking stretched out.
2. Using the Box Method
Now for the fun part: putting you’ve just learned into practice. Your task is to recreate these poses using the box method. On a blank piece of paper (or a new digital canvas), look at the photos I provided below and try to draw those same poses using only boxes.
You have a few ways to practice these poses:
- Level 1: Trace the boxes directly over the photos to get a feel for the shapes.
- Level 2: Try drawing the boxes again next to the photo, using your traced drawings as a guide.
- Level 3: Try to draw the boxes from scratch without looking at a traced guide at all.
Just remember to include all 17 boxes from the head to the feet.
It takes a bit of focus to see the body as simple blocks, so if you’ve managed to map out those poses, you’re off to a great start. To show you how I would approach this, here’s examples of how I would apply the same 17 boxes to a few different reference photos:
These examples follow the three levels we just went over. They show how the 17-box setup works as a universal guide for any pose. The boxes naturally get wider or narrower to match the subject. This method works for every person, regardless of their shape or size. Whether you are tracing (Level 1) or drawing from scratch (Level 3), the goal is the same: seeing the body as a collection of simple blocks.
In the level 3 example, the boxes for the man’s thighs look much shorter and more squished than the others. This is because of the angle he’s sitting at, since his legs are pointing straight at us, they appear to take up less vertical space on the page. I’ll dive deeper into how angles change shapes in a future article, so getting the blocks in the right spot is our only goal here.
3. Arcs and Swings
Since those limbs can look like they've shrunk depending on the angle, we need to learn how these box guides swing around the body. This helps you remember that even when an arm reaches up or out and appears shorter, it never actually changes its real length. In the art world, this is a core part of the Loomis Arc Method, named after the famous illustrator Andrew Loomis.
To help you visualise it better, imagine your shoulders and hips working like hinges you’d see on doors. Whether the door is wide open, half open, or closed, the door’s physical dimensions stay the same, it’s just moving through the room. The hinge on a door is working as something called a pivot point, the spot that stays still while everything else connected to it moves. For us, our pivot points would be our shoulders and hips, whereas our arms and legs move accordingly with said points.
Because the limb is attached to that point, it can only move at a curved angle. It can’t suddenly get longer or shorter, just like how a door doesn’t shrink when you open it. Keeping this in mind is vital to keep your proportions consistent. If you were to trace the movement of the hand when the arm is moving up or down, you’d be drawing a perfect curve in the air, similar to ‘drawing circles’ with your arms.
The curve is a visual map for your proportions. Acting like a boundary, it tells you exactly where your ‘box’ should start and end. If, for instance, you're drawing an arm and it goes way past your curved map, it might be getting longer than it was before (vice versa, if it doesn’t reach, it might’ve shrunk). The arc, or curve, is just there to help your character stay a consistent size from the start of a simple movement to the end.
4. Pivot of The Elbow
Now that you’ve seen how the shoulder pivot point works, let’s move the pivot point further down on the arm. For this exercise, we are going to use the elbow as our hinge.
Your goal is to draw your character giving a small, friendly wave. Since the elbow is the pivot point, the upper arm stays still while the forearm and wrist move.
- Start by drawing your human figure with an arm extended horizontally.
- Mark the elbow as your pivot point.
It should look something like this:
- Draw a light, curved arc starting from the wrist of that horizontal arm.
- Swing your forearm box up along that path, keeping the upper arm exactly where it is.
The elbow acts as our hinge, so the curve shows the exact path the forearm travels (like the hand of a clock). The starting point for your curve is the wrist of your horizontal arm. Now, swing your boxes up along that curved arc line until the arm is angled upwards in a natural wave.
Once your forearm is up in the air, use the curved line to take a step back and check your work. Is your forearm still the same length? If your waving forearm looks like it grew or shrank when moving up, just use your arc line to adjust the box until the proportions match your sketch.
Watch out for the mistakes shown below. Keep your box lengths the same so the arm doesn’t stretch (A) or shrink (C) along the curve. Most importantly, don’t let your boxes float apart (B). The corners should stay glued to the pivot point, not avoiding it completely. It’s okay if the upper arm and forearm boxes overlap, skin and muscle bunch up at the joints, so letting the shapes layer over each other is more realistic.
5. Side View Rotation
Taking that same theory, let's look at it all from the side. This third task is all about rotating the 17 boxes and seeing how our pivot points handle movement that goes forwards and backwards instead of just out to the side. While the arc logic stays the same, the arcs themselves change ever so slightly to track the movement as it pushes into the space in front or behind the character.
Before moving the limbs, you need to rotate the base boxes. When rotating to the side, the height stays the same, but the width narrows significantly. It’s almost like turning a book: it’s still the same height and width, but you’re now looking at it from the spine of the book rather than the cover.
Feel free to directly copy how I’ve drawn the character standing from the side for guidance!
Once you've drawn the side view, pick a shoulder as your pivot point. Draw a circle starting from the bottom of the hand box, connecting it all the way around.
Then, cut the circle in half. Extend the arm up to the top of this semi-circle. The hand must land on this line to keep the arm from shrinking or stretching too far.
Legs work the same way, though they have a limited range for backward extension; we generally can't lift our legs as far backward as we can forward. To track this movement, we’re watching the heel’s movement. Draw an arc swinging forward from the pivot point (the hip). You’ll notice how the leg maintains its length while moving higher as it travels forward.
The leg rotates on the pivot and should meet the halfway point of the arc. Swing the leg forward until it is roughly level with the waist. To stay accurate, hold the upper body straight and still. If the leg goes any higher, the torso must lean to compensate, but we're sticking to basic movement for now.
This same logic works when moving in the other direction too. You can only swing your leg or arm back a tiny bit before the body hits a natural stopping point. Just like with the forward kick, pushing any further means your torso has to tilt or bend to keep up. Keeping these backward moves small helps your drawings look natural without making things too complicated.
Take a second to compare your own drawn boxes to all of my examples. You’re looking to see if your arcs are guiding the limbs to the right height and if your pivot points have remained steady. Don’t worry if your lines are messy, the goal here is just making sure your 17 blocks feel consistent and balanced. If something looks off, just re-trace your arc and adjust the boxes until they land back on the curve.
6. Other Body Arcs
If you’ve managed to keep your boxes consistently sized through these movements, you’ve cleared one of the biggest hurdles in figure drawing. However, if your proportions still feel a bit off, that is perfectly fine, they take consistent practice to fully grasp. You can always return back to these guides if you get stuck.
The same logic applies to bending, sitting, or even looking up or down. When a figure sits, the hip remains the pivot point, and the knee must follow its curved path forward until it rests level with the chair. In a crouched position, the heels and knees simply tuck toward the torso along these same arcs, ensuring the lower legs don’t stretch unnaturally.
Even the head follows this arc rule, as the neck serves as the pivot for its movement. The chin and the top of the skull move in opposing arcs. As a character looks upwards, the chin swings upwards and outwards while the back of the head dips down. By mapping these movements as rotations rather than straight lines, you make sure that every part of your 17-block foundation stays anatomically consistent, no matter how much the pose compresses or extends.
7. A Reliable Base
These swing and curve rules work for any body type. Whether a character is muscular, petite, or tall, the pivot points stay the same; only the size of the boxes change. These principles also help when you start drawing from high or low angles, ensuring your figures stay anatomically sound no matter the pose.
Mastering this core structure is the first step toward more complex variations. By sticking to these box and arc methods, you’ll find that even difficult movements are easier to break down. Every time you practice, you're making this blueprint more natural to use, giving you the freedom to eventually focus on your own unique style.
I hope these methods help you as much as they helped me. Learning proportions is a challenge, but it can give you more confidence to know your figures can be built on a reliable base.
Whether these concepts clicked right away or you need to go through them again, you have already taken the most important step by starting. I’m excited to see how you use these tools as you continue practicing these basics, or when you eventually feel ready to explore more complex movements and perspectives. I’m rooting for you every step of the way!
Your art journey doesn't stop here. Check out these articles next!
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