Learn to Draw People: Skeleton Guidelines

It's fine to print, copy or trace the worksheets, as a starting point. Draw guidelines very lightly.

Begin with the basic simplified skull and skeleton structure - imagine you have X-ray vision...

Notice that the shoulders and hips are drawn as straight lines through the body.

Use the length of the head to measure the other parts of the body - e.g. how many heads in a leg or arm? This will help you with any foreshortening too. Look at the relationships of the parts of the body to each other and to the edges of the paper - e.g. which knee and elbow is higher or lower?

Hands are as big as a face. Feet are as long as a head.

See Figure Drawing Proportions for more information on the proportions of the human figure.

Look at How to Draw: Figure Drawing for complete step by step instructions for learning to draw people.