This will feel natural once we draw in the ribcage and hips first. Once you have got a hang of it, draw in the stomach.įor the stomach, we extend the center line and curve it slightly to give it an organic feel. In the last few examples, you can see how I have darkened the inside region of this form to give it more dimension.ĭraw a few ribcages and hips without the stomach to begin with until you are comfortable with these complex forms. Putting this curve helps us describe the perspective of the ribcage and also gives definition to where the stomach begins.
Take note of how the ribcage has a curve (towards the center bottom) on the front side that does not exist on the back.
For the hips, we draw a form that is reminiscent of a pair of underwear, drawing in the hips this way makes it much easier to draw in the legs once we get to draw the full figure. In the second step, we draw an egg shape that has a rounded space toward the bottom which makes up the ribcage. If you want help with drawing boxes that have dimension, you can check out my Basic Forms tutorial here (Opens in a new tab) Complex Forms Practice the box stage until you are fully comfortable with it before moving forward, getting the simplified forms down will make the entire process much easier You can play around with these proportions to get a large variety of character designs but ribcage is almost always drawn taller than the hips. Notice that the box at the top is much taller while the bottom one is short. Use lots of references and try to simplify down two of these major forms. When practicing this stage I recommend that you pay attention to the tilts of the ribcage and hips and try to capture the natural flow of most poses. At this stage, we leave the stomach area empty because the stomach doesn’t have a solid structure. The first step is made up of two boxes for the ribcage and hips. There are two major steps to understanding the torso.