How to draw legs
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Loading... - Abdulahi Deng
- 20 Apr 2023
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Learn how to draw legs that look realistic with this step-by-step guide.
Legs are often perceived as a boring body part to draw, but this is far from the case. They are full of interesting rhythms and forms, and it shows when these are neglected in a drawing. The proportion of the legs to the body is the first hurdle we encounter when drawing them. Because the legs are lower down on the body, the focus can be more on the head and torso, leaving the legs forgotten, and drawn in later. Often this means they end up much too short.
This relates to another common problem with proportion where the body, particularly the legs, grows as you work down the figure. This is usually due to the paper being laid on a flat surface instead of a tilted one, so the legs are closer to you on the page and they grow as you move down the figure. Both these problems can be avoided by sketching the full gesture of the figure when starting your drawing, and by making observations that compare the relative size of the legs to the body.
As we get into how to draw the legs proper, another common issue I see is pinching together at the joints, where the thigh tapers into the knee sharply, almost creating a collision between the two outlines of each side of the leg. This also happens with the ankles. In this demonstration, I will be using rhythm to tackle this at the gesture drawing stage, before taking a look at the anatomy of the knee. Read More…
