Tips For Drawing Humans As An Animal Artist

Posted 4 months, 14 days ago (Edited 4 months, 14 days ago) by SherbetToons

Hey all, so basically for as long as I've drawn I've pretty much only drawn animals from the very beginning, I never familiarised myself with drawing humans. Now I have some characters I want to draw human forms/versions of because it's important for their lore but I literally cannot, I just suck at it and it feels like my skill level of drawing humans is leagues behind my skill level of drawing animals, like I'm going back to drawing like a toddler whenever I draw humans. My art style is very cartoony anyway so I'm only really trying to draw them in a very simplified way, but still, what I struggle with the most is the head shape and noses especially. Their bodies aren't really my main concern because I've had to learn anatomy through drawing anthro characters, most of my problems with humans lie within the head area. Can anyone give me some things to keep in mind on how to get myself used to drawing humans when all I've ever drawn is animals? I have drawn some fanart of human characters before (I can post them here if necessary ig), which I think turned out tolerable, but the only reason they even turned out ok was because I had something to go off of, something to copy. What I'm really struggling with is how to design my own human characters. 

Skykristal

very general and unspecific advice, but 'just draw'. I used to be in the exact same boat as well. only animals. not even anthros actually, so you're definitely better already than I was.  

draw the human face regularly. practice it. by looking at other art or real photos. that's how I did it. especially artwork that was close to what I wanted to achieve helped me most compared to anything else.  If you can roughly imagine what you want it to look like, try to stick to it, and practice that over and over, until it burns into your brain. it took me several years. Doesn't mean you will take as long, but don't set your expectations too high. Learning a different kind of face proportion can be challenging until you get the hang on it. the human face isn't the easiest imo. take your time. 

Gingasnap

I remember when I was first learning how to draw humans, I would heavily reference cartoons like Steven Universe and those Hamilton Animatic styles I liked until I sort of made my own way of drawing humans. I also remember using 'how to draw cartoon faces' books to figure out the basics as cliche as it sounds lol.

I guess my advice would be to find styles you admire and to just mess around and give yourself the freedom to experiment with different looks/ideas. It took me some time to really 'figure out' humans after drawing primarily wolves and cats prior, so don't be hard on yourself for not instantly getting it!