Small figures add life to your painting. They add a good scale reference to your painting,
because we see people every day, having figures makes your picture more relatable. Even though
small figures in scenery paintings are usually not the focus, it shouldn’t be an afterthought.
Today, I want to share with you some essential tips to paint small figures in your scenery
painting.
Hi, this is Eric from Café Watercolor. I often see bad looking figures in scenery paintings.
Even though they are not the main focus of the painting, and it won’t likely break
your painting if it has good shapes and values. But good looking figures do make a difference.
Imagine a painting giving its viewer a great first impression that encourages them to take
a closer look, but only disappoint them by some not-so-good looking figures. That would
be a shame, right? So let’s talk about three things that you should be paying attention
to when painting a figure. I call them GPS.
The G here means gesture. The gesture is the movement and the balance of the figure. Every
figure has a gesture. Even a simple walking pose has a gesture. And capturing that gesture
is important. Try to capture the movement of the figure with lines. Find the longest
line that connects from top to bottom. You can usually find the gesture by looking at
the person’s spine. Also, think about the balance of the figure, where does the person
puts his or her weight on. This is the fastest way to capture a figure.
The P stands for proportion. A typical adult is about seven and a half heads tall. Sometimes
I see people painting figures that’s about 5 heads. It’s very simple to remember. Let’s
start from the top: We have our first head. The second head ends at the chest. The third
head ends at the waist. The fourth head ends at the pelvis. From the fourth to the seventh
head is the thigh and leg, and the midpoint is the knee. And the last half of the head
is the feet. The shoulder is typically 2 to 2 ½ width. That’s the general proportion
of a figure. The best way to avoid figure looking too short or too skinny is to make
the head smaller. Visually, even if the head is really small, you’ll likely just make
the supermodel that's 8-9 heads tall, no big deal.
The S stands for shape or structure. We all know good shapes are important in a painting.
A small shape, such as the figure, is no exception. You can tell immediately if an experienced
artist does a painting if you spot a good looking figure. Again this takes practice
and experience. But there are a few things that you should always watch out for:
Number 1, the head is not a perfect circle. Charlie Brown’s head is round, but that’s
not a realistic-looking figure. It is more of an oval or rectangular shape. A perfectly
round head reminds people of a stick figure. Try to avoid it. So if you are painting a
figure, paint the head with a brushstroke, not a dot.
Number 2, give your figure a nice shoulder line. Don’t draw a curvy shoulder, give
it a nice straight shoulder line. This makes the figure looks more graphical and distinctive.
Number 3, suggest a structure with brushstroke. The way you paint your figure matters. Even
when it is small, and each leg takes only one brush stroke to paint. You should still
think about how should you paint it. Should it be straight, curved, thick, or thin? Like
I always say, make every brush stroke mean something.
Ok, let’s do a quick painting of a couple walking and practice what we’ve learned.
Okay. So let's start with the drawing here. The first thing we want you to do is to capture
this gesture here. So let's get some fast, loose, long line going, to capture the gesture.
And really important is to watch out for the balance of the figure. Since they are both
walking, the weight is pretty much in the center.
Draw the shoulder line and then start to measure the proportion with the head. The second head
to the chest. Third head to the waist. The fourth head to the bottom of the pelvis. The
fifth, six, and the seventh head are the lengths of the thigh and leg, and the mid point of
that three heads, is the position of the knee. So we make a mark here. So the last half-a-head
length is the feet. So that marks a total of seven and a half head tall.
By some simple measuring like these, we are able to get some accurate landmark on our
figure. So all we have to do now is to find the joints and connect the dot with the lines
that described the form and structure. So first we capture the gesture, and then we
measure the proportion, and then we start to draw the actual structure of the figure.
And since this is not a big figure painting, I'm not going to go into anatomy and things
like that. And this is a small figure. As long as you got a gesture proportion and a
shape right, you're going to end up was a nice looking figure. So I'm drawing this figure
rather loosely, and try to connect the line without lifting my pencil much. I am drawing
darker marks for the distinctive part of the figure. So things like the collar to sleeve,
where the hands are, the shoulder, of course, those are the darker marks that's going to
really define the shape of the figure.
We're able to figure out the height of the girl by using the guy as a reference. The
top of the girl's head is about where his mouth is. So I can draw a line and use that
as a reference to draw the girl. And the feet, they are on the same height, so I don't need
to worry about her feet. So the procedure is the same. I draw the gesture of the girl.
She's putting her weight on her right feet, so that's where I find the strongest line.
From her hip to the bottom of her right feet is where I find the most obvious gesture in
her. Now, I don't do this every single time I'm drawing a figure in a scenery painting,
but I think it's important for me to show you what's going on in my brain, visually,
so you can get an idea what am I thinking.
Now I'm going to start off with their skin tone, which is a pretty simple... cadmium
red, makes a little bit of cadmium orange. This is somewhat of a watery mixture. We want
to keep the skin looking transparent. And while the bead is still there, I'm just going
to use a little bit of the leftover warm gray on my palette, add a little bit of water,
and just use that as the shirt on the girl. It's sort of like a beige color, so I think
a warm gray is perfect.
I'm just letting her skin color merge into her shirt. It's totally fine. The value is
almost the same, and even the color is pretty similar, so just let it merge together. That's
totally fine. I'm just grabbing some neutral tint. This is a little bit of creamy mixture.
I try to have some nice confidence brushstroke.
Okay. See how I try to paint the hand and the arm with just a few simple brushstroke,
instead of dabbing my way around. Turn your brush stroke into shapes. That is very, very
important. You don't dab into the shape you try to paint it with as few brush stroke as
possible. See, I'm trying to define the movement and the gesture of his legs by using brushstroke.
And that's the key of painting small figures. It's really important to paint as few brush
stroke as possible and define the shape and this gesture.
Adding the hand in. It's just a tiny, little shape. Okay. I'm mixing a darker, warm gray
color for her jacket. Adding a little bit of blue so it gives a little bit of this olive
looking color, and paint the jacket, her hand, and just paint it all the way down her right
arm. See, just two stroke, and that's it. Paint your shape with few brushstroke, and
just leave it.
I'm painting her hair, a little bit of reddish color in it, and I just let it merge into
the jacket as well. It's all about big shape and the overall value grouping. So just because
you see all the different little details in the figures, doesn't mean you need to separate
them all, and paint it all.
Adding some hair for the guy. The face is dry, so whatever we paint on it is going to
be hard shape, which is what I want for the hair. Part of his face is in the shadow because
of the lighting, so I'm actually going to add a little bit of shadow on his face, and
the bottom of the girl's chin, because there's a cast shadow from her face on her neck.
Painting her blue jeans, her thigh, her leg. Again, try to keep it as simple as possible.
Keep in mind of the gesture while you're doing it. Adding some dark wet onto wet, where the
shadow is, and I'm adding some cast shadow on the guy's jacket and the shirt, just to
suggest some lighting there. The jacket is receiving light and is casting shadow on the
left. So really think about where the surface is receiving light and where is it casting
shadow. And a little bit of shadow and light contrast really shows the dimensionality to
it so, all of a sudden, this figure doesn't look that flat anymore. There's some form
and three-dimensional stuff going on.
Let me add some cast shadow on the girl's shirt as well... And a little bit of form
shadow to the left. Just a little bit of shadow on her leg and her thigh, and it start to
suggest the form is turning. So the leg is actually not flat. The leg is actually has
a form, a structure.
Okay. The figure sketch is good. I don't need to add more detail. Served it's purpose. Now
I'm going to add some cast shadow. The light is from the right. So the cast shadow is to
the left. The cast shadow is actually quite long. It looks like the sun is at a very low
angle.
Adjusting the shape of the head for the guy. So it looks like he is tilting a little bit
more to the left and we have our sketch. It is pretty rough, but if you put them in a
scenery, like the Edinburgh painting I paint before, they look pretty decent there. It's
very simple but I really hope this is helpful for you so that you can paint some nice looking
figure in your scenery painting. So I hope this is helpful for you! Next week,
I am going to share with you how to paint a simple snow scenery, just in time for the
holiday. So be sure to like, subscribe and hit the bell icon so you'll get a notification
when the new video is coming out. Got any other questions? Leave a comment down below!
If you are no here, go to my website at cafewatercolor.com, sign up to download my free FastTrack watercolor
ebook. I’m Eric from Café Watercolor, and I will see you next week.