After some research I compiled some basic rules that should make drawing the human body proportions easier.
Copyright © 2011 Tomitheos Art & Photography - All Rights Reserved
These drawing rules for proportions are based on an aesthetically pleasing ideal and not on the proportions of the average person.
Charcoal drawing: STEP 1
The Head:
(a) If you where to draw a line horizontally across the head center and vertically down the center, the first thing you would notice is that the horizontal line goes between the eyes.
(b) The width between the middle of the eyes is the same as the distance as the outer edge to the temple looking from the front profile perspective of the face.
(c) The top of the ear aligns with the eye brow and the ear lobe under or between the nostrils and the upper lip.
(d) The bottom of nose is half way between the eye center line and the chin bone.
(e) The lips are half way between the lower nostrils and the chin bone although for the average human the lips are nearer to the nose than the chin.
(f) The back base of the head where the spine connects aligns to the nostrils.
Painting process: STEP 2
The Body:
The ideal body should be 7 to 8 head lengths from tip of head to the feet.
(1) The already drawn head can be used to counts as one head length:
(2) Chin to nipple height.
(3) Nipple to belly button.
(4) Belly button to groin.
(5) Groin to lower thigh.
(6) Lower thigh to under the knee.
(7) Low knee to upper ankle.
(8) Upper ankle to foot base.
"Artwork is considered good when it provokes thought..
..but also when it becomes a fraction of the reality it represents
and then transforms into a persistent tangible illusion of it." ~Tomitheos
The Body is a Temple
'In the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole. Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man can be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth is found to be
the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are completely square.'
Marcus Vitruvius, De Architectura, Book III, Chapter 1, page 3
