Free PDF with Examples for How to Draw Bodies

Download free figure drawing references for bodies and poses, and learn to draw from basic shapes in this visual guide

When learning how to draw the human body, one of the most valuable lessons is understanding how to represent its various forms, proportions, and poses.

Observing people around us, drawing self-portraits, and practicing with live models are all effective exercises in anatomical drawing. Similarly, having a collection of reference images is another great resource, says illustrator and comic creator Laura Pérez (@lauraperezgr).

Laura has worked for the likes of The Washington Post, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and Penguin Random House. Here, she shares her guide packed with examples and references for drawing bodies in different postures.

The leap from paper to television

One thing that characterizes Laura Perez's career is her versatility. A graduate of Fine Arts, the artist has explored disciplines such as illustration, animation, and cartooning and has been awarded on multiple occasions for her work and artistic quality.

Recently, Laura's work reached a new level of recognition when she collaborated in Disney Plus' series Only Murders in the Building, starring Selena Gomez. In the show, the protagonist is a cartoonist in charge of drawing sketches of the neighbors in her building. These sketches were created by Laura, as well as the illustrations for the credits.

Laura's illustration advice

In a Domestika interview with Laura (available in Spanish here) around the series premiere for The Only Murders in the Building, she shared a series of tips to help cartoonists develop their style. One of which, is experimentation and trying out different styles:

"For me, being able to use different resources helps me to enjoy new projects. I like to undertake very diverse projects, from comics with a very concise style of painting to illustrated books with more elaborate textures. I also like to design for animation, which is again a concise art, and so I go back and forth."

Laura also advises that you challenge yourself with new ways of approaching drawing, adding that for her, "it's important to be open to learning various ways of drawing because this gives you a wider range of expressive possibilities."

Free drawing references for bodies and poses

In the following twenty-one-page PDF guide, you will see visual examples and tips from the illustrator to draw the human body in different figures and poses—and how basic geometric shapes will help you shape it.

Laura shares her sketching process to help you understand how the human body changes shape when it performs different movements, and how she designs characters for television projects.

After clicking on the button below, you'll find the Laura Pérez Drawing exercises in your downloads folder.

Sign up for Laura's course, Character Drawing from Scratch: Capture Faces and Figures. In the course, she teaches you how to create your own characters through drawing, defining their gestures and characteristic features, step by step.

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