How to Draw Anime/Manga: The Male Body

This tutorial on drawing the male body was written by me. All images were hand drawn by me. For more tutorials like this, please visit my site.

When drawing human figures, whether realistically or anime/manga style, you need to have an understanding of basic anatomy. Remember the How to draw Characters (Male) and (Female) tutorials(which can be found at my site. Please see the links at the top and bottom of this article)? The third step is to draw the anatomy of the figure, but without basic understanding, it's really quite a difficult task to accomplish.

But never fear. Although the body is a complex piece of biology, it can be simplified so that everyone can understand. When drawing the body, you need to at least have an understanding of the major skeletal muscles. These include biceps, calves and abdominal muscles as well as others that you might not know the names of.

In the example I have attached, I have labeled the major skeletal muscles. Although you don't really need to know the names, other tutorials in books and sites may use these scientific terms, so it's also good to remember a few.

The major information you should get out of the example, is not actually the names of the skeletal muscles, but the locations of certain parts of the body. These are labeled in bold. It is also good to spend a bit time remembering how the body looks and how to draw certain parts, so go wild. Also notice how the waist is almost as thick as the shoulders, which is one of the key features that make men and women different.

When drawing the male body, it is usually a good idea to define the muscles.

Yeah, I know that there is a watermark. I spent quite a bit of time on this example, so I don't really want people to steal it. Don't worry though, there won't be many like this, only images I feel appropriate and viable for a watermark. Remember you can save all pictures on this site for references when you draw. You can also distribute and display it, provided to give credit to Alvin Ng as well as this site. See the About Page for what you can and can't do with the images and information available on Alvin's Art.